What is 'ex-pat community'?

As I have casually observed the blogsphere and while interacting with students from various countries at University, one thing that has been bugging me is the use of the term 'ex-pat community". It is thrown around carelessly without much thought to the meaning of the word.

I have commonly heard phrases such as "Oh, he is very well known in the ex-pat community". There are currently over 1,000,000 foreigners residing in Korea as of last year. When people say these words who exactly do they mean? Foreign students, factory workers, wives, husbands, English teachers, engineers down in 울산? and the list could go on. Lets have a closer look at the meaning of the word according to Oxford.

Expatriate

noun

Pronunciation:/ɪksˈpatrɪət, -ˈpeɪtrɪət, ɛks-/

• a person who lives outside their native country:

Origin:

mid 18th century (as a verb): from medieval Latin expatriat- 'gone out from one's country', from the verb expatriare, fromex- 'out' + patria 'native country'

So it basically means a foreigner who lives here. Unfortunately when I hear the term tossed around it is used to refer to specifically anyone who lives in or frequents the areas of 이태원 and 한남동, like they are the only important or relevant 'ex-pats' in Korea. Often English teachers and well-off businessmen who work here are also implied to be part of this 'elite group'. Now don't get me wrong, I currently teach English myself and am trying to work my way into the business world here.

However, there are communities of of ex-pats everywhere, in every city and throughout the countryside. If I were to go back to New Zealand and say to someone "He is very popular among the ex-pat community.", people would ask you what the hell that meant. I guess what I'm saying is that the term 'ex-pat community' does not necessarily mean a bunch of white guys drinking in a 서울 bar on a Thursday night but encompasses a whole variety of different ex-pat communities made up of people who do many different things.

What really grinds my gears is how the media uses the terms accordingly as well. Just search 'ex-pat' for yourself on any of the Korean news sites. Now try and search for the word 'immigrant' and see what articles you get. According to the Korea Times (Yes, I know not the best source, but it was easy to search), the term "ex-pat" means anyone in the 이태원 and 한남동 area with a decent income. whereas if you are an "immigrant" you must immediately be a South East Asian married to a Korean or a factory/construction worker from abroad.

Ex-pat article

Immigrant article

Another immigrant article

Now I can hear you saying 'Well a lot of those immigrants will live here for the rest of their lives while I'm just here for a few years and plan to go somewhere else.' What a load of rubbish. Construction, engineering and factory workers from places like Cambodia, Pakistan, Russia, Vietnam to name a few will definitely be going back to their countries. I also know plenty of people from the "blue collar ex-pat" community who will or have decided to live here long term. (Myself being one of them)

Does being an ex-pat make you part of the ex-pat community? Of course not. Plenty of people do not want to be associated with the articles like this and for good reason. I on the other hand think of myself as part of various communities that I have made for myself such as, my work community, twitter community and university community.

So next time you write the phrase 'ex-pat' community, think about who you really mean. Otherwise I'm just going to assume you mean every person here living outside of their native country.

Line Extensions: Bundang Line - Northern Extension

While new transport lines are being built in South Korea all the time, many existing lines are also often being extended. To start off with upcoming projects which most people know about, today we take a look at the original Bundang(분당) line. If you have ever taken a drive in the area around Gangnam-gu Office(강남구청), you'll already know that there is a lot of work going on and it has been affecting the traffic a lot.

Narrow roads and ugly construction sites have become a regular sight for those in Yeoksam-dong & Hak-dong

This extension brings the orginal Bundang line through Gangnam and north of the Han, all the way to Wangshimli(왕십리). While the primary purpose of this extension may be giving residents in Seongnam(성남시) better access to Northern Seoul, it will play a very important part for those travelling and commuting across Seoul also. Since this line passes right through the dense business district of Gangnam it will be largely used by commuters.

Currently, it is a pain in the exterior if you wish to travel directly north via PT.

The best thing about this line, is that it provides the missing link which has been desperately needed within this area. It will be a big relief for many working within Gangnam-gu where a subway station is not within walking distance or commuters want to go directly North or South rather than East or West.

The new extension will provide ease of access for transferring to other lines and accessing other parts of Seoul. Although this extension crosses the Han River, it does so not by bridge but by tunnel. Remember this is not the only underwater tunnel, there are 2 on line No. 5!

