As I write this, I am sitting on an airplane that is taking me away from Korea. My destination: the Southeast Asian seas. It’s a bittersweet journey, because saying goodbye is always hard, but I can’t pretend that Korea wasn’t really the place for me. Though it may not have been all that I had hoped, and certainly was never in my plans, I believe my six months in Korea were time well spent.
I’ll definitely miss the people I met. I have friends from all over the world now- an open invitation to crash anytime in Ireland, places to stay all over England, friends scattered throughout Canada, the US and Australia. I’ve learned about many more cultures than Korea’s, met people who have been more places than I can think of. There’s some friends who biked from China to Ireland (they did have to take a boat for the last bit), sweeping across the entire Eurasian continent. A bunch of my friends have worked as volunteers in South America. Another friend visited Russia on a whim for a week. Bodacious Brit is going to be a bridesmaid next summer in South Africa. It really is quite a head-trip. And, even taking no notice of their exciting lives, I have just made some simply amazing friends. I will miss them terribly.
I will miss Korea too. I’ll miss my favorite foods, my hangouts, the nightlife, the history, the random nudity, and the craziness of living and working in a considerably different country. I’ll miss poking fun at ajumas and ajoshis and having stilted conversations with Koreans who laugh at me but appreciate my attempts to learn their language. I took a taxi ride a few days ago and was able to tell the taxi driver that I didn’t live in my nearest shopping center. I usually use the name of the center to get me home from Seoul, and it always confuses the drivers when I ask them to go somewhere else when we get there. He laughed for a solid minute when I said “Save Zone che apartu animnida”- Save Zone is not my apartment.
I’ve loved visiting the palaces and museums, participating in the festivals, seeing the traditional and not so traditional performances, and doing a not insignificant amount of souvenir shopping. Korea has a rich history and is a fascinating country.
I’ll even miss my kids… I think. Well, not the hellions.
Annyeong hi kesseyo Korea. It’s been real.
Showing posts with label korea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label korea. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Monday, August 23, 2010
When Ajoshis ATTACK- News at 11
Today I was reminded that the subway is sometimes a rather alarming place.
Generally I like Seoul Metro- it's clean, reliable and cheap. You can get pretty much from anywhere in the Seoul Metropolitan area to anywhere else; all of Seoul seems to have an underground level with shopping and rushing trains. The map is a bit overwhelming, nine different lines spiderweb out into the suburbs while the downtown of Seoul is a veritable warren of crisscrossing subway lines, making the map resemble a rat's nest more than anything else. Sometimes the rides can be uncomfortable, particularly on the late night trains out of the city when people have to be physically shoved into the cars and no one needs handrails because the train is so fully packed that the bodies of your fellow riders hold you up.
Yesterday's ride started out fine. I was off to visit Kylara's family down in Seouther Seoul, which is quite a trek, so I hopped on the train bright and early with a packed brunch in my bag. There I was, leaning against a rail and munching my peanut butter and jelly when a somewhat elderly man approached me. In Korea, these are known as Ajoshis. He asked me something in Korean and I apologized and explained that I didn't know Korean that well. Ignoring my words and perhaps latching onto the fact that I had replied in Korean, he began to question me- still in Korean. For a few minutes I was able to work out a few of his questions enough to be able to answer to his satisfaction, but then he pointed at his watch and said something I couldn't even begin to understand. I apologized again and he repeated it, a bit louder. I shook my head, curiously said the word for wristwatch (shikhae), shrugged my shoulders and turned away, uncertain whether or not this man was crazy.
I tried to ignore him, a hard task as he was about two feet away and staring irritably at me. Munching my sandwich, I pretended to be enjoying the view of train track junkyards and distant apartments buildings. Maybe he would just go away... No such luck. He watched me for a few seconds before starting in on me in Korean again, saying goodness knows what. At this point, the other riders were beginning to notice the commotion. The Ajoshi repeated his stupid watch question again- what was he asking?- maybe how long I had been in his country? why I wasn't wearing a watch? if i wanted to buy his watch? I shook my head, now feeling a little annoyed myself and distinctly feigning interest in the advertisements posted on the walls of the subway.
My neighbor came to my rescue... or so we thought. She said sorry to me in English and then patiently explained something to the Ajoshi. Probably everything I'd already told him- that I didn't speak Korean and couldn't answer his question. This only served to further enrage said Ajoshi. He began yelling at my hapless neighbor, who replied politely with a smile on her face. They take respect your elders very seriously here and I was tempted start yelling at him in English to leave the poor girl alone, since she was just taking it. He started pointing and screeching, now drawing the attention of the entire car of riders, who stared at the three of us with mingled amusement, alarm and pity. I tried to make myself invisible, and when that failed, I simply shrugged and grinned awkwardly at the staring onlookers.
The Ajoshi stormed away and I breathed a sigh of relief. Some of the other riders were giggling at this point, and I giggled a bit myself. It was ridiculous, and I was sure it was quite a show for everyone who could understand Korean. A foreigner girl staring blankly at an old man who was raging at her in a language she couldn't understand but everyone else could, while another random Korean girl politely told the man to shove it.
My relief came far too early. The Ajoshi was back, pointing at one of us and then the other, yelling in our faces in a manner that suggested we had taken this particular subway ride simply to plot against him. He reached down and picked up my bag (it was at my feet), which I nervously wrested from his grasp. The seemed to be the tipping point. A younger Korean guy came to our rescue by pushing the Ajoshi away and cornering him. Our rescuer and his friend threated the offending Ajoshi in low tones until the old man apologized to my neighbor. He did not apologize to me- rather, he continued to glare until we reached the next stop, where he disembarked and threw a dirty look over his shoulder. Seconds later, a security guard arrived (rather belated, in my humble opinion) and followed him off of the subway.
Ah well. These things happen. I just wish I knew what he was so mad about. I'll never know.
Generally I like Seoul Metro- it's clean, reliable and cheap. You can get pretty much from anywhere in the Seoul Metropolitan area to anywhere else; all of Seoul seems to have an underground level with shopping and rushing trains. The map is a bit overwhelming, nine different lines spiderweb out into the suburbs while the downtown of Seoul is a veritable warren of crisscrossing subway lines, making the map resemble a rat's nest more than anything else. Sometimes the rides can be uncomfortable, particularly on the late night trains out of the city when people have to be physically shoved into the cars and no one needs handrails because the train is so fully packed that the bodies of your fellow riders hold you up.
Yesterday's ride started out fine. I was off to visit Kylara's family down in Seouther Seoul, which is quite a trek, so I hopped on the train bright and early with a packed brunch in my bag. There I was, leaning against a rail and munching my peanut butter and jelly when a somewhat elderly man approached me. In Korea, these are known as Ajoshis. He asked me something in Korean and I apologized and explained that I didn't know Korean that well. Ignoring my words and perhaps latching onto the fact that I had replied in Korean, he began to question me- still in Korean. For a few minutes I was able to work out a few of his questions enough to be able to answer to his satisfaction, but then he pointed at his watch and said something I couldn't even begin to understand. I apologized again and he repeated it, a bit louder. I shook my head, curiously said the word for wristwatch (shikhae), shrugged my shoulders and turned away, uncertain whether or not this man was crazy.
I tried to ignore him, a hard task as he was about two feet away and staring irritably at me. Munching my sandwich, I pretended to be enjoying the view of train track junkyards and distant apartments buildings. Maybe he would just go away... No such luck. He watched me for a few seconds before starting in on me in Korean again, saying goodness knows what. At this point, the other riders were beginning to notice the commotion. The Ajoshi repeated his stupid watch question again- what was he asking?- maybe how long I had been in his country? why I wasn't wearing a watch? if i wanted to buy his watch? I shook my head, now feeling a little annoyed myself and distinctly feigning interest in the advertisements posted on the walls of the subway.
My neighbor came to my rescue... or so we thought. She said sorry to me in English and then patiently explained something to the Ajoshi. Probably everything I'd already told him- that I didn't speak Korean and couldn't answer his question. This only served to further enrage said Ajoshi. He began yelling at my hapless neighbor, who replied politely with a smile on her face. They take respect your elders very seriously here and I was tempted start yelling at him in English to leave the poor girl alone, since she was just taking it. He started pointing and screeching, now drawing the attention of the entire car of riders, who stared at the three of us with mingled amusement, alarm and pity. I tried to make myself invisible, and when that failed, I simply shrugged and grinned awkwardly at the staring onlookers.
The Ajoshi stormed away and I breathed a sigh of relief. Some of the other riders were giggling at this point, and I giggled a bit myself. It was ridiculous, and I was sure it was quite a show for everyone who could understand Korean. A foreigner girl staring blankly at an old man who was raging at her in a language she couldn't understand but everyone else could, while another random Korean girl politely told the man to shove it.
My relief came far too early. The Ajoshi was back, pointing at one of us and then the other, yelling in our faces in a manner that suggested we had taken this particular subway ride simply to plot against him. He reached down and picked up my bag (it was at my feet), which I nervously wrested from his grasp. The seemed to be the tipping point. A younger Korean guy came to our rescue by pushing the Ajoshi away and cornering him. Our rescuer and his friend threated the offending Ajoshi in low tones until the old man apologized to my neighbor. He did not apologize to me- rather, he continued to glare until we reached the next stop, where he disembarked and threw a dirty look over his shoulder. Seconds later, a security guard arrived (rather belated, in my humble opinion) and followed him off of the subway.
Ah well. These things happen. I just wish I knew what he was so mad about. I'll never know.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Sushi vs. Kimchee, A Comparison of Neighbor Countries
A few weeks ago, Pippi and I visited Japan while I was on my one week summer vacation. It was a blast. We went to the southernmost island, called Kyushu, and traveled all over the northern half. Our route: from Fukuoka to Nagasaki to Kumumoto and then onto a tiny onsen town called Yufuin. Every kind of Japanese food we could think of we ate, and for entertainment we visited museums, tall ships, castles and volcanoes (to name a few). We traveled by train, bus, ferry, trolley, bike and foot and got by on four Japanese words: Konichiwa (hello), Arigato Gozimas (thank you very much), Ohio Gozimas (good day to you) and Hai (yes). It was a most excellent adventure, but rather than boring you all with the excruciating details (for instance- our 2 hour walk to a hotel when we got off the bus at the wrong stop), I will save that for stories I tell at home and will instead regale you with amusing comparisons of Korea (at least the Seoul area I am used to) and Japan (Kyushu specific- I cannot comment on Tokyo).
Warning to the reader- this post is rated PG-13 due to some more mature topics. If you might be offended by these, please skip Love Motels.
Number One: Food
Well duh, you might be thinking. Korean people eat barbeque and kimchee, Japanese people eat sushi and tempura (among other things). But what I found fascinating as I wandered around Japan and sampled everything I could think of is that there is almost no spicy food in Japan. While in Korea I can only find food that is spicy and or sweet, the vast majority of Japanese food strongly tastes of sesame seed oil, ginger or soy sauce. A Korean ramyeon will make my eyes tear up and my nose run, but its Japanese cousin, the better known ramen, hasn’t even a hint of spice, unless you count the optional ginger sprinkled on top. Wasabi has a bite, yes, but it can’t even begin to compete in spiciness with the ubiquitous red pepper of Japan’s western neighbor.
Number Two: Expense
I’ve heard it before and I will repeat it for anyone who will listen. Japan is EXPENSIVE. Korea isn’t particularly cheap or anything but there are places to stay for 10 dollars a night and plenty of nice meals for under 5 dollars. Not so with Japan. And the yen is doing disgustingly well, particularly compared to the won. Japanese trips will bite you in the pocketbook.
Number Three: Love Motels
An interesting phenomenon exists in Korea. Children are expected to live with their parents until they are married and living alone is very frowned upon. This poses a problem for young Korean couples who feel a little frisky in the dating stage, particularly ones that are in their 20s. Rather than hiding in bushes like their teenage counterparts in the US (Korea, with its incredibly dense population, does have a dearth of sneaking away spots, so it would be hard for them to find any bushes anyway), a highly successful business of providing rooms has sprung up on practically every city street in Korea. The love motel is as common in Korea as Starbucks is in America, you cannot get very far without seeing a bright neon sign announcing the motel and garage entrances with the top half obscured by cords (to keep people from being able to see the drivers of the cars that go into the motels). They are frequented by amorous young couples, Korean men with their prostitutes, traveling foreigners and cheating couples. Love motels range from classy to creepy and are a wonderfully cheap option for a pair of travelers with no toothbrushes (for some reason every love motel provides a toothbrush to each of its guests). Even if you do have a toothbrush, love motels are highly convenient. My school put me up in one for my first four nights in Korea.
In Japan, I was curious to see if the love motel had found a similar niche in the landscape and society. I did find love motels, but it was quite a different experience. Japanese love motels are incredibly sketchy. They involve separate entrances and exits and rather than a front desk, they instead have a display of the available rooms, each with a picture that shows the theme of the room. If it’s lit up, it’s available. If not, well… don’t go in. I don’t expect they provide toothbrushes either. Pippi and I definitely decided that love motels in Japan were not friendly places for the low budget traveler, so I never will know exactly how they worked, but I don’t regret skipping the love motel and staying at a business hotel instead.
Number Four: Smell
No offense Korea, but you smell. You do. Face it. Rotting bags of kimchee on the street outside of restaurants lend a distinct odor to Korea that in the summer is simply too overwhelming to be ignored. And even though most Koreans don’t have terrible b.o. and thus deodorant is a scarce commodity, when you’re crammed onto the subway up to your eyeballs in people, the few that do need deodorant become painfully obvious.
Japan, on the other hand, seems to have a countrywide case of hygienic OCD. There is no smell, which is quite a relief, but in return you get a bidet unit on every private and nearly every public toilet, as well as silly little river sound makers to mask the noises of your toilet usage. For a few days after I returned from Japan, the bathroom sounded exceptionally quiet and I almost missed the gurgling brook accompaniment.
