Korean Economy

I am not an economist and don't pretend to know much about economic theory.  I am, however, able to make some observations based on what I've seen in Korea over the past 2 months and compare it with the economy back home in California.

The most notable economic differences can be seen walking into a grocery store.  The grocery stores here are large and similar in many ways to American stores.  There is one very pronounced difference (other than the items offered for sale.)  In the Korean stores there are employees every where you look.  They are there to offer help in bagging items, weighing the produce, selecting the meat, provide samples of their products and performing a myriad of tasks.  In one store they periodically play music as the employees all stop what they are doing, smile and make cute hand gestures along with the music for several minutes as a show for the customers.  Not surprisingly, the products are more expensive than comparable products in the U.S.  I suspect one reason is that you are paying a higher price for all the additional labor.  From reading the local news, I get the impression that the unemployment rate in Korea is very low.  Everyone seems to have a job.  Most of the jobs, I suspect, are relatively poorly paid.  Still, everyone has the dignity of providing for their own needs.  I see very little evidence of poverty in Korea.  They have only recently offered a national retirement system similar to Social Security.  Koreans traditionally retire at age 60.  They cannot begin collecting Social Security until age 65.  They still retire at 60 and cover the expenses of the years until 65 with savings and help from their families.  So far, I've only encountered one person on the streets of Pohang (a large blue collar town near the university) asking for money.  Contrast this with the U.S. where most employers concentrate on lowering labor costs in every way possible.  We have lower prices, but pay a terrible price in unemployment and a welfare state that seems to be growing every year.  I wonder if it wouldn't be worth paying higher prices in the stores if  the rewards were more dignity and less poverty.  Perhaps (and now I'm just dreaming) it would be a zero sum game since the higher prices could be offset by lower taxes resulting from the savings through providing less public assistance.

Another major economic difference between the U.S. and Korea is the amount of industry in Korea.  I have yet to run across a product that is not manufactured here in Korea and usually exported to other countries.  Those of us who are old enough, remember a time when products manufactured in Korea were perceived to be of inferior quality (I'm thinking of the early cars).  That is no longer true.  This is a very industrious hard working people.  They care about quality and take pride in their work.  I had a watch repairman work on my watch which I managed to break shortly after we arrived.  It was broken, as it turns out, beyond repair.  Because he could not fix it, the repairman refused to charge me for his services despite having spent considerable time trying to fix the watch.  Susan had a similar experience with a translator who could not translate a document after an hour or two of trying.  He refused payment and recommended another place to have the work done.  In the U.S. you would be charged up front for opening the watch with no promise of a favorable result.  Simply put,there seems to be a higher work ethic in Korea.  Pohang is known around the world as the home of Posco, one of the world's largest steel manufacturers.  Korea has the industrial base to support their manufacturing industry.  Contrast all this with going into a Walmart in the U.S.  Not long ago it was possible to go into Walmart and not find a single product in the entire store that was manufactured in the U.S.  I assume they have been embarrassed to the point where that is no longer true.  Still, that speaks volumes about what has happened to our country.  it is unsettling for the U.S. to be so dependent for it's needs on the hard work of others in other parts of the world.  We complain about our dependence on oil from the Middle East.  That seems to be only one relatively small area of our dependency.

One final thought from the perspective of the family economy.  Although I have traditionally handled our family finances, I gave up that role in Korea.  Too many problems with the won, conversion tables, banks, understanding the Korean labels on products, reading the account information on the internet and dealing with their more complicated (and versatile) ATM machines.  It is traditional in Korea for the women to handle the family finances.  Not surprisingly, our family budget has benefited from the change.  Susan is much more careful with the budget.  When I broke my watch, I lobbied for a clock in our apartment.  The cost (about $25 U.S.) was too great and Susan wouldn't pay it.  I was happy to arrive home yesterday and find a new clock Susan found for only $5.00.  I suspect when we head home we may find Susan continuing in her role - especially if she finds out about the 18th century commentary I just bought on line and shipped to our family home in the U.S. paying for it through our U.S. savings account.  

Sorry for the largely gloom and doom nature of this posting.  It may however, be something worth thinking about in casting our votes in the upcoming election.

