Pillow Talk

Lack of sleep could eventually lead to series of health issues and brain cells death being among them as quoting from the recent studies done by a few major international research organisations. 

Looks no further, I myself am having this similar issue, only get a few hours sleep out of ordinary patterns in a day, and one of the major problems I'd always have throughout the day later is mood swinger, I tend to be hostile more easily than ever; even to the slightest problem as "low battery on my phone" could end up being a big problem to me, then my day is ruined.

I have been working out on it since so long as far I can remember, but all the ways that I could possibly think led to the dead end. Nothing seems to be effective.

Then I tried to relax by occasionally taking a weekend getaway whenever is possible, and here is to my amazement that it does seem to work and  obviously costly too! But it is surely not for long till thing gets back to the square one. The unpredictable climate change - the heat - only adds up to the problem.

I even took supplements to ease my isomnia.

After consulting friends and some physicians, they came out with a rather odd but cold be true suggestion that time has come to start a family, or simply put to get married.

A suggestion that has yet to be put to test. My journey is far from the finishing line, still have a lot more to see.

If you have any better way to fight and put this to an end, why not share it with me, I'll feature that in one of my posts later? 

The Joys of Living in Korea

The Joys of Living in Korea

Out of a very British sense of fairness perhaps, I am feeling a little uncomfortable with the amount of bad news or negative stories I have been writing about Korea recently on this blog and the general malaise about North Korea as well.  Believe me when I say that things aren't all bad, indeed they are very often good and better than back home in England in many regards.  This goes without saying really when you think about it, because if everything is bad then why the hell have I stayed here for so long?

So here is a list of reasons why I think Korea is actually a pretty decent place to live most of the time. 

Life is simplified (for a foreigner or native English teacher)

It really is stupidly easy to live here, even if you cannot speak the language.  When you arrive everything is usually sorted out for you; you have an apartment without looking for one, furniture without shopping, and are set up with a bank account. 

Life generally is made exceptionally easy with great delivery services, you don't have to search around for the best energy providers, public transport is efficient and cheap, and if you live in even a small city or town a convenience store, supermarket, gym, department store, doctors, dentists, pharmacy, a variety of restaurants, and all the services you can possibly need are all just around the corner.

Korean Food

As a man who is from a country well known for terrible food (for good reason), I can tell you that I really love the food here, and enjoy being introduced to such a wide variety of different Korean foods.  Korean people take great pride in their food, and for this reason I am never short of generous souls to take me out for lunch or dinner to a different restaurant so they can watch me gleefully gorge myself on another new Korean dish.  I have met some foreigners who say there is little variety and that it is all the same spicy taste, but I think they have simply not gone out there and experimented or tried enough different Korean foods.  There is great variety here, and most of it is extremely healthy, yet another tick in the box for Korean cuisine.  You can even travel to experience specialty food, something that I seem to be doing more often.  Korea has a rich culinary tradition and certain foods are considered especially delicious in different parts of the country where they specialise in them and this is well worth exploring.

Finding Work and the Work Itself

As a native English speaker, finding work in Korea is easy and for me as a man who is married to a Korean it becomes exceptionally easy.  As long as you give your work as a teacher here its own meaning and try to excel at your job, you will be appreciated and at the same time as finding work as an English teacher quite undemanding, you will be challenged enough to make things interesting.  This challenge is greater when you have to plan all your lessons without the aid of textbooks or any syllabus, like I have to.  This takes extra time and effort but is rewarding as it gives me an intellectual freedom in my job that I really enjoy.  Even for teachers without this amount of freedom, relishing the challenge of teaching and motivating students whose language it not your own is the key to enjoying the native English teacher experience.

The Lack of Petty Crime

There will always be stories that can be shared that are exceptions to this rule, but it is nice to be able to walk around with at least some level of faith that nothing will be stolen or if you lose something it might get returned to you.  As I have mentioned before on this blog, some shop owners just store their stock outside on the street under some shelter from the rain and no one steals anything.  I could not imagine this happening in Britain.  Also, if you lose your wallet you do have a great chance of getting it back with everything still inside.  Reckless vandalism also appears to be almost non-existent.  Perhaps much of this is because of a Confucian based culture's greater respect for authority, an aspect of their culture to which I have pointed out a fair amount of downsides to, but this happens to be a happy result of it.

The Lack of Politically Correct Nonsense

Sometimes in my British world of forcing school kids to wear goggles for a game of conkers, law suits for tripping on cracks in the street, failure to criticise anyone within a group of people for fear of giving offence, and everyone wins sports for the young, I yearn for some spade calling bluntness and this is what you can get in Korea.  Kids are wondering around at night buying street-food without fear of abduction or anyone reporting their parents to social services, obese people are called lazy people who need to exercise more and this is widely accepted, my high schoolers are given the responsibility for cleaning their classrooms and changing light bulbs without the fear of them having an asthma attack from dust or killing themselves with electric shocks (no one has died yet), and people trip up and make a mistake by not looking where they are going and slink off in an embarrassed manner without looking for the nearest person to claim money off of.  There are many more examples I could go through.  Sometimes they are too harsh, too blunt, and don't consider individuals very much or empathise with them but mostly I do appreciate their clarity and no-nonsense approach.

Random Acts of Kindness

I sometimes experience a level of sweetness in Korea that I rarely experience back home.  This can be in the form of offering food, surrendering an umbrella or lending one when it is raining, the offering of lifts in a car when I have looked lost and other kind gestures.  Whether these acts occur out of a sense of duty or not they can be very heart-warming.  One of the situations where I often find kind acts being done to me is while hiking, where offers of food, drink or assistance seem to be particularly common.