Number Five: English speaking ability
In Korea I have been somewhat spoiled. English is taught at public school now; most Koreans know a bit of English and can understand some of my most basic requests. Their accents are atrocious and they rarely can comprehend mine, which often leads to me being forced to speak Konglish (adding an uh or ee noise on the end of any word that ends with a hard consonant), but at least nearly everyone can say hello, English teacher, and where are you from (the vast majority of my conversations with random Koreans include those three phrases).
In Japan, very few people speak English. The average person on the street will not recognize anything more than Hello, and one is quickly reduced to elaborate and inaccurate sign language with hotel staff, waiters and bus drivers. Pippi and I went into one restaurant in Yufuin where the menu had no pictures, and since neither of us could read kanji and the waiter could speak absolutely no English, we were left looking quizzically around while the waiter shuffled his feet awkwardly in the kitchen. We were saved from starvation when our only fellow diner received her meal of tempura, which we pointed at frantically and held up two fingers, begging in English and repeating the word "tempura" like a mantra.
Fortunately, most major train stations have incredibly helpful information staff who assure you they can only speak a little English and then answer your complicated questions with clear accents and an excellent grasp of grammar. There appears to be no in between. So definitely learn the word for bathroom if you plan on going to Japan some time soon.
Obviously there was more- from differing fashion and hairstyles to completely different geography (the mini mountains of Korea are much different than the sharp volcanic peaks on the Japanese islands). There were different looking temples and castles, and all the Hyundais and Kias of Korea got traded for Hondas and Toyotas in Japan (that drove on the wrong side of the road). There were similarities too- the convenience stores had the same names and foods, many of the same brands existed in both countries and everyone had an unhealthy obsession with Hello Kitty (including Pippi). It was fun, and fascinating. And now I have two more stamps in my passport to show that I am quite the world traveler indeed.
Warning to the reader- this post is rated PG-13 due to some more mature topics. If you might be offended by these, please skip Love Motels.
Number One: Food
Well duh, you might be thinking. Korean people eat barbeque and kimchee, Japanese people eat sushi and tempura (among other things). But what I found fascinating as I wandered around Japan and sampled everything I could think of is that there is almost no spicy food in Japan. While in Korea I can only find food that is spicy and or sweet, the vast majority of Japanese food strongly tastes of sesame seed oil, ginger or soy sauce. A Korean ramyeon will make my eyes tear up and my nose run, but its Japanese cousin, the better known ramen, hasn’t even a hint of spice, unless you count the optional ginger sprinkled on top. Wasabi has a bite, yes, but it can’t even begin to compete in spiciness with the ubiquitous red pepper of Japan’s western neighbor.
Number Two: Expense
I’ve heard it before and I will repeat it for anyone who will listen. Japan is EXPENSIVE. Korea isn’t particularly cheap or anything but there are places to stay for 10 dollars a night and plenty of nice meals for under 5 dollars. Not so with Japan. And the yen is doing disgustingly well, particularly compared to the won. Japanese trips will bite you in the pocketbook.
Number Three: Love Motels
An interesting phenomenon exists in Korea. Children are expected to live with their parents until they are married and living alone is very frowned upon. This poses a problem for young Korean couples who feel a little frisky in the dating stage, particularly ones that are in their 20s. Rather than hiding in bushes like their teenage counterparts in the US (Korea, with its incredibly dense population, does have a dearth of sneaking away spots, so it would be hard for them to find any bushes anyway), a highly successful business of providing rooms has sprung up on practically every city street in Korea. The love motel is as common in Korea as Starbucks is in America, you cannot get very far without seeing a bright neon sign announcing the motel and garage entrances with the top half obscured by cords (to keep people from being able to see the drivers of the cars that go into the motels). They are frequented by amorous young couples, Korean men with their prostitutes, traveling foreigners and cheating couples. Love motels range from classy to creepy and are a wonderfully cheap option for a pair of travelers with no toothbrushes (for some reason every love motel provides a toothbrush to each of its guests). Even if you do have a toothbrush, love motels are highly convenient. My school put me up in one for my first four nights in Korea.
In Japan, I was curious to see if the love motel had found a similar niche in the landscape and society. I did find love motels, but it was quite a different experience. Japanese love motels are incredibly sketchy. They involve separate entrances and exits and rather than a front desk, they instead have a display of the available rooms, each with a picture that shows the theme of the room. If it’s lit up, it’s available. If not, well… don’t go in. I don’t expect they provide toothbrushes either. Pippi and I definitely decided that love motels in Japan were not friendly places for the low budget traveler, so I never will know exactly how they worked, but I don’t regret skipping the love motel and staying at a business hotel instead.
Number Four: Smell
No offense Korea, but you smell. You do. Face it. Rotting bags of kimchee on the street outside of restaurants lend a distinct odor to Korea that in the summer is simply too overwhelming to be ignored. And even though most Koreans don’t have terrible b.o. and thus deodorant is a scarce commodity, when you’re crammed onto the subway up to your eyeballs in people, the few that do need deodorant become painfully obvious.
Japan, on the other hand, seems to have a countrywide case of hygienic OCD. There is no smell, which is quite a relief, but in return you get a bidet unit on every private and nearly every public toilet, as well as silly little river sound makers to mask the noises of your toilet usage. For a few days after I returned from Japan, the bathroom sounded exceptionally quiet and I almost missed the gurgling brook accompaniment.
Number Five: English speaking ability
In Korea I have been somewhat spoiled. English is taught at public school now; most Koreans know a bit of English and can understand some of my most basic requests. Their accents are atrocious and they rarely can comprehend mine, which often leads to me being forced to speak Konglish (adding an uh or ee noise on the end of any word that ends with a hard consonant), but at least nearly everyone can say hello, English teacher, and where are you from (the vast majority of my conversations with random Koreans include those three phrases).
In Japan, very few people speak English. The average person on the street will not recognize anything more than Hello, and one is quickly reduced to elaborate and inaccurate sign language with hotel staff, waiters and bus drivers. Pippi and I went into one restaurant in Yufuin where the menu had no pictures, and since neither of us could read kanji and the waiter could speak absolutely no English, we were left looking quizzically around while the waiter shuffled his feet awkwardly in the kitchen. We were saved from starvation when our only fellow diner received her meal of tempura, which we pointed at frantically and held up two fingers, begging in English and repeating the word "tempura" like a mantra.
Fortunately, most major train stations have incredibly helpful information staff who assure you they can only speak a little English and then answer your complicated questions with clear accents and an excellent grasp of grammar. There appears to be no in between. So definitely learn the word for bathroom if you plan on going to Japan some time soon.
Obviously there was more- from differing fashion and hairstyles to completely different geography (the mini mountains of Korea are much different than the sharp volcanic peaks on the Japanese islands). There were different looking temples and castles, and all the Hyundais and Kias of Korea got traded for Hondas and Toyotas in Japan (that drove on the wrong side of the road). There were similarities too- the convenience stores had the same names and foods, many of the same brands existed in both countries and everyone had an unhealthy obsession with Hello Kitty (including Pippi). It was fun, and fascinating. And now I have two more stamps in my passport to show that I am quite the world traveler indeed.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Announcements!
Announcements, announcements, announcements! A horrible way to die, a horrible way to die, a horrible death to be talked to death, a horrible way to die!
Sorry, couldn't help it, too many years of girl scout camp have bred an inability to hear the word announcements without spontaneously bursting into song.
Hi everyone! Sorry I've been away for so long. Sarah (furthermore known as Pippi) was visiting and I was entertaining and being entertained. Also, I was in Japan for a week. So, I've been busy. I have not forgotten about the blog, I promise!
However, I am not going to put out A Day in the Life- Part 2 just yet. It takes me awhile to write these posts, it's late tonight, and I have two very important pieces of information to disseminate.
Number 1:
Fan Death is real. I know for a fact. I slept with my fan on, next to my bed, in a closed room for four nights and the fan died.
...
Ba dum ba!
Number 2: (the more important piece of news)
I am leaving Korea at the end of August. This probably doesn't come as a surprise to most of you, but I thought I'd make an official announcement on the blog. I am off to go sailing through Southeast Asia. I will be on a 40 foot yawl (type of sailboat) as part of a crew of 4. It will be completely awesome. We will be stopping in many different ports and visiting a bunch of countries.
So yes. You've all got about 3 more weeks of funny Korean tidbits and then it's off to Australia with me!
Sorry, couldn't help it, too many years of girl scout camp have bred an inability to hear the word announcements without spontaneously bursting into song.
Hi everyone! Sorry I've been away for so long. Sarah (furthermore known as Pippi) was visiting and I was entertaining and being entertained. Also, I was in Japan for a week. So, I've been busy. I have not forgotten about the blog, I promise!
However, I am not going to put out A Day in the Life- Part 2 just yet. It takes me awhile to write these posts, it's late tonight, and I have two very important pieces of information to disseminate.
Number 1:
Fan Death is real. I know for a fact. I slept with my fan on, next to my bed, in a closed room for four nights and the fan died.
...
Ba dum ba!
Number 2: (the more important piece of news)
I am leaving Korea at the end of August. This probably doesn't come as a surprise to most of you, but I thought I'd make an official announcement on the blog. I am off to go sailing through Southeast Asia. I will be on a 40 foot yawl (type of sailboat) as part of a crew of 4. It will be completely awesome. We will be stopping in many different ports and visiting a bunch of countries.
So yes. You've all got about 3 more weeks of funny Korean tidbits and then it's off to Australia with me!
Friday, July 2, 2010
A Day in the Life of Kirin Teacher: Part 1
Part 1- Kindergarten
Recently I realized that while I often post about cultural differences, fun events and amusing experiences so you all have a good grasp of how I entertain myself, I talk very little about what I actually do the vast majority of my waking hours. Thus, most of you have no real concept of what I do as my actual job. Well, wonder no longer. Allow me to introduce “A day in the life” in 2 parts- kindergarten and elementary. (I don’t think I can actually do both in one blog post- that’s too much free time at once being spent thinking about work.)
Today we’re doing kindergarten. My day starts every morning at 9:40 when I arrive ten minutes late to work. I’m sure this will come as no surprise that I am always late, but since class doesn’t start until 9:45, all I miss out on is “prep time” aka coffee time with Desert Boy and Indifferent (my other male coworker who does not care about anything except occasionally bickering with me purely for the sake of bickering- yesterday he argued with me when I said that the South African flag was colorful and last week he would not believe me that the summer solstice changed days from year to year). The Bodacious Brit does not arrive until later, so she also misses out on coffee hour, though I’m sure the boys enjoy their y-chromosome time and don’t want us there anyway.
So I rush into work, grab my basket and books and scuttle over to class. My first batch of children is the hellions. They arrive in various states: acting like dinosaurs and airplanes, dripping snot, hitting each other… you get the idea. There are actually now four of them, and they are a very different class from the babbling monsters I had back in March.
We start out our morning routine with “How are you feeling?” Answers vary from the expected (angry, sad, happy, sleepy) to the compound (happysad, angrysleepy, happyangrysad) to the absurd (turtle, dinosaur) to Korean gibberish. Once I’ve managed to drag a reasonable answer out of each and drawn a corresponding face on the board next to their name, we say what the weather is. This normally results in warfare, since there is only one weather sheet onto which the Velcro cloud, sun and rain are stuck, so regardless of how much I rotate and make sure that everyone has a turn, the others will always try to steal it from him.
Eventually the sheet gets onto the board, usually upside down. This instantaneously results in all four children swarming me, wrapping themselves around my legs and chanting “upside down, upside down”. This phenomenon is due to a desperate measure I took in one of my first weeks here, where I got fed up with the boys not understanding the concept of upside down and actually picked one up by the ankles so he got the point. Being 3 years old, he loved it and all the others wanted a turn too. So every day, except when my back simply won’t take it anymore, I find myself swinging the boys around by their ankles while they giggle and shout in mingled Korean and English.
Then it’s time for days of the week. I take down the flashcards from the wall (our walls are made of fabric so we can stick velcroed flashcards to them) and before I have even begun to arrange them on the table, all seven have been stolen. This used to annoy me, but really, the longer I drag this whole routine out, the less time I have to spend trying to find things to keep them happy, since they can really only focus on bookwork for about 10 to 15 minutes at best (sometimes, only 5) and I have 40 minutes a class period to keep them entertained. Eventually I manage to get all seven flashcards on the table, we sing the days of the week song and one lucky child is chosen to put the day on the board. It usually ends up upside down again.
Bookwork itself is unexciting, though I’m sure the whole thing would seem ridiculous to anyone else. I chant things for them to repeat, try to get them to answer questions, and struggle to keep them on their page numbers while they chatter away in Korean, pull faces, and constantly attempt to escape their chairs.
Then comes the dreaded snack time. I hate, loathe and detest snack time. I spend all of snack time cleaning up after spills if we have something liquid, scolding the boys for stealing from each other, keeping them from stuffing so much in their mouths that they can’t breathe and attempting to get them to eat, rather than throw, their food. I still expect to have to perform the Heimlich someday soon, particularly with the new boy who cannot chew and swallow food to save his life. I swear, he’s like a damn chipmunk, wandering around with food stashed in his cheek pockets for later consumption.
With snack completed, we move on to gym time, where I rest for a few minutes and watch them play on the little jungle gym in our school. Once I am mostly recovered we play “sleeping” where I pretend to sleep until they say “cockayo!” (Korean for cockadoodledoo) and then I lunge around trying to tickle them while yelling “Fee Fi Fo Fum, I smell the blood of a Korean…etc”. Desert Boy caught me doing this the other day and laughed himself silly, however, no one else has a class of 3 year olds, so everyone just lets me do whatever it takes to keep the hooligans entertained.
Then it’s another class with the hellions, which we finish up with song time. The boys beg for “check um chilies” (aka “Shake your Sillies”), a song in which they go running around the room screaming while I protect the CD player. If I’m feeling brave, I convince them to join me in “BINGO” or “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” as well.