Ken Chinn

Church in Korea

Today I had the fun of spending some time discussing this morning's message at church with a small discussion group consisting of a visiting lecturer with Wycliffe Bible Translators and two graduate students, one from Myanmar and the other from the Inner Mongolian province of China. How often do you get to travel across the world to an exotic place like Korea and meet with such interesting people? I felt like I needed to pinch myself. I wrote their names down to invite them to dinner and will try and figure out how we might be able to visit their countries before returning to California next year. Handong University has students here from all over the world - many of them very troubled places. What a contrast this is to the image of the world you get from watching protestors on the news.

While I'm on the subject of pinching myself, I cannot find the words to describe how much I enjoy the worship services here in Korea. A big part of it is simply being in a college community. I had a very similar experience when I visited the student chapel back at the Deerfield campus of Trinity University near Chicago. There is so much joy expressed in their worship. Many simply can't stand still and the feeling is infectious. Thankfully I am able to contain the impulse to be too expressive. My spirit is willing, but my flesh is totally incapable of expressing itself in a way that would be a blessing to the others present! And the preaching - I am used to outstanding preaching and am finding that here as well. We are going through the book of Nehemiah, verse by verse. Afterwards many of us stay around for discussion groups concentrating on personal application of what we studied that morning (see the first paragraph for today's discussion group.) All of this within a 5 minute walk from our front door.

Susan and I just got back from a ride on the shuttle into Pohang to try a new market. We are laying in supplies to feed the students from my classes a taste of Southern California - some home cooked Mexican food. I asked them if they wanted Western food or Korean and all of them chose Western (they are young, adventurous and eat Korean all the time.) The only compromise we've had to make on our menu of tacos and burritos is the use of flour instead of corn tortillas for the tacos. We haven't found a source yet for corn tortillas, but with time we'll track that down. They are even going to be introduced to guacamole thanks to a trip to Costco yesterday where they had fresh avocados for sale. We do plan on having some homemade kimchi as a side dish thanks to Susan's sister Mary's visit and talent for making this Korean spicy delicacy.

On the way back from Pohang, we met Dr Gale. She is a delightful 70+ year old professor with two Ph.D and three Masters degrees who teaches in the English department. She has been baptized both as a Catholic and a Presbyterian. At one point in her life she wanted to be a nun, but the sisters told her she was better suited to be part of the world.  She has been here 4 years and cannot imagine living anywhere else. The students have captured her heart. I know what she means by that expression, and one of these days I will try and explain what makes these students so special. Dr. Gale offered to help any of my students who needed assistance with their English writing skills. I have a growing perception the professors are every bit as endearing as the students.

One last cultural observation. On our trip to Costco in Daegu yesterday, I used the men's restroom at the train station. In Korea, it is not at all unusual to see an older Korean woman attendant in the men's rooms washing the floor and keeping things clean. This woman was clearly running things while she was in there and the men showed her respect. No one here seems the least bit startled by what would be rather unsettling in the states.

Ken Chinn

Few words from Daniel, Mary, and Robert.

(From Daniel)

My Korean tutor is named Hazel. She is a very nice person and she makes tutoring fun. For instance, she had me make flash cards the other day and I got to choose my words instead of her just giving me some.  So I chose my words and she added some phrases in like I am and my. I used those phrases to make sentences like nah nun cho tah. (nah nun= I am cho tah=good) Another thing she has done with me is taken me for a tour around the campus, telling me all the names of the buildings in Korean. That was my very first lesson. I have only had two lessons so far and another lesson later today but I can tell this is going to be very fun.                                                                                   That’s all for now.

(From Mary)

There is a lake on campus that I like to visit.  I've been there four or five times and it never seems to get old. It's only a ten minute walk through the forest on a dirt road.  Every time I see something new or I walk over to a new spot around the lake.  I love to walk to the lake to take pictures.

On the way there, there is a swing hanging from a branch on a tree.  The thing I like about it is, it looks very old.  I think the ropes will soon brake while someone is using it if they are too rough.  I hope it won't be me! The swing is the reason I like to go to the lake so much.  There are many wild flowers on the path.  They are so pretty.