From Son-nung(선릉) which is currently the first station on the Bundang line, it will proceed north to the following stations.

• Sam-nung(삼릉) which will later on connect to the line No. 9 extension which I will post about later.
• Gangnam-gu Office(강남구청) which connects with line No. 7.
• Shin-Cheongdam(신청담) is another brand new station.
• Seoul Forest(서울숲역) is sure to be a winner with families and couples on dates.

Finally Wangshimli(왕십리) will become the station with the most internal transfer lines in all of Korea connecting with Line No. 2, No. 5 and the Jungang Line. Although Seoul Station also has 4 lines, you must leave the subway system and pay again at another gate. I cannot fathom how busy this station will become once the extension opens and I am very curious to see how much patronage increases.

The Bundang line's northern extension is expected to be completed by the end of 2012.

Upcoming lines: 신분당선 - New Bundang Line

Bundang is an area that I lived in for over a year and grew very fond of. It is a well planned city with generally good roads and excellent transport links. While being situated in Gyeonggi-do, I was impressed with how quickly one could travel to different parts of Seoul by bus. Times were similar to if you were travelling within Seoul itself! However the subway link, the yellow Bundang line was generally a slow and tedious ride. One of the main reasons was due to so many stations being built ridiculously close together on the Seoul end. This area being Gangnam, most say that the rich and powerful living in the area had influence over this, even though they don't generally use the subw

ay themselves. This left the Bundang line a reliable but aggravating journey of stopping and starting for most commuters.

In an area of less than 3km there are 5 stations on the Bundang line!

So since the original Bundang line was generally screwed up as an effective link for those living in Seongnam, a new line was proposed. One which was to be a lot faster and with a lot less stations.

This line will be called the 'New Bundang Line' and it is expected to open in September later this year. (Fingers crossed)

Only six stations and speeds averaging more than 65 km/h, much faster than the Bundang line's 30 km/h average.

Here is a brief introduction of the short line and why you should look forward to riding it.

It will start at Korea's busiest subway station, Gangnam Station(강남역) (Line #2). Now it is about to get even busier and I do not envy those that will be using the station once it opens. Nevertheless, the fact that this line goes straight to Gangnam Station will attract a lot of workers who live in Seongnam and even Yongin to ride in on the line. Of course, Gangnam is also one of the biggest nightlife spots in the country and those living in and around Bundang will be able to enjoy the fact they will be able to stay out longer and still get home quickly.

Next it connects with Line #3 at Yangjae Station(양재역) which is also quite busy due to the number of businesses situated around it.

After that is the first brand new station called Maeheon(매헌) which is situated conveniently at Yangjae Citizen's Forest, a popular get away for busy Gangnamers. Again, this forest will be a lot busier now, especially in the weekends with families I imagine.

Moving out of Seoul you will find yourself at Cheonggye Mountain Entrance Station(청계산입구역) What a mouthful! A well known hiking destination which is also about to get a lot easier to travel to. How wonderful it will be to ride just 10 minutes from the smokey streets of Gangnam on the subway to be surrounded by mountains and trees!

We are then back to civilization in the brand new city of Pangyo(판교). Pangyo Station will be a wonderful asset to the new residents who work in the Gangnam area.

The final station (so far) is Jeongja Station(정자역). Here it meets the original Bundang line where many commuters will transfer. Jeongja-dong is like the Apgujeong of Bundang. It is home to the well known 'Cafe Street' with many modern style shops with decks and outdoor dining.

The trains being used will have the ability to be controlled without a human driver but I do not believe they will be driverless from the start.

And there you have it! Let's just hope that the date doesn't get pushed forward as done on all other new lines. (Or mothballed for that matter, what on earth happened to the Everline?) There are plans for extensions to both ends of the line but I will talk about them in another posting.

KTX Derailment

The KTX has derailed for the first time ever on Friday 10th Feb approx 300 metres north of Gwangmyeong Station. Luckily it was moving slowly so nobody was injured. Nevertheless it has caused big delays and on the day, all KTXs had to use the original main track between Seoul and Daejeon. If the derailment had occurred just a couple of minutes earlier it could have been disastrous.