An hour and a half has passed at this point, and I feel ready to die. Fortunately, I have my break and then lunch. Lunch is generally a strange concoction of bland Korean foods (we are at a kindergarten after all) and a soup that normally smells to Desert Boy like a golf course. Indifferent, Bodacious Brit, Desert Boy and I eat at our desks, hiding from the children, while the Korean teachers entertain them. During that time, Indifferent is sure to remind us that he only has one break every day, I will mostly likely punch Desert Boy for something offensive that he has said and Bodacious Brit usually says something completely inappropriate for work.
Then it’s onto kindergarten round two. My second class consists of ten four year olds who are considerably more civilized and thus, much cuter than the hellions. Our routines are much more reasonable and I get to feel like a teacher, rather than a performing monkey. We chant, we sing, they color, I direct and everything moves more or less according to plan. The children tattle on each other for speaking Korean every few seconds, pretend to get hurt to get out of class and generally act like children do. It’s refreshing. Though I do have to avoid the psycho killer child who is too busy plotting all of our murders to listen to anything I tell him, gives everyone the death glare, and draws pictures with teeth and fangs even if I have asked them to draw food or playground equipment. I also frequently find myself acting out strange things at the request of the students “Kirin teacher shark! Kirin teacher monster! Kirin teacher flower!”
Then 2:15 rolls around and kindergarten is done. The kiddies are sent on their way and I retreat to my desk to wait for the next onslaught.
Up next: elementary!
Recently I realized that while I often post about cultural differences, fun events and amusing experiences so you all have a good grasp of how I entertain myself, I talk very little about what I actually do the vast majority of my waking hours. Thus, most of you have no real concept of what I do as my actual job. Well, wonder no longer. Allow me to introduce “A day in the life” in 2 parts- kindergarten and elementary. (I don’t think I can actually do both in one blog post- that’s too much free time at once being spent thinking about work.)
Today we’re doing kindergarten. My day starts every morning at 9:40 when I arrive ten minutes late to work. I’m sure this will come as no surprise that I am always late, but since class doesn’t start until 9:45, all I miss out on is “prep time” aka coffee time with Desert Boy and Indifferent (my other male coworker who does not care about anything except occasionally bickering with me purely for the sake of bickering- yesterday he argued with me when I said that the South African flag was colorful and last week he would not believe me that the summer solstice changed days from year to year). The Bodacious Brit does not arrive until later, so she also misses out on coffee hour, though I’m sure the boys enjoy their y-chromosome time and don’t want us there anyway.
So I rush into work, grab my basket and books and scuttle over to class. My first batch of children is the hellions. They arrive in various states: acting like dinosaurs and airplanes, dripping snot, hitting each other… you get the idea. There are actually now four of them, and they are a very different class from the babbling monsters I had back in March.
We start out our morning routine with “How are you feeling?” Answers vary from the expected (angry, sad, happy, sleepy) to the compound (happysad, angrysleepy, happyangrysad) to the absurd (turtle, dinosaur) to Korean gibberish. Once I’ve managed to drag a reasonable answer out of each and drawn a corresponding face on the board next to their name, we say what the weather is. This normally results in warfare, since there is only one weather sheet onto which the Velcro cloud, sun and rain are stuck, so regardless of how much I rotate and make sure that everyone has a turn, the others will always try to steal it from him.
Eventually the sheet gets onto the board, usually upside down. This instantaneously results in all four children swarming me, wrapping themselves around my legs and chanting “upside down, upside down”. This phenomenon is due to a desperate measure I took in one of my first weeks here, where I got fed up with the boys not understanding the concept of upside down and actually picked one up by the ankles so he got the point. Being 3 years old, he loved it and all the others wanted a turn too. So every day, except when my back simply won’t take it anymore, I find myself swinging the boys around by their ankles while they giggle and shout in mingled Korean and English.
Then it’s time for days of the week. I take down the flashcards from the wall (our walls are made of fabric so we can stick velcroed flashcards to them) and before I have even begun to arrange them on the table, all seven have been stolen. This used to annoy me, but really, the longer I drag this whole routine out, the less time I have to spend trying to find things to keep them happy, since they can really only focus on bookwork for about 10 to 15 minutes at best (sometimes, only 5) and I have 40 minutes a class period to keep them entertained. Eventually I manage to get all seven flashcards on the table, we sing the days of the week song and one lucky child is chosen to put the day on the board. It usually ends up upside down again.
Bookwork itself is unexciting, though I’m sure the whole thing would seem ridiculous to anyone else. I chant things for them to repeat, try to get them to answer questions, and struggle to keep them on their page numbers while they chatter away in Korean, pull faces, and constantly attempt to escape their chairs.
Then comes the dreaded snack time. I hate, loathe and detest snack time. I spend all of snack time cleaning up after spills if we have something liquid, scolding the boys for stealing from each other, keeping them from stuffing so much in their mouths that they can’t breathe and attempting to get them to eat, rather than throw, their food. I still expect to have to perform the Heimlich someday soon, particularly with the new boy who cannot chew and swallow food to save his life. I swear, he’s like a damn chipmunk, wandering around with food stashed in his cheek pockets for later consumption.
With snack completed, we move on to gym time, where I rest for a few minutes and watch them play on the little jungle gym in our school. Once I am mostly recovered we play “sleeping” where I pretend to sleep until they say “cockayo!” (Korean for cockadoodledoo) and then I lunge around trying to tickle them while yelling “Fee Fi Fo Fum, I smell the blood of a Korean…etc”. Desert Boy caught me doing this the other day and laughed himself silly, however, no one else has a class of 3 year olds, so everyone just lets me do whatever it takes to keep the hooligans entertained.
Then it’s another class with the hellions, which we finish up with song time. The boys beg for “check um chilies” (aka “Shake your Sillies”), a song in which they go running around the room screaming while I protect the CD player. If I’m feeling brave, I convince them to join me in “BINGO” or “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” as well.
An hour and a half has passed at this point, and I feel ready to die. Fortunately, I have my break and then lunch. Lunch is generally a strange concoction of bland Korean foods (we are at a kindergarten after all) and a soup that normally smells to Desert Boy like a golf course. Indifferent, Bodacious Brit, Desert Boy and I eat at our desks, hiding from the children, while the Korean teachers entertain them. During that time, Indifferent is sure to remind us that he only has one break every day, I will mostly likely punch Desert Boy for something offensive that he has said and Bodacious Brit usually says something completely inappropriate for work.
Then it’s onto kindergarten round two. My second class consists of ten four year olds who are considerably more civilized and thus, much cuter than the hellions. Our routines are much more reasonable and I get to feel like a teacher, rather than a performing monkey. We chant, we sing, they color, I direct and everything moves more or less according to plan. The children tattle on each other for speaking Korean every few seconds, pretend to get hurt to get out of class and generally act like children do. It’s refreshing. Though I do have to avoid the psycho killer child who is too busy plotting all of our murders to listen to anything I tell him, gives everyone the death glare, and draws pictures with teeth and fangs even if I have asked them to draw food or playground equipment. I also frequently find myself acting out strange things at the request of the students “Kirin teacher shark! Kirin teacher monster! Kirin teacher flower!”
Then 2:15 rolls around and kindergarten is done. The kiddies are sent on their way and I retreat to my desk to wait for the next onslaught.
Up next: elementary!
Sunday, June 27, 2010
We will to victory! Korea Fighting.
Korea is bound and determined to change me into a football (oops! soccer) fan.
After watching my brother and sister play soccer for upward of 12 years, you’d think I’d have gained some sort of attachment to the sport. However, I have proven entirely immune to the draw of soccer and have avoided most games and certainly never gone out of my way to watch any kind of soccer match. If I am going to a game it is probably because I am being dragged there, and if someone is trying to get me to watch it on TV, it’s simply a lost cause.
Until now.
As I’m sure all of you are aware, the World Cup has been going on for the last two weeks or so and, out of the blue, I have become a hard core soccer fan. I dress in my team’s colors, know all the chants and dance moves, scream when we score and generally make an obnoxious prick out of myself wherever I am watching the game.
The catch- I am supporting Korea. Well, I was, though we lost last night, so I imagine I will revert back to my normal, sports oblivious self very soon.
I still don’t actually care much for the game. I mean, it looks pretty fun to play, and I’m sure it’s great to watch if you’re into that kind of thing, but I’m really just in it for the mob mentality. Because when Korea gets patriotic, they get PATRIOTIC. They don’t do national pride halfheartedly here. This means that on game day, about 75% of the country is wearing red shirts that say things like “Korean victory- Begin to 2010”, “We will to victory”, “The shouts of the reds, United Korea” or my personal favorite “Korea fighting”. Every single one of my elementary students wrote about Korea’s first game in their journals, and I expect this week that they will write devastatingly depressing entries about the loss to Uruguay that sent us out of the running. Park Jisung (Korea’s star player) is a national hero and all of the boys I teach are eager to become him. My Korean coworkers have taken to chanting the national chant to their kindergarteners to instill them with the appropriate Korean pride. The chant, by the way, goes something like this:
Dae Han Minguk! [clapclap, clapclap, clap] (repeat as many times as interest remains)(Dae Han Minguk means Republic of Korea)
If one chants this on a game day to any passing Korean, they have about a 95% chance of getting a reply in kind. If one simply shouts it out on the street that chance will increase to 100%.
And so, for the first game against Greece, I found myself decked out in a “Shouts of the Reds” shirt and a “Begin to 2010” bandana, hiding from the rain and watching the game in a Korean BBQ restaurant. That meal was interspersed with restaurant-wide Dae Han Minguk chants, a few national pride songs and a lot of shouting at the screen. Later that night, I found myself in a pub half filled with Americans and half filled with Brits to watch the England-US game, but I found that less exciting than constantly cheering in Korean. (though still entertaining; Americans are bloody obnoxious and the Brits are excessively calm)
My next game was the most exciting, though also the most depressing to watch. I schlepped myself over to Hongik University on a weeknight to watch Argentina destroy South Korea. So I found myself surrounded by thousands of Korean university students wearing red devil shirts, blinking red devil horns and Korean flags. We clapped, we chanted, we sang, we jumped, we danced and I lost my voice and couldn’t talk at work the next day.
And I’ve just watched my final game, hanging out in the rain outside a convenience store on an island. I mean, that shows dedication, doesn’t it? I could have been in my nice little beach hut, but instead I came out to cheer for my team.
Apparently it took coming to another country for me to realize how much the rest of the world likes soccer, but oh, they do. We definitely just don’t get it in America and I recommend hanging out in a foreign country during the next World Cup. They know how to watch their soccer.
So, we may not have to victoried this year, but begin to 2014, we will to victory. Dae Han Minguk!
After watching my brother and sister play soccer for upward of 12 years, you’d think I’d have gained some sort of attachment to the sport. However, I have proven entirely immune to the draw of soccer and have avoided most games and certainly never gone out of my way to watch any kind of soccer match. If I am going to a game it is probably because I am being dragged there, and if someone is trying to get me to watch it on TV, it’s simply a lost cause.
Until now.
As I’m sure all of you are aware, the World Cup has been going on for the last two weeks or so and, out of the blue, I have become a hard core soccer fan. I dress in my team’s colors, know all the chants and dance moves, scream when we score and generally make an obnoxious prick out of myself wherever I am watching the game.
The catch- I am supporting Korea. Well, I was, though we lost last night, so I imagine I will revert back to my normal, sports oblivious self very soon.
I still don’t actually care much for the game. I mean, it looks pretty fun to play, and I’m sure it’s great to watch if you’re into that kind of thing, but I’m really just in it for the mob mentality. Because when Korea gets patriotic, they get PATRIOTIC. They don’t do national pride halfheartedly here. This means that on game day, about 75% of the country is wearing red shirts that say things like “Korean victory- Begin to 2010”, “We will to victory”, “The shouts of the reds, United Korea” or my personal favorite “Korea fighting”. Every single one of my elementary students wrote about Korea’s first game in their journals, and I expect this week that they will write devastatingly depressing entries about the loss to Uruguay that sent us out of the running. Park Jisung (Korea’s star player) is a national hero and all of the boys I teach are eager to become him. My Korean coworkers have taken to chanting the national chant to their kindergarteners to instill them with the appropriate Korean pride. The chant, by the way, goes something like this:
Dae Han Minguk! [clapclap, clapclap, clap] (repeat as many times as interest remains)(Dae Han Minguk means Republic of Korea)
If one chants this on a game day to any passing Korean, they have about a 95% chance of getting a reply in kind. If one simply shouts it out on the street that chance will increase to 100%.
And so, for the first game against Greece, I found myself decked out in a “Shouts of the Reds” shirt and a “Begin to 2010” bandana, hiding from the rain and watching the game in a Korean BBQ restaurant. That meal was interspersed with restaurant-wide Dae Han Minguk chants, a few national pride songs and a lot of shouting at the screen. Later that night, I found myself in a pub half filled with Americans and half filled with Brits to watch the England-US game, but I found that less exciting than constantly cheering in Korean. (though still entertaining; Americans are bloody obnoxious and the Brits are excessively calm)
My next game was the most exciting, though also the most depressing to watch. I schlepped myself over to Hongik University on a weeknight to watch Argentina destroy South Korea. So I found myself surrounded by thousands of Korean university students wearing red devil shirts, blinking red devil horns and Korean flags. We clapped, we chanted, we sang, we jumped, we danced and I lost my voice and couldn’t talk at work the next day.
And I’ve just watched my final game, hanging out in the rain outside a convenience store on an island. I mean, that shows dedication, doesn’t it? I could have been in my nice little beach hut, but instead I came out to cheer for my team.
Apparently it took coming to another country for me to realize how much the rest of the world likes soccer, but oh, they do. We definitely just don’t get it in America and I recommend hanging out in a foreign country during the next World Cup. They know how to watch their soccer.
