One Mystery Revealed!

Two days ago, a large closet showed up in my classroom. I couldn't figure out what it was for - was I getting new materials? Did the teachers here think I was too messy and needed more storage space? Was it being held in my room temporarily? I finally found out today that with all the things being taken from my classroom, I needed somewhere I could lock my stuff up during the day. Mystery solved, and I'm kinda thankful for the thoughtful gift too.

Mysteries

There's a lot of every day it seems that I spend doing nothing. I usually have a 10 or 20 minute gap between classes at school, which is a nice chance to get ready for the next class, check email, or just waste a few minutes surfing the internet. It usually ends up being a small waste of time, but there's never that much time to begin with, so I don't really mind. What kills me is the times when that 10 or 20 minutes stretches out to half an hour or more, and suddenly I've wasted 30 or 40 minutes doing nothing, all because I never knew if anyone was going to show up to my class or not. It happened this morning with a class not coming, and it's happening right now - my after school class, with 24 kids signed up, has 2 kids in the room. I'm trying to take advantage of the 30 minutes of nothing to do, but most of the time it's pretty tough and I find I waste as much as an hour or more a day with these small breaks of time that I could do so much more with (like write in my blog). Well, I'm doing well writing in the blog now, so good for me.

The other day I was coming home from school, and two Korean men were riding their bicycles on the road in front of me. They were side by side, and taking up a good portion of the street, and every car that drove by was honking at them as they had to swerve into the other lane around them. It got me wondering what these two guys were thinking, and I realized that with a huge degree of regularity I have no idea what is going on in people's minds here in Korea. I don't understand why these guys wouldn't even consider shuffling just a little more off the road, if they even noticed the car horns honking at them, and if they felt their actions were right and that the cars should just slow down and let them do their own thing. And it's like that everywhere. While I've been at school here long enough to know some of what's going on, I often have no clue whether teachers here are pleased with my work, think I'm doing poorly, or if they have any expectations of me other than what I'm doing. A few shots of soju will usually help clarify things, but I don't think alcohol necessarily brings out honesty, just an excess of drunken banter and emotion.

I had a great chance for a bonding experience with my teachers the other weekend, as we had an overnight teachers' trip planned. Unfortunately the weather got pretty nasty and we just did a one day event, but it was still a good time with them. Of course, if I don't think I could handle taking another of these trips for at least 6 months, but I'm glad I did it. Here's a breakdown on how Koreans like to travel:

Get an early start. Our trip began at 7am on Saturday morning.

Bring heaps of food. We had a massive cooler, stopped for food regularly and everyone got a little snack pack for the trip.

Stop repeatedly. Every hour we stopped for something - a tourist sight, a food break, a bathroom break, whatever.

Drink. While no one drank heavily, they started drinking at 8am and didn't stop till around 10 that night. Just little drinks or wine, beer, etc. And always with food.

Sing We had a noraebang (karaoke) on the bus. While it was only running for 2 or 3 hours, it was a tough thing for me to deal with.

The trip was filled with plenty of odd behaviour and moments that befuddled me and were typical to the rest of the staff. We went to a herb garden that had a giant rock that looked like a penis (or a dinosaur depending on where you were standing), for snacks everyone was given a whole octopus and squid, and somehow during the trip a softcore pornography movie ended up playing on the bus. I think the bus driver put it on by accident, since it only lasted 5 minutes, though it seemed to shock even some of the Koreans when it happened.

This would have been a perfect blog to put up some pictures of my teachers' trip, but unfortunately, I can't right now. Shannon and I are moving, something I didn't really expect to be doing in Korea, and the camera stuff is packed. Our landlord sold the apartment, so we've packed up and will be moving this week. It's not as bad as it could have been, though it was rather sudden and the moving date is something we're arguing with our schools about. They want us to move Saturday, we want to enjoy the Canada Day weekend and move Friday. Maybe we're being a little pushy, but this whole moving thing was pushed on us and we'd like to get some say in how things go. Anyway, next time I blog, I'll have a new home. Thanks for reading.

Oh, Those Wacky Kids!

Today a student discussed with me playing jump-rope using his intestines. I'm still surprised at his knowledge of human anatomy, though perhaps video games have helped him fill in the gaps on what might be found under his skin.

Kids are always saying and doing the darn-dest things around me. Right now three girls are attacking my board with magnets and grabbing the computer mouse. Yesterday the same girls were trying different ways to use the word "puck". Of course "puck" isn't what they meant to say, but Koreans way of speaking doesn't really allow them to pronounce an "f" sound. So for now, if I ever get them really upset, I'll just have to deal with the occasional "puck" you.

A Change of Season

It's getting disgustingly hot here in Korea - the last few days at school have seen me set personal records for heat discomfort and sweating. Shannon and I have started bringing deodorant to class now to try and prevent our Korean counterparts from thinking we Westerners lack all sense of personal hygiene, but it's a tough battle the way the weather is going. What's worse is my school recently put in air conditioning into all the classrooms, except mine of course. I instead was given a small fan to put by my desk

At home it's not so bad, as my principal was nice enough to have air conditioning put into our apartment. Unfortunately, that doesn't stop the sewage systems from being heated up, which in turn sends the nastiest stinkiest smells into our bathrooms. Today the smell had already started coming in by 8:30 this morning, which means it's going to be one stinker of a day when I get back home this afternoon. Our dog, Miso, doesn't seem to mind it so much - he's part Chihuahua, and I think the heat does him just fine. I'm pretty sure we'll have to get him a full-body winter suit if he's ever going to survive the Canadian winter though, as what little hair he has on his body will do little to insulate him against anything worse than a chilly autumn day.

With the changing season comes the changing of clothes. Koreans decide the seasons on weather and temperature rather than on a specific day, so what season it is depends on who you talk to and how they're feeling. But when it does change, it changes en masse. Middle and High School students wear uniforms here, and they just recently brought out their summer uniforms. So, all of a sudden the hundreds of kids you see everyday in gray slacks and white shirts are now all dressed like navy blue sailors. My teachers at school have suddenly stopped wearing suits and are all in short sleeve shirts (some so bright and loud you'd think they were on vacation in Hawaii). I have yet to experience it, but beach season also is a very seasonal thing. When it's time to go to the beach, everyone goes to the beach. As soon as beach season is over, the whole place shuts down and there's hardly a soul around. In two weeks we're doing a big beach-camping trip, and I'm curious to see if beach season has begun yet or not.

Teacher, My Crazy!

Living in a poorer area of town gives me a chance to see some of the more colourful people here in Korea. Now, maybe I don't really mean colourful, so much as just drunk, but either way people watching in the neighbourhood is very entertaining. A little disgusting too.

Our building is the only one for blocks around with a parking lot. Most people who pass by will respect this, but at night all the drunk Korean men use it as a urinal. The old men across the street, who are usually drinking every night, will regularly come and pee in our lot. Sometimes it's passerby's who use it. The other day, I ran into one of the men who live in our building peeing in the plants in the parking lot. Eugh.

