Four months into my stay here in Korea, one of the things that hasn't changed and never will is the way people react to seeing me. No matter how accustomed to Korea and fluent my language skills become, people are always going to stare as I walk down the street. High school girls will yell "hi" and giggle as I walk by, people selling things will offer up some broken English to convince me to buy their product, and occasionally someone will chase me down the street even while I'm on my bicycle to try and talk with me. I run into the same drunk Korean once a month on my way to school, and he'll ask me questions and give me random pieces of paper. He's harmless, just really weird.
The other day I had another of these kinds of run-ins. I had stopped to get my hair cut while coming home from school, and I'd gone a few blocks from the hairdresser's towards home. I was walking my bike this time, cause I had a flat tire, so I was able to hear this lady yelling behind me about something, like she wanted someone to wait for her. I turned to realize it was me she was yelling at, and she charged her way across the road towards me, kind of looking for cars on the way, but I don't think she would have waited for them to stop. I figured I had left something at the hairdresser's, but when she got closer to me I realized this lady wasn't from there at all.
She was probably late 30's, wearing a somewhat nice black dress of sorts (big and flowing and very Asian). But there was something quite off about her - she had a really bad dye job on her hair and an intense worried look on her face. As she stormed up to me, she starts rambling on about "Where are you from," and "What's going on?"
"Ummm, I'm from Canada"
"Oh really? Oh that's great" She's shuffling back and forth on her feet, and speaking in a really strange accent. "I'm from the USA too, you know, that's great. So yeah bae-by, where are you going?" She says baby really strangely too me, like some kind of Korean 50's jazz singer, and I'm instantly squirming to keep my bike between the two of us.
"Oh, yeah, um, I'm just heading home you know, it's the end of the day," I tell her.
"Oh really bae-by? Yeah, you, where are you from? I'm from Chicago, and *unintelligible* so you should, like, hey, where are you going, bae-by?"
"I'm just going home, and - " "Oh you live 'round here!" she cuts me off, "that's great bae-by, where do you live? I'm from America and I dunno about *unintelligible* Korea and *unintelligible* so you think I could come to your place bae-by?" She's looking a little frantic almost now, and seems to be as uncomfortable as I am, shifting her weight back and forth and getting wide-eyed on me every few seconds.
"Uhhh, that's probably not a good idea," I stutter.
"Ahh, bae-by, whatchoo doin' now, huh? You wanna *unintelligible - may have been "go someplace" * and, yeah bae-by..."
"I gotta go home, my girlfriend is waiting for me..."
"Where do you live, bae-by?"
"Just around here," I say, and point the opposite way of my house.
"Bae-by!!" She yells, and double hand-slaps my chest. It's definitely time to go, I decide.
"It's been nice," I say, "but it's definitely time for me to get going home."
"Maybe you could wanna stay here with me," she says. I decline and start walking away, zig-zagging my way home. She says something else to me on my way, and wanders off slowly.
My guess is, she was/is a prostitute, but then again maybe she was a single mother looking for her way out of poverty. Either way, I don't think she was that far from home, and I'm sure I'll see her again before I end up leaving the country. Oh bae-by...
Friday, December 22, 2006
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
The Little Things
It's been busy this last week, as Christmas is getting close and Shannon and I have been doing a smattering of Christmas-related task, mostly involving present-buying and mailing home. As such, this weeks blog will feature mostly a mish-mash of stories and happenings, a collection I guess of little tidbits of information that wouldn't get put into their own entry, but are still worth remembering and sharing.
To this point in time, my efforts to buy clothing have been entirely fruitless. This country seems to have a one-size-fits-Korea thing going, which is about 4 sizes too small for me, and unless I take a 5 hour trip to Seoul, I don't know where I'll ever find clothes. So, when taking a shower the other day I finally realized how odd the settings in the shower are - aiming slightly over my head, or aiming way over my head. How a 5'5" Korean would manage is beyond me.
I think I'm finally starting to become climatized to the moderately cold weather here, and I'm finding myself feeling nastily cold on days that barely reach 0 degrees. I've got my heater cranked at school, which has spawned two types of whiny kids - the early morning kids, who are cold because the heater isn't hot enough yet; and the afternoon kids, who are hot because they refuse to take off their coats.