So, we may not have to victoried this year, but begin to 2014, we will to victory. Dae Han Minguk!
Monday, June 14, 2010
step aside, Klondike
One of my favorite things about my job these days are the field trips that we take with kindergarten. Field trips generally mean longer lunch breaks, no kindergarten classes, goof off time with the kids, some level of chaos, and an amusing destination to remind me that there is a world outside of my hagwon on weekdays.
Sometimes field trips are fun and work out well, sometimes they are a bit of a mess, and sometimes they are a little bit on the... odd side. I thought that things were pretty weird when we took the kids to the transportation museum where we talked about all the various ways they could get hit by a car and watched a Korean equivalent to Red Asphalt (fyi, if you weren't forced to go through that traumatizing movie in a driver's ed class, it's an intensely bloody movie about car accidents). I mean, I enjoyed our safety video with the little magical fairy man showing the children in the movie how they could have horribly died ten times in the course of their normal day, but really, I think this could have been a bit much for 3, 4, and 5 year olds. I have to admit, I was really entertained by the miniature intersections they had set up where the tour guides for the museum showed our kids how to raise their hands when they crossed the street and had us practice about 15 times.
But, by and large, things are normally pretty good. So when I heard that we were going to the "Fun, fun science museum", I was amused by the name, but not unduly concerned. That changed fairly quickly when we got to the place.
Now, I'd been expecting a building dedicated to teaching kids about science. Which isn't that weird... I've been to plenty of children's science museums back home, and they're all pretty legit. Most of our field trips thus far had been to real places, I had no reason to suspect otherwise. So when we pulled up to jankety three story building in a somewhat sketchy part of town, I figured that the bus driver had just gotten lost again (they rely way too heavily on their GPS units and will actually ignore you if you try to point out that there is a detour or roadblock, or that the entrance to where you are going is just off to the left even though the GPS says to go straight). Unfortunately, our bus driver was spot on.
Welcome to the Fun Fun Science Museum, which is on the second and third floor of this building, up a narrow flight of stairs. If you want to go to the third floor, you'll need to ask the nice lady with the keys to open it for you. But why would you want to go up there anyway? There's lots to do downstairs- like look at the beer can fountain, examine the tongue shaped bottle opener, listen to the head of the Maestro tell you your future from his magical box or put on the gorilla head mask.
Perhaps needless to say, I was creeped out. As were the other three foreign teachers. It was sort of like some really bizarre knick knack collector had taken the contents of his garage and stuffed them onto shelves in a room. We hung back as our kids seated themselves for a show (we were the only group at the Fun Fun Science Museum), and began discussing where we should be expecting to find the dead babies. The suit of armor was a major contender.
When the Korean equivalent of the mad professor (our show host) pulled out a huge canister of liquid nitrogen, I began to wonder what it said in my contract about my responsibilities if the children were hurt on a field trip. I mean, I love playing with liquid nitrogen as much as the next nerdy science person, but I'm pretty sure that three is an early age to be exposing children to dangerous substances.
Things seemed to be going okay though. The nutty professor was freezing balloons and feeding the children frozen crackers to make them breathe steam. Assuming that the crackers weren't poisoned (to add to the dead baby collection)(I really hope they weren't, since I was dragged up as an amusing foreigner to eat a cracker too), this seemed pretty benign.
I began to calm down. The kids were having a good time, any dead bodies that may have been there were either fresh enough or well preserved enough for us not to smell decay, and I was even growing used to hearing the Maestro's creepy predictions about my dire end with Disneyland's Haunted Mansion-esk music playing in the background.
And then the mad professor went for the fish.
We should have seen it coming. I mean, you've got two fish hanging out on your demonstration table (in a fish tank) and a canister of liquid nitrogen. What better ideas do you have?
Yes. Yes, he did. He froze the fish.
As it turns out, there is no language barrier for horrified gasps.
And if that wasn't bad enough, he then dropped the fish popsicle on the table accidentally. My coworkers and I almost all had simultaneous heart attacks. The kids were looking severely shocked and even the Korean teachers were looking a little uncomfortable with this rather inhumane treatment of a frozen fish. So, with apologetic looks, he dropped the fish back into the fish tank where it made like a zombie and came back to life.
We were still shocked. So was the fish. It swam in spastic little circles for the remaining 20 minutes of the show, though that may also have had something to do with the active Tesla coil next to its tank. I later examined it closely for dents, or chipped bits, but it seemed to have remained mostly intact.
So it is true, that you can freeze a fish with liquid nitrogen and then bring it back to life. But I don't recommend it, unless you feel like severely traumatizing someone. Then, I definitely recommend it. I'm not sure I will ever be able to look at a goldfish the same way again.
Sometimes field trips are fun and work out well, sometimes they are a bit of a mess, and sometimes they are a little bit on the... odd side. I thought that things were pretty weird when we took the kids to the transportation museum where we talked about all the various ways they could get hit by a car and watched a Korean equivalent to Red Asphalt (fyi, if you weren't forced to go through that traumatizing movie in a driver's ed class, it's an intensely bloody movie about car accidents). I mean, I enjoyed our safety video with the little magical fairy man showing the children in the movie how they could have horribly died ten times in the course of their normal day, but really, I think this could have been a bit much for 3, 4, and 5 year olds. I have to admit, I was really entertained by the miniature intersections they had set up where the tour guides for the museum showed our kids how to raise their hands when they crossed the street and had us practice about 15 times.
But, by and large, things are normally pretty good. So when I heard that we were going to the "Fun, fun science museum", I was amused by the name, but not unduly concerned. That changed fairly quickly when we got to the place.
Now, I'd been expecting a building dedicated to teaching kids about science. Which isn't that weird... I've been to plenty of children's science museums back home, and they're all pretty legit. Most of our field trips thus far had been to real places, I had no reason to suspect otherwise. So when we pulled up to jankety three story building in a somewhat sketchy part of town, I figured that the bus driver had just gotten lost again (they rely way too heavily on their GPS units and will actually ignore you if you try to point out that there is a detour or roadblock, or that the entrance to where you are going is just off to the left even though the GPS says to go straight). Unfortunately, our bus driver was spot on.
Welcome to the Fun Fun Science Museum, which is on the second and third floor of this building, up a narrow flight of stairs. If you want to go to the third floor, you'll need to ask the nice lady with the keys to open it for you. But why would you want to go up there anyway? There's lots to do downstairs- like look at the beer can fountain, examine the tongue shaped bottle opener, listen to the head of the Maestro tell you your future from his magical box or put on the gorilla head mask.
Perhaps needless to say, I was creeped out. As were the other three foreign teachers. It was sort of like some really bizarre knick knack collector had taken the contents of his garage and stuffed them onto shelves in a room. We hung back as our kids seated themselves for a show (we were the only group at the Fun Fun Science Museum), and began discussing where we should be expecting to find the dead babies. The suit of armor was a major contender.
When the Korean equivalent of the mad professor (our show host) pulled out a huge canister of liquid nitrogen, I began to wonder what it said in my contract about my responsibilities if the children were hurt on a field trip. I mean, I love playing with liquid nitrogen as much as the next nerdy science person, but I'm pretty sure that three is an early age to be exposing children to dangerous substances.
Things seemed to be going okay though. The nutty professor was freezing balloons and feeding the children frozen crackers to make them breathe steam. Assuming that the crackers weren't poisoned (to add to the dead baby collection)(I really hope they weren't, since I was dragged up as an amusing foreigner to eat a cracker too), this seemed pretty benign.
I began to calm down. The kids were having a good time, any dead bodies that may have been there were either fresh enough or well preserved enough for us not to smell decay, and I was even growing used to hearing the Maestro's creepy predictions about my dire end with Disneyland's Haunted Mansion-esk music playing in the background.
And then the mad professor went for the fish.
We should have seen it coming. I mean, you've got two fish hanging out on your demonstration table (in a fish tank) and a canister of liquid nitrogen. What better ideas do you have?
Yes. Yes, he did. He froze the fish.
As it turns out, there is no language barrier for horrified gasps.
And if that wasn't bad enough, he then dropped the fish popsicle on the table accidentally. My coworkers and I almost all had simultaneous heart attacks. The kids were looking severely shocked and even the Korean teachers were looking a little uncomfortable with this rather inhumane treatment of a frozen fish. So, with apologetic looks, he dropped the fish back into the fish tank where it made like a zombie and came back to life.
We were still shocked. So was the fish. It swam in spastic little circles for the remaining 20 minutes of the show, though that may also have had something to do with the active Tesla coil next to its tank. I later examined it closely for dents, or chipped bits, but it seemed to have remained mostly intact.
So it is true, that you can freeze a fish with liquid nitrogen and then bring it back to life. But I don't recommend it, unless you feel like severely traumatizing someone. Then, I definitely recommend it. I'm not sure I will ever be able to look at a goldfish the same way again.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Just plain bizarre
Well, I've been here three months now and the weather has finally changed. The winter that would never end has given way to balmy nights, hot days, humid air, and blazing hot mornings in my apartment (the windows face east, which means that I cannot keep my apartment below 88 degrees in the morning). At my yoga studio (I did end up joining one that was better, cheaper and did not involve stomach molestation), they no longer need to heat the room for hot yoga. Restaurants have moved seating outdoors and my stingy director has even given in to turning on the air conditioner in the school so that the children will not die of heat stroke.
In keeping with my environmental nut-case ways, I have avoided turning on my AC yet (this might help with the whole 88 degrees thing, but I am a stubborn mule when I want to be). Instead, I have employed the use of a trusty fan. Or at least, so I thought...
Turns out in Korea, fans are not so trusty.
Unbeknownst to the rest of the modern world is the strange urban legend that having a fan on in a closed room will kill a sleeping person. This phenomenon is known as Fan Death. I'm not exactly sure where this idea came from, as it only exists in South Korea, but Korean reporters have regularly claim that a number of people have died in the summer due to fan related causes.
Now, I haven't really tested this one out on many Korean adults yet, but many of the students at the school have assured my coworkers and I that Fan Death is a real thing. We will apparently die because the moving fan blades will cut up the air so small that we will not be able to breathe it...
Most fans sold in Korea come with timers so you can set them to turn off before they kill you in your sleep.
So now I'm tempted to ride on bus number 4 (the Korean superstitious number- my school does not have a bus number 4 even though there are 4 buses. We skip from 3 to 5.) on Friday the 13th as a black cat crosses my path. When I get home I will open an umbrella indoors. Then I will shatter a mirror as I walk under a ladder to get to my bed where I will sleep with a fan on.
I can disrespect superstitions multi-culturally!
(Much love to all my superstitious readers.)
In keeping with my environmental nut-case ways, I have avoided turning on my AC yet (this might help with the whole 88 degrees thing, but I am a stubborn mule when I want to be). Instead, I have employed the use of a trusty fan. Or at least, so I thought...
Turns out in Korea, fans are not so trusty.
Unbeknownst to the rest of the modern world is the strange urban legend that having a fan on in a closed room will kill a sleeping person. This phenomenon is known as Fan Death. I'm not exactly sure where this idea came from, as it only exists in South Korea, but Korean reporters have regularly claim that a number of people have died in the summer due to fan related causes.
Now, I haven't really tested this one out on many Korean adults yet, but many of the students at the school have assured my coworkers and I that Fan Death is a real thing. We will apparently die because the moving fan blades will cut up the air so small that we will not be able to breathe it...
Most fans sold in Korea come with timers so you can set them to turn off before they kill you in your sleep.
So now I'm tempted to ride on bus number 4 (the Korean superstitious number- my school does not have a bus number 4 even though there are 4 buses. We skip from 3 to 5.) on Friday the 13th as a black cat crosses my path. When I get home I will open an umbrella indoors. Then I will shatter a mirror as I walk under a ladder to get to my bed where I will sleep with a fan on.
I can disrespect superstitions multi-culturally!
(Much love to all my superstitious readers.)
Thursday, May 27, 2010
A Scoop of a Different Flavor
Up until yesterday, I thought that Korea had pretty normal ice cream. The country is a bit obsessed with Baskin Robbins 31 Flavors (there are about 3 within about a 5 minute walking distance from my work), and most of the ice cream I’d seen was pretty standard. Now, I may have thought this a wee bit unusual- when Korea tries to do non-Korean food, they tend to Koreanify it (which generally means making it excessively sweet and/or spicy), but I just figured that the appeal of ice cream was universal. It took a visit from Britt (now Snarky) and her boyfriend to show me just how wrong I was.
Snarky and Boyfriend have been visiting me for about a week now and I’ve learned that I am perhaps not meant to be a tour guide. I managed to completely fail at public transportation the night I picked them up from the airport… which meant that we got dumped off on a deserted, misty beach in the middle of the night by the bus that was supposedly taking us home. I’ve taken them on a beach themed island trip that was spent almost entirely in a chilly drizzle. I failed to adequately explain aspects of the subway system which lead to them getting sent off into the mountains when they were trying to come home from Seoul- again in the middle of the night. But! I think they’re having a good time.
As it turns out, Snarky’s boyfriend’s favorite pastime in a foreign country is to try every type of snack he can find. While this has led to an unimaginable number of wrappers suddenly appearing all over my apartment, it has also led to some very entertaining food discoveries. Such as yesterday’s Haebong ice cream experience.
Now what sounds better than a waffle cone with ice cream? How about a waffle (just skip the cone aspect) with two scoops of ice cream, fruit flavored sauce and whipped cream? Sounds pretty good, right? Perhaps a little decadent, but they’re on vacation and I’m on… er… special Kirin time (well, I don’t always get visitors, so I figure I’ve got some leeway, right?). So we decided to give it a try. Plus, the décor of the restaurant was quite a bold statement- bright, bright, BRIGHT pinks, blues and yellows screaming all over the chairs and tables, with a mascot of a funny little wannabe gangster punk looking drugged out on two scoops of ice cream.
