Frugal Living

Living in Korea has helped me to seriously reconsider our spending habits as a family.  Every year in the US, we had to scramble to make ends meet on our family budget.  Actually, "budget" is too strong a word.  In reality, it was not unusual for more money to go out than came in during the month.  Our kids were in a private Christian school.  We had two cars.  I liked to eat my favorite foods in healthy portions.  We justified eating out for fast food because of our busy schedule.  I felt entitled to purchase an occasional antiquarian book, justifying it as a reward for hard work.  You pretty much get the picture without having to detail other indulgences that routinely ran up the family expenses.  Unfortunately, we reflected an attitude towards spending that is all too common in the states. (My apologies to the many we know who are the exception to the rule.)

 

Korea has given me a different perspective on spending.  I recognized this change this morning at the faculty chapel service.  We had the former president of a prestigious university in Seoul speak to the faculty.  He spoke about the things that really matter in life.  One of his illustrations described his pleasure in driving a small and inexpensive car.  This made him happy because it freed up funds he could use to travel to encourage (and support) missionaries in Africa and other far off places.  Many may have the impression that Korea reflects the American lifestyle of extravagant living.  Although there are segments of Korean society that create this impression (like the Gangnam district of Seoul parodied in the Gangnam Style video), it is not the culture in this country.  Instead, most people, including the wealthy, tend to be quite frugal and see that way of living as a virtue.

 

Susan is quite committed to adopting this same frugal life style for our family.  She is starting to make a believer out of me.  We are now home schooling our kids.  This alone saves us close to $2,000 a month on school and school related expenses.  Food is expensive in Korea.  If we were to eat the same foods we liked in the U.S., our food bill would go up considerably.  Instead, we shop much more carefully.  Our meal portions are smaller and contain less meat and more vegetables than ever before.  We do not eat out very often, and when we do, we tend to visit the restaurants on campus where a meal costs about 3-5 dollars per person.  We are spending less on food than we've ever spent before.  We do not have a car.  Between the cost of the car, gas and insurance, this is quite an additional saving.  The downside is that the lack of a car is also quite an inconvenience.  Trips to town usually take about 3-4 hours for most errands as we take the free shuttle from the university and then walk or take a cab (about $2.00) to reach our destination.  Shopping trips are a challenge for a family our size.  We are loaded down with bags on our return trip.  We will likely eventually purchase a car, but it is worthy to note the financial benefits to our current budget.  I must admit, it feels pretty good.  It's even had a positive impact on my health due to the improved diet and need to walk almost everywhere we go.   I think I've probably lost some weight, though we're now too frugal to purchase a scale to find out!

 

We currently are able to set aside savings every month.  Because of these savings we hope to be able to take our family to Cambodia and perhaps Thailand and Laos over the Christmas holidays without our usual practice of pulling out a credit card.  This would be a wonderful opportunity for our family to see and experience foreign missions.  I'm hoping this change in our spending habits is something that will last as we become more Korean in our outlook on money.  Wouldn't this be a good souvenir to bring back with us to the States?

 

Ken Chinn

"Camping Korean Style" pictures

 

HIC Youth Camp.  We took a few pictures of the beautiful Fall colors while the cars were being loaded with camp gear.  Our apartment is the second row from top, far right.

When are we going to leave?

Homigot, "The Village on the Tiger's Tail" (reference picture below). We all just call it "The Hand".

New Millenium Memorial Hall

 

Sun god, Yeonrang and his lover, Se o nyeo.

Lighthouse museum

A quick lunch under a cover before heading to the camp ground.

Setting up our tents while the wind blooowwwwwsss!

Our kitchen area

Nice job David!

I wish we had pictures of the beautiful weather on Day 2.  The sun was out, the sky was blue, the ocean sparkled and the kids had a blast!

