High Fives, Bobble-Heads, and The Janitor

Earlier in my blogging, I mentioned something about how Korea is a country just catching up with the Western, or at least more developed, world. It couldn't have felt more true today. As I rolled into class, I spent the first 25 minutes this morning sorting out the ol' kerosene heater, pumping oil into it with the little hand pump, finding a new bucket of oil to keep my classroom warm when the one I have runs out, and basically working in a classroom one step removed from a one-room school house with a wood stove to keep things warm.

It's suddenly cold here again this week, which is nothing compared to what it's like in Canada, but after a week of +15, it was a little shocking to find snow and ice on the ground the last few days. And before that, we had a long, intense rain storm. It rained so much, our roof overflowed into the stairwell, and a small river of water was pouring down 5 flights of stairs to the bottom floor. It was kinda cool, but the Koreans seemed a little nervous, and went on full attack with their mops and buckets. Us Canadians of course, well that seemed like a great day to play hockey, and so we did. We just finished building a new net out of PVC piping and the mesh from a discarded mattress box-spring, so nothing was going to stop us from trying it out.

Speaking of sports, the new volleyball season is underway at school again. It's tough calling it a season, cause nothing really happens to advance the state of our game or standings, etc. But, you can't miss a game, and so twice this week we've played. It's not really that bad, I don't despise volleyball like I did in high school, but there is this new teacher in the school who makes me want to put socks in my ears, or maybe his mouth. Every single point, no matter what happens, he's giving someone tips on what to do, and since I'm in the "hitting position" (someone please correct me and tell me what that spot is called) he's always, ALWAYS, telling me to do something different. It's too bad, that A) the guy is a terrible volleyball player, and B) doesn't speak a lick of English. The one way he can communicate, is by giving high-fives. Which, oh my, is more of a challenge than playing volleyball will ever be.

Giving my co-teachers a high-five is like something between french-kissing an oyster, and crawling through a prickle patch. Usually, high-fives are down around chest height, so it's awkward to begin with. Then, instead of using your hand to try and make contact, creating that "Right on!" kinda feeling, everyone just kind of walks into it, usually doing a bit of a bend at the hips. If you're scratching your head asking yourself how the hell that works, don't worry about it, cause it doesn't work. But it gets worse. Some teachers, usually the short men, will try and go down low, but they never hold their hands out. Instead they keep their elbows in, and hands only half-supinated so that any attempt to give a low-five is more of a hand smacking. And every single time you try to give a gentle, not hard but making contact kind of -five, they grab your hands, interlock fingers, and just shake your hands weirdly for a second. Oh my, it is bizarre.

Quick interlude - Shannon, who was just in China got some good photos while she was there. I missed out on it all, but I really like this shot of the great wall. Here's the section of it that she walked.



On another brief subject, I've found that one of my teachers looks incredibly like a bobble-head. Korean's generally have, well, larger than average heads. Or at least, larger-than-a-aNorth-American-head heads. This one teacher, I Uen Chin, is a rather petite lady, and so her behemoth cranium becomes almost comical on her. At times it looks like it's weighing her down into a bit of a slouch, and I'm afraid that if someone were to ever pick her up and shake her even gently, her head would wobble around uncontrollably. It seems most schools in Korea have a teacher who gives off a bobble-head vibe, as I've had this conversation now with a number of North Americans here, and we all seem to notice it.

My school had a "welcome back" dinner the other night, and like all dinners with my school, it was a generally good time, filled with food I refused to eat, soju they wanted me to drink, and noraebong (Korean karaoke). The night got a little out of hand though, when one of the new teachers got a little to drunk and began to tell me how much he loved me. This was the same teacher who, earlier in the day, I had nearly kicked out of my class - he dropped his class off for English, then left the room to change into his sports wear. He came back wearing a track suit, and swinging a mop and bucket around, and proceeded to mop my classroom and tell the kids what to do while I taught. I thought he was the janitor, he looked so different. Anyway, I figured it all out, and everything was fine. So, back to the dinner.

At noraebong, the janitor teacher had me get up and sing a song. He chose "You Are My Sunshine" for me, which was actually a pretty good choice I think. He loved it, and he loved me, and he told me this a few more times. Finally, it's time to go home, and loving-me-janitor tells everyone I'm going to get a ride with him. No one tells me this of course, so I'm a little nervous when my bag is tossed out of the other teachers car and given to me. And so, we start to walk. No idea where, it sounds like he's driving me home, which he's in no condition to do, so I'm a little more nervous. We head left down an alley, it's a little scary, and I ask him where we're going (my Korean's coming along okay by now), and he says "this way". Another left. Then another left. And another. We've traveled in a full circle before he figures out which way to go. I tell him in Korean "Now I go home". He says in English, "Ah, yes, Chicken". Uhhhh, "Wait a minute, where is this? Where am I going?" I say. "Hmmm, Chicken" We go on like this for a few minutes, we backtrack a bit, then suddenly he gets a big grin and takes us to this little chicken shack so we can sit down, drink beer and eat chicken.

I spent the next hour sitting with him and other random Korean's we met, drinking beer, eating chicken (not much, I really want to keep up my vegetarian self, but peer pressure takes on a new meaning in this country), and trying to speak Korean since no one spoke English. By the time I got home, I was a little exhausted, a little drunk, and smelled like all the bizarre ethnic foods you could find in the country. My co-teacher was at the point where it was easier for me to tell the cab driver how to get home than it was for him. Anyway, I think that's the last time I'm going out with him, but it was kind of fun to get really local at least once.

Thanks for reading, I'll have another entry in here next week.

Rich