Sometimes the drunk men on the street are more funny than disgusting, such as when they come up with the ingenious ideas of bringing their scooters into their homes. Okay, so really it was just this once that it happened, though I'm sure it happens more than I'm aware. This poor, tiny, fall-down-drunk man had just ridden his scooter home and was now trying to get it in the front door. His wife was standing there yelling something at him, but he didn't seem to notice. The scooter was still running, there were plants and pots everywhere in the guys way, and he was unable to get it over the little step to the door no matter how hard he tried. I walked past without pausing too long, and when I looked back the both the man and the scooter were now lying on the ground in all the plants, the wife still yelling something at him. Oh, the poor little drunk man.

A source of constant entertainment, there's more than just strange urinations going on in the parking lot. Adjacent to the lot live a few middle aged Korean women. One of them is half crazy, the other is a full-blown lunatic. When she's outside, she's usually talking to herself, yelling at something that isn't really there, or trying to call Miso over to her, which is really funny since the dog absolutely HATES her. She's gotten into the habit of staring at us over the concrete fence when we take Miso out to pee, and will click, cackle and call at him until we finally leave, since he won't pee when she's around. Lately it's gotten even stranger, since she's taken a liking to mimicking our English. While getting Miso to pee, Shannon or I usually say "Go pee! Go pee!" Now, from across the fence we can hear the crazy lady yell back at us "Go pee! Go pee!" Sometimes she's not even at the fence, but off doing some other chore around the house and will just yell when she hears us out there.

Oh, and how could I forget this - she tried to kick the dog too! She came into the parking lot the other day while I was out with Miso, and started coming toward us. I didn't want her near the dog, so we walked past her to the street, but she came too and went in front of us. Miso started growling at her, she bent down to say hi, then *Whoosh!* she let loose this big sweeping leg kick towards the dog. She was a good 5 or 6 feet away, so no harm done at all, but I was still a little surprised and upset at the poor loony lady. I haven't seen her in a few days now, but I can hear her rummaging around her place most times when I'm in the parking lot with Miso.

Damn Kids!

Once again a kid has stolen something from me at school, and again it only took a few days and a lot of asking about it to have it returned. Last time it was my wallet, this time it was my MP3 player, and both times the kid who took it has been the one to find it.

I'm not sure if I went into much detail on it before, but a month or two back, a student in grade 3 came into my classroom while I was away playing volleyball and nabbed my wallet. Within 2 days, I had the whole school looking for my wallet, and soon this kid, whom I was so nice to and would play with all the time, took me to where my wallet was. He had stashed it in a drawer outside his classroom, and the only thing missing was the $40 in it (credit and bank cards were fine).

Of course, everyone knew it was the kid that found it who took it - he was a little underprivileged and struggled in school, and when I asked what would happen to him, I was told nothing would be done. "He needs lots of love" was what I was told.

Now my MP3 player was stolen, and this time I was pretty sure who took it right from the start. Same kind of situation, only this student is not so underprivileged but just a little insane. I caught him hiding my MP3 player on me once before, so it didn't surprise me that when I told his class my MP3 player was missing, he said he had seen my headphones only the day before. Five minutes later, he's running up to me with my MP3 player in his hands, having found it stashed in a desk.

I'm not quite so hurt this time after having my things stolen from me. Maybe I've grown a little thicker skin after having my wallet taken, or maybe I just understand what the kids are thinking a little more. There's no money to be had in my MP3 player (maybe it could be sold at a pawn shop) so this time I'm pretty sure it was something that the kid himself couldn't quite explain. He saw something that looked cool, expensive, and probably a lot of fun to have. He knew I wanted it, he like playing with it, so he just kinda took it. Not to keep, not to steal, but just to have for a little while. Putting it in the desk meant maybe I would forget about it, and maybe he could "find" it in a while and it would be his. I think I'm trying to read too much into this, but since these aren't bad kids taking my things, I still wonder a bit about why they take my things. Some people have mentioned maybe these kids think I (and other teachers) are so well off, they don't need all this money and fancy things, so why shouldn't they have some. Well, other than the $40 I've gotten everything back, so other than having to lock my classroom all the time, it's nothing to worry about anymore.

Hygiene

Every Monday morning we have staff meetings at school. My attendance is never really necessary since the whole thing is in Korean, but for some reason I'm kind of expected to be there so I go. This morning, the guy next to me spent a good five minutes chewing on his nails. If you're going to have a bad habit, I suppose that' snot a bad one to have, what really threw me for a loop though was that he would spit it all out onto the desk in front of him. No one seemed to mind at all, and he continued doing it until he was satisfied with his now freshly chewed nails.

On the other hand, blowing your nose is a big faux pas in public, and only recently has having your mouth open at all been accepted. I have many students who will cover their mouths when they laugh. and when I make them pronounce words that mean opening their mouths wide they giggle and look away from me. Coughing and sneezing though aren't seen as being so bad, and covering your mouth isn't necessary unless you're going to be coughing right on someone's face. Of course nothing has been stranger so far than Shannon's trip to China.

Shannon went to China back in February and was so incredibly grossed out by some of the things she saw, she nearly puked in the street. There was the bum walking around the street with no pants on, the men who would blow their noses right onto the street with no tissue, and the families who would let their kids pee wherever they were at the time by just pulling down their pants. While walking past a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant, not only had someone vomited all over the front walkway of the restaurant, but there was a lady vomiting into the store's garbage can. So, whatever bad things I may think of Korean hygiene standards, relatively they're pretty good.

Well, that's all for this week. Thanks for reading.

A Drive Through The Countryside

Occasionally I find that the toughest thing to see in a country when you're visiting it is the country itself. It's easy to get lost in the cities, wind up at tourist attractions or stay somewhere nice and relaxing like your room/hotel/the beach. Last weekend 7 of us got together, rented a van, and went on what was originally planned as a photography roadtrip - a chance to see some great scenery and get some really nice pictures. Shannon and I, being a little challenged in the photography know-how department, came along for the chance to see parts of Korea we'd never otherwise see.

We started by heading up to Gwangju to meet everyone. Shannon and I (along with Miso, who's now become a rather permanent part of our family here in Korea) caught the early bus up on Saturday morning, and after a slow breakfast and getting packed up, we hit the road. If you look on the map I've added here, you can see the path we took. From Mokpo, we went to Gwangju, then traveled east halfway to Suncheon. From there we went south-east until reaching Suncheon,then down to the water where we spent the night. The next day we went south to Wando and puttered about some of the islands down there before heading back to Gwangju, then returning to Mokpo.


The first shot here is a little weir we stopped at along the road. You can probably make out some to the old ladies (or "ajumas" as we call them) fishing in the background. Prior to this we went to an old steam-locomotive museum where you can actually ride the train. Unfortunately it wasn't running for a few more hours, so we had to settle for riding around in one of the push-pedal carts.