Unfortunately, as we discovered at the counter, none of the ice cream flavors were in English. Instead, they all had absurd looking pictures of the flavors that they represented. Snarky, her Boyfriend, and I were fascinated by the black ice cream with the picture of what looked like powdered coal with a smiley face. With elaborate sign language we managed to obtain a sample of this mysterious flavor.
OMG. Our first idea was “Seaweed????? WTF??” and then we realized it was sesame. Yes. Sesame flavored ice cream. And I don’t just mean a hint of sesame. As Snarky put it, it was like they took a bowl of ground sesame seeds, added milk and sugar and froze it.
That was rather ghastly. As was the cheese flavored ice cream. The cactus flavor was… interesting, and the coffee flavor was stronger than a real cup of coffee. When Haebong makes ice cream, they don’t mess around. They take flavors to a whole new extreme. And in case you were wondering, green tea and waffle are not a good combination.
Snarky and Boyfriend have been visiting me for about a week now and I’ve learned that I am perhaps not meant to be a tour guide. I managed to completely fail at public transportation the night I picked them up from the airport… which meant that we got dumped off on a deserted, misty beach in the middle of the night by the bus that was supposedly taking us home. I’ve taken them on a beach themed island trip that was spent almost entirely in a chilly drizzle. I failed to adequately explain aspects of the subway system which lead to them getting sent off into the mountains when they were trying to come home from Seoul- again in the middle of the night. But! I think they’re having a good time.
As it turns out, Snarky’s boyfriend’s favorite pastime in a foreign country is to try every type of snack he can find. While this has led to an unimaginable number of wrappers suddenly appearing all over my apartment, it has also led to some very entertaining food discoveries. Such as yesterday’s Haebong ice cream experience.
Now what sounds better than a waffle cone with ice cream? How about a waffle (just skip the cone aspect) with two scoops of ice cream, fruit flavored sauce and whipped cream? Sounds pretty good, right? Perhaps a little decadent, but they’re on vacation and I’m on… er… special Kirin time (well, I don’t always get visitors, so I figure I’ve got some leeway, right?). So we decided to give it a try. Plus, the décor of the restaurant was quite a bold statement- bright, bright, BRIGHT pinks, blues and yellows screaming all over the chairs and tables, with a mascot of a funny little wannabe gangster punk looking drugged out on two scoops of ice cream.
Unfortunately, as we discovered at the counter, none of the ice cream flavors were in English. Instead, they all had absurd looking pictures of the flavors that they represented. Snarky, her Boyfriend, and I were fascinated by the black ice cream with the picture of what looked like powdered coal with a smiley face. With elaborate sign language we managed to obtain a sample of this mysterious flavor.
OMG. Our first idea was “Seaweed????? WTF??” and then we realized it was sesame. Yes. Sesame flavored ice cream. And I don’t just mean a hint of sesame. As Snarky put it, it was like they took a bowl of ground sesame seeds, added milk and sugar and froze it.
That was rather ghastly. As was the cheese flavored ice cream. The cactus flavor was… interesting, and the coffee flavor was stronger than a real cup of coffee. When Haebong makes ice cream, they don’t mess around. They take flavors to a whole new extreme. And in case you were wondering, green tea and waffle are not a good combination.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Big Brother is watching
Usually when people start hearing disembodied voices, they begin to become a little concerned. While this may have been true of me in the past, it is no longer. As long as said disembodied voices are in Korean, I assume that all is well. I simply roll over in my bed and mutter irritably "I'm going to write a blog about you" before going back to sleep.
Or maybe I'm being warned about something terribly important and I will never know until it is too late because I have failed to master the Korean language in two and a half months.
...
When I first heard disembodied voices in Korean in my apartment, making something that sounded like an important announcement, I thought that I was going mad. Then I decided it must be a noise from the street. But no. Desert Boy (who lives in the same apartment complex) called me moments afterward to ask if I too had heard the voice.
Feeling more than slightly alarmed at proving the disembodied voice to be real (Desert Boy was not just playing an elaborate prank on me), I set out on a search for the source of the voice. This was a very short quest, as I looked at my ceiling and discovered a speaker built in next to the light.
I have no idea why these announcements happen, what they are about and why there is a speaker in my apartment that allows someone to randomly broadcast into my private living space. I am disturbed. And, particularly on this Saturday morning around 9AM, rather annoyed. And perhaps a little amused as well.
Now I can only hope that there are no cameras...
Or maybe I'm being warned about something terribly important and I will never know until it is too late because I have failed to master the Korean language in two and a half months.
...
When I first heard disembodied voices in Korean in my apartment, making something that sounded like an important announcement, I thought that I was going mad. Then I decided it must be a noise from the street. But no. Desert Boy (who lives in the same apartment complex) called me moments afterward to ask if I too had heard the voice.
Feeling more than slightly alarmed at proving the disembodied voice to be real (Desert Boy was not just playing an elaborate prank on me), I set out on a search for the source of the voice. This was a very short quest, as I looked at my ceiling and discovered a speaker built in next to the light.
I have no idea why these announcements happen, what they are about and why there is a speaker in my apartment that allows someone to randomly broadcast into my private living space. I am disturbed. And, particularly on this Saturday morning around 9AM, rather annoyed. And perhaps a little amused as well.
Now I can only hope that there are no cameras...
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Yoga Quest
So, with two months under my belt and the vocabulary of a one year old with a bad accent I recently decided that it was time to venture forth and go where no one has dared go before. Yoga class.
Now, with all things in Korea, this is easier said than done. I first got the idea from a Korean coworker who was doing something called "hot yoga" in a nearby gym. While this sounded like utter madness to me at first (hot yoga takes place in a sauna at about 88 degrees), as the days remained cold, I decided to give it a shot. It seemed pretty easy to find- she said that the gym was right across the street. However, if you think this is easy, you are perhaps unaware or forgetting (as I did) that Korea exists essentially in vertical space, not horizontal. So across the street left me with three corners to choose from, each with a ten or more story building packed with at least ten retail options per floor.
After about a week, I managed to locate the place, but then shied away after the $300 for 3 months price tag was revealed. The quest continued. Now, with the hot yoga idea lodged in my brain, I resorted to taking pictures of hot yoga advertisements and pulling tabs off flyers. These attempts led me to all Korean websites (again, not terribly helpful) and got me phone numbers with confused Koreans on the other end of the line, not understanding a word of English that I desperately babbled at them. Psh. Story of my life.
I did eventually manage to navigate my way around one of the Korean websites and was able to (sort of) figure out the address of one of these yoga places. This is actually one of the lovely things about being able to read Korean- it's a really easy alphabet to learn and then there are all sorts of words that are actually English ones written in Korean. Thus, reading the address led me to discover that there was a yoga studio in the Mega Plus Building near my workplace. The Korean literally read Mega Plusu Building.
Again, disappointment! I found my way in, but the price tag was even higher ($400 for 3 months). I don't even know if I like yoga, let alone in a sauna! I was feeling pretty sure yoga studios could be cheaper than this, so I continued on, somewhat disheartened.
Then a few days later, wonder of wonders, I found a studio in the same building that I work in, only a floor above. A dream come true! I wandered in and was immediately offered jasmine tea. Then the woman there proceeded to very earnestly explain to me in Korean what they did at the studio. She was aware of my lack of language skills, so many of her explanations were accompanied by sign language and acting. It was like a very elaborate game of charades, but even if I said the right answer, neither of us knew. After about 30 minutes and a drum performance by the other woman in the studio, they called another woman who worked there that spoke fluent English. We set an appointment for the next day.
I went in feeling very hopeful. The atmosphere was peaceful, the women were nice and it was so close! What could be wrong with it?
Well... I've always been one to respect mysticism from a distance, but as soon as the woman started talking about my fire energy and my water energy and how I had blockages in my heart, head and intestines that needed to be cleared, I began to have misgivings. According to her, people are supposed to have water in their head, and fire in their intestines, but most people (obviously including myself, otherwise, why would I need the studio?) had their fire energy in their head and their water energy in their intestines. She was very disappointed to hear that I did not have a stomachache or a headache, let alone severe migraines or gastrointestinal problems.
Then it got kinda weird. She asked if I had time for her to clear the blockages and when I said that I was free for another 30 minutes, she led me into a small room with a mat. There she proceeded to test my flexibility and my balance. She seemed also disappointed by the fact that I could stand on one foot for ten seconds, but was pleased when I fell over while trying to balance with my eyes closed. This was because I lacked internal focus (duh). (btw, you should try balancing on one foot with your eyes closed- it's very hard). Apparently my heart had blockages, because when she pressed hard on my sternum, it hurt. And then she proceeded to massage my intestines for 10 minutes.
There's really no way I can explain that.
Obviously, I also had blockages there, because when she shoved her palm into my gut, it was painful. But she assured me that after she used her healing energy, my stomach's fire energy would be restored.
I do not recommend having your intestines massaged. It is simultaneously painful, ticklish and awkward. After 10 minutes, my stomach certainly was feeling much warmer, which was proof of my spiritual recalibration.
And then at the end, the price tag again. I could have all this (which included three weekly one hour sessions with drumming, dancing, singing and some yoga), for... $300 for 3 months. WTF mate??? Oh yes, and I also was told that there were three different plans I could buy. A three month membership would allow me to pour out the mud that was in my body, a six month plan would then wash away the remains of the mud and a year plan would allow me to fill my body with clean water.
...
I have still not joined a yoga studio, though there is yet another that I am planning on checking out. Wish me luck...
Now, with all things in Korea, this is easier said than done. I first got the idea from a Korean coworker who was doing something called "hot yoga" in a nearby gym. While this sounded like utter madness to me at first (hot yoga takes place in a sauna at about 88 degrees), as the days remained cold, I decided to give it a shot. It seemed pretty easy to find- she said that the gym was right across the street. However, if you think this is easy, you are perhaps unaware or forgetting (as I did) that Korea exists essentially in vertical space, not horizontal. So across the street left me with three corners to choose from, each with a ten or more story building packed with at least ten retail options per floor.
After about a week, I managed to locate the place, but then shied away after the $300 for 3 months price tag was revealed. The quest continued. Now, with the hot yoga idea lodged in my brain, I resorted to taking pictures of hot yoga advertisements and pulling tabs off flyers. These attempts led me to all Korean websites (again, not terribly helpful) and got me phone numbers with confused Koreans on the other end of the line, not understanding a word of English that I desperately babbled at them. Psh. Story of my life.
I did eventually manage to navigate my way around one of the Korean websites and was able to (sort of) figure out the address of one of these yoga places. This is actually one of the lovely things about being able to read Korean- it's a really easy alphabet to learn and then there are all sorts of words that are actually English ones written in Korean. Thus, reading the address led me to discover that there was a yoga studio in the Mega Plus Building near my workplace. The Korean literally read Mega Plusu Building.
Again, disappointment! I found my way in, but the price tag was even higher ($400 for 3 months). I don't even know if I like yoga, let alone in a sauna! I was feeling pretty sure yoga studios could be cheaper than this, so I continued on, somewhat disheartened.
Then a few days later, wonder of wonders, I found a studio in the same building that I work in, only a floor above. A dream come true! I wandered in and was immediately offered jasmine tea. Then the woman there proceeded to very earnestly explain to me in Korean what they did at the studio. She was aware of my lack of language skills, so many of her explanations were accompanied by sign language and acting. It was like a very elaborate game of charades, but even if I said the right answer, neither of us knew. After about 30 minutes and a drum performance by the other woman in the studio, they called another woman who worked there that spoke fluent English. We set an appointment for the next day.
I went in feeling very hopeful. The atmosphere was peaceful, the women were nice and it was so close! What could be wrong with it?
Well... I've always been one to respect mysticism from a distance, but as soon as the woman started talking about my fire energy and my water energy and how I had blockages in my heart, head and intestines that needed to be cleared, I began to have misgivings. According to her, people are supposed to have water in their head, and fire in their intestines, but most people (obviously including myself, otherwise, why would I need the studio?) had their fire energy in their head and their water energy in their intestines. She was very disappointed to hear that I did not have a stomachache or a headache, let alone severe migraines or gastrointestinal problems.
Then it got kinda weird. She asked if I had time for her to clear the blockages and when I said that I was free for another 30 minutes, she led me into a small room with a mat. There she proceeded to test my flexibility and my balance. She seemed also disappointed by the fact that I could stand on one foot for ten seconds, but was pleased when I fell over while trying to balance with my eyes closed. This was because I lacked internal focus (duh). (btw, you should try balancing on one foot with your eyes closed- it's very hard). Apparently my heart had blockages, because when she pressed hard on my sternum, it hurt. And then she proceeded to massage my intestines for 10 minutes.
There's really no way I can explain that.
Obviously, I also had blockages there, because when she shoved her palm into my gut, it was painful. But she assured me that after she used her healing energy, my stomach's fire energy would be restored.
I do not recommend having your intestines massaged. It is simultaneously painful, ticklish and awkward. After 10 minutes, my stomach certainly was feeling much warmer, which was proof of my spiritual recalibration.
And then at the end, the price tag again. I could have all this (which included three weekly one hour sessions with drumming, dancing, singing and some yoga), for... $300 for 3 months. WTF mate??? Oh yes, and I also was told that there were three different plans I could buy. A three month membership would allow me to pour out the mud that was in my body, a six month plan would then wash away the remains of the mud and a year plan would allow me to fill my body with clean water.
...
I have still not joined a yoga studio, though there is yet another that I am planning on checking out. Wish me luck...
Thursday, April 22, 2010
The Adventures of Monkey Teacher
Recently I've been getting a lot of strange comments. This has led me to realize that I have much more in common with monkeys than I previously though. Like this one from my language partner- I'm sitting there, writing out the Korean letters for the phrase "I am an English Teacher" (Nanun Yongu Sonsangnim Imnida) and he reaches out a finger and pets my arm. I give him a WTF look and am like "What are you doing???" to which he responds "You have hair."