"Teacher! My hot!" they cry.
"Take off your coat," I tell them. The only answer they've given me so far is "Teacher, no!"
Shannon's school has an even stranger heating situation. In fact, her school is just riddled with weirdness. They bring a dentist into school twice a week, which I guess it great for the kids (though it makes for a creepy Principal's Office, what with the dentist chair sitting in it), but they were finding that the dentist needs a lot of power, so on Tuesday and Thursday no one gets to use the heaters in the classroom. I suppose cold rooms is better than losing power halfway through a root canal, but it's still a funny and unfortunate situation.
Shannon was also had her cell phone stolen by a student recently. It was a pretty crappy situation, as getting a cell phone in this country is hard for us foreigners, and replacing one can be even worse. She managed to get it back, but now there's the uncomforableness of having to work with the student who stole it. They caught the girl who did it, but she's shown no remorse at all, and still asks Shannon for candy everyday.
My school has just finished construction of a new "English Village", making us the provincial hub for English instruction now. There's only three of these villages in the country, and every week 120 new kids will come into our school to learn English in "real life" situations. I don't have anything to do with it, and the only reason I'm even excited about it is the 6 new foreigners who are coming to work here. A few have arrived already, and while one of them seems he's living the world-travelling-dream he had during a 1970's acid-inspired moment of clarity, the others seem pretty cool. Hmmm, I hope the hippie dude doesn't go googling my blog anytime soon...
While I'm on the subject of it, this town (and I guess the lifestyle here) oozes with transition, as teachers are coming and going all the time. With only 50-100 people in town that you can share a language with, it means a pretty steady stream of fresh faces to get together with. Every week is a going-away and welcome-aboard party for someone, and there always seems to be another person who's been in town for a few months and will suddenly just show up out of nowhere. Some of these "hidden" people can go days, weeks, or even months before they finally find another English speaker in town, so they're first run-in with another "waygook" can be quite comical, and Shannon and I have had a few conversations with people where they seem reluctant to let us go for fear of not seeing another foreigner for quite some time.
I've almost reached the point now of being able to recite "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" from start to finish. It's the last week of school before the holidays, so I've been showing the video to all my kids, and I've watched it 8 times already this week. You know that guy wrote in anapestic tetrameter? Maybe I'll teach my kids to speak that way -
"My good Teacher, how are you it's such a nice day
to perhaps go outside for a fun soccer game.
We would like not to study our English today,
We would rather be outside so we could go play."
"Well of course my dear children, I think I'll come too,
and then I'll play on your team and maybe hers too.
But then please little children, don't gang up on me
and pull out my arm hair and bite with your teeth."
Kay, that's as poetic as I'm going to get for today. Thanks for reading, I'll be back again next week!
To this point in time, my efforts to buy clothing have been entirely fruitless. This country seems to have a one-size-fits-Korea thing going, which is about 4 sizes too small for me, and unless I take a 5 hour trip to Seoul, I don't know where I'll ever find clothes. So, when taking a shower the other day I finally realized how odd the settings in the shower are - aiming slightly over my head, or aiming way over my head. How a 5'5" Korean would manage is beyond me.
I think I'm finally starting to become climatized to the moderately cold weather here, and I'm finding myself feeling nastily cold on days that barely reach 0 degrees. I've got my heater cranked at school, which has spawned two types of whiny kids - the early morning kids, who are cold because the heater isn't hot enough yet; and the afternoon kids, who are hot because they refuse to take off their coats.
"Teacher! My hot!" they cry.
"Take off your coat," I tell them. The only answer they've given me so far is "Teacher, no!"
Shannon's school has an even stranger heating situation. In fact, her school is just riddled with weirdness. They bring a dentist into school twice a week, which I guess it great for the kids (though it makes for a creepy Principal's Office, what with the dentist chair sitting in it), but they were finding that the dentist needs a lot of power, so on Tuesday and Thursday no one gets to use the heaters in the classroom. I suppose cold rooms is better than losing power halfway through a root canal, but it's still a funny and unfortunate situation.
Shannon was also had her cell phone stolen by a student recently. It was a pretty crappy situation, as getting a cell phone in this country is hard for us foreigners, and replacing one can be even worse. She managed to get it back, but now there's the uncomforableness of having to work with the student who stole it. They caught the girl who did it, but she's shown no remorse at all, and still asks Shannon for candy everyday.