I'm not sure what time of the season it was in terms of harvest, but the rice workers were out in full force working the fields. Some of them were starting to burn the crops from the year, so I think they had just completed the harvest not too long ago. Old men and women were all over the place though, hunched over doing some kind of work in the mud.

One of the most memorable sights we saw was a Korean motorcycle gang on the side of the road. The called themselves "Club Shadow" and they even had business cards to hand out to people (not sure what for, maybe just cause it made them seem a little more elite). You may be able to make out a few of the unusual getups they're wearing, though my favourite was definitely the fake tattoos some of them had. I've been told that in Korea, not only are tattoos fairly taboo, but they may also be illegal. Seems a little odd, but one of the guys here actually had sort of an upper-body nylon on that was meant to look like tattoos all down his arms. And despite the fact it was us who approached them to say hi and take pictures, they quickly took over and tried to get as many pictures of us as they could as well, even making sure Miso was in the photo too.

We stopped at one of Korea's largest (or most famous maybe, I'm not sure which) tea plantation. This one was up the side of the hill, and as you can see here as I smuggle Miso in, dogs weren't allowed to come. But he made it through the gate, and we got some great photos of the tea fields.




After, we traveled by boat to some of the small islands around the area, and stopped at the beach for a swim. The dog and I were the only ones who managed to get right in and swim in the water, though poor Miso was not the least bit excited about swimming and only did so after being set down 15 feet off the shore. He did great though.

After that, we stopped for lunch and went back home. Hopefully you've enjoyed a more photographic blog entry this week, and my apologies to any regular readers who've noticed a slight lapse in my ability to get a new blog out every week. School's been a little crazy the past few weeks, but I should be back to some form of normality now. Thanks for reading!

9 Month Mark

Yesterday was the 9 month mark of being here in Korea. I'm not sure how to gauge the time here so far, whether it's flown by or dragging out, but I think it's somewhere in between. Shannon and I are definitely staying for another year, and will be re-signing our contracts at the end of this month, so it's safe to say the time spent here has been enjoyable, though not overwhelmingly amazing. I've always known that, if everything else in the equation on where to go was equal, I would have preferred another country to teach English in, most likely Japan. But it's hard to argue with 3 months of paid vacation a year plus a salary that allows you to save significantly more than most every other English teaching job there is. Since coming here, Shannon and I have:

Traveled to Japan, China, Australia and New Zealand
Put over $15,000 towards student loans
Traveled across Korea
Gotten by without having to worry about money (except for a few times where we're saving up for a big travel trip).

So all in all, it's been a very good 9 months, and I'm pretty happy to be doing it for another year after this one.

My Introduction to Korean Cinema

I watched my first Korean movie the other day, something that I've definitely put off for too long. It's not so much that I was avoiding anything from Korea, but it's hard to know what's good or what you might enjoy when it's all in another language. Anyway, the movie I watched is called "Old Boy", and was quite an adventure. You may have heard of it if you follow film at all, as it did exceptionally well at the Cannes Film Fest in 2004 (I think that was the year).

Watching it definitely took me a short while to get into. Like everything else in Korea, film (this is a big generalization here, perhaps not all films but just the film I watched) seems to have strong roots in 80's culture with overtones and themes you would fine in the imagination of any 13 year old (epic-ly absurd violence, overwhelmingly/unrealistic romantic moments, etc). Watching "Old Boy", I could quickly get by all these things I wasn't used to, since the movie took itself so ridiculously seriously, and it really was quite good. It's about a man, Oh Daesu, who's probably an alcoholic (his opening drunk tirade is sad and hilarious), and then wakes up to find himself imprisoned in a room for the next 15 years. That's it, that's what you get - the rest of the film, Oh Daesu trying to exact revenge on whoever imprisoned him, is so intense, it was like an idea a 15 year old boy had, but then waited around another 10 or 20 years till he was good enough to make a film out of it.

Well, I've gone on far too long about a movie and not my own life and activities. I will say though that watching the closing scenes to that were some of the more intense and disturbing things I've seen in a while, and if you can handle some violent moments, I'd recommend checking out "Old Boy".

Turnover

It's time for a new batch of teachers to roll into town here, though it doesn't look like there will be a lot coming in this time. Nearly 10 teachers are leaving town, but only 2 or 3 are actually being replaced. It seems some of the teachers leaving didn't give the best references for their school, and some jobs are now being left unfilled. It will be interesting to see the change in things here in town though. Mokpo has a small foreigner community, so you're moderately limited when it comes to finding people to hang out with. So, it's not so fun when people don't get along, which has been a minor issue here since as long as I've been here. It's not terrible, but for anyone's who's lived in a small town or found themselves in a tiny community for a long period of time, squabbles always seem to come about. I'm curious to see if they carry on with new people coming, or if they die away (ie. are the people themselves the problem, or are there always problems with people?)

Well, I've rambled on long enough here, and I've been cruel enough to not include any nice pictures to look at. On a funnier note, two of my students saw me walking to my house with a beer in my hand over the weekend, and now they won't leave me alone about it. What were they doing in my neighbourhood anyway? Probably looking for dirt on their teacher, I'm sure.

Teacher's Day and Sports! Sports! Sports!

There's a lot to be said for social responsibility here in Korea. The language, family relationships, and social interactions, all of these are rife with unwritten rules about how a person should act and behave. Being a teacher in Korea puts me in a position relatively high on the social totem pole, and days like today are nice reminders of how much people respect teachers here in Korea.

Today is Teacher's day (whether it's all of Korea or just my school, I'm not sure), a day where all the teachers in the school get the day off. We still have to be at school, but the kids parents have actually come to school and are teaching all the classes today. They've brought us flowers and food, and this afternoon will take us all out for lunch. The kids are all wishing me happy Teachers Day, bringing in a steady stream of flowers for me. Wow, what other job can you think of where the people you're working for will come in and do your job for you?

Being a teacher here means you're a professional employee, and while most of us foreigners don't quite pick up on just what it means to Koreans, you can generally see what a big deal being a teacher is. Many teachers wear full suits to school, and people will generally refer to a teacher as "honourable teacher" whether their kids are being taught by them or not. And the parents are always around to show their appreciation.

Last week was the big volleyball tournament. All the schools in town got together to play at the local sports centre in a big single elimination tournament. It was such a big deal to everyone that there was a one hour opening ceremony to go with it, with speaches, an orchestra and a middle-school student choir. And of course, all the students' parents came. Every game that was played had all the parents and non-playing teachers cheering, and at lunch they laid out massive picnics for everyone and served all the food for the teachers. It was quite the production, though it helped me understand that while most of these parents might want to be putting forth all this effort, a lot of it has to do with society and social customs dictating that they should be doing such things. Teachers were expected to stay and cheer with their schools when not playing, parents brought us drinks and moist towelettes during every break in our games, and despite our inability to play anything remotely close to "good" volleyball, they cheered our every move.