No shit Sherlock?
Now, I understand that many Asians have very little body hair. This was something my roommate teased me about a lot in college and I have simply come to accept my fate of having to shave my legs far more often then my Asian friends. But really? "You have hair"? Come on now, language partner. Also, no petting. Or else you will get language partner dumped.
However, that was not the only hair comment I got recently. Maybe I have been wearing shorter sleeves more these days? But the day after this went down with LP (language partner), I'm going around the room in one of my elementary classes, checking spelling homework when one of the kids reaches out a hand and pets my arm too. Again I give the WTF look and again I am told that I have hair. Is this LP's younger brother??? Did I spontaneously turn into a monkey overnight and not notice? Now all the kids are coming up to pet me and I'm feeling a little alarmed at the prospect of being manhandled by eight third graders. So I start calling them naked mole rats. This didn't really register for them, but I did feel better. I also used my ultimate power as a teacher to punish them for calling me a monkey. I took away their stars. Such power I have. My coworkers and I (particularly the British one who has requested the name of Bodacious Brit- I was going to go with bloodthirsty, but bodacious it is) are all in favor of harsher punishments. Soon I will take students into the corner where the camera cannot see and then I will beat them with my monkey fists.
I suppose this brings me to the adventure that I had yesterday. Feeling emboldened by my new status as a monkey, I took on a bold challenge after a terrible thing happened during the hellion class. As stated previously, I do not trust the hellions to not destroy everything in sight, so this means that I never put my basket of magical teacher stuff in their reach. (basket is not actually that exciting, but it does carry my CDs, flashcards, pens and books) So instead I put the basket up on the shelves, which are at about shoulder height for me. Unfortunately, these cabinets back up to the windows and there is a four foot deep and six inch wide gap between the backs of the cabinets and the shelves. You probably can see where this is going... but anyway, my basket tipped over and all of my pens went spilling out and fell into the abyss. I was crushed. They may just have been pens, but they were MY pens. But! I had just been informed that I was a monkey. Thus a daring plan was hatched.
This of course led to me being stuck halfway down the back of cabinet a few hours later. Yet I did recover my red pen using a particularly long scissors as a grabbing device. I had even thought ahead enough to tie the scissors to my arm so that I wouldn't lose them into the abyss too.
My coworkers thought I was just as crazy as you probably all now think I am. But I have my red pen back and have used my monkey powers for good. So the world is a better place.
No shit Sherlock?
Now, I understand that many Asians have very little body hair. This was something my roommate teased me about a lot in college and I have simply come to accept my fate of having to shave my legs far more often then my Asian friends. But really? "You have hair"? Come on now, language partner. Also, no petting. Or else you will get language partner dumped.
However, that was not the only hair comment I got recently. Maybe I have been wearing shorter sleeves more these days? But the day after this went down with LP (language partner), I'm going around the room in one of my elementary classes, checking spelling homework when one of the kids reaches out a hand and pets my arm too. Again I give the WTF look and again I am told that I have hair. Is this LP's younger brother??? Did I spontaneously turn into a monkey overnight and not notice? Now all the kids are coming up to pet me and I'm feeling a little alarmed at the prospect of being manhandled by eight third graders. So I start calling them naked mole rats. This didn't really register for them, but I did feel better. I also used my ultimate power as a teacher to punish them for calling me a monkey. I took away their stars. Such power I have. My coworkers and I (particularly the British one who has requested the name of Bodacious Brit- I was going to go with bloodthirsty, but bodacious it is) are all in favor of harsher punishments. Soon I will take students into the corner where the camera cannot see and then I will beat them with my monkey fists.
I suppose this brings me to the adventure that I had yesterday. Feeling emboldened by my new status as a monkey, I took on a bold challenge after a terrible thing happened during the hellion class. As stated previously, I do not trust the hellions to not destroy everything in sight, so this means that I never put my basket of magical teacher stuff in their reach. (basket is not actually that exciting, but it does carry my CDs, flashcards, pens and books) So instead I put the basket up on the shelves, which are at about shoulder height for me. Unfortunately, these cabinets back up to the windows and there is a four foot deep and six inch wide gap between the backs of the cabinets and the shelves. You probably can see where this is going... but anyway, my basket tipped over and all of my pens went spilling out and fell into the abyss. I was crushed. They may just have been pens, but they were MY pens. But! I had just been informed that I was a monkey. Thus a daring plan was hatched.
This of course led to me being stuck halfway down the back of cabinet a few hours later. Yet I did recover my red pen using a particularly long scissors as a grabbing device. I had even thought ahead enough to tie the scissors to my arm so that I wouldn't lose them into the abyss too.
My coworkers thought I was just as crazy as you probably all now think I am. But I have my red pen back and have used my monkey powers for good. So the world is a better place.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Dinosaur, dinosaur
I think it's high time for an update on the hellions...
The hellions have actually been calming down somewhat in the past few weeks. We've moved from Korean gibberish mixed with baby talk to Korean gibberish mixed with baby talk mixed with various key English words and phrases. They have learned to understand basic commands and questions and this has led me to realize that they are really quite cheeky little bastards. Pretty much any time they are tired of the lesson, one of them will suddenly start chanting "Close your books, close your books" and then they all sing the clean up song and whisk things away when I'm not looking.
I have actually grown much fonder of them and this is perhaps mostly due to the fact that they're really excited about walking places since I started a new walking regime. Teachers are supposed to have the students line up with their hands on their hips and then chant "walking, walking" while walking in a straight line to the bathroom or water dispenser. However, I have grown very tired of this, so now the hellions and I do themed walking. The absolute favorite is dinosaur walk where we all hunker down, pull out our claws and stalk from room to room, growling fiercely as we go. It's amazing. Instead of walking, I can now hunch over and prowl while muttering "rawr, rawr" with three little Korean dinosaur boys following my every move.
I'm also really excited about the current unit that the hellions are on in their dialog book (as opposed to phonics). We are learning about pets and this now allows me to cut off the bookwork and just have the children act out being the animals. Last Friday, I got tired of pointing to animals and having the kids repeat "This is a dog, This is a dog" and I simply got down on all fours and had them crawl around, barking and howling (btw, in Korea dogs say mong, mong, not woof, woof) and chanting "Dog, dog, dog" (refraining from any food comments here). We will do this now every time they learn about animals, which will happen when we get to farm and zoo animals later on in the book. It's pretty hilarious.
Time to go- I'm seeing said children in less than eight house and I've got to get some sleep. One of these days I'll stop falling asleep with my fingers poised over the keyboard. Cheers!
The hellions have actually been calming down somewhat in the past few weeks. We've moved from Korean gibberish mixed with baby talk to Korean gibberish mixed with baby talk mixed with various key English words and phrases. They have learned to understand basic commands and questions and this has led me to realize that they are really quite cheeky little bastards. Pretty much any time they are tired of the lesson, one of them will suddenly start chanting "Close your books, close your books" and then they all sing the clean up song and whisk things away when I'm not looking.
I have actually grown much fonder of them and this is perhaps mostly due to the fact that they're really excited about walking places since I started a new walking regime. Teachers are supposed to have the students line up with their hands on their hips and then chant "walking, walking" while walking in a straight line to the bathroom or water dispenser. However, I have grown very tired of this, so now the hellions and I do themed walking. The absolute favorite is dinosaur walk where we all hunker down, pull out our claws and stalk from room to room, growling fiercely as we go. It's amazing. Instead of walking, I can now hunch over and prowl while muttering "rawr, rawr" with three little Korean dinosaur boys following my every move.
I'm also really excited about the current unit that the hellions are on in their dialog book (as opposed to phonics). We are learning about pets and this now allows me to cut off the bookwork and just have the children act out being the animals. Last Friday, I got tired of pointing to animals and having the kids repeat "This is a dog, This is a dog" and I simply got down on all fours and had them crawl around, barking and howling (btw, in Korea dogs say mong, mong, not woof, woof) and chanting "Dog, dog, dog" (refraining from any food comments here). We will do this now every time they learn about animals, which will happen when we get to farm and zoo animals later on in the book. It's pretty hilarious.
Time to go- I'm seeing said children in less than eight house and I've got to get some sleep. One of these days I'll stop falling asleep with my fingers poised over the keyboard. Cheers!
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
DMZ
This weekend I traveled to one of the most dangerous places in the world.
Dun dun duuuuuunn!
I am talking, of course, about the DMZ, or the Demilitarized Zone that separates the democratic, modern and (relatively) normal country of South Korea from the freakish tyrannical communist dictatorship that is North Korea.
Perhaps a little unexpectedly, the 4km that separate South Korea from the country of starving peasants and attempted nuclear attacks is a major tourist destination. I suppose I have always known this, given what I have heard from others who have traveled to Korea, but it is rather unexpected to see a Viking themed fair ground and a bunch of pinwheels at the farthest North civilian zone in South Korea, feet away from barbed wire and camouflaged outposts. I mean, really, I don't think that camouflage will work well when there are about a thousand brightly colored pinwheels squeaking loudly in the wind behind them.
A quick history lesson for any of you who don't know about the situation between North Korea and South Korea. I assume most of you have a good understanding of this, but some of this information was new to me, so I figured I might as well share it. History buffs and disinterested or well educated folks, you can skip this paragraph.
As with many places in the world, Korea has been scarred by the Cold War. When Japan relinquished its hold on Korea at the end of WWII (not their choice, but something Koreans had been wanting for a long time), Russia and the US both tried to set up new governments in Korea. This, of course, did not work and there ended up being a communist government up in N. Kor and a democratic government in SoKor. Again, like many of the other situations from the Cold War, this ended up sparking a civil war in Korea in June of 1950 (N. Kor decided to invade). The war lasted about 2 years, screwed up a lot of families, and killed a bunch of innocent and fleeing civilians before a treaty was signed that separated N. Kor for SoKor officially and established a no-man's land between the two countries so that N. Kor wouldn't invade again. This no-man's land is called the DMZ and extends 2 km into SoKor and 2 km into N. Kor from the dividing line (the 38th parallel).
Okay, history lesson over.
As far as I was concerned, the DMZ was a very strange set of contradictions. I mean, you expect one of the most dangerous places on Earth to seem pretty dangerous... right? But really, it was mostly just a schizophrenic head trip between touristy theme park and really creepy stuff about N. Kor. Take the third infiltration tunnel for example. This is one of 4 really disturbing underground tunnels dug by N Kor back in the 70s as an intended surprise attack on Seoul. We got to go down into it and walk to the point where it entered North Korea. The tunnel is over a mile long, it starts on the N. Kor side of the DMZ and points directly at Seoul. When it was discovered N. Kor claimed that it was a mining tunnel (they painted coal on the walls to try to fool South Korea), but there is no coal in the area and everything indicates that it was an attack tunnel. The point where it enters N. Kor is cut off by barbed wire and looks very dangerous and official. However, topside there were six foot tall letters spelling out DMZ that were colored red and purple with a flower on top of the Z. There were also two very cutesy soldier statues and a propaganda/ informational IMAX-style movie that talked about the war and how now the DMZ was a nature preserve and some day the two countries would be reunited.
So yeah. Weird place.
The other cool place we got to go was to a point on the edge of the DMZ where you can look through binoculars at North Korea. Unfortunately it was rather hazy out, so we didn't see much, but it was pretty crazy to be able to see the North Korean flag flying directly across from the South Korean flag.
What I missed was the room that is split down the middle by the border where a North Korean and a South Korean soldier stand at either end and stare at each other. I will simply have to go back to see that. They apparently make the soldiers wear sunglasses because they used to get eye strain trying to stare each other down.
This would be another place I recommend going if you come to Korea, though I'm sure if you were planning on coming to Korea, you already knew this. I'm glad I went and that North Korea didn't shoot me.
Dun dun duuuuuunn!
I am talking, of course, about the DMZ, or the Demilitarized Zone that separates the democratic, modern and (relatively) normal country of South Korea from the freakish tyrannical communist dictatorship that is North Korea.
Perhaps a little unexpectedly, the 4km that separate South Korea from the country of starving peasants and attempted nuclear attacks is a major tourist destination. I suppose I have always known this, given what I have heard from others who have traveled to Korea, but it is rather unexpected to see a Viking themed fair ground and a bunch of pinwheels at the farthest North civilian zone in South Korea, feet away from barbed wire and camouflaged outposts. I mean, really, I don't think that camouflage will work well when there are about a thousand brightly colored pinwheels squeaking loudly in the wind behind them.
A quick history lesson for any of you who don't know about the situation between North Korea and South Korea. I assume most of you have a good understanding of this, but some of this information was new to me, so I figured I might as well share it. History buffs and disinterested or well educated folks, you can skip this paragraph.
As with many places in the world, Korea has been scarred by the Cold War. When Japan relinquished its hold on Korea at the end of WWII (not their choice, but something Koreans had been wanting for a long time), Russia and the US both tried to set up new governments in Korea. This, of course, did not work and there ended up being a communist government up in N. Kor and a democratic government in SoKor. Again, like many of the other situations from the Cold War, this ended up sparking a civil war in Korea in June of 1950 (N. Kor decided to invade). The war lasted about 2 years, screwed up a lot of families, and killed a bunch of innocent and fleeing civilians before a treaty was signed that separated N. Kor for SoKor officially and established a no-man's land between the two countries so that N. Kor wouldn't invade again. This no-man's land is called the DMZ and extends 2 km into SoKor and 2 km into N. Kor from the dividing line (the 38th parallel).
Okay, history lesson over.