My first time going there was the WORST TIME EVER!!!!! Right when we got there, it started to rain very hard.  We ran through a "short-cut" as Katie and Susie call it.  We ran through bushes and plants up hills and down, but it was so muddy!  When going down a steep ditch, I slipped and fell.  I landed on a mostly dry spot and didn't get too muddy which was a relief.  Robert struggled to get around that spot and losing his balance.  He didn't want to get his injured arm wet.  Robert hurt his arm while riding a scooter down a hill.  He crashed onto the cement.  He had many scratches and bruises.  We all ran and felt like prisoners running from the concentration camp during the war.  It was a little scary.  Finally when we got back to the campus the rain stopped.  We all walked to our apartments wet and muddy and we never even got to see the lake.

As I said earlier, I've been there many times since.  My brothers haven't gone though.  I hope to have many picnics there.  

There are a few spots where you can see the forest, ocean, and mountains.  There are so many trails around campus that I haven't explored yet but I am sure the lake will remain one of my favorite places.

Bye!

(From Robert)

I’ve got to do such awesome things in Korea and gone to so many fun places. 

I like to go into Pohang on the shuttle bus. We usually go to Jukdo market, Fun Street, or McDonald's street. I like Fun Street the best. On Fun Street there’s a man-made river right down the middle.  My favorite store on Fun Street is the Artbox I like it because they have CANDY!!! We call McDonald's  street that because there’s a McDonald's there. It tastes the same as in America, but just maybe better. Jukdo market is an open air market that sells just about everything from food-clothes-blankets-toys.

There are so many restaurants on campus like Hyoam, Twelve Baskets, and Farms and Barly.  Hyoam  has really good Korean food. Twelve Baskets has a bunch of stations that have different kinds of food.  Farms and Barly have very good pizza with weird flavors like potato and bacon and bulgalbi.

That’s all folks!

(Photos Mary took with her iTouch before mom dropped it and broke it.)

The trail to the lake.

Going to the lake with friends.

 You can see the ocean beyond the hills.

Turnip patches.

Bamboo Tree Forest.

 Wait!  I think I have a rock in my shoe.

A nice place to rest and enjoy the lake.  There are lots of places to sit and enjoy the view(s)

Enjoying the swing with friends.

This and That!

It hardly seems possible that we've only been in Korea for five weeks.  While we miss our friends and family back home, Anaheim seems a distant memory at times.  We continue to feel extremely blessed by the gift of this year in Korea.  There are responsibilities that come with the year and we seek to fulfill our role as we seek to be good stewards to the Lord, to Trinity and to Handong.  Homeschooling is proving to be a wonderful challenge to both mom and the kids.  After school field trips and play time with friends fill the kids' afternoons and evenings.  We've yet to hear an "I'm bored" from any of the three.  The kids are starting to feel comfortable enough with Korean to say "thank you" and "hello" to the bus driver and the store clerks.  Since everyone on the campus speaks English, it takes some effort to get the kids to try to speak Korean.  Each child has a volunteer student tutor that comes twice a week to teach them conversation Korean.

After being shut in for an ENTIRE day yesterday, the kids were anxious to get out and explore.  We took the shuttle into town, then selected a random city bus to ride around to explore parts of the city unfamiliar to us.  Today the kids finally got their wish to stand on the bus as the bus was crowded.  They held the side posts or hang onto the handles from the ceiling and try their best to not go flying from stop to stop.  That novelty wore off quickly and they were wishing they had seats on the return trip.  Below are some pictures from today and few from various events the past week or so.

Waiting for the bus.

On the bus.

A sensor activated greeting robot bowing to us.  The kids returning her bow.

How does she work?

While in Seoul for my visa paperwork, I went with Elysabeth to her morning radio show gig.

The US Embassy

Statue of King Sejong who invented the Korean written language.

A very nice wedding of a student in Daegu (over an hour away).  The bride and groom provided a charter bus for the attendees from Handong.

The buffet was amazing.  Makes my mouth water just thinking about it.

Mom dropped Mary's iTouch.  :-(

Little Cavin (neighbor on our floor) loves the boys!