I shouldn't say that our team (and others) were actually that terrible, but no one ever learns to play volleyball until they become a teacher I think, so they've never had a chance to learn much and the curve at getting to be a decent player is pretty slow. There's nine people on the court for each team too, so it gets really crowded when playing. Anyway, my team did pretty good in the end, winning our first two games before losing in the quarter finals.

Oh, and with 29 teams playing and only two courts available to use, to play my three games took 8 hours. It was a loooooong day.

Here's a picture one of the English teachers in town took. The colour's a little off, but you can see just what the sunset here can look like sometimes. The smog isn't always quite as thick as this, but there are days when you can watch the sun set for an hour without burning your retinas off.

Anyway, back to sports. Our school had it's second sports day a few weeks back, which was a great day that I spent most of the time avoiding. It's hard taking part when I can barely understand the schedule and never really know where to go, so I hid in my classroom most of the day. The parents, as you may have expected, came out and cheered on the kids (and teachers), then took out all the teachers for lunch. What really made it an unusual day wasn't so much the day itself (it's pretty much like a sports day back home), but the preparation day. We actually had a full day of preparation, running through the schedule and activities so the kids would be ready for the actual sports day. Now, I suppose this makes some sense to alleviate any lengthy explanation delays the next day, but it still strikes me as funny to go through so much effort to get ready.

A few weeks ago, I also made a trip, with a dozen other teachers from Mokpo, to an island called Jeju, the "Hawaii of Korea". Here's a picture of the island, though honestly I never got to see any of the nice beachy parts of the island. I spent the entire weekend playing ultimate in one of the more exciting ultimate tournaments I've ever been to. To see more pictures of the weekend, you can check out http://koreaultimate.net/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=3710 though there's not really many of me in there (which I'm sure is all you'd really like too see). What's really strange though about the island is the "love park", which is like a cross between an art exhibit and a public park, made unique by having all of it's art pieces as graphic sexual sculptures doing all sorts of things that won't be discussed in this PG rated blog.

It was quite a weekend though, and while I don't normally get into details on money for my adventures, this trip was amazingly cheap. For $40, plus travel to and from the island (another $45), every one who came got - free food all weekend long, a free frisbee (a good one too), a weekend of ultimate, free beer all weekend long (not just at night, but all day too), a free hotel room for two nights, and a whole whack load of prizes, including $1000 for the winning team. My team, The Ajumma's (which mean's elderly or married woman) came in 15th out of 19.

Well, that's all for now, apparently there's cake to be had, so I'm off to have it! Till the next blog.

Bloggin' It

In my last post, I mentioned a bit about priorities and how classes and teaching often takes a back seat to paperwork and volleyball. Well, the other day gave me a perfect example to further demonstrate my point.

Each week, I teach 3 after-school English classes. I'm supposed to teach for 2 hours each class. However, since an hour of class is only 40 minutes here, I should be teaching for 80 minutes every class. The principal however was just fine with the kids getting out 10 minutes early, so that puts me at about 70 minutes. I then let the kids go 10 minutes early cause they really don't want to stay much longer than that. I also give them a 5-10 minute break in the middle of class, depending on how squirrelly they are. So, every week I teach three 50 minute classes, which adds up to 6 hours.

Every month, I need to have 20 hours of class-time completed to get paid. This past month, I was 6 hours short, as there was a week the kids were gone, and a number of other classes were canceled. This was quite a problem for my coworkers, and they told me, "you must teach 20 hours every month." Yep, okay, 20 hours a month. They looked at the schedule some more, said things to each other, then "Every month, 20 hours." They mulled over the schedule a moment longer, then it was off to the principal's office to sort out this dilemma.

After a few more "you must teach 20 hours a month" comments, a solution was reached. I would simply write that I had taught these missing classes in the schedule. So, we tore out the old attendance sheet, and wrote up a new one, making up days when the kids were there and I had taught them. Even the kids who couldn't be there because they weren't at school had to be accounted for, so I had to write notes on the schedule about further classes I'd taught to ensure every kid had a chance for 20 classes that month. Anyway, they told me again, "every month, 20 hours", and the problem seemed to sort of just go away.

The next day our school had volleyball practice. My after-school class? Canceled so I could train.

Training and preparation are quite important here, though the methods for preparing are, to me, a little questionable. Sports day is this Friday, and while my school isn't too bad, some schools have their children marching in circles for weeks to get ready. The principal will get on the loud speaker and bark orders to the children who will move about as he directs for a few hours. Sports day comes, and it has little to do with marching in circles, but maybe it's just the order and preparedness that matters.

Volleyball is another tricky thing when it comes to training. Some schools do well at training, some not so well. For example, many schools have a men's and women's team. They train together, which isn't too bad, but the men won't let the women play anywhere but the back row, and even then they hardly get to touch the ball. One of the female teachers in our school is quite a strong volleyball player, but every game she's put in a spot that does nothing to take advantage of her strengths or help her game.

I may seem a little harsh this week on Korean culture, and I apologize if I am. There has been a few incidents that have put me a little off this week, the largest being a visit to the pet store. Here's a photo of the cute little dog we've taken in for the time being. His name is Miso, and while he has a few issues with abandonment and bathroom habits (he's a little afraid to pee at all), he's quite a cute and affectionate puppy. Anyway, the other day while picking him up a few goodies, Shannon and I noticed one of the saddest, most frightened dogs I've ever seen in the back of the store. I've never seen a dog shake so badly or have such a sad, terrified look on his face, and after seeing him we all but ran out of the store, and Shannon even started to cry. I don't know what was wrong with this poor animal, or what had been done to him, but just glancing at him was enough to put me in a dejected mood and keep me there three days later. Honestly, it was like watching a person slowly drowning right in front of you, and then just turning around the other way.

There have, fortunately, been lots of good things going on lately as well, which I'll slather all over the blog next week. A dozen of us just got back from Jeju, "The Hawaii of Korea", this week, and I'll be sure to have some photos to go with the stories then. Till next time, try not to think about poor, sad puppies. If you do need to help one out though, we've got one here in Korea that will be coming to Canada in August.

The Fine Art of Falling Apart

My body is a little achy these days, accumulating a collection of small nagging injuries that Korea seems bent on preventing me from properly healing. My trips to the doctor have provided me with strange sorts of remedies, some of which you already know if you've read my entry on the herb-doctor. Since that time, I've developed a possible case of sciatica, bruised/sprained my knee playing hockey, and my shoulder has begun to act up with some sort of weird usage pain. The shoulder is the most annoying one, as it seems to be a result of not being able to sleep on my side properly (from the sciatica and the ol' case of bursitis) plus my school computer has been set up to be used in the most awkward manner possible, straining my arm everyday when I work.

Now, things aren't all bad. I told my doctor here and a friend at home about the sciatica, and that doesn't seems to be going away, and my knee and shoulder are sloooowwwly mending, but I tell you, being overseas and being injured (even slightly) is a giant, giant pain in the neck (or wherever you're hurting). The unfamiliarity of the medical offices and procedures, the language barrier when explaining problems, and the uncertainty as to what's being done to you makes getting treatment a very onerous and daunting experience.