Korail says they suspect there was a malfunction with one of the switches but investigating the contents of the black box for any further causes. Judging by the photos, it looks as though it happened right on a crossover. The KTX was pulled out by a loco on Saturday and trains are able to use a single track of the tunnel at a reduced speed of 40 km/h.

The derailment couldn't come at worse time, especially since they are currently planning to build KTXs for use in Brazil and were also tendering for export into the U.S also.

Only 25 mins late? That's news?

Coming from Auckland and living in Seoul I have experienced both really amazing public transport and really horrible transport. It is interesting what makes the news over here. The other day Subway Line No. 2, which has the heaviest patronage of all lines was delayed by 25 minutes. It was all over the evening and internet news and it was such a big deal. It got me thinking, imagine if they had a news article every time trains got delayed at peak hour in Auckland!

And it gets better! On one particular morning the delays were so bad the subway stations issued proof of lateness tickets which workers could give to their bosses!

New books

Finished the one on the right but who knows when I'll get through the rest once assignments kick in.

HI SEOUL!

Footage of the flooding in Gwahwamun - Tuesday

Incredible photo taken from plane of the localised rain

Stormy Seoul

Not a great start to the Chuseok holiday here. Rain started late last night and I was woken at around 9am to the sound of extremely heavy rain on the roof. This rain continued the entire day getting heavier and heavier. Up to nearly 290mm fell in some places causing surface and even severe flooding in many places. West and North West Seoul took the brunt of it with whole carparks being turned into lakes.

Cheonggye Stream - The footpath along the stream completely

submerged, it became a raging river surging through the centre of Seoul

This also affected a couple of the Seoul Metro lines as a result. All service was suspended between Guro and Incheon on Line No. 1 and Line No. 4 was also affected, services being suspended between Seoul Station and Sadang. Line No. 2 was unable to stop at Hongdae Univ. Station due to flooding and Gwanghwamun didn't look much better off either.

Oryu-dong Station, Seoul - Line No. 1

This station apparently has a history of flooding easily.

Hongdae and Gwanghwamun Stations became waterfalls.

Outside Hongdae University Station - Passengers unable to get on or off here

Historic New Lynn Photos - Peter Trevor

These photos do not belong to me. They were uploaded to NZLocos by Peter Trevor on July 17th. They do not appear to exist anymore so I cannot link to them. I hope this is okay Peter and if it is not please post on NZLocos to let me know.

Rear of New Lynn Depot - 19th Nov 1969

New Lynn Interchange - 19th July 1982

The Last Station

Today me and my wife took a trip to the border between North and South Korea.

(Click photos for full size) - I've noticed the first few don't work but the bottom ones do.

We took the new regular passenger service to Munsan which opened at the end of last year. operates every hour and is now integrated into the rest of Seoul's subway network.

The trip took about an hour and it was nice to travel up a line I had never been on before. When we arrived we battled in line for a ticket to catch the special shuttle train which travels to the few final stations on the line. Originally we had planned to simply go to the park at Imjin River but on seeing how cheap tours of the DMZ were, we couldn't resist. So we got back on the train.

Before boarding we were frisked and sent under a metal detector. Quite bizarre before boarding a very old commuter train.

It started to sink in that we were quite close to the border when we started seeing road signs for Pyeongyang. We crossed the Imjin river which still has the remains of the original bridge, destroyed in the war. It's the first real damage from the war that I've seen which has been preserved and it felt quite eerie.

We reached Dorasan Station, the final stop on the line before it goes into North Korea. We were now in a restricted area, off limits to the public. (Not the station itself, but outside the station.)

Looking toward the border.

The station looks ridiculously new and unused. Everything is set up so once relations between the two countries improve, things can get moving right away. Trains were crossing the border last year when relations were better but I don't think they would be at the moment.

The next stop in obviously not Pyeongyang but I guess it is a symbol of how close the capital is to here, that being 205km away.

Inside the station, the gate which takes you underground to the other side of the tracks for North bound trains.

The hanging signs above shows the real next station is Gaeseong.

The building is huge and I was very nervous taking this photo, not knowing what was okay and what was off limits. (Photoshop did something weird when I took myself out of the photo.)