Kids playing . . . this just makes me smile!!

 Making KimChi with Aunt Mary.

Typhoons (Ken) and Pics (Kids)

Several days ago we learned a typhoon was headed towards South Korea.  An earlier one passed on the other side of Korea about two weeks ago, but this one was headed directly at us.  We Googled typhoon and learned it is the Southeast Asia equivalent of a hurricane though it spins counterclockwise (opposite of a hurricane.)  This sounded serious!  Thankfully the university is in the hills above the port city of Pohang so we needn't be concerned about the storm surge (ocean pushing onshore with flooding.)  Still, we would get the full brunt of the high winds and rainfall.  Surprisingly, the university showed no indication of closing the afternoon it was projected to arrive.  Rain started to fall and winds began to blow a day or two before its expected arrival yesterday.  Yesterday morning the winds increased dramatically in intensity and drove the rain against the side of our our building.  Clearly we were in for quite a show. 
As we watched through the windows as students struggle against the wind and rain with umbrellas inverting and blowing away, news reports from Pohang showed the partial collapse of one building trapping 20 people, flooding, and roads closed by mud slides.  Umbrellas disappeared and were replaced by hooded rain jackets.  The trees were swaying dramatically and several were uprooted.  On the walkway protected by storm windows next to our apartment on the 5th floor of our building, the rain was being driven through the cracks in the windows .  It looked like springs were flowing from the window casings and it flooded the walkway.  The residents pitched in to contain the water and Susan rolled up beach towels to try and plug the leaks.  Of course I had to take the kids outside to get a sense of the forces we were watching.  If felt like a drenching wind tunnel.  I suggested to Robert that we tie some strings to him and fly him like a kite.  He wasn't interested in the idea at all.  In the midst of all this, we got notice the university was cancelling classes for the day.  The full force was to hit us at 3:00 p.m.  Around 1 p.m. the rain and winds started to lessen and we wondered if it was the calm before the coming storm (which was downgraded from a typhoon to a tropical storm as it lost some intensity as it moved north and inland from the southern tip of Korea.)  To our surprise, the rain stopped altogether and the winds as well.  It remained overcast and there was some mild sprinkling, but the storm was over.  We ended up walking over to Twelve Baskets (the student cafeteria) for a dinner of stewed chicken cooked in a large skillet that is served family style in a large platter containing chicken, vegetables, rice noodles, rice dumplings and hot pepper sauce served with sticky rice and kimchi on the side.  For the non purists, they sprinkled handfuls of mozzarella cheese over the dish to melt and lessen some of the intensity of the spices.  It fed our entire family and was delicious.  I knew it would be good having watched students thoroughly enjoying the platters on prior visits.  The cost was about $13.50 to feed our family.  Quite a deal!  My only complaint is that Koreans normally don't drink a beverage during their meals.  They provide small cups for those who do - about a 2 ounce size.  I kept the kids running back and forth to the water fountains to refill my cup as I worked my way though this very spicy dish.  News reports this morning indicate lots of flooding and moderate property damage. Thankfully, there only seems to have been one reported fatality in South Korea.  What a wonder to experience such a storm and yet another memory of this enchanting land.

Ken

 While the typhoon rages outside, the kids are making mandoo (potstickers) with Aunt Mary.

 The day after the typhoon.  Beautiful.

Hurry Home Mom!

