2 months in Ulaanbaatar

It's been a while since I've been able to post anything here. Part of the reason is that working for Samsung, people tend to disappear off the face of the planet for years at a time. But that is especially true if you work in a country that has no dependable electricity and internet. Roughly once a week, rarely with any advance notice, the lights in the office just suddenly go out. No internet, no printing, you can't even make phone calls because the office phones all require power to work. It is a bit inconvenient, to say the least.

For roughly one month, I stayed at a hotel, unable to unpack because I never knew when I would have to leave. When I eventually did get to move out, it was to a brand new apartment with a large bedroom and sufficient living room/kitchen. I have no roommates, which allows some needed freedom. However, I also have no cable, no internet, no heating, no hot water.  That's right, in a country that has already seen its first snowfall, I have no hot water or heating. Turns out that the apartment is so new that they still haven't installed hot water.

You see, Mongolians have a very special pace. Its not your pace, and its not my pace. And if we try to force it into our pace, we will only succeed in gaining a lot of stress. You just have to accept it.

Despite all of the inconveniences that one can encounter in Mongolia, there are some unique qualities that can barely be put into words as well. It is a total liberation from restrictions. I visited a national park and stayed in a ger for a night (Americans call it a yurt). There is nothing around you. Just you, the neighborhood cows, the rushing of the water overflowing the banks of the nearby stream, and a long valley between two mountains. There are no roads, no routes, and no schedules to follow. Those books I used to read as a child come to mind. the ones that talked about the prairie life of pioneers when America was barely a speck on the world map. Or maybe even before that, with the Indians and their teepees and wigwams.

It's an odd feeling, this feeling of total liberty.

In the city, this feeling can still be found, but in different manifestations. The random tire along the side of the road, the unkempt city hot water pipe, installed 20 feet in the air because it was faster at the time to do that than to put it in the ground, the random willy nilly roads that apparently were carved around pre-existing housing, housing with utterly no concept of urban planning or forethought. It is indeed a strange country. A strange country, but filled (not literally) with kind, warm hearted, and open minded people.

A week in Mongolia

As the title suggests, its been a week now since I've arrived in Mongolia. Many people ask me, how's Mongolia? The answer, sadly, is that I don't know. I haven't been to the downtown area of the capital, UlaanBataar. I've only been to the outskirts. I haven't seen any horses or anything like that either. I haven't even really eaten much Mongolian yet. I'm so disappointed in that.

However, I have seen some really beautiful plains. Particularly one river bed that is covered in bushes taller than a man on a horse. Except the bushes aren't clumped all tight together like a bramble bush. They are conveniently spread out such that a man on a horse could easily wander around them, getting lost in them, enjoying the sound of the breeze blowing on the leaves and making that calm rustling sound. Even the color of the leaves, a blue-ish green, perfectly captures the emotion of calm and serenity.

From what I can gather from the fellows around me is that Mongolians are more western than their southern neighbors in China. They are more eastern than their northern neighbors in Russia. And sadly, they are entirely surrounded by those two countries so there is no separate comment for their east or west neighbors. Perhaps it is because of their neighbors to the north, but in most respects, they have a similar attitude to Americans. Now, bear in mind that I have only been here a week and have had very little exposure to Mongolians, other than the ones that I work with, but this is my first impression. While I cannot say many good things about the food yet, the people are nice.

I must make it short for now, just wanted to drop a word and say hello, let everyone know I'm still alive. Must get some pics up next time! Toodles!

Last Day in Korea!

I never thought that it would come to this. My departure from Korea has finally come. I leave many good friends, many fantastic and vivid memories, and most importantly, I leave my wife behind. But I mislead you, intentionally. I am not returning to America, though the desire to do that does indeed grow stronger daily. Rather, I have been dispatched to a construction site overseas. To the fun and happening country that hosts the Gobi Desert, the country that is most famous for Genghis Khan, horse riders, and nomads, the country of a thousand winds, Mongolia.

Very sudden, isn't it? It is for me as well. While we knew almost from the beginning that we would be sent to a site, recently I had raised my hopes that I could actually be sent to a local project. Our official dispatch notice, however, crushed those hopes most effectively. As it was only less than a week ago that we received our dispatch notice, I am still recovering from the whole experience.