Camping Korean Style

Saturday morning we took off with the church youth group for a one night camping trip.  I had some reservations about the idea.  There was a 90% chance of rain on Saturday and we had no camping equipment.  A church family had spare camping gear and the church had some extra supplies and rented extra tents.  Our kids wouldn't take "no" for an answer, so their overindulgent parents said "yes".  In a light rain, we loaded up the cars and set out with more than a little reluctance on my part.  I suspect rescheduling would have been difficult with the closely approaching winter.  It is starting to get cold in Korea.

The camping destination was about an hour away near a spot on the coast that locals call "The Hand".  The actual name of the area is Homigot, meaning "Village on the Tiger's Tail".  We stopped first at The Hand which is part of a Millennial Park.  The Hand is comprised of two sculptures of giant hands seemingly reaching towards each other.  One is positioned in the ocean and the other is on land. I'm not sure of the symbolism of the hands, but suspect is has something to do with that yin and yang idea that we see reflected in the Korean flag.  The rain was now falling steadily as we ate our lunches, posed at The Hands for pictures and visited a very nice lighthouse museum located next to a lovely still functioning lighthouse.  Although the lighthouse museum was full of interesting displays of huge lanterns and other accoutrements of historical lighthouses, my favorite part was a small darkened auditorium.  Across the floor there were projected images of fish swimming around.  It didn't take long before Robert started to chase the images across the floor.  It turned out there was some sort of sensor that made the fish swim away from him.  When he was successful in catching one, it disappeared.  If he stopped chasing them, the fish would swim again towards the center of the floor.  Soon Robert was splayed out on the floor leaping and swatting at fish to the entertainment of our group and the Koreans touring the museum.  Men were shouting out and encouraging him on.  Other kids from our group wandered in (including Mary) and were soon busy chasing the fish.  I don't know how they engineered the motion detector to coordinate the response by the fish to Robert's efforts to catch them, but it was really fun to watch.  When Robert noticed the attention he was drawing, he got shy and stopped for awhile, but the lure was too great and he ended up chasing fish again.

It was now time to find our camping spaces.  We loaded up in the cars again and set out to find the camp grounds.  The rain had lightened up and I was hopeful it would clear up.  We found the camp grounds and were surprised to see that the camp sites we had rented had a surface comprised of crushed granite and rocks!  I'm talking small pieces about 1-2 inches in size with jagged edges - not exactly the sort of surface one wants to sleep on.  It looked more like a parking lot with a small tree next to each space that was neatly laid out with ropes and poles.  We checked with the managers of the site and learned there were no cancellations the day of the reservation.  So, we started unloading our gear.  The sky still looked ominous as we unloaded our gear and started setting up the tents.  Then the winds started.  I would describe them as gale force winds, but that is probably an exaggeration.  It is accurate to say that things were blowing over as we tried to set up camp.  We rigged up some tarps over the site from the ropes that were strung overhead to delineate each camping space.  We figured we would need them as a shelter for cooking and eating dinner.  We were not a group of experienced campers and tying knots was not our strength either.  And of course the rain was starting to come down again.  Thankfully the camp manager showed up and provided enormous help in pulling things together.  A couple of men from the other camps chipped in helping to drive stakes and secure the rain and wind covers for the tents.  Soon the camp was relatively ship shape and it was dinnertime.

The best part of dinner was that it would consist of meat.  Meat for dinner in Korea usually means pork belly.  It looks like bacon, but has none of the curing of the American product.  It tastes like thin and fatty pork chops. I think its delicious and Koreans see it as an affordable delicacy in an economy where beef is very expensive.  One of the church families made a stop at Costco and brought along a supply of chicken and beef.  So, we ended up having pork belly, beef and chicken.  This was going to be a feast!  We set up a camp grill and I grilled beef and chicken in a now steady rain with the wind still blowing while the youth leaders grilled the pork belly.  The ever helpful camp manager showed up again with an electric lantern to give us light.    In Korea they like to put aluminum foil down over the cooking grill.  I think it has something to do with a belief that the blackening from an open grill is not healthy.  They are probably right, but grill marks and smoke from a BBQ adds to the flavor.  The pork belly was over aluminum foil and the beef/chicken were cooked by me in the American fashion.  By now the rain was being blown sideways by the wind in a successful effort to elude our tarp over the dinner area.  I was getting pretty wet, but happy sampling the fruits of our efforts over the cooking stoves.