My school has just finished construction of a new "English Village", making us the provincial hub for English instruction now. There's only three of these villages in the country, and every week 120 new kids will come into our school to learn English in "real life" situations. I don't have anything to do with it, and the only reason I'm even excited about it is the 6 new foreigners who are coming to work here. A few have arrived already, and while one of them seems he's living the world-travelling-dream he had during a 1970's acid-inspired moment of clarity, the others seem pretty cool. Hmmm, I hope the hippie dude doesn't go googling my blog anytime soon...
While I'm on the subject of it, this town (and I guess the lifestyle here) oozes with transition, as teachers are coming and going all the time. With only 50-100 people in town that you can share a language with, it means a pretty steady stream of fresh faces to get together with. Every week is a going-away and welcome-aboard party for someone, and there always seems to be another person who's been in town for a few months and will suddenly just show up out of nowhere. Some of these "hidden" people can go days, weeks, or even months before they finally find another English speaker in town, so they're first run-in with another "waygook" can be quite comical, and Shannon and I have had a few conversations with people where they seem reluctant to let us go for fear of not seeing another foreigner for quite some time.
I've almost reached the point now of being able to recite "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" from start to finish. It's the last week of school before the holidays, so I've been showing the video to all my kids, and I've watched it 8 times already this week. You know that guy wrote in anapestic tetrameter? Maybe I'll teach my kids to speak that way -
"My good Teacher, how are you it's such a nice day
to perhaps go outside for a fun soccer game.
We would like not to study our English today,
We would rather be outside so we could go play."
"Well of course my dear children, I think I'll come too,
and then I'll play on your team and maybe hers too.
But then please little children, don't gang up on me
and pull out my arm hair and bite with your teeth."
Kay, that's as poetic as I'm going to get for today. Thanks for reading, I'll be back again next week!
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
My Dinner With Joe Joon Boem
Kudos to Duane for reading my entire blog here from start to finish. I hope you got a good laugh reading it.
It's been busy here the last few days, with plenty of stories to write about, and I think I may get in two entries this week. Today's entry though is in regards only to a single episode from last week, a dinner party at a student's house with his family.
Dinner at the Joe's
On Thursday last week, my Prinipal arranged a dinner for himself, our school's 3rd grade teacher and me at Joe Joon Boem's house. From the beginning, it was a little hokey. To begin with, the 3rd grade teacher, Mr. Hwang Gab Soon, was showing some obvious displeasure about going. I may not be able to understand Korean, but I can certainly recognize when someone is pouting, and Mr. Hwang was throwing an awfully big fit about something. However, after a few minutes of sitting in a parking lot debating about whatever was upsetting Mr. Hwang, we finally started driving - aimlessly in circles around the block at first, trying to figure how to get to the Joe's house.
It turns out Joe Joon Boem's family is just up the street from my place, which quickly led to the decision I should visit more often. They have a very nice house, quite large for a Korean home, with the parents, three children and grandmother living together. The evening started off nicely, with a brief living room discussion before moving to the kitchen for dinner.
The Vegetarian I Used To Be
As usual, nothing worked as simply as it should have. It turns out that Joon Boem's mother, Mrs. Joe, is an English teacher, and quite fluent speaking English. However with the way seniority works, my principal was given the role of interpreting for me that night, and I was left out of the loop for the great majority of the conversation, despite having such a strong English speaker available.
Dinner that evening was meat, and lots of it. There was some raw fish, two stacked plates of octopus wrapped around popsicle sticks, the usual array of pickled cabbage and other vegetables, and 5 platters of beef. As the foreigner at the table, conversation was hard, and limited to a few key phrases, either involving feeding me more meat, feeding me more scotch, or asking me if I thought Joe Juun Boem's grandmother looked like Miss Korea. I dutifully said yes every time, took a heaping hunk of beef and grimaced as I sipped my newly filled glass of scotch.
The scotch was a bit of a problem, and I found myself chasing it with beef, as I wasn't offered water or any other drink besides Korean wine and scotch. A nibble of cabbage, a sip of wine, a drink of scotch, then chase it with beef. When most of the food was done, I found I still had a lot of scotch to drink, and for a moment I was relieved when Mrs. Joe pulled out two more large platters of beef that had been stashed away. So, I continued to eat beef, agree that "Mrs. Joe, she is very much Miss Korea", drink some scotch, chase it with beef.