Today is my last full day here. I believe that me living apart from Jiyoung has not yet fully sunk in. Leaving Korea has not fully sunk in. It feels mostly like its a dream. It's not all a nightmare, mind you. The opportunity given to me is a great one for a potential career in the aviation construction field. The big question is then, can I return to the design field and use that experience. The simple answer is, I have to.

Words cannot really describe my feel right now. A dream... as the time of departure approaches, that dream becomes darker and darker...

Wish me luck!

The Blue Festival

Ten thousand people in the audience. Fifty people performing a play. One key role, played by yours truly. 2nd place! What am I talking about?

It started about three weeks ago. I received an email asking me to join a Task Force Group. What the ultimate purpose of the task force was will come later. The important thing is that it meant that I had to learn how to dance. Me. Dance. Once again, Me. Completely inept at dancing. When I was younger I used to hide at weddings so that my mother wouldn't make me dance with my sisters.

Despite my pleadings not to be sent to my own personal dance hell, it could not be avoided. So I was sent to a resort, where I joined with my team who had already been practicing dancing for four weeks. I was given two weeks to do my best to learn the art of dance. Honestly, I started entirely with the wrong mindset. Constantly thinking that it was crazy for me to be there, that it would be impossible for me to learn the dance steps in enough time, much less actually move like Im dancing, and not just a robot. Partially because of that mindset, the first week was torture. Morning joggings followed by intense exercising and the afternoon and evening into the late night practicing dance.

It wasn't until after I realized that this was more than just a dance. It was a performance telling a story. A story to improve the culture of the company, Samsung. All it took was a small change of mindset. A team working together to paint a picture of the future. The second week went so much better, being able to see how the constant practicing in dance came together into a real story. I actually learned how to dance... at least the two dances that I had to learn. While I can't actually dance them like a real dance, I can at least simulate it. And after all that hard work, my twisted two and a half weeks took an interesting twist. The story was all about a global employee, Ademola. Ademola was an actual employee at Samsung that came to join us for the play. The thing is, he is actually of the class of 52, while this play is part of the Blue Festival for the class of 53! As a celebration for the class of 53, it would not be very practical to have someone from the class of 52 as the lead role. The upper management agreed, and commanded us to do something about it. There was a total of 5 foreigners in our group. 3 of them were from the class of 52. 1 was a chinese girl. The last one was me. There really was no choice. I had to step up to the plate and become the lead role, two days before the performance.

But what performance? What is this performance all about? Every year Samsung hosts The Blue Festival for new employees. It is a very large festival to celebrate and show the energy and passion of the new employees. The festival ends with a performance from various teams representing each different Samsung company. It is a totally different experience from any thing in America, practically unfathomable for its impracticality. More than 250 new employees spend six weeks doing nothing but dancing and getting paid for it. Imagine! Why? Well, as I mentioned, to show the energy and passion of the new employees. It gets the employees fired up and excited to work for such a company as Samsung and gets the other employees inspired and recharged seeing the new employees and remembering when they were new employees. It also helps to bond the new employees together and teach them about overcoming the impossible, accepting challenges that they never thought they could overcome.

To the Han River

In January, I had a dream. It wasn't quite to grandiose as Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream, but it was my dream, and that's good enough for me. Before I began work and was swallowed up by the man eating machine known as Samsung (<-actually you could probably insert any large coorporation here), I wanted to go on one last adventure. As if living in Korea isn't adventure enough. My dream was to bike to Busan. That is roughly 600km away from Seoul. It was the middle of January, but it was starting to get warm, so I was really preparing mentally for such a trip. Luckily I was saved by a night of heavy snow that quite abruptly ended postponed that dream. That's right, its still going to happen some day.

Last time I met my wife's extended family, and last time I met her father as well, I heard comments about my belly. As everyone know's I am thin as a bean stalk. I don't have a belly. Or at least I didn't, but thats what happens when you sit all day every day listening to lectures with no chance to move around. So I decided to do something about it. Of course, to be honest, every day I decide to do something about it, but somehow by the time night comes, the sit ups and crunches that I plan to do end up being done in my dreams. But, last weekend, I was finally able to really get out and exercise, so I biked about 30km (18miles). That was the longest I have biked in Korea, I am sure, though certainly not the longest I have biked in Chicago. I went twice the length (60km, 37 miles) with the return trip fighting a headwind. I was beat upon arriving at home. Thank goodness I didn't try to go to Busan in January, because that would have been a really tough journey. I know I would have made it, but it would have been a very tough challenge.