After a delicious dinner we gathered around the campfire for hot chocolate, smores and a couple of praise hymns.  It was time to turn in and experience sleeping on our rock surface.  One of the families had a spare air mattress that protected the old man from the ground surface.  Susan and the kids reported that the rock surface managed to elude all their efforts to sufficiently insulate them from the sharper rocks.  The kids managed to sleep pretty well, but Susan had a harder time.  On the air mattress I shamelessly slept like a rock blissfully unaware of their greater difficulties.

The next morning the sky was blue with no sign of clouds.  The wind, however continue to blow and seemed, if anything, a little stronger.  We pulled down the overhead tarp concerned that the winds might break it apart.  We enjoyed a delicious breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes, scrambled eggs (I cracked the eggs which explains the small pieces of shell that found their way into the eggs - on the Food Network they call that the "crunch" factor), fruit and juice.  The kids enjoyed a game of Capture the Flag with the youth leaders.  Check out time at the camp ground was 1:00 p.m., so we had a devotional time together in which we read Nehemiah Chapter 8 and observed some similarities between the Feast of Booths and our camping experience.  We then broke down the camp and loaded up the cars.  I was ready to head home, but the kids were still energized despite all the running around during Capture the Flag.  So, we instead headed down to the shore line for some fishing and kite flying.  After an hour or two of fun (no fish caught), it was time to finally head home.  The camping trip was a success and the experience will be more fondly remembered because of overcoming the adverse conditions.

General observations about camping in Korea:  Like the US, campers are helpful and friendly.  I doubt any other campsites in the US or Korea would have a more helpful manager than the one who came to our aid.  Restrooms are very modern and clean and included hot showers and an area with several sinks to clean your cooking utensils.  Our campsite, despite the less than desirable rock surface, was about 100 yards from the ocean.  Our rented tents were rather flimsy, especially for the windy and rainy conditions.  The Korean campers had much sturdier tents, some of which were pretty elaborate and almost looked like small cabins.  One was probably 15 feet high.  I have no idea how they managed to put it up.  Unlike the US, there is no reason to be concerned about possible theft.  Most US campers are equally considerate, but unfortunately that doesn't seem to universally true.  I don't think the use of rock for a camping surface is usual in Korea.  It's one positive feature is that it promotes good drainage and the likelihood of your campsite flooding is pretty remote.  In the spring I'm hoping we get to give it another  try, especially if the old man can secure an air mattress again.

Last night the kids said a sad goodbye to Susan's sister Mary after a wonderful visit over the past month.  She has been so much fun to explore Korea with and incredibly helpful around the house.  We will truly miss her, but are encouraged by her desire to return in the spring for another visit (she says to see Korea in the spring, but we know it is really to see us.)

Ken Chinn

MUSIC TO OUR EARS!

Wed, October 24, 2012 5:30:54 PM

Most are now familiar with Korean rap music thanks to the song "Gangnam Style" with the introduction of the horsey dance.  Well, that is only a small glimpse into the Korean love for music.  It is infectious in this country.  Music is everywhere and it is very much a part of their soul.

 

The Koreans love to sing.  I hear them singing all the time on campus.  I'll walk by classrooms on the way home from teaching in the evening and I'll hear the sound of students singing drifting  through the windows.  Susan and I can often hear the singing from our 5th floor apartment late into the evening as we retire at the end of the day.