Two hours later, I was starting to feel a little queasy. 10 years of eating mostly as a vegetarian meant my tolerance for eating meat quite was low, and as the 6th and 7th platters of beef arrived, I began feeling a little nauseous. I continued on with dinner, sipped some wine, ate some beef, drank some scotch, and despaired as another platter of beef was brought out. After two glasses of scotch, someone asked me if I wanted more. Now drunk enough to comfortably say "no", someone then poured me wine, fed me some beef, I chased it with the last of my scotch, and mentioned how much grandma looks like Miss Korea. Bleary-eyed, I completely ignored the final platter of beef put on the table, and sipped my wine till we finally could leave the dinner table.
Grandma's Room
Korean's are excellent at getting the most out of what they have. They recycle like crazy, serve any leftovers from one meal at the next, and they'll use Grandma's tiny bedroom to entertain the guests as well. Five adults and three kids made for some cramped quarters, but we packed ourselves in and continued eating beef and drinking wine. I was really trying to keep my cool with how drunk I had gotten, but I realized most everyone wasn't any more sober than I was. My principal and Mr. Hwang were now drinking from a bottle of orange juice, which I was pretty certain wasn't just OJ. My principal at one point lept up to give more "OJ" to Mr. Hwang, who did his best to refuse, but finally relented - an incredibly bizarre scene given the tiny size of the room and that we were guests in someone's house.
By now, entering the 3rd hour of dinner, Grandma too was getting a little tipsy. She'd been sizing me up all night, and now her questioning stares were becoming more frequent. Even when I stared right back at her (if only for a moment), I still couldn't break that "What's your story?" stare.
As we moved into the 4th hour, it was almost time to go. The adults were making the kids do magic tricks, we had moved onto our 3rd or 4th bottle of "Maeshe" (a rather delicious Korean wine), and Grandma was crawling back and forth on her bed on all fours. Still suffering from a cold, I was struggling hard to keep my head up and my eyes open, and it was a relief to finally do the 20 minute goodbye-and-who's-taking-who-home dance. No one was sober enough to drive, but I'm certain that was never mentioned to anyone as we left.
Well, a long night has turned into a long blog-entry. Time to jet, there's kids to teach and only me it seems to do it. I'll be back later this week with another entry I think. Thanks for reading!
It's been busy here the last few days, with plenty of stories to write about, and I think I may get in two entries this week. Today's entry though is in regards only to a single episode from last week, a dinner party at a student's house with his family.
Dinner at the Joe's
On Thursday last week, my Prinipal arranged a dinner for himself, our school's 3rd grade teacher and me at Joe Joon Boem's house. From the beginning, it was a little hokey. To begin with, the 3rd grade teacher, Mr. Hwang Gab Soon, was showing some obvious displeasure about going. I may not be able to understand Korean, but I can certainly recognize when someone is pouting, and Mr. Hwang was throwing an awfully big fit about something. However, after a few minutes of sitting in a parking lot debating about whatever was upsetting Mr. Hwang, we finally started driving - aimlessly in circles around the block at first, trying to figure how to get to the Joe's house.
It turns out Joe Joon Boem's family is just up the street from my place, which quickly led to the decision I should visit more often. They have a very nice house, quite large for a Korean home, with the parents, three children and grandmother living together. The evening started off nicely, with a brief living room discussion before moving to the kitchen for dinner.
The Vegetarian I Used To Be
As usual, nothing worked as simply as it should have. It turns out that Joon Boem's mother, Mrs. Joe, is an English teacher, and quite fluent speaking English. However with the way seniority works, my principal was given the role of interpreting for me that night, and I was left out of the loop for the great majority of the conversation, despite having such a strong English speaker available.
Dinner that evening was meat, and lots of it. There was some raw fish, two stacked plates of octopus wrapped around popsicle sticks, the usual array of pickled cabbage and other vegetables, and 5 platters of beef. As the foreigner at the table, conversation was hard, and limited to a few key phrases, either involving feeding me more meat, feeding me more scotch, or asking me if I thought Joe Juun Boem's grandmother looked like Miss Korea. I dutifully said yes every time, took a heaping hunk of beef and grimaced as I sipped my newly filled glass of scotch.