I took the day off school on Wednesday, which is something Koreans don't really ever do. I've missed two days due to "sickness" all year, and that's 2 days more than the rest of the teachers combined (I think, I'm not always sure who's here and who's not). Anyway, the point is, I decided to take the day off for a number of reasons, the main one being - there's now a dog in the house.

You'll notice I didn't say "Shannon and I have a dog now," because we shouldn't quite call him ours yet. He was a stray puppy, who followed a friend of ours home one day, and we've decided to take care of him until we can find him a good home. This means holding onto him until we come to Canada in August, and sending him off with a new family. So, while I don't want to distance myself from the cute little guy, I do need to be wary that he's not "mine".

So, if you know someone who's interested in giving a cute little dog a home, here's what he's like: His name is either "Crunky" or "Miso", we haven't decided which yet. He's a Chipin, a cross between a miniature pincer and a chihuahua - he looks like a miniature pincer except for larger eyes and ears. He's extremely loving, wants nothing more than to curl up in someone's lap, though we're training him to play fetch and to sleep in his own bed, as he likes crawling under the covers when we sleep.

So that's that. He'll be 9 months old in August, so he's still pretty young and impressionable right now. If you know anyone who's interested, send me an email or write a line or two in the comments here.

I'm learning more and more about the priorities at schools here in Korea, and while giving the kids a good environment to work and learn in is a desirable outcome, other things seem to be more important. Paperwork for example, and maybe volleyball. Just now, while photocopying materials for class, I was stopped to make sure my personal attendance forms were filled in correctly. The process took 25 minutes to resolve, because I put things from April and March on one sheet, and I missed 15 minutes of my class. I've had whole classes canceled so I can "train" for volleyball. My extra class that runs three times a week is never questioned, checked up on, and the students are never examined to see if they're learning anything. I must, however, be sure to keep up the work log. Attendance also has to be taken rigourously, though the kids are allowed to be absent with no consequences whatsoever.

Anyway, it's time to get back to work. I've got a class to teach in a few minutes, and while it doesn't matter what I teach them (perhaps today I'll teach them some French), I do need to write down what it is I'm teaching them in the book. Till next week!

What Doing Nothing Can Do To You

I've worked a total of 6 hours this week. That's it, just six total hours of class. Take away the 10 minutes of prep before and clean up after each class, and really I've only worked 4 1/2 hours this week.

And wow, am I bored. I thought it would be cool to have nothing to do, but my body's stiff from sitting still so long - I've spent nearly 30 hours in front of my computer this week, doing nothing! Well, 5 minutes and I'm out of here to go home and this week's over. Ooough, I need stimulus so badly! Why didn't I bring a book to school!

All Whacky on the Eastern Front

One of my more noble (More noble? Nobler? Do I really teach this language?) goals here in Korea was to learn the Korean language. After 8 months, which it will be in just a few days, I think I could now comfortably say I can speak beginner Korean. I can communicate how I feel, give terrible directions, muddle through dates and times, and basically explain what I want in the most basic of possible terms to someone who doesn't speak English. I've learned also that I'm not a natural when it comes to learning a language, and that most times common sense and a little insight will get you much farther in a conversation than knowing the right words. I can't count the times that Shannon and I have been in a cab and she's able to answer questions the cab driver has much faster than I am based solely on how he asks them, the look he gives and by remembering that no one ever really asks anything original anymore (where are you from, what do you do here, etc.).

Still, I'm trying to get better, and sometimes having no teacher can be incredibly frustrating. For example, I'm trying to learn how to say "just", as in "I just want cheese on my pizza." No big deal right? Well, here's how it's gone so far...

The first book I went to had two definitions, "o-chik" and "kyeo-oo". Well that makes sense, "just" can have variations to it's meaning. So, I look up "only", which is maybe a more accurate word for what I want. "o-chik" it says, problem solved, right? You'd think so, only (did you catch that there?) even the word "only" can be used different ways, just like "just". So, onto the next book.

I look up "just" first - "kuh-nyang" it says, adding a third word to my list of possible definitions. This obviously doesn't help me,so I look up "only" again in the second book It gives me a fourth word, "mal", adding even more confusion to my definition search. In an attempt to eliminate something, I look up "right" (as in "it's right (just) beside me"), and I get "ba-ro". This is not going well.

My next stop is to use online translators, which of course gives me three more definitions, "da-man", "dan-chi" and "kwon-ri". At this point, I'm completely lost, and practically give up all hope, which is the exact reason why I started writing on the blog here, to vent a little frustration at not being able to sort out the language problems I'm having. However, since starting my entry here, I was able to remember seeing the word "just" used in the context I wanted, and have found that "mal" was the word I wanted, but this kind of situation happens with apoplectic regularity.

A brief lesson in the Korean language: At home, it's pretty easy to slip in and out of formal speaking when necessary. You ease up on the abbreviations, watch the slang, maybe even stiffen your shoulders a bit to look more proper. In Korea, all that holds true, but the language - the words used to form sentences - actually changes. An example was given to me regarding going out for a meal. There are at least three different words for "meal", one that's casually used among close friends, one with people older than you, and one that's highly formal and very respectful. Each word is completely different, it's conjugated differently when used as a verb, yet they all have identical meanings. And it's like this for just about everything; even just asking someone's name can become two completely different sentences without changing the meaning or sentence order, it just depends who you're talking to.

I've finally finished my first Korean language book, so I can occasionally sound as though I know what I'm talking about when speaking. This however has turned into as much of a drawback as a good thing. Korean people who don't know you will talk your head off if they think you know Korean, and they quickly become frustrated when they learn you aren't able to say more than a few basic commands. One taxi driver was so incensed he spent most of the cab ride complaining about English teachers moving to Korea and not learning any of the Korean language before arriving.

Well, that's my language rant for today. I've had to teach a total of 6 hours this week, so I've felt a little bored and restless, and it doesn't feel as though anything has really happened since last time I blogged. With the hockey playoffs on right now, I'm spending more time watching TV on the computer than I am working with the students at school, which seems like a bit of a waste of time and energy, but I really don't have a whole lot else to do. Till next week!

Busan, Seoul, Itaewon and Paju

My school is like a ghost town right now - it's so quiet in here, I had to peek in a classroom just to make sure the kids were at school today. Indeed they are, but I guess it's a big test day or something. I wonder if I'll have any classes today?

So what's been happening in Korea lately? Well, a little bit of traveling around the country, that's what. Korea is only about 100,000 km²(compared to 10,000,000 km² for Canada), so getting around to places generally doesn't take too much effort. In the past few weeks, Shannon and I have been to Seoul and Busan, the two largest cities in Korea, as well as a few other minor stops in between.

The first stop was Seoul, which was really just a necessary detour on the way to Paju. Paju is home to the largest "English Village" in Korea. "What's an English Village?" you say? Glad you asked! It's a few things:

1) It's a giant replica of what an western-style town looks like with a slightly Asian feel to it.