Susan has been up in Seoul this week trying to straighten out some visa issues.  As we are adjusting to life in Korea, we have noticed a fair amount of bureaucracy involved in the process.  There seem to be endless forms that must be handled in just the right order with all the proper stamps and approvals.  At times it is difficult to understand the reasons for much of this, but one quickly adapts to the necessity of getting it done.  On the bright  side, it is amazing how cheerful (and inflexible) almost everyone is in the process.  Of course, this leads to feelings of how much better we handle all this in the states.  Which leads to some observations from Susan's trip to Seoul.  She needs a document from the US showing she is an American citizen (no, a passport won't do - it's not the right kind of evidence since it is used for travel.)  This means we need some help from the US Embassy.  Susan caught a bus to Seoul on Sunday so she could get the proper document bright and early on Monday to show she is a US citizen so she could catch a bus back to Pohang that day.  We'd forgotten that Monday was Labor Day in the US and the embassy was closed.  Susan stays an extra day and appears at the embassy on Tuesday.  No, she is told, she cannot see anyone about her problem because she doesn't have an appointment.  We didn't know you needed an appointment.  Can I make one for today?  No, no same day appointments.  Can I make an appointment for tomorrow?  No, you must make an appointment on line, and we don't accept any appointments on Wednesdays.  So, Susan is still in Seoul today (Thursday) for the appointment she made on line.  To complicate matters even more, the most helpful document she needs is a certified copy of her naturalization papers (she only has an uncertified copy).  She has been told by US officials in earlier communications that she can get the certified copy from the US government for only 400-500 dollars provided she is willing to wait a year.  All this leads to two observations - US bureaucracy is even more complex than Korean and decidedly less friendly along the way.  Thankfully Susan was able to stay with Mark and Elysabeth while in Seoul, enjoy some of  the wonderful street food and get a little "Susan time" on Wednesday to just relax.

With Susan busy in Seoul, I have been Mr. Mom the past week.  It has led to some new insights into living abroad.  Without Susan's presence to interpret, everyday life becomes more complicated.  I took the kids into Pohang for dinner at McDonald's.  Thankfully the counter clerk was fairly fluent in English and was familiar with terms like Big Mac and McNuggets.  Still it was a bit of a struggle.  This was even more obvious when I took the kids out last night for a meal on campus.  The school has a food court like many campuses in the US.  However, the selections were very different and everything on the menu is written in Korean.  One of my students came by and helped us with one of the menu boards, but I was feeling overwhelmed.  I decided to retreat to the nicer restaurant on campus where we had eaten before.  It is run by the nicest Korean couple and the employees are all so cheerful.  I knew from our earlier experience that they had a delicious dish of Terriyaki Chicken and rice with stir fried vegetables.  Unfortunately they were sold out of the dish for the evening.  So, I looked at the English portion of the menu and picked something that looked like soup.  Daniel selected another dish (well being bibim-bap) that had a familiar word in it (bibim-bap) that he associated with a Korean dish he liked.  Mary and Robert went for simple white rice that they could wrap in seaweed.  Daniel's dish ended up being a large salad on top of rice with shredded chicken and seaweed sprinkled on top.  It is a very popular dish at the restaurant. Daniel does not like salad, so I swapped dinners with him.  He seemed equally unimpressed with my soup that had slices of beef and several sorts of mushrooms.  He fished out the beef and returned the rest of the soup to me.  Meanwhile, I was struggling with the salad.  I don't care for dried seaweed and it was crumpled all over the salad.  I did the best I could and then went for the rest of Daniel's soup.  Absolutely delicious!  There were other vegetables and peppers with the mushrooms served in what the Koreans call a "hot pot."  I even ate the tofu.  Robert and Mary really enjoyed the rice and seaweed.  Robert said it was one of his favorite meals in Korea.  I made things up to Daniel by ordering a slice of peach pie (for their international students and faculty) which we all shared.  It was a successful dinner.  When we got back to the apartment Daniel popped a cold slice of leftover Korean pizza into the microwave (it was pepperoni, but the Korean version adds vegetables, peppers and sweet corn under the mozzarella cheese).  Thankfully, Susan will be back home tonight.  I am anxious to try the food court again with Susan along to navigate.  There was one large dish that students were ordering family style (a large pot they shared from) that looked really good though I had no idea what it was.

Just one final observation for now.  I had the most beautiful sight the other day as I looked out my office window.  There was a group of Korean women gardeners working their way across one of the landscaped lawns picking weeds.  They were dressed in colorful garb with scarves around their heads and a basket tied to their waist.  The basket was for them to sit on as they stooped to do the weeding.  It was so colorful and they moved so gracefully that it was mesmerizing.  It reminded me of old photographs I have seen of Korea in the past with women working the rice fields.  What a wonder, and right outside my window.  Hopefully Susan will be able to take a photo of these lovely women and share it in the near future.

Ken