The scotch was a bit of a problem, and I found myself chasing it with beef, as I wasn't offered water or any other drink besides Korean wine and scotch. A nibble of cabbage, a sip of wine, a drink of scotch, then chase it with beef. When most of the food was done, I found I still had a lot of scotch to drink, and for a moment I was relieved when Mrs. Joe pulled out two more large platters of beef that had been stashed away. So, I continued to eat beef, agree that "Mrs. Joe, she is very much Miss Korea", drink some scotch, chase it with beef.
Two hours later, I was starting to feel a little queasy. 10 years of eating mostly as a vegetarian meant my tolerance for eating meat quite was low, and as the 6th and 7th platters of beef arrived, I began feeling a little nauseous. I continued on with dinner, sipped some wine, ate some beef, drank some scotch, and despaired as another platter of beef was brought out. After two glasses of scotch, someone asked me if I wanted more. Now drunk enough to comfortably say "no", someone then poured me wine, fed me some beef, I chased it with the last of my scotch, and mentioned how much grandma looks like Miss Korea. Bleary-eyed, I completely ignored the final platter of beef put on the table, and sipped my wine till we finally could leave the dinner table.
Grandma's Room
Korean's are excellent at getting the most out of what they have. They recycle like crazy, serve any leftovers from one meal at the next, and they'll use Grandma's tiny bedroom to entertain the guests as well. Five adults and three kids made for some cramped quarters, but we packed ourselves in and continued eating beef and drinking wine. I was really trying to keep my cool with how drunk I had gotten, but I realized most everyone wasn't any more sober than I was. My principal and Mr. Hwang were now drinking from a bottle of orange juice, which I was pretty certain wasn't just OJ. My principal at one point lept up to give more "OJ" to Mr. Hwang, who did his best to refuse, but finally relented - an incredibly bizarre scene given the tiny size of the room and that we were guests in someone's house.
By now, entering the 3rd hour of dinner, Grandma too was getting a little tipsy. She'd been sizing me up all night, and now her questioning stares were becoming more frequent. Even when I stared right back at her (if only for a moment), I still couldn't break that "What's your story?" stare.
As we moved into the 4th hour, it was almost time to go. The adults were making the kids do magic tricks, we had moved onto our 3rd or 4th bottle of "Maeshe" (a rather delicious Korean wine), and Grandma was crawling back and forth on her bed on all fours. Still suffering from a cold, I was struggling hard to keep my head up and my eyes open, and it was a relief to finally do the 20 minute goodbye-and-who's-taking-who-home dance. No one was sober enough to drive, but I'm certain that was never mentioned to anyone as we left.
Well, a long night has turned into a long blog-entry. Time to jet, there's kids to teach and only me it seems to do it. I'll be back later this week with another entry I think. Thanks for reading!
Thursday, December 07, 2006
"A Murder Most Foul!"
Okay, so there was never actually a REAL murder, but we did hold a muder mystery party at the house over the weekend, which I'll get to in a moment. First though, a frozen-finger update:
When last I checked in, there was some serious concerns with regards to the frozen wasteland my classroom was quickly becoming. Fears of frostbite and digits devoid of feeling were quickly becoming a major problem of mine, and my teaching was beginning to suffer from it. However, finally, on the coldest day yet in Korea, I was given a portable heater for my classroom. But wait, that's not all!
In a constant effort to improve safety records, and I suppose out of modest fear of the school burning down, I was also granted 1.) a fire-extinguisher, and 2.) a big bucket of sand. It seems my portable heater, a rather cumbersome monolith of metal and warmth, is occassionally prone to bouts of spontaneous combustion. It's an oil heater, I think, so putting it out can be quite a challenge, and my principal (Kyo-Jang Soen Sang Nim) has actually phoned me to make sure I properly turned it off at the end of the day.