Oh and here's a picture of North Korea from the mountain. Pity it was such a hazy day :(

KTX 2 - KTX San Cheon

As of February 13, 2010 the new KTX San Cheon (Previously called the KTXII) have started appearing in stations around the country. I have yet to ride the new high speed trains but I got to go aboard a model version at the Korail Museum. It should boast faster speeds and have more room between seats for a start. You could also sit at the controls and figuring this the closest I'll ever get to the real ones, I took some snaps.

Click to see a larger version.

NZ Festival

Well it was over a month ago, but here are some photos from the NZ Unlimited Festival in early April. I was quite impressed by the set up which had stalls from various companies providing samples of meat, milk, cheese, mussels, juice, ice cream, not to mention the constant supply of free NZ wine and vodka cocktails. And all for free!

I was pleasantly suprised at the decent sized samples of meat they were giving out. Tasted beautiful.

There are some more photos in the album below, including pictures of NZ soldiers currently working on the peninsula with United Nations.

NZ Festival

Idiots

What's worse than a botched translation? What's worse than PAYING to see a movie with a botched translation? How about paying and not being able to see the correct translation at all!?

Being a linguistics major and language geek (my nickname to some at high school), it really really bugs me when I'm watching a movie and what is being said by the actors doesn't match the subtitles appearing below. I'm not just talking about a slightly different translation to make it sound more natural in the other language. I can understand that many translators do this to a certain degree and there are definitely times where this is needed.

What I'm talking about is some real horrible translating which sometimes reads the complete opposite from what is being said. Now a lot of these botched translations are from amateurs on the internet, maybe Uni students who think they have enough English to roughly understand everything being said and put out a translation for the internet community. And to be honest, if you are downloading a movie illegally then you can't really complain about a botched translation and you half deserve it too. This is why if I'm to show someone a movie in another language I like to get an official copy so I know I can probably rely on its accuracy.

But what if you pay to go and see a movie but can't see the subtitles at all?

Well this seems to be the case for many Korean movie goers. I have been to two movies now where so much of the dialogue has been lost to the non-English speaking members of the audience because you couldn't see the subtitles! And why not? Because the font is a plain white and blends into any bright image on the screen! My prime example is the movie "Australia". Whether you liked it or not I don't care, but the first hour or so of the movie being filmed in the Australian desert, consists of mainly white sand and bright skies which meant you couldn't see the subtitles at all. I'm sure the audience didn't get 70% of the dialogue in that first hour. How frustrating it must be! Ridiculous. 

The latest culprit is Gran Torino. This movie being based in a neighbourhood with houses all painted white, left a lot of the dialogue in certain scenes to the imagination for the audience. How is one expected to appreciate a movie like this? The font was extremely skinny, white and had no dark outline around it. Do the producers or subtitilers(?) not preview the movies before they are sent off to the theatres? Or do they just think,"Oh whatever, they'll get the jist of it"?

This could be fixed several ways. You could use a darker colour for scenes where the subtitles are clearly not going to be easily visible. Why not use a black outline if you really want to use white for the whole movie? Or place the subtitles in the upper right corner (as in many other movies) where there is generally a better contrast? Even if it's a slightly different shade of white it's still hard to see right?<---- Please select.

Anyway thats my rant about subtitles. I'm curious if there are similar situations for the English speaking audiences watching the subtitled Korean films?

Slow NZ news

The headline on the  bottom right.

Living in Korea I like to get my news from back from the usual news sites the NZherald and stuff.co.nz. 

Is it a slow week, is NZ that boring? Or do we really care about trivial things that much? 

What I am referring to is that the front page headlines have seemed to have remained the same for the last 3 days.

Maybe if it was something important such as the ongoing Bain trial, Sure. But having your front page headline for an article about a blog by some Australians talking smack about NZ on the internet? As a friend of mine would say (probably the only guy reading this blog actually) "somebody call the wambulance!". Geez somebody talked down another country on a blog? Shock horror! Geez how long have you been using the internet, I'm sure you could find a hate blog for Mother Teresa if you tried.

In other random and irrelevant news, water has started to leak through the bottom of our walls and floor which is a bit of a worry so we'll be calling up the land lord tomorrow. Just lucky we caught it before water dripped into a power socket or something.

