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By Marty, May 20, 2010 12:58 pm

I had planned to be doing a lot of writing over the past few weeks. I did get some writing in on my newest novel, but that’s taken a back seat. I got a few dozen pages written before being sidelined by other things going on here. What things you might ask? A plethora. All good.

First, we (my Ulsanonline.com partner, Fin, and I) have been approached by a multi-faceted group in Seoul. They had seen our site and the great stuff we’d produced for the foreigners in Ulsan.  The owner, a Korean-born, Brazil- and US-raised guy named Fabio sees a potential for us in a vastly underserved portion of Korea – the Gyeongsangnam-do province to the south and west of Ulsan. We’ll do a website, complete with lifestyle, travel and how-to information for the area. But we won’t stop at just a website. Fabio and his team are fired up about creating a magazine. A magazine that caters to both foreigners and english-speaking Koreans, complete with fabulous photos and glossy goodness.  I admit, I wasn’t keen on the idea as print seems to be going the way of the buggy whip, but they’ve got me wrapped into it. I’ll be co-editor of the magazine and Chief geek on the website.  The catch is that the local city and provincial governments all have foreign populations – teachers like me, engineers, factory workers – and they all have a budget to provide support in one form or another.

I started work as editor of the Korea Sun back in the summer of 2008. That was another glossy lifestyle magazine, but it went under before any of my writing or editing was published – costs were just too high to produce and revenue from Korean businesses for ads were just too low.  I’m somewhat wary of this being the same, printing and ads sales will be Fabio’s role and his other companies are already established. We might have a shot here. We’ll see. Faboi’s team includes several English-speaking foreigners, all of whom are counting on this to free them from teaching to focus on this full time.  I’m keeping my teaching job for now – until the $$ roll in regularly.

Here in Ulsan, with spring firmly ensconced and summer nearing, the outdoor season is upon us. We’re planning a “scooter rally” – a race/scavenger hunt to visit several places around the city and take creative pictures. I’ve been involved in the planning of this event as well.

With both the new magazine/website and scooter rally, I’ve been doing lots of programming. I’m chief geek here in Ulsan and forced myself to learn some new tricks.  Although I doubt most reading will understand what it is, Flash is a tool that is very prevalent on websites where animation, flashy, eye-catching graphics are required. You may not know what it is, but I guarantee you’ve visited and seen a website with flash.  It would be a shame if you didn’t see mine.

So here’s the programming/artwork I’ve been doing lately. These are likely transient and won’t stay up in these places forever, but for now these links work. I may, at a later date, pull them into a portfolio of sorts should I wish to build a resume for becoming a geek back in the USA someday. The website for the new magazine is still on ulsanonline.com – we’ll eventually buy a site expressly for that, but we can dovetail it off there for now. Check out the fancy lead-in here.  That cool map thingy – all Flash.  Then I made a banner for the scooter rally. It sits on the front page for now, but will certainly be gone after the rally. The cute little scooters drive across the page with links to the race site – all Flash programming. For the race site and registration, I made another fancy-pants banner on this page. The original “inferno” as they’ve called it started several years ago. They’ve skipped a few years, but its back with some flashy Flash.

Anywho, that’s why I haven’t written too much on here lately. I’ve been a busy boy.  More news later as it happens.

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By Marty, March 28, 2010 11:36 am

This month I signed a contract for another year here at the school. It will take me through February of 2011.

And I dropped the bomb on MyeongHee.

February 2011 is when her son, DongHyun, will graduate from highschool and either go to college or off to the military. He must go sometime before he’s 28, although most boys do a year or so of university before signing up.

Either way, I decided it would be a good time for a change. I’ll have been teaching at this school for four years straight and another in 2004-05. Five years is about my limit, it seems. But the bigger bomb I dropped is that I want to go back to America. Probably not forever, but longer than the week or so I’ve been able to come back in the previous three years.  Who the hell knows what forever is anyway?  But the longest I’ve ever held a job is seven years and five seems close enough.

Lately, I’ve been feeling like I want to be able to experience America again – nothing so dramatic as the old Simon and Garfunkel song. Just the feeling of going outside and speaking English to a neighbor or chatting with the salesclerk in a store. Not that either of those happened very frequently in America, but when I see a Korean just having casual conversation it makes me miss that. One of the TV shows that really gets me is America’s Funniest Home Videos – just goofy stuff -  but seeing the homes, the yards, the kids, the sports… I miss my country and my culture. I’m probably idealizing to a great extent, but the fact remains that I miss my home country and despite my ever increasing Korean-language ability I am still an outsider here.

Of course, the bigger question is what would I do when I got there?  It’s hard to imagine what job I would qualify for after doing nothing more than speaking English for four years. And that’s if there are jobs to be had – given the economy that’s a big-ass what-if.

Other questions involve MyeongHee – she’s not interested in coming to America. She didn’t enjoy it much.  She’d rather stay. And leaving her hairshop would entail a great expense upon reopening should she come back. She’s happy doing one or two weeks visits but no more.

If I do come home, it looks like it might be just an extended month or two rather than years.  All of that is still a year away and a lot can happen between now and then. We’ll have to see how things go here and in the US. Stay tuned. More will be written as it becomes clear to me.