2) It's a small western-style town turned into a mini-Disneyland and called an educational experience.

3) It's a giant drain on the local governments tax funds, as there's no way educating children on how to speak English requires a giant concert hall, two swimming pools and a fully operational (yet destination limited) trolley car.

Shannon and I are thinking of working at this English Village, as it pays fairly well and most of the teachers working there seem to like it (it has one of the highest resigning rates we've heard of in the country). However, it's rather isolated, and sits a stone's-throw away from the DMZ, so barbed wire and military posts would be a regular part of our lives living there.

*Quick Interlude: One class has come so far today, my grade 1's. The kids tricked me into saying the crayons were "poo-colour", which was pretty funny.*

After visiting Paju, we made the two-hour trek (along with a friend of ours who's moved to Paju) back into Seoul. Technically we were in Seoul, but the area of town we went to, named Itaewon, is so far removed from what anything else in Korea is like, it's hard to imagine it as being a legitimate part of the country. Most restaurants, stores and bars here all cater to different people and cultures from around the world, and English is spoken more commonly than Korean. We actually found it a bit overwhelming, and ducked out to a small Korean restaurant for a while. I know I've put down Korean food a lot in the past, but this place turned out to be unexpectedly delicious, so much so that we ordered double of everything we had (the beer included). And, after eating enough food to fill up 7 people, it only cost us $9 each.

Last weekend Shannon and I went to Busan, the second largest city in Korea. There was an ultimate hat tournament taking place there, right on the main beach in town, so the two of us hopped on a bus and had a monsterously good time meeting new people and playing sports for the weekend.

Of course, even an amazing experience doesn't come without it's own little tidbits of weirdness, challenges and unexpected oddities. Take the beach for example. The whole thing (well, the sand anyway) was shipped in from somewhere else so that Busan could have a nice, authentic beach feel to it. It's the flattest beach you'll find anywhere, as the tides never rise above up more than a quarter way up the beach. They have to clean the sand regularly just to keep all the crud from building up, though I still managed to gouge myself nicely on a hunk of mystery material while diving for the disc.

The tournament itself was great, with my team being given a serious advantage on experienced players. It wasn't until the final game that anyone managed to score more than 7 or 8 points on us (games go to 13), and though we lost in the final, it will be remembered (by me anyway) as a questionable matter, as the other team lost one of their weakest players and replaced him with the hottest guy (in terms of skill, not aesthetics) in the tournament. In the end we lost 13-8, but it was a nice and intense affair for everyone involved. Running on sand for 4 hours a day, two days in a row, is a tiring affair, and after getting back to Mokpo, my body nearly shut down completely. My first day back, I hardly had enough energy to give the kids word search puzzles, much less actually teach them anything.

If you want to check out the rest of the photos from the weekend, go to http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=1811&l=e8f88&id=515456629 I put most of the epic shots I have here, but there are a few goodies still to see. Be warned - there are shots of partying and mildly lewd behaviour in there, nothing to get your heart racing, but enough that you might question the actual maturity level we professional English teachers actually hold. Enjoy!

Did Somebody Call For an Herb Doctor?

In January 2006 (perhaps less than an hour into the new year), I hurt my hip in an unfortunate tobogganing accident. I was the only person injured during the event, made more bizarre by the fact I wasn't even in a toboggan at the time, and I've had some slight discomfort ever since. Multiple trips to the doctor with X-rays and many furrowed brows determined I was most likely suffering from bursitis, a swelling of the bursae sacs around my hip. Since the only problem was a little discomfort while sleeping, everyone said "let's see what happens." Here's what happened:

A few days ago, at Taekwondo (a whole blog unto itself), I was doing some stretching and ratcheted my hip awkwardly. It was bad enough that I told my school the next day I was going to Gwangju (nearby large city) to see an English speaking doctor. Instead, they directed me to the nearby "herb doctor", or practitioner or Chinese medicine. Well, Western medicine just told me to wait around the last time I was checked out, so why not give it a try I figured.

From what I can gather, the herb doctor's is a place you go for general body aches and pains, injuries, and anything that looks like it doesn't need surgery. I met with Jo Joon Boem's father (see my blog "My Dinner with Jo Joon Boem"), who checked my mobility, then I was off to the treatment room.

No one here could speak much English (the doctor knew some words), so the process of getting me prepped for deeper observation was a challenge. They had to get at my hip, so I was told to undo my pants. Makes sense, but in my mind, that meant take them right off. So that's what I did, right there in front of the nurse, who gave a good loud scream and ran into the back room. I had underwear on, but it didn't seem to be enough to calm her down, so I wrapped a towel around myself, shouted some "I'm sorry"s over the curtain, and got back down on the table.

A few pin pricks later, it was determined I had some "bad blood" in the area, and that it was best to have it removed. They stuck some acupuncture pins into my hip and buttocks and after a few minutes at rest, attached some electrodes to the pins. So began my "shock therapy", as minor jolts were sent through my lower body. After this, I had electric massage paddles placed on me, and was given a lengthy electric massage. Finally, they came back to draw out my bad blood.

A suction cup was placed over the area to draw out the blood. The pressure pulls much of the blood to the surface for the later sucking process. After the cup is removed, a big hand "wacker" that looks something between a ear-piercing gun and a stapler that lost its base is used to plunk some holes in your skin. Then the suction cup is thrown back on again (it's like a tall, skinny tea cup) and it sucks all the blood out of these holes in your body. They then finish it off with an ultrasound, and send you on your way.

Did it work? Well, I'm not sure yet. I've got some slight bruising and soreness from the blood sucking/suction cupping, and I went back a second time to get it redone because they missed the right spot the first time (even the second was still slightly off target). However, I'm less swollen now than I've been since the injury, and the new pain I had from Taekwondo is all gone. I'll have to get back to everyone in a week or two and see how it goes; for now I'm not sold on the idea of TCM (traditional Chinese medicine), but if I get even a little better, maybe it's worth it.

Racism?

A funny thing happened the other day. It wasn't funny in the way that makes you laugh, but funny in the way that makes you think about things you didn't really before. A group of ten guys had gotten together to play poker, mostly English teachers, with our friend Jeff/Hyun Joon who's Korean, there as well. (His name is Hyun Joon, but he will often go by Jeff, as English speakers have trouble with his Korean name). During the course of the game, everyone was having some drinks, talking about the latest happenings at their school (most of which involved something unusual or challenging for them), "shooting the breeze" would be a good expression for it. One of the guys, during a rather animated tirade finished his comments with "I hate all Koreans". And suddenly he and everyone else remembered that Hyun Joon was sitting in the room playing with us.