As far as I was concerned, the DMZ was a very strange set of contradictions. I mean, you expect one of the most dangerous places on Earth to seem pretty dangerous... right? But really, it was mostly just a schizophrenic head trip between touristy theme park and really creepy stuff about N. Kor. Take the third infiltration tunnel for example. This is one of 4 really disturbing underground tunnels dug by N Kor back in the 70s as an intended surprise attack on Seoul. We got to go down into it and walk to the point where it entered North Korea. The tunnel is over a mile long, it starts on the N. Kor side of the DMZ and points directly at Seoul. When it was discovered N. Kor claimed that it was a mining tunnel (they painted coal on the walls to try to fool South Korea), but there is no coal in the area and everything indicates that it was an attack tunnel. The point where it enters N. Kor is cut off by barbed wire and looks very dangerous and official. However, topside there were six foot tall letters spelling out DMZ that were colored red and purple with a flower on top of the Z. There were also two very cutesy soldier statues and a propaganda/ informational IMAX-style movie that talked about the war and how now the DMZ was a nature preserve and some day the two countries would be reunited.
So yeah. Weird place.
The other cool place we got to go was to a point on the edge of the DMZ where you can look through binoculars at North Korea. Unfortunately it was rather hazy out, so we didn't see much, but it was pretty crazy to be able to see the North Korean flag flying directly across from the South Korean flag.
What I missed was the room that is split down the middle by the border where a North Korean and a South Korean soldier stand at either end and stare at each other. I will simply have to go back to see that. They apparently make the soldiers wear sunglasses because they used to get eye strain trying to stare each other down.
This would be another place I recommend going if you come to Korea, though I'm sure if you were planning on coming to Korea, you already knew this. I'm glad I went and that North Korea didn't shoot me.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Tidepool Dinner
So, in my desire to document everything that I find most fascinating and worthy of sharing in this country, I feel the need to report on my dinner in this post.
Since I am in Korea, I feel that it is only prudent to try to learn the language. This way I will no longer be daunted by taxi rides and asking how much my bill costs. So, I have recently acquired a language exchange partner who has some basic fluency in English and would like to teach me Korean in exchange for me chatting with him. This all seemed well and good to me until I asked him today if he'd like to meet for dinner instead of just coffee. His response was enthusiastic and he asked if I liked seafood.
Well of course I like seafood! Who doesn't like a good Ahi steak, or some lovely salmon? I also like shrimp and a variety of other ocean-y sorts of things, so I told him I would be happy to have seafood.
However, it seems that what he had in mind wasn't so much seafood as it was tidepool soup. I guess we had stew on the rocks.
I knew I was in trouble when we walked by a tub full of sea cucumbers on our way in. I really knew I was in trouble when I lifted the lid of the boiling stew on the table and discovered a large mussel shell and a whole crab.
Now, I don't know about you, and I'm all about adventurous eating, but having the waitress come to the table and take a scissors to a large crab was certainly enough to make me feel slightly faint. By the time she'd finished cutting apart bits of sea creatures I couldn't even begin to name I realized (metaphorically speaking) I was in over my head.
It really did seem like the cook went to the tidepools, caught anything (s)he found and boiled it in a spicy soup with some bean sprouts. By the end of the meal I had discovered (and eaten) about 10 different species of crustaceans, mollusks and cephalopods. The stew included the large mussel thing (cut into a bunch of pieces by the waitresses' cruel scissors), some smaller mussels that floated around like lost eardrums, the crab, a bunch of shrimp with their heads and legs still attached, some tiny crayfish shrimp things that you had to eat with the shells still on, a whole baby octopus (also cut into pieces- I declined the head and offered it to my partner), something that may have been sea cucumber, something else that I think was squid and some unidentifiable hardish objects that popped liquid into my mouth when I bit down on them.
I did manage to eat a fair amount of it, but I think next time, I will tell my language exchange partner that I really have just been dying for coffee. Or maybe we'll just get some rice.
Since I am in Korea, I feel that it is only prudent to try to learn the language. This way I will no longer be daunted by taxi rides and asking how much my bill costs. So, I have recently acquired a language exchange partner who has some basic fluency in English and would like to teach me Korean in exchange for me chatting with him. This all seemed well and good to me until I asked him today if he'd like to meet for dinner instead of just coffee. His response was enthusiastic and he asked if I liked seafood.
Well of course I like seafood! Who doesn't like a good Ahi steak, or some lovely salmon? I also like shrimp and a variety of other ocean-y sorts of things, so I told him I would be happy to have seafood.
However, it seems that what he had in mind wasn't so much seafood as it was tidepool soup. I guess we had stew on the rocks.
I knew I was in trouble when we walked by a tub full of sea cucumbers on our way in. I really knew I was in trouble when I lifted the lid of the boiling stew on the table and discovered a large mussel shell and a whole crab.
Now, I don't know about you, and I'm all about adventurous eating, but having the waitress come to the table and take a scissors to a large crab was certainly enough to make me feel slightly faint. By the time she'd finished cutting apart bits of sea creatures I couldn't even begin to name I realized (metaphorically speaking) I was in over my head.
It really did seem like the cook went to the tidepools, caught anything (s)he found and boiled it in a spicy soup with some bean sprouts. By the end of the meal I had discovered (and eaten) about 10 different species of crustaceans, mollusks and cephalopods. The stew included the large mussel thing (cut into a bunch of pieces by the waitresses' cruel scissors), some smaller mussels that floated around like lost eardrums, the crab, a bunch of shrimp with their heads and legs still attached, some tiny crayfish shrimp things that you had to eat with the shells still on, a whole baby octopus (also cut into pieces- I declined the head and offered it to my partner), something that may have been sea cucumber, something else that I think was squid and some unidentifiable hardish objects that popped liquid into my mouth when I bit down on them.
I did manage to eat a fair amount of it, but I think next time, I will tell my language exchange partner that I really have just been dying for coffee. Or maybe we'll just get some rice.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Touring with the prince of Korea
I have made a most excellent connection. Talk about knowing the right people. Yes that's right, I spent my Sunday hanging out with none other than the prince of Korea. Oh yeah.
Now you may be wondering, "Does Korea have royalty?" or "Is Kirin on crack?" or "WTF?" but I have it from the source himself. He told me that he was the prince of Korea. And who am I to question?
The prince of Korea is an unassuming fellow, and you would never know it to look at him that he is royalty. His subjects treat him no differently when they meet him on the streets but they do give him free meals that they seem to offer when I leave for the restroom. This, of course, is his proof that he is the prince of Korea.
Prince (who, in case you are uncertain, is not actually a prince- Korea does not have royalty), is actually a friend of a friend's that has kindly offered to show me and my friends around Seoul. Thus, this was how I found myself attempting to peer into the highest men's bathroom in all of Seoul on Sunday night.
Namsan tower is definitely a tourist spot I recommend. It isn't particularly impressive architecturally, or historically, but it has an absolutely fantastic view of Seoul at night. It offers a 360 view of the city at the highest point you can get to, a chain link fence to latch a lock to with your lover (this is an extremely common dating ritual in Korea- the flip side is that when you break up, the ultimate cut is to come back to Namsan tower with a pair of bolt cutters), a laser light show on the tower, a gondola ride up the hill for the lazy and/or broken (like myself and my friends) and urinals where you can metaphorically pee on Korea (they are urinals that stand in front of floor to ceiling windows that look out over Seoul). It is sweet.
Perhaps my favorite part of this place (besides the awesome urinals), is the fact that by the chain link fence there are a bunch of benches that are tilted in such a way to force you to sit next to whomever you are on the bench with. They bend in the middle and it is pretty much impossible to sit on opposite sides without sliding into the middle in an intimate shoulder bump.
So yes, if you come visit me in Korea, we will go to Namsan tower (unless you have already been). I love having Prince show me around- it's actually kinda hard to get in the tourist stuff when I am so busy fending off 3 year olds.
In other news- I have a request. During the month of April I have been given an assignment to teach two of my elementary classes a song that they will then perform with dance moves on the 30th. I have to give my supervisor the words by the 7th (this is soon since I am posting this about 24 hours before I need to have two songs chosen- so this will only be relevant for a little while).
Both classes are advanced enough to sing "real" songs (a quote from my coworker who is an old timer- has been here 7 months). However, I can't really give them hard songs since their English isn't great. So I need some songs that are fun for 6 and 7 year olds without too many hard words but fun for me to teach.
Any suggestions? Right now I've come up with "Larger than Life" from N'Sync (which would just be hilarious) and "YMCA".
Give me ideas!
Now you may be wondering, "Does Korea have royalty?" or "Is Kirin on crack?" or "WTF?" but I have it from the source himself. He told me that he was the prince of Korea. And who am I to question?
The prince of Korea is an unassuming fellow, and you would never know it to look at him that he is royalty. His subjects treat him no differently when they meet him on the streets but they do give him free meals that they seem to offer when I leave for the restroom. This, of course, is his proof that he is the prince of Korea.
Prince (who, in case you are uncertain, is not actually a prince- Korea does not have royalty), is actually a friend of a friend's that has kindly offered to show me and my friends around Seoul. Thus, this was how I found myself attempting to peer into the highest men's bathroom in all of Seoul on Sunday night.
Namsan tower is definitely a tourist spot I recommend. It isn't particularly impressive architecturally, or historically, but it has an absolutely fantastic view of Seoul at night. It offers a 360 view of the city at the highest point you can get to, a chain link fence to latch a lock to with your lover (this is an extremely common dating ritual in Korea- the flip side is that when you break up, the ultimate cut is to come back to Namsan tower with a pair of bolt cutters), a laser light show on the tower, a gondola ride up the hill for the lazy and/or broken (like myself and my friends) and urinals where you can metaphorically pee on Korea (they are urinals that stand in front of floor to ceiling windows that look out over Seoul). It is sweet.
Perhaps my favorite part of this place (besides the awesome urinals), is the fact that by the chain link fence there are a bunch of benches that are tilted in such a way to force you to sit next to whomever you are on the bench with. They bend in the middle and it is pretty much impossible to sit on opposite sides without sliding into the middle in an intimate shoulder bump.
So yes, if you come visit me in Korea, we will go to Namsan tower (unless you have already been). I love having Prince show me around- it's actually kinda hard to get in the tourist stuff when I am so busy fending off 3 year olds.
In other news- I have a request. During the month of April I have been given an assignment to teach two of my elementary classes a song that they will then perform with dance moves on the 30th. I have to give my supervisor the words by the 7th (this is soon since I am posting this about 24 hours before I need to have two songs chosen- so this will only be relevant for a little while).
Both classes are advanced enough to sing "real" songs (a quote from my coworker who is an old timer- has been here 7 months). However, I can't really give them hard songs since their English isn't great. So I need some songs that are fun for 6 and 7 year olds without too many hard words but fun for me to teach.
Any suggestions? Right now I've come up with "Larger than Life" from N'Sync (which would just be hilarious) and "YMCA".
Give me ideas!
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
I am officially an alien!
So, after giving up sleep, money and blood, my efforts have paid off. I have finally become recognized as an alien! My little emoticon is now truly indicative of me! Sting's song "Englishman in New York" has been playing over and over in my head as my personal theme song for the day.
Today I got my alien registration card from the Korean Immigration Bureau. I feel like a real person now! I have a recognized ID in this country. Yay! If only I'd known that the awful passport picture I took in Costco was going to be on an ID...
Speaking of Costco, if you were totally curious (and I'm sure you were just waiting to hear this), Korea has Costco here. Now, you may think you've seen Costco, but you've seen NOTHING until you've seen Costco in Korea.
For starters, my Korean coworker who had invited us along on this merry shopping trip told us allot about 4 hours for the experience. I didn't really believe her because really, how long can Costco possibly take? Sure, we had to drive there, but it was only about 30 minutes away. Who can really spend 3 hours in a warehouse grocery store?
The answer to that: ALL OF KOREA!!!
My first hint about how things were about to go started when we got about a block away from Costco and my coworker pointed to the right hand lane. "That's the queue." (she's Korean, but learned English in London)
Us (being myself and the other new teacher whom I hang out with a lot. He really needs a name, don't you think? Maybe I'll call him Desert Boy, since his desert upbringing makes him somewhat allergic to Korean cold weather- we complain about it a lot together. Btw, thank you to Britt for the idea of blog names) : "The line for what?"
Korean coworker: "To get into the parking lot."
Us: "..."
Whereupon Korean coworker's husband tried to cut the line. This then lead to us being schooled by one of the six men directing traffic into Costco. We had to go around again.
(Starting to get the idea?)
As it turned out, there was another line, so we got into that one. We only had to wait 20 minutes to get into the parking lot after that! And then I discovered one of the most fascinating mechanical devices I have seen since the advent of the cell phone.
Car elevators.
They exist. And they are totally terrifying. I can only be incredibly grateful that I am not claustrophobic and that I was not driving. As it was, I am not sure that I ever want to experience driving into a tiny space, getting closed in and then lurching upwards in a slowly rocking car again. (I'm not sure why our driver didn't throw the parking break)
Then there was Costco itself. On the first floor you had your standard non-food items and this all seemed relatively calm. Korean coworker directed her hen-pecked husband to take the shopping cart and stand in the the line that snaked around the perimeter of the store. This was the line to get downstairs, to the food. Then we took to browsing the aisles for the next 20 minutes while poor husband was standing in line. When husband reached the moving ramp, we joined him and moved into the food basement.
It was nightmarish. People were crammed into the aisles, shoving past each other to get to food and get by. There was a line to walk from one aisle to the next. I have never been accidentally touched by so many people in a grocery store before. Desert Boy got almost pushed over by a cart, which may have then led to imminent death, and both of us got rather bruised ankles from too many aggressive shopping cart drivers. Hen-pecked husband continued to wheel around the perimeter while we went about collecting items and returning to the home base to drop things off. I felt a little bit like a bee, or an ant.
So, grand total, the trip took us from 1:40 PM to about 5 PM. So maybe not quite 4 hours, but closer than I would ever have liked it to be.
Today I got my alien registration card from the Korean Immigration Bureau. I feel like a real person now! I have a recognized ID in this country. Yay! If only I'd known that the awful passport picture I took in Costco was going to be on an ID...