Exploring the Country

With a little bit of knowledge of Korean it is possible to explore the whole country just by taking public transport - which ties in with what I said about the ease of living.  With mountains, beaches, gorges, forests, islands, different foods, temples and historical landmarks, Korea is a great place to travel around with the added bonus - especially for a skin-flint like me - of not breaking the bank either.  It is a great country to explore and one that is still relatively free of tourists, so a genuine feel of the culture can be experienced.

Young People

I am very fond of young people in Korea, especially between the ages of about 11-20.  Really young kids just annoy me, period, regardless of their nationality, but that is just my personality. Young people in Korea, in my opinion are especially kind, fun, friendly, open-minded, and polite. Contrary to what some believe, I find them generally highly respectful of foreign teachers - something I explained in a previous post, here.  Reverse the situation and have Koreans teaching in English schools and I doubt whether student behaviour would be so kindly.  The reason for their affability might be because of their respect culture and the fact they are slightly oppressed by it, both in their dealings everyday with elders and their monumental amounts of study.  Respect culture is something I profoundly dislike but I must admit it does seem to create nice kids, perhaps exactly because they are slightly down-trodden by it.

There is Always Plenty of Controversy and Conflict

Some might think that this is a bad thing, but if you can embrace the difference in the culture here, you will never be short of a talking point over dinner.  Some people think embracing a culture means accepting it, I disagree.  Arguing against things you believe are wrong is important regardless of culture.  I have conflicts with Korean culture all the time but I don't necessarily accept their point of view as equally valid, I enjoy the battle against it, even if many of these battles have to be fought in my head or keyboard in hand on my blog.  If you want a debate, to write, or to be intellectually stimulated, there can be few better places to be in the world than in Korea with so much up for discussion.  This more than makes up for the stresses of clashing with the culture sometimes.  If you want a stress-free life that doesn't challenge your principles, go home or stay away.  If you want a bit of spice and interest and have your worldviews challenged, come to Korea and enjoy the ride.

People are Genuinely Interested in you

A year or so ago I took a trip to Indonesia and I was constantly disappointed by how many times someone would start a friendly conversation with me that always, in the end, turned out to be an emotional blackmailing tactic for me to buy something off of them.  You just never experience this in Korea, people are genuinely interested in you and where you come from or they want to practice their English with you.  It leads to many unexpected and pleasant conversations that can put a little smile on your face.  I have always felt a touch of innocence in many of the people in Korea in this regard and it is a very charming trait about them.

These are my own personal joys about living in Korea.  If any of my readers would like to add to this, by commenting below, I would be really interested to know if I have left anything out.

Disclaimer : The article produced and solely owned by  Christopher Smith  (click here) nor has any part of it been changed or altered.

Craziness!

We have a dream -be it as we were child or even right now as an adult- so do I and what's mine is to have the life that I always dream of; even though as it may seem is beyond achievable but nonetheless its worth dreaming after all.

Its come to the detour in which there are only two choices to pass through, its either you make a turn to the right or the left. But one thing is for sure; what lies ahead is delusional.

Right doesn't usually mean positive, sometime what you find along the way on the left could be greater than the former.

I drove all the way and came to the crossroad, where a turn could possibly change the present from either the worst to the better or the other way around.

Its been sleepless nights this past week thinking of how could all this possible be ended. And here is the real deal, after giving a long contemplation and thought, said to myself "I want to migrate"; settle down at a new place.

In my consideration of all, Korea crossed my mind as the best second option right after Japan, having said that, Japan as you might know is really not a cost-friendly city to dwell on.

Cost of living there in Japan will likely drive you up the wall, nothing is cheap or affordable about staying -in this context living- in Japan.

I spent hours all day long went on the internet, tried to gather as much information possible; tabled and compared it with some of other cities that I had in my list, worked out on any way at all reducing the cost but sadly none of them seemed to be on my side.

For starter, I will just be staying for slightly more than a month, basically to fit myself in to the cultural and not to mention the weather as well.

I'll likely rent a cheap dingy apartment- hold a sec, did I just say "dingy"? -sounds like really not a good idea but judging by my last trip to Korea, even it looks like a rundown building, scary on the outside as you step inside, surprisingly everything is in a superb order! The cleanliness is second to none! That's Korea.

Korean in comparison to Japanese are more friendly towards foreigners. Helpful!

I am planning to depart in a week times, only if nothing else works, as the last resort I'd give this a try.

Just wait till a week has gone by, and nothing is updated since then, be my guess! Perhaps I have abandoned this crazy last minute idea.

Super Powers

Oh boy...see how fast the time flies...even faster than the speed of light...

Promises are there to be broken as they say...this time round it took rather longer to have a new post updated in here...

There is just so much going on since I left my job, I have been tirelessly looking for the replacement. I have always thought that it is easy but looks like it is far more harder than it should be.

At this time, you realised that anything you planned would not always turn up to be what you imagined.

But there is no time for you to look back and regret, just have to keep moving forward; pretty much as what the Walt of Disney says. Looking how far it has come so far, I have no doubt.

Its all back to square one, I am stuck in a rut again, doing the same all routines and neither do I enjoy nor despise them. I need something more, anything at all.

Recalling some of the post I wrote in the past, clearly I prefer a job that doesn't involve staring at the computer screens all day long.

I am an outside person.

Even having to sweat under the sun or soak trenched in rain I'll do it.

I just need a job right now, and this leads to problems more than ever.

My strength is weakening.

I wasted too much of my time for nothing.

Some says now is the best time to look far beyond everything, to me this could only mean one thing, migration.

Given the circumstances, considering immigration would be a great idea.

Then again only if nothing else works.

We are leaving march in a few more days.

I'd surely come back.