Tuesday, July 11th
2:58 p.m.

Demonstrators have taken over the campus. . . . wearing red bandannas and ponchos and standing around eating or smoking or whatever. . . sleeping in the university buildings. . . . You can hear yelling and chanting and singing and clapping everywhere you go. . . . Vendors have set up booths on the sidewalks. . . . Riot police have been brought in by the busload, complete with shields and sticks. . . . There is trash everywhere. It looks like the 60s around here. . . . I don't even know what they're demonstrating about, though, because I don't understand Korean. I hope it's not another episode of anti-Americanism, which crops up every now and then. They sure do stare at me when I walk by. . . . I'll admit I felt a little bit nervous.

[It was a bank employees' labor strike.]

Apparently Yonsei has been the center of demonstrations such as this for at least the last decade [even when they have nothing to do with students]. Ewha Woman's University, which is across the street, has always been the center of the women's movement. There's a lot of good clothing, shoes, [bags,] and accessories shopping over there. There are a lot of universities in Seoul.

It's cool today because of the light rain - a brief, VERY welcome respite from the typical temperatures in at least the nineties and humidity around 85%. Between the [huge] bugs which swarm and the heat which melts, Korea is a lot like Florida, but hotter and with mountains to make you sweat even more. The streets look like San Francisco, but more crowded. People have to live on top of one another here, and they drive the same way. Korea is the most densely populated nation in the world.

We were supposed to have air conditioning in the dorm by yesterday, but of course THAT didn't happen. They've been doing construction here for more than a week. It's noisy and messy and very often means that you get kicked out of your room, no matter what you were doing - like sleeping in a T-shirt, which happened to me. So much for no men on the women's floors. They don't even speak English.

There definitely used to be men living here, though. I always shower in the "men's" restroom because it's closer. They've done a little work in there lately too, though - ripping out the urinals, [changing the showerheads and temperature adjustors,] adding mirrors in the showers - I don't know why. Maybe it's a Korean thing. They don't put their used toilet paper inside the toilet, either: There's a waste basket in each stall for that. Talk about gross and smelly and unhygienic.

Anyway, there's still graffiti all over the inside of the stalls to prove that men have lived here. I've never seen anything like it. Racism, homophobia, and sex - that pretty much sums it up. Boys are strange.

[And it's in at least four languages! I recognize English, Korean, Russian, and Spanish for sure. . . .]

Other than that, the dorm is OK. The rooms are small and really dirty, but they provide sheets and a blanket and pillow, and we can call other rooms and receive incoming calls in each room. Curfew is 3 a.m. on Friday and Saturday and 1 a.m. the rest of the week. If you miss it, you just have to stay out all night, which isn't hard since the clubs are open all night and never stop serving drinks. The dorm reopens at 6 a.m. There are bars on my windows, probably because my room is at ground level. I don't know whether they're trying to keep me in or keep me (or others) out.

[Another place that people go when they have to stay out all night is a "video-bong," where you rent a room for a few (or several) hours and just watch movies. Also quite popular for make-out sessions... and other things - although I've heard that the owners of the video-bongs usually keep video CAMERAS in those rooms for just that reason so that they can sell the tapes as porn. Better to get a room at a love hotel for a couple of hours, even if it is more expensive. ;)]

There are washing machines and dryers and a microwave in the basement - [all in Korean but] all free, and they usually work. There's some workout equipment down there too. There's a smelly fridge and a water purifier on my floor, plus I can buy bottled water for less than 35 cents from the cafeteria in the student center. I shouldn't have bothered buying all of these expensive water purification products before I came, that's for sure. And there are TVs and VCRs in the lounges.

And then there are the bugs. Yesterday I opened my door and saw a huge black spider right in front of me. I yelled for my friends to come outside, and while we were freaking out and arguing about who was going to kill it, it ran into someone else's room and under her closet where we couldn't get it. Later I heard screaming in the hall and knew that the spider was back, so I said, "I was a summer camp counselor, I've killed cockroaches before, I can do this." I grabbed a shoe and smashed it. Everyone was really impressed, most of all myself. I'm learning a lot about myself here.


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