And in blending news. My wife surprised me by ordering a blender over the net. (We had been planning to buy one.) Turns out it was just the one I wanted! Look forward to making some high calorie, energy filled, power weight gaining shakes! Hopefully help stomach a few more things in shake form to make my scrawny frame look a tad more sturdy and muscular.All this of course accompanied by a workout routine which I'm doing a shocking job at sticking too.

And finally, welcome home to my sister who just got back from India. Cannot wait to see the photos!

March and Civil Defence

Well it's been a good month since I last posted, largely due to tiredness, laziness and not having enough time to complete my work in work hours.

Last year I spent my first spring here and I found that March just seemed to drag on forever. It's cold, but not cold enough to snow, it's spring but not a sign of grass or new flowers (until the very end of the month). It's been a cold March compared to last year with the temperature hitting -4 this weekend. Supposed to get warmer from today so hopefully that'll wake up some of the trees from their winter sleep.

There were a couple of events that happened worth noting, one being the Korean president's trip to NZ. I happened to catch some footage of this last night,  which showed him looking curiously at NZ fruit while they talked about it to him. He then proceeded onto Australia and then to Indonesia. While the president was in NZ a Korean international student stabbed my old high-school Japanese teacher in the back in front of two of my family members and the rest of the class. He is currently being held in custody until his trial. There has been a lot of gossip spread around by students and NZ media regarding the injured teacher who is still in hospital. This has really pissed me off as there is no excuse for stabbing a teacher and putting two of my family members and a class of kids in danger.

Anyhow apart from that,we had one week at work with no students. It was nice and quiet and we got a lot of much needed work done. Now the year has started again and our students will be coming through week by week.

Civil Defence Drill

The 15th of every month in South Korea is civil defence day and on this day drills are carried out by the military forces, public emergency services and sometimes the general public. Often in the month of March there is a nation wide civil defence drill where everything and everyone in the whole country comes to a stand still for 20 minutes while a siren wails out through the streets. Sometimes fighter jets fly overhead and emergency services can often be seen roaming the empty streets. They don't do it in the weekends so there is a nationwide drill scheduled for tomorrow at 2pm. I'll be working when it happens but hopefully I'll be able to hear the siren since I'm near the army hospital and airforce base. Here's a video of what it's kinda like.

Korea - The Land of Extremes

With a title like that I could probably go off on a couple of tangents but let me stick to weather for now.

Here's a great example of how in a couple of days you can go from weather that's almost good enough to wear a t-shirt in to long johns, scarves and gloves.

As I'm sure you can make out that the image above is a summary of this months weather so far. If you take a look at Friday the 13th, the temperature shot up to 17 degrees Celsius. Quite unusual for February but weather is an unusual thing. At the bottom you can also see the lowest temperature for this month was this morning at -5.7 degrees, just a couple of days after.

Surely enough, this will be topped tomorrow morning when the mercury is supposed to drop to -11 degrees as you can see on the forecast below. (On the right) The high for the day is 0 degrees.
What frustrates me is when people say "Why is it so cold?". Uh Hello? Is it not winter? Did it not used to get even colder a long time ago at this time of year? Maybe I'm just being anal about something people say just for the hell of it but it just seems a funny thing to say.

Anyhow, maybe I'll be putting my long johns on tomorrow for the last time this winter. I look forward to the crisp, icy air and the ol' jack frost stinging my face, because before we know it, it'll be 36 degrees and 99% humidity again.

Time

After being back here for one week I am reminded that a really don't have time for anything extra. All week I was thinking to myself, "Gotta make a new post on my blog sometime" but to no avail. Because even if I have a short space of time, I know that in a few minutes I'll have to go somewhere, or do something. Being married, having a full-time job which includes working every second Saturday and trying stick to a regimented fiteness routine is not something that everyone seems to understand. So to anyone who ever thinks I'm ignoring them, I'm not. I'm busy, that's the lifestyle overhere and I'm quite enjoying it. And now I have to get up and go and do something again.

A sign?

While shamelessly trying to promote my blog on facebook, the security checks which appear when you attempt to post a link bring up some interesting combination of words sometimes.

Jellyfish

During our visit to Hong Kong we went to Ocean Park, a giant theme park with animals, your usual theme park rides and a bunch of sea life. They had a jellyfish viewing exhibition which was quite interesting. I'd never taken photos of glowing jellyfish in the dark before so it was a nice challenge and good chance to muck around with the settings on my camera.