Bucket List: Shortened

There comes a time in everyone's life here in Korea where they reach a fork in the road.  This fork is glittery and flashy.  Sometimes it is diamond studded and you would cut your teeth if you tried to use the fork for its intended purpose.  Nonetheless, this fork has two routes by which one may continue his journey.  One is the route of the purist, the cynic.  You begin to wear your iPod more frequently when in public.  You avoid certain establishments because of their music choice.  You don't turn on your TV in fear that your ears will be tainted with the demonic tones of K-pop.  The other is to embrace the catchiness and popularity of K-pop music.  To let it envelop you, feeling your body lose control to the beat and those catchy choruses.  Eventually, you begin to recognize artists and even start to discern which ones you like more than others.  You may even know individual members' names. 

I, of course, took the more fun route--the latter.  For the past year or so, I've just accepted that K-pop will never go away (even now, Girls' Generation, the leading K-pop band, has completed an English album that will soon go on sale in the U.S.) and have learned to enjoy it for what it is: ear candy.  The bonus is that it doesn't make you fat, just stupid.

As such, I jumped at the opportunity when my employer emailed me about free tickets to the Asian Song Festival.  "What's Asian Song Festival, Steve?" I hear you ask in a voice resembling the Swedish Chef.  It's exactly what it sounds like: a festival to celebrate Asian songs.  Note how the word "music" is strategically missing from the festival name.  It is exactly how it should be.  We are celebrating songs, not music.  These are produced, polished dance routines that are lip synced exactly the same every time.  If you've ever seen the likes of New Kids On The Block, Backstreet Boys, or even Menudo, you'll know what kind of experience this was.  Where the "Asian" part comes in is where they included pop acts from Japan, China, Taiwan, Thailand, and Hong Kong.  I was hoping a North Korean pop star would show up, but I realized that he or she would have been shot already.

When the day finally came, I geared up for it by drinking.  It made the time go by faster, and when the moment was upon us (they started it 20 minutes early) I could hardly control myself.  That last statement would only be true if I were the thousands of teenage girls in the crowd. 

It's funny because all the serious fans were sitting here:

In the back.  Whilst in my section (the VIP section), there sat only foreigner English teachers and older people with babies.  What this resulted in was the back seats erupting into a wave of screaming while the closest rows didn't even clap.  Strange concert experience, Korea.  Here's some poorly composed pictures from my iPhone:

Anyway, I got to experience the musical stylings of Korean favorites such as Miss A, Beast, Lee Sung gi, Chocolat, and one strange act, my favorite of the night, that didn't really fit the bill:  LeeSA.  LeeSA actually plays multiple instruments and has a good voice.  I always warm up a little for a girl who can sing and play guitar.  Here's one of her songs:

After a Japanese pop band's performance (which, by the way, sounds like Korean pop on acid), it slowly began to rain.  Sitting in the open of the stadium field, we were unprepared for rain to be unleashed upon us unawares, so we sought shelter under the entrances to the stadium.  After a rain delay of about 15 minutes, the drizzle let up and the concert resumed.  For us, however, the magic had seemingly been washed away by the falling water and we were no longer interested in the same act performing under different monikers.  We left without seeing the headliners: Samsung's proudest musical acts Super Junior and Girls' Generation. 

I still consider it a check off the Korean bucket list.

Okpo...More like Borophyl

Geoje Island (the largest island in Korea) is somewhat of an anomaly.  It is beautiful and looks very Korean.  It has thousands of Koreans living on it.  However, it's practically like being in a different, much less homogenous country.  There are a few reasons for this.  First, which is mostly conveyed visually but does have a story, is Okpo Land.  Okpo Land was an amusement park that operated in the 90s.  The story goes that more than one person died on the rides.  The final one, in 1999, was a girl who fell off the birdie kid ride (pictured later).  Her family received no compensation, no apology, and the park shut down immediately and the owner vanished.  

As he didn't have time to sell off the rides, they just stayed there in the same condition they were in the day the park closed down.  Since then, nature has since reclaimed most of it.  Because of its ease of access and the non-confrontational attitude of most Koreans, it has become somewhat of a cult tourist site for the intrepid urban explorer.  You can find several internet pages devoted to it and a myriad of pictures of the various rusting attractions.  Here are more:

 

The open gate (notice the razor wire that serves no purpose).

Rides and the like.

 

The straw that broke the camel's back, asitwere.

This place was Scooby Doo creepy.  And, family, I'm not going to lie, it was also dangerous.  Rusting things on the top of a mountain with minimal precautions are not the smartest things to be climbing all over but, as you can tell, the pictures are worth it.  What a gem.  To spoil the fun a bit, according to Wikipedia, Okpo Land lies in its abandoned state because the land has been zoned for environmentally low-impact projects.  I think we can both agree that the first story is much better.

Now for the other reason why Geoje Island is a world far removed from the rest of Korea.  Okpo is also home to one of the largest shipyards in the world: The Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) shipyard.

 As such, Okpo has a large revolving international population.  This creates a strange atmosphere in such a homogenous society.  On one hand, we were able to have authentic Thai food from a restaurant run by Thai people.  We could have also chosen from Pakistani, Vietnamese, Turkish or Indian food.  This is something rarely accomplished outside of Seoul.

On the other hand, there are literally dozens of "Foreigner Clubs" littered around the downtown area.  What is a foreigner club?  Well, essentially, this is an establishment wherein overweight, middle aged white guys pay to keep the company (in whatever sense of the word) of imported Filipino women.  I swear it's a coincidence that my travels of late seem to contain a lot of prostitutes.  It was very much like Southeast Asia and both revolting and entertaining to watch, and I suppose you can't have an international population in Asia without Filipino prostitutes.  

Despite seeing maybe two Korean people the entire night, we still had a good time and met some pleasant young men from Angola who, according to them, make seven thousand dollars a month.  As of next week, I will be moving to Okpo to get a job at the shipyard.