 

Every chapel service on campus includes a time of worship.  The Koreans love to sing the modern praise songs and the traditional hymns.  This morning I was at the faculty chapel and we sang the hymn "The Love of God is Greater Far" which was written in 1917.  Most today would be unfamiliar (as I was) with this beautiful hymn and would have stumbled with the words and melody.  The Koreans have beautiful voices and and sang the first two stanzas in English and the third in Korean.  I was transported back to 1917 when the song would have been sung with the same enthusiasm modern worship songs are sung today.  It was absolutely beautiful beyond words and the sound drifted far across the campus.  It reminded me of something I have always strongly felt - a beautiful song about God is timeless.  Here are a couple of the verses:

 

    "The love of God is greater far Than tongue or pen can ever tell; It goes beyond the highest star, And reaches to the low-est hell;  The guilty pair, bowed down with care, God gave His son to win; His err-ing child He rec-on-ciled, And pard-doned from his sin.

    Could we with ink the o-cean fill, And were the skies of parch-ment made, Where ev-ery stalk on a earth a quill And ev-ery man a scribe by trade; To write the love of God a-bove Would drain the o-cean dry; Nor could the scoll con-tain the whole, Tho' stretched  from sky to sky."

 

I am also amazed at the number of Koreans who are gifted musicians.  The piano is played primarily by ear (although most are classically trained) and it is not unusual for two pianos to be used during worship times.  We are hoping to set up music lessons for all our kids in the next few weeks.  Nothing would please me more than to see them be able to express the Korean love for music and carry that throughout their lives.

 

In our travels around Korea we have had the chance to visit Folk Villages that show how life was before modern times in Korea.  As you might expect, music and dance were also an integral part of village life.  We have enjoyed  the traditional Korean music as much as  the modern music.  There is a happiness than runs through much of it though it also reflects more somber and difficult times in performances of the Mask Dance.  And then there are the Korean drums.  Using several styles of traditional Korean drums and what looks like a small single cymbal, the musicians progress through a variety of rhythmic beats that make your face light up with joy and your feet want to break out in dance.

 

Coming to Korea has helped me understand Susan's love for music and why her voice is so beautiful when she sings.  I'm seeing lots of indications that our kids have that same love embedded in their genes and this makes me very very happy.

 

Ken Chinn

The Chinn family bellies up to a bar!

Susan and I have been hearing about a bar named Tilts in Pohang run by US expats that cooks really good American food.  Last week Susan and I hitched a ride with several friends to give it a try.  I had a rack of BBQ ribs and Susan gave the Philly cheese steak a try - each dish served with cajun fries.  They were an instant hit.  This was food that tasted like home.  We learned from a Philadelphia born expat that anything that called itself a Philly cheese steak was not a real cheese steak.  In Philadelphia it is simply called cheese steak.  Still, he admitted, this one was pretty good compared to the one's back home.  Last night we loaded the kids on the free shuttle and took them to dinner at Tilts.  We ran into a couple of other families we know that had the same idea.  Imagine a bar with about a dozen kids having a party as their parents enjoyed the good cooking.  At the dinner hour there were few if any bar patrons, so we had the place largely to ourselves.  The manager is named Teddy.  He loves kids and made quite a fuss over all of them.  I had a burger and Susan had buffalo wings.  I should mention the fries come with a large cup of catchup.  In Korea, you are given one small packet of catchup with fries.  If you ask for more, you get a second packet.  This is true even at McDonalds.  The Koreans don't understand the American craving for catchup.  The real hit of the night was the discovery that the bar now has a source for homemade apple pies from a trained pastry chef.  I ordered a piece and it rivaled the best apple pie I've ever eaten.  Lots of cinnamon, a buttery flaky crust and freshly sliced slightly tart apples.  It may well have been the best apple pie I've ever eaten, but I'm reluctant to give it that recognition since my taste was probably influenced by the many months that have passed since I've tasted homemade apple pie.  Susan gave it a taste and agreed it was delicious.  The weather is turning colder almost every day.  I am reminded that winter cannot be far away.  We see more and more sweaters, jackets and even heavier coats starting to appear.  We're hoping to visit more historical sights this weekend.  Stay tuned.