Speaking of Costco, if you were totally curious (and I'm sure you were just waiting to hear this), Korea has Costco here. Now, you may think you've seen Costco, but you've seen NOTHING until you've seen Costco in Korea.
For starters, my Korean coworker who had invited us along on this merry shopping trip told us allot about 4 hours for the experience. I didn't really believe her because really, how long can Costco possibly take? Sure, we had to drive there, but it was only about 30 minutes away. Who can really spend 3 hours in a warehouse grocery store?
The answer to that: ALL OF KOREA!!!
My first hint about how things were about to go started when we got about a block away from Costco and my coworker pointed to the right hand lane. "That's the queue." (she's Korean, but learned English in London)
Us (being myself and the other new teacher whom I hang out with a lot. He really needs a name, don't you think? Maybe I'll call him Desert Boy, since his desert upbringing makes him somewhat allergic to Korean cold weather- we complain about it a lot together. Btw, thank you to Britt for the idea of blog names) : "The line for what?"
Korean coworker: "To get into the parking lot."
Us: "..."
Whereupon Korean coworker's husband tried to cut the line. This then lead to us being schooled by one of the six men directing traffic into Costco. We had to go around again.
(Starting to get the idea?)
As it turned out, there was another line, so we got into that one. We only had to wait 20 minutes to get into the parking lot after that! And then I discovered one of the most fascinating mechanical devices I have seen since the advent of the cell phone.
Car elevators.
They exist. And they are totally terrifying. I can only be incredibly grateful that I am not claustrophobic and that I was not driving. As it was, I am not sure that I ever want to experience driving into a tiny space, getting closed in and then lurching upwards in a slowly rocking car again. (I'm not sure why our driver didn't throw the parking break)
Then there was Costco itself. On the first floor you had your standard non-food items and this all seemed relatively calm. Korean coworker directed her hen-pecked husband to take the shopping cart and stand in the the line that snaked around the perimeter of the store. This was the line to get downstairs, to the food. Then we took to browsing the aisles for the next 20 minutes while poor husband was standing in line. When husband reached the moving ramp, we joined him and moved into the food basement.
It was nightmarish. People were crammed into the aisles, shoving past each other to get to food and get by. There was a line to walk from one aisle to the next. I have never been accidentally touched by so many people in a grocery store before. Desert Boy got almost pushed over by a cart, which may have then led to imminent death, and both of us got rather bruised ankles from too many aggressive shopping cart drivers. Hen-pecked husband continued to wheel around the perimeter while we went about collecting items and returning to the home base to drop things off. I felt a little bit like a bee, or an ant.
So, grand total, the trip took us from 1:40 PM to about 5 PM. So maybe not quite 4 hours, but closer than I would ever have liked it to be.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
snafus
I'm dedicating this post to hilarious snafus that occur when people are learning a new language/culture.
Every week, my elementary school students write a journal entry. Today, one of them finished her entry with:
THE AND
My coworker had a student write in her journal:
My best friend's name is Diana. Diana is my best friend. I like Diana because Diana is my best friend. My best friend is Diana.
In Korea, it is polite to put one hand on your lower arm when you are handing something to someone, especially money. When I was at the bank, I tried to hand my passport to the bank teller, but accidentally put the hand that I was holding my passport in on my arm and handed her... my hand.
I was given a notebook at the beginning of my training to write stuff in. (What stuff, I have yet to discover, so it must be classified, mysterious stuff). The words on the cover are:
I'm NOT Okay.
Anger at yourself while failing to do your best is good because it will make you try harder next time.
Every day I ask my kindergardeners how they are feeling. Then I draw a face next to their name on the board that depicts that emotion. Recently, my kindergardeners learned parts of the body and so whenever one of them wants a nose on their smily/frowny/angry face, they tell me:
I am nose. I am nose.
Whenever anyone's elementary students are confused by something, they will ask:
This is what? Teacher, this is what?
I've gotten so used to thanking people in Korean that it seems to have replaced Hello for me. This means that I keep walking into stores and saying Thank You instead of Hello.
So yeah. That's all for now. Cheers!
P.S. Please comment if you want to say anything! I don't have any magical powers to see who has read the blog, so if you have anything to say, please say it. People keep talking to me over email and skype about the blog entries- put your responses here! I like to feel loved.
Every week, my elementary school students write a journal entry. Today, one of them finished her entry with:
THE AND
My coworker had a student write in her journal:
My best friend's name is Diana. Diana is my best friend. I like Diana because Diana is my best friend. My best friend is Diana.
In Korea, it is polite to put one hand on your lower arm when you are handing something to someone, especially money. When I was at the bank, I tried to hand my passport to the bank teller, but accidentally put the hand that I was holding my passport in on my arm and handed her... my hand.
I was given a notebook at the beginning of my training to write stuff in. (What stuff, I have yet to discover, so it must be classified, mysterious stuff). The words on the cover are:
I'm NOT Okay.
Anger at yourself while failing to do your best is good because it will make you try harder next time.
Every day I ask my kindergardeners how they are feeling. Then I draw a face next to their name on the board that depicts that emotion. Recently, my kindergardeners learned parts of the body and so whenever one of them wants a nose on their smily/frowny/angry face, they tell me:
I am nose. I am nose.
Whenever anyone's elementary students are confused by something, they will ask:
This is what? Teacher, this is what?
I've gotten so used to thanking people in Korean that it seems to have replaced Hello for me. This means that I keep walking into stores and saying Thank You instead of Hello.
So yeah. That's all for now. Cheers!
P.S. Please comment if you want to say anything! I don't have any magical powers to see who has read the blog, so if you have anything to say, please say it. People keep talking to me over email and skype about the blog entries- put your responses here! I like to feel loved.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Guess I got a case of the Mondays
SNOW???????!!!!! I demand a refund! Of warm weather. Everyone in Korea says that they've never had snow this late. AHEM, GLOBAL WARMING, AHEM.
I may be a little miffed about the lack of warm weather. I'm just tired of jackets, that's all. Well, that and always shivering. I have this irrational fear that it will still be snowing in May. Then I will simply have to cry. And then kill the god of cold weather and kick some global warming ass.
For any of you who have been dying to hear how catastrophically the field trip went, I cannot actually deliver any particularly amazing stories. The children were remarkably well behaved and I didn't accrue any new injuries. The puppy show itself (which was remarkably devoid of dogs) was rather boring from a linguistic point of view, though there was one particular moment in which I was suddenly forcibly reminded of myself. This was when a white masked puppeteer emerged from behind a structure. The puppet that it confronted was momentarily afraid, then started asking it questions in rapid Korean. To this, the white masked puppeteer responded by cocking its head and then signing a response. IT WAS THE WHITE DEVIL! That's what I do every day! Maybe I am actually a strange Korean spirit thing. Amazing, what one learns about oneself in a foreign country.
The weekend was a much needed respite from the week. I saw a Korean/Irish St. Patrick's Day parade which was quite entertaining- just imagine a bunch of somewhat drunk Koreans and ex-pats dressed in green with face paint and bright green wigs hanging out in a square in the middle of a bunch of high rises. Public drinking is legal in Korea, so everyone seemed to have a beer in hand. Maybe I'm a prude, but 2 pm on a Saturday just seems to early to be drunk...
Also, I got my first taste of yellow dust season. Korea has the misfortune of being east of China, which is downwind in the jet stream. This means that from March to May, there is this strange phenomenon where yellow dust from the northern desert in China comes blowing into the sky of Korea. It turns the sky yellow and creates acid rain. Yum. I couldn't really get a good picture, but I have never seen clouds that color before. Poor lungs.
In other news, one of my hellions punched me today.
In the face.
He may be dead.
I may be a little miffed about the lack of warm weather. I'm just tired of jackets, that's all. Well, that and always shivering. I have this irrational fear that it will still be snowing in May. Then I will simply have to cry. And then kill the god of cold weather and kick some global warming ass.
For any of you who have been dying to hear how catastrophically the field trip went, I cannot actually deliver any particularly amazing stories. The children were remarkably well behaved and I didn't accrue any new injuries. The puppy show itself (which was remarkably devoid of dogs) was rather boring from a linguistic point of view, though there was one particular moment in which I was suddenly forcibly reminded of myself. This was when a white masked puppeteer emerged from behind a structure. The puppet that it confronted was momentarily afraid, then started asking it questions in rapid Korean. To this, the white masked puppeteer responded by cocking its head and then signing a response. IT WAS THE WHITE DEVIL! That's what I do every day! Maybe I am actually a strange Korean spirit thing. Amazing, what one learns about oneself in a foreign country.
The weekend was a much needed respite from the week. I saw a Korean/Irish St. Patrick's Day parade which was quite entertaining- just imagine a bunch of somewhat drunk Koreans and ex-pats dressed in green with face paint and bright green wigs hanging out in a square in the middle of a bunch of high rises. Public drinking is legal in Korea, so everyone seemed to have a beer in hand. Maybe I'm a prude, but 2 pm on a Saturday just seems to early to be drunk...
Also, I got my first taste of yellow dust season. Korea has the misfortune of being east of China, which is downwind in the jet stream. This means that from March to May, there is this strange phenomenon where yellow dust from the northern desert in China comes blowing into the sky of Korea. It turns the sky yellow and creates acid rain. Yum. I couldn't really get a good picture, but I have never seen clouds that color before. Poor lungs.
In other news, one of my hellions punched me today.
In the face.
He may be dead.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Culturally Hilarious
Whew. Thursday down. It's almost the weekend. I'm tuckered out and ready for a rejuvenating St. Patrick's Day festival on Saturday.
Things seem to be settling down on the work front. My elementary children are calming down a bit and I've figured out the punishment and rewards system enough for them to start paying attention to me. The older ones have stopped flipping each other off openly, which I consider a personal accomplishment. Now I need to get them to stop beating each other every moment I look away. And I'll have to get that done pretty quickly, considering as I'm going to be observed tomorrow by my supervisor. Eek! I fear her critique. Who would think such a sweet woman could be so scary? Maybe she'll scare my kids as much as she scares me?
My kindergardeners... well, at least the hellions stay in the classroom about 50% of the time now. And they no longer throw their food, for which I am extremely grateful, considering the snack we had last week that had the consistency of cheerio milk dregs. (It tasted like that too- blech). Tomorrow I don't have to deal with them, which is a mixed blessing, since the trade off is that I'm in charge of my other kindergardeners on a field trip to a puppet show. Though it's easier to keep those nine in check than the crazy three. We'll see how it goes. Another kindergarden class has latched onto the idea that it's a puppy show, not a puppet show- I hope they're not upset tomorrow when they find out that there are no cute small dogs. Just floppy dolls jabbering in Korean. Us foreign teachers have been told to not get distracted by the show, since we're really supposed to be watching the kids, but I don't think there's much of a chance that we'd care much about a puppet show in Korean. I don't even much like them in English.
I love some of the interactions I have with my Korean coworkers. There's one in particular who is hilarious. She always want to talk about cultural differences and somehow we got on the topic of horses yesterday. She told me that she'd never ridden a horse (horseback riding is generally considered dangerous in Korea and is rather rare) but she'd learned from a television show that white horses are white because they are old and have faded. I was somewhat confused, given that I have certainly seen young white horses and I told her that there are white horses that are born white. She seemed shocked that the television had lied to her and told me that she was going to look it up. Then she said that if I was wrong, she was going to kick me!
This is actually a running joke, she likes to tell us that if we don't do something, she will punch us. This was made more hilarious by the fact that one of the kids we both teach wrote a journal entry in which she said "I love my mom but my mom punches me."
After I laughed for a little while, my coworker looked thoughtful and told me that she doesn't hurt girls. So if I am wrong, she's going to kick one of the male foreign teachers instead of me.
:P
I have a whipping boy! Go me!
Things seem to be settling down on the work front. My elementary children are calming down a bit and I've figured out the punishment and rewards system enough for them to start paying attention to me. The older ones have stopped flipping each other off openly, which I consider a personal accomplishment. Now I need to get them to stop beating each other every moment I look away. And I'll have to get that done pretty quickly, considering as I'm going to be observed tomorrow by my supervisor. Eek! I fear her critique. Who would think such a sweet woman could be so scary? Maybe she'll scare my kids as much as she scares me?
My kindergardeners... well, at least the hellions stay in the classroom about 50% of the time now. And they no longer throw their food, for which I am extremely grateful, considering the snack we had last week that had the consistency of cheerio milk dregs. (It tasted like that too- blech). Tomorrow I don't have to deal with them, which is a mixed blessing, since the trade off is that I'm in charge of my other kindergardeners on a field trip to a puppet show. Though it's easier to keep those nine in check than the crazy three. We'll see how it goes. Another kindergarden class has latched onto the idea that it's a puppy show, not a puppet show- I hope they're not upset tomorrow when they find out that there are no cute small dogs. Just floppy dolls jabbering in Korean. Us foreign teachers have been told to not get distracted by the show, since we're really supposed to be watching the kids, but I don't think there's much of a chance that we'd care much about a puppet show in Korean. I don't even much like them in English.
I love some of the interactions I have with my Korean coworkers. There's one in particular who is hilarious. She always want to talk about cultural differences and somehow we got on the topic of horses yesterday. She told me that she'd never ridden a horse (horseback riding is generally considered dangerous in Korea and is rather rare) but she'd learned from a television show that white horses are white because they are old and have faded. I was somewhat confused, given that I have certainly seen young white horses and I told her that there are white horses that are born white. She seemed shocked that the television had lied to her and told me that she was going to look it up. Then she said that if I was wrong, she was going to kick me!
This is actually a running joke, she likes to tell us that if we don't do something, she will punch us. This was made more hilarious by the fact that one of the kids we both teach wrote a journal entry in which she said "I love my mom but my mom punches me."
After I laughed for a little while, my coworker looked thoughtful and told me that she doesn't hurt girls. So if I am wrong, she's going to kick one of the male foreign teachers instead of me.
:P
I have a whipping boy! Go me!
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