Hyun Joon and I left pretty soon after (we were both out of the game quite early), and on our walk to meet the other friends who were out that night, he was noticeably upset by the comment. During our walk, I didn't know whether to try and justify it or condemn it, but I realized that little things like that happen all the time with English teachers here, though usually they're a little more subtle and not mentioned in front of any Koreans. Of course, no one hates all Koreans, at least not any of the people I would consider friends of mine. Occasionally there will be someone who will arouse enough ire within you to be able to honestly say you dislike them (maybe even hate them), but it's no more common here than it is with people you meet at home. Yet every time something unexpected and/or unpleasant happens, it so much easier to generalize the whole country as being that way. "They washed the floor with kerosene today - silly Koreans." "My school doesn't want me leaving the country for my days off - what are the Koreans thinking?" "I heard a girl got attacked by a Korean a few nights ago..." Well, this stuff happens at home too, but you never say to anyone, "Geez, Canadians are complete idiots, I can't stand them."

For most people here, I think it comes down to their inability to relate to anyone local. Language barriers are huge, and even when someone is fluent in English, it's still a challenge to really understand what kind of person they are and see the softer, underlying differences that make them an individual rather than another piece of the mass Korean collective. I've only met one person so far from Korea who has the fluency to communicate clearly and accurately everything she wants to say, and I'm amazed at how differently I see her compared to the rest of the people I meet here.

So does this make us all racists? For some English teachers here, their only interactions with Korean people are at their school, and maybe a little with the store workers they see and do business with. That's a very limited array of people to judge a culture on, but if that's all you have, and none of them are very nice to you, what do you do? If for 12 months your school treats you terribly, and you never really meet any other Koreans outside your job, it's tough to keep a positive attitude towards the rest of the country. On the other hand, it's way to common to see teachers here label the entire country as ignorant and incompetent when a single person lets them down (and probably only due to some error in communication).

Living at home in Canada, I remember seeing all social events for every possible ethnic group you could imagine - parties, study groups, political advocacy groups, even just drinking buddies. I didn't think much of it then, but I understand a lot more now why there was that tighter bond between all these people from another country living in a foreign land, and I can almost guarantee they suffer the same weirdness with Canadian culture and rant about "stupid" or "silly" Canadian people. So does that make them racists? When the incident at poker first happened, I wanted Hyun Joon to understand and feel better about what had just gone on, but I think now that I shouldn't have tried at all to play down the situation. To say "I hate Koreans" in any context or environment is poor way to express what you're feeling, and is not the way anyone should treat a person, a country or the people in it, and I hope to set a better example than that the next time I'm out with Canadians or Koreans.

Wednesday Pre-Blog

I'm splitting this week's entry up into two parts, as there's lots of random tidbits I want to get down here. Today should be relatively short, the next entry may be a little long though.

My school has undertaken new steps towards keeping the building clean - they've now started cleaning the floors with kerosene. As far as I know, this is a practice not done in any country outside of Korea, and possibly not anywhere outside of my school, and at first I thought it had to have been a janitorial screw up. But no, three times now they've broken out the kerosene, slopped it on the mops, and scrubbed down the school floors. Not only does this make our school a tinder-box-lawsuit waiting to happen, but it makes the floors slick as could be. When freshly cleaned, I can "skate" to my classroom. Kids are running and bailing all through the hallways, getting flammable liquid all over the clothes, turning them into tiny, mobile combustibles just waiting for a spark. And if that wasn't enough, it leaves the whole school smelling like a leaky gas station; the floors, however, do look nice and shiny.

Just today I was helping two of my favourite teachers judge students' English skills to attend an out-of-town English camp. Despite how much I like these teachers, I still end up at a loss sometimes for how they perceive the world compared to me. Students were judged as much for their class behaviour and personality as they were their English skills. The only student who was able to answer questions in full sentences was not considered to be a good choice to attend the camp (he's a nice kid, just a little reclusive). And the one kid they did choose was given big bonus points for being shy, since he was Rh+0.

What? Rh+O? The teacher wrote it out for me, and explained to me his "blood type" didn't let him speak as well in public as others, so he should get a second chance. He's a nice kid who I'd love to see do well, but wow, if blood type can double your English score, I wonder how it helps with your university entrance exams...

Anyway, it's time to jet now. I'm teaching the teachers English this afternoon, which is not without its own hiccups. 2 minutes before class started, my principal told me that the English textbooks he ordered did not arrive, and I would need to make up lesson materials for today. Of course, this wasn't a problem, since he never told me there was an English book coming anyway, so I lucked out and just happened to be ready. Sheesh, if I'm not able to understand most of what's going on with my Korean teachers, I wonder what they think is going on in my brain?

Fan Death

Fan Death, a freakish urban legend living solely here in Korea, is the subject of today's blog. If you've never heard of fan death, you may have trouble believing that Korean's say this exists, and if you've already heard of fan death, at least this will give you another chance for a good laugh. Either way, there's no arguing that fan death is one of the best and stupidest ideas that's ever come out of any country.

The idea behind fan death is that a regular household fan is not only capable of killing a person (generally while they're sleeping), but that serious precautions should be taken when operating a fan in your house. The concern over fan death has grown so large that many fans now come with warning labels to prevent accidental death-by-fan, timer switches have been installed to prevent injury, and many Korean experts have weighed in with their opinions on how fan death occurs and can be prevented. When talking with my Korean friends and acquaintances, they've all said to me "yes, fan death is possible" though they will say not very likely. So how in blue blazes can one of these rogue fans going about killing a person? Here's the list I got from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death)

The Vortex - allowing a fan to run can create a vortex within your room, causing a vacuum effect on all the oxygen in the room.

Oxygen Consumption - a fan left running will burn oxygen, leaving carbon dioxide levels dangerously high.

Suffocation - the high speed air coming from the fan can prevent a sleeping person from being able to breathe properly.

Oxygen Chopping - the fan blades "chop" up the oxygen in the room, making it no longer breathable.

Hypothermia - sleeping under a fan will cause your body to get hypothermia.

At first glance and without any rational thought, it may seem that "hey, maybe some of these are possible, like the hypothermia one". If you're thinking this, please, take a moment and reconsider it. A fan doesn't have any part of it that burns oxygen, we've all stuck our faces out a car window and could breathe (skydivers seem to always survive too), the idea that fan's can "chop" up oxygen is hilarious, and if you get hypothermia while sleeping, the minimal amount of body heat being blown away by the fan probably wasn't what finally did you in.

http://www.fandeath.net

All this happened back in the late 90's, and I don't know if there's been any recent articles on it, I'll have to do some more digging. In the meantime, be sure to leave your doors open if you're running a fan at night!

As a quick addendum to this blog, my wallet just got stolen by one of the kids at school. I only found out this morning, though I've already got it back through some intense school wide guilt tripping and putting pressure on the right sources, though all the money in it is long gone ($40-$50). It sucks though, cause it was one of those cute little kids who always wants to be picked up and hang out with me that took it. He comes from a crappy family though, and I think the temptation of money was just too much for him to pass up. I feel bad for the kid, but I think the days of me giving him airplane rides are all over.