The Grocery Store

In Korea there are many choices when it comes to shopping for food.  There is everything from the tiny corner grocery store to large mega stores with names like E-Mart and HomePlus and Hanaro.  The large grocery stores seem very popular with plenty of employees to assist you with your shopping needs.  If you have a craving for pork belly (its like bacon without the curing) there are almost always samples offered by friendly employees frying away this Korean delicacy.  It is not unusual to hear a male employee shouting the benefits of what ever happens to be frying in the meat department.   For the more American style palate, the choices at these large stores are very hit and miss.  Susan and I were on the hunt for some canned tomatoes a week ago as an ingredient for some chili Susan was preparing to complement a baked potato bar (for a campus meeting called Alpha that explains Christianity to university students interested in learning more.)  There was no sign of canned tomatoes anywhere in the store.  Questions to store employees only brought puzzled looks suggesting the concept of putting a tomato in a can seemed rather odd to them.  Susan had another idea of a smaller store that sometimes carries more American style products. Bonanza!  Although they had no small cans, someone had ordered the super large Costco style cans and stacked them in a section for very large products.  I suspect it was an ordering error of some sort and Susan scored two of them.  
   
For the more adventurous, there are the open markets.  Ponhang has exceptionally large one called Jukdo Market.  It stretches for many blocks with hundreds of merchants offering items from vegetables, to meats to kitchen goods to it's most famous product, fresh (and I mean alive fresh) seafood.  Here you see large aquariums with freshly ocean caught fish brought in by the Pohang fishing fleet that hauls its catch to the market every day.  I was particularly interested in finding some fresh scallops.  They have them still breathing in the shell.  I had Susan ask if they offered them outside of the shells and we got the same puzzled look we received for the canned tomatoes.  The merchant replied that "they wouldn't be fresh anymore if we offered them outside of the shell."  Still, in order to make the sale they offered to remove the live scallops from the shells for the curious American guy.  I declined their kind offer when we weighed the scallops in the shells.  I roughly calculated the price at close to 40 to 50 dollars a pound for the actual scallops after they have been shelled and cleaned.  I wonder what they would have thought if they knew I intended to fry the scallops rather then eat them raw.  Still, I'm hoping to taste them sometime during our stay in Korea.  Fruit is very expensive in Korea where close attention is paid to the shape and beauty of the fruit in setting the price.  Not surprisingly, you find better prices at the Jukdo open market.  Watermelons are large and much more aesthetically pleasing than the ones we see in the states.  They are a rich dark green in shading and always sold in the markets with the stem on.  Unfortunately they cost about $20.  It is another delicacy I've not been able to talk myself into purchasing.  I'm always finding little surprises in the markets.  Once at the Jukdo open market I found a large vat of sliced pickles.  Tasting a sample I found they were a little darker version of what we call sweet bread and butter pickles.  We bought a half kilo or so to take home.  I sometimes see these pickles in restaurants placed on the table by the staff as a side dish.  
    
Costco remains a much anticipated weekly run for the Chinn family.  Last week I got a taste of some New York steaks being grilled as a sample.  Absolutely delicious, and a package would have made its way into our shopping cart if it wasn't priced at about $87 for what looked to be about 2-3 pounds of meat!  Even hamburger is priced at 6-7 dollars a pound.  Thankfully the food court always comes through with a low cost meal if you can find a spot to sit and eat. The hot dog comes with a refillable soda and is priced at 2,200 won (about $2.00).  The hot dogs are made from pork rather than beef - probably because beef is so expensive in Korea.  The Koreans at Costco have a curious habit of cranking a large pile of chopped onions onto their plate to which they add ketchup and mustard and mix it up.  It becomes a side dish with the bulgogi pizza they frequently order.  Going to the markets continues to be a fun activity for the Chinn family.  We go several times  a week for fresh bread and milk and whatever suits our fancy.  We take the free university shuttle to town for our shopping.  With gas prices at approximately $8.00 a gallon, we're in no hurry to purchase a car.  We read about the current gas prices in the US and wonder what everyone is complaining about!

Road trip video.

Thanks Mark!

https://vimeo.com/50923212