Must build up endurance to go roughly 150km a day before I can think about heading to Busan.

Mother's Day

To all the mothers out there, Happy Mother's Day. I am very sorry to report that my wife, as yet, has not been able to enter into the hallowed chambers of motherhood and therefore cannot yet be on the receivership of such congratulatory words of kindness and love.

Just last week, here in Korea, we celebrated Children's Day and Parent's Day. For some reason, both parents get celebrated on the same day, probably so that they can go back to work the next day without needing a second day off later. Some may ask, why do they need a special Children's Day? After all, every day is a childs day, at least from the grown up's perspective. Well, I have not yet done all of the proper research yet to be fully informed, but I was told that Children's Day was created to encourage children's rights. As I write this, I am becoming more and more curious exactly what that means by children's rights.

Last night my wife asked me what we do in America for Mother's Day.
Me: "Well, normally we wake up early in the morning and go to the race. Usually before the race starts, I go and buy my mom a cup of coffee from McDonalds."
Wife: "Ok, I mean, what do normal families do for Mother's Day?"
To that, I had no answer, I don't know what normal families do on Mother's Day, so if someone could please educate me, I'd appreciate it.

Life as we know it-North Korea's Hot Air

Lately, I have been rather absent from my blog. In fact, I have been rather removed from the Internet entirely. By the time I get home after training, I am so exhausted mentally that I just simply pass out on the couch. Listening to some really difficult classes in Korean can be really exhausting, and then to attempt to take a test on said classes can be more so. That being said, I realize that, considering the current political situation, I should probably say a word or so about how things are going here.

I am not sure how often people hear about it in America now, but recently, every morning when I wake up, the first story in the news is always about "Bukhan" (North Korea). Even now, as I type this, late at night, on the news they are talking about North Korea. They have made a serious of belligerent, boisterous, brash comments threatening war. The most current comment was a warning to all the foreigners in South Korea to make arrangements to leave as soon as we can. It's that serious. Or is it?

To be sure, even the Koreans around me are now taking this situation a bit more seriously than previous ones. I was here in Korea when an unknown torpedo, suspected to be North Korea's, sunk a South Korean  military vessel. It was very tense here, and there were a lot of people angry with North Korea, but everyone knew that South Korea wasn't going to attack, it was just a lot of anger and frustration. I was here when Yeon-pyeong-do was shelled by North Korea. The island is off the coast of Incheon, where I was living at the time, and even then, while people were worried, the overall concern was more towards those who lived on the island and nearby islands and towards the two civilians and two military personnel who lost their lives during the shelling. There was not that much talk of escalation then either, only a lot of anger. There were many smaller events as well. I remember one where some refugees from North Korea wanted to send brochures across the border via balloons and North Korea threatened to shell them if the balloons were sent. I believe the South Korean military prevented them from launching the balloons on the scheduled day, but eventually, the group was successful, and nothing really serious happened.

This time, everyone is just a little bit more edgy. But.... But, as I listen to the radio, to interviews from locals, the general consensus is this. Time and again North Korea has made belligerent provocative threats. The locals are used to these threats and recognize them as the hot air that they are. Tensions are high, but if you go to the grocery store, nobody is buying massive amounts of ramyun or water to survive some kind of serious catastrophic event. Nobody is panicking. I believe that there is more of a chance to get injured walking across the street than to get injured due to war with North Korea right now. That being said, please look both ways when crossing the street. To be on the safe side, check one more time too.

My thoughts on the matter:
-incredibly frustrated with the situation: they aren't going to attack, so stop blowing hot air and rocking the boat
-annoyed: all this news about war must be wreaking havoc on my mother and grandmother's sleep pattern
-mildly amused: seriously, in this climate, with even China not fully backing them, they threaten war? Suppose  it happened, the Chinese could not openly support them for fear of global condemnation.
-confused: what if it really happened? What if there was a spark that set everything off? Of course, we can go to America, but what about the family here? What about my job?

I hope that those in power, especially those in the US, South Korea, Japan, China, Russia, and North Korea, can work quickly and effectively to diffuse this situation. In addition, I hope that we can put an end to the constant charades that North Korea has developed and in fact mastered. I ask that you all include the diffusion of this rather tense situation in your prayers as well.

That being said, have no worries! I have prepared (or rather am in the process of preparing) in case things go bad, and am confident that things won't.