I'm mid-way through my first round of the Korean plague, which is really nothing more than a nasty flu, yet it seems so much more draining and impressive to finally get sick overseas. Skipping work in Korea is a big no-no, and doing so will ellicit numerous phone calls of concern and worry from the teachers here. If you're not careful, they'll even come to your house and take you to the hospital, which inevitably results in a shot of antibiotics in the bum, regardless of symptoms, condition or frantic protest. While I hold (some) traditional eastern medicines in high regard, the recent infusion of eastern traditional with unrefined and dated western medicine to be a bit questionable at times.
Ah yes, the Murder Mystery Party. This turned out to be quite a fun, involving evening. It was one of the English teacher's birthdays, so we put this on for her at Shannon and my place. Our apartment, by Korean standards, is massive, and we were able to have 30 or so guests dressed up as a variety of 1920's characters, complete with a bar, coat room and murder scene. My character, Pete Pinkerton, was given the charge of solving the murder and at all times was never a real suspect - too bad, seeing as I was a poor detective and spent most of my evening hurling terrible 1920's insults at most of the guests ("There ain't no two ways about this Mac: You're a bad-nut givin' this two-bit town an even worse name! I'm tightenin' the screws on you mister, that's for sure!")
Below's a shot of me interrogating one of the suspects as he drinks another swig of giggle-juice.
An open bar will work wonders at ensuring everyone has a great time, however it will cause a problem or two when it comes to organizing the actual mystery-party. The main organizer, wonderful as she was, misplaced a few of the key items, forgot to get the evidence out, and neglected to inform the murder that they were indeed the murderer (chasing yourself without knowing you're doing it is hilarious).
A big thanks to everyone in the family who's managed to keep up with reading my blog these past few months. I'm told even Grandma might have someone bring her a printed copy to glance over. Feel free to leave a comment or two, their always appreciated. Till next week...
When last I checked in, there was some serious concerns with regards to the frozen wasteland my classroom was quickly becoming. Fears of frostbite and digits devoid of feeling were quickly becoming a major problem of mine, and my teaching was beginning to suffer from it. However, finally, on the coldest day yet in Korea, I was given a portable heater for my classroom. But wait, that's not all!
In a constant effort to improve safety records, and I suppose out of modest fear of the school burning down, I was also granted 1.) a fire-extinguisher, and 2.) a big bucket of sand. It seems my portable heater, a rather cumbersome monolith of metal and warmth, is occassionally prone to bouts of spontaneous combustion. It's an oil heater, I think, so putting it out can be quite a challenge, and my principal (Kyo-Jang Soen Sang Nim) has actually phoned me to make sure I properly turned it off at the end of the day.
I'm mid-way through my first round of the Korean plague, which is really nothing more than a nasty flu, yet it seems so much more draining and impressive to finally get sick overseas. Skipping work in Korea is a big no-no, and doing so will ellicit numerous phone calls of concern and worry from the teachers here. If you're not careful, they'll even come to your house and take you to the hospital, which inevitably results in a shot of antibiotics in the bum, regardless of symptoms, condition or frantic protest. While I hold (some) traditional eastern medicines in high regard, the recent infusion of eastern traditional with unrefined and dated western medicine to be a bit questionable at times.
Ah yes, the Murder Mystery Party. This turned out to be quite a fun, involving evening. It was one of the English teacher's birthdays, so we put this on for her at Shannon and my place. Our apartment, by Korean standards, is massive, and we were able to have 30 or so guests dressed up as a variety of 1920's characters, complete with a bar, coat room and murder scene. My character, Pete Pinkerton, was given the charge of solving the murder and at all times was never a real suspect - too bad, seeing as I was a poor detective and spent most of my evening hurling terrible 1920's insults at most of the guests ("There ain't no two ways about this Mac: You're a bad-nut givin' this two-bit town an even worse name! I'm tightenin' the screws on you mister, that's for sure!")
Below's a shot of me interrogating one of the suspects as he drinks another swig of giggle-juice.An open bar will work wonders at ensuring everyone has a great time, however it will cause a problem or two when it comes to organizing the actual mystery-party. The main organizer, wonderful as she was, misplaced a few of the key items, forgot to get the evidence out, and neglected to inform the murder that they were indeed the murderer (chasing yourself without knowing you're doing it is hilarious).
A big thanks to everyone in the family who's managed to keep up with reading my blog these past few months. I'm told even Grandma might have someone bring her a printed copy to glance over. Feel free to leave a comment or two, their always appreciated. Till next week...
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