Priorities

When an emergency arises, perhaps one that requires medical attention, an ambulance is generally going to be the first vehicle you'd like to be transported in. Now, maybe a few people would rather be rushed to the hospital in an F1 race car, or something of that sort, but the point is, an ambulance, or any emergency vehicle, should probably have full rights when it comes to using the road. In Korea, that's not quite the case.

The first time I witnessed a car accident here in Korea (the first few times actually), it was as it happened, and I was usually driving away and couldn't stay and watch. When I finally saw one happen while I was walking, I had enough time to witness the order of things unfolding. Within 30 seconds of the accident taking place, a tow-truck was on the scene. With its siren wailing, lights flashing, it took up position in the middle of the intersection and started sorting the mess out. The next vehicle on the scene: another tow-truck. Soon a third whizzed by, only to find no work left for it, and it moseyed off. In the end, three tow-trucks came, and no ambulances or police cars at all. If there were any injuries on the scene, the persons needing medical attention would certainly have been better off going with the tow-trucks anyway. These trucks are larger, have brighter lights, louder horns, and as far as I can tell show total disregard for traffic laws, pedestrians and other vehicles. They're kings of the road here in Korea, and no puny police vehicle or ambulance seems to wish to show them otherwise.

I'm not sure the logic for the tow-truck issue, and perhaps I've over estimated their traffic dominance, but there is definitely a different set of rules for what's important here in Korea, and language barriers, cultural differences and my lacking a Korean Priorities Rulebook has caused lots of confusion and laughter.

School pictures have been especially bizarre. My picture, taken for our teacher board at the front door, didn't come out right at all, with my whole body being squished and flattened just enough so that I resemble a chunky pancake. Now, this may have been an accident, but out of the 4 pictures that were taken of me, why choose that one?

Shannon had her photo taken a while back, and while nothing too discernible showed up, she just looked "wrong" in it, like someone had tried to make her look nicer in it, but failed. Then another friend had his face "Korean-ised" as he put it. Somehow he looked just a little more Asian in the picture than he should have. I was still a little skeptical, until finally one of our friends with a beard had his school photo taken. When he got the pictures back, his beard was gone (and possibly some other alterations were made, we weren't sure). Now, whenever I walk by photo shops, I notice their advertisements at fixing pictures, making people look nicer, and even changing the clothes people are wearing. They go to all this effort to have these great, beautiful looking photos, and yet, no one ever, ever smiles in them.

The list of things that amuse and puzzle me here seems to go on forever, and I'm sure I'll find some great, interesting and ludicrous things to write about in future blogs. I do, however, feel it's time I brought up some of the more positive things about my Korean co-teachers and the other Koreans I've met. It's easy to mock and ridicule people here, and doing so would give an unfair impression of the time I'm having here. I really am enjoying Korea, and I've met some great people, but it's the quirky, funky stuff that always sticks out in my mind. I could have a week of nothing but great noodle and vegetable dishes for lunch, but the only thing I fine worth mentioning is the time I was served fermented manta ray and deep fried fish heads.

Oh, and I almost forgot - I had my first trip to the dentist. I walked in, waited for 20 minutes, got an X-ray and had a quick checkup, and all it cost me was $4. Wild. They had TV's at every dentist chair (so strange, but still nice) and the dentist even spoke good English. Her main concern though - whether my teeth look nice enough for me or not.

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

Traditional Traditions

I suppose the word "customs" might be more appropriate, but either way, 6 months into living in Korea, there are still many things happening here that are a little beyond my comprehension. I'm getting used to the everyday things - people driving on sidewalks, red lights being more of a suggestion than a rule, drinking soju while still at school, and eating rice and cold cabbage for breakfast. However graduation week has been pretty funny, and a little surprising.

For my school, grades 1-6, graduation wasn't really that big a deal. Well, I guess it was to the kids, as the grade 6's had their own special ceremony, they did all their "get ready for middle school" stuff, and basically got to avoid learning anything for the last week of school. For the middle school kids going to high school, it was like a hazing ritual put on by the schools. After the big good-bye assembly, all the kids walk outside, and everyone throws raw eggs and flour on them. And they do this at every school. Walking around town that afternoon, there were dozens of kids covered in flour and eggs, splatterings of the stuff all over the road, and everyone but us foreigners seemed to hardly notice it (though some of the kids covered in gunk looked a little unhumoured).

Today we had our beginning of the year ceremony, which was nice and short, and another chance for me to get in front of all the kids and their parents and have them all laugh at my funny voice. All the new teachers (and of course, me, the English teacher) got to get up in front of everyone and say a quick hello and nice-to-meet-you, then the principal said a few more words, and the year was ready to begin. To celebrate and signify the start of the new year, all the new grade 6 students put a necklace on all the new grade 1 students, then put them (the grade 1's) on their backs, and ran around the gym a few times. Oh, I nearly fell out of my chair it was so funny! Korean's aren't very tall, and so some of these grade 6's were hardly bigger than the grade 1's, and the struggles they had were incredible. A few gave up, others toughed it out. The one mentally handicap kid, who's rather big, hardly seemed to notice the kid dangling from the back of his shirt as he trudged around the gym mumbling to himself. I guess I laughed a little hard, cause the teacher next to me started asking me what we do at our schools to bring in the new year.

Going back a few steps, I should mention again my speech to the school. As I've mentioned before, being a foreigner in Korea is a big deal - for many people, seeing me is the first time they've seen any one who's not Korean. For the kids, the novelty is still pretty huge (I'm the second foreign teacher here), and they really seem to love an adult who will play with them and interact with them as much as possible (with Korean adults, respect is very important, so goofing around is pretty uncommon). Anyway, I'm dragging this out here. What happened was, I went up to say hello to everyone, the whole "Hi my name is Richard and I like being here, thank you" routine. One of the kids in the front waved to me, so I waved back, so a few waved to me, so again I waved back. Then the whole front section waved to me, one girl even jumped out to the front and was grabbed by a teacher, as she tried to wave to me. Silly me, I wave back to them. Then the whole school starts waving to me, some now shouting "Hello!" and jumping up and down. I'm sure there's a really bad joke about how to get a one armed Korean down from a tree in here. Anyway, I finally managed to stop all this waving by saying "Hello" in Korean into the micropohone, which got every student and parent giggling, but no longer waving.

Much of the behaviour seen in Korea (as in every country I'm sure) can be attributed to the country's history and the people they look up to from the past. This is on a bit of a tangent here, and has nothing to do with graduations and hand waving, but since I was recently viewing a great deal of Korean historical sights, I thought this one story might help explain a lot of the unusual things encountered here.

1400 years ago, Kim Yu-Shin was on his way to becoming General of the Shilla realm of Korea, and was on his way to reuniting the three separate parts of the country. On his way to becoming this great and honoured general, he had a few black eyes in his personal life that have become legends among the people in Korea. For instance, he was having an affair at one time with a dancer, who's name I forget. His mother, however, banned him from seeing this dancer any longer, and Kim Yu-Shin, like a good Korea, obeyed his mother with the strictest regiment. His horse, unfortunately, was not told of the change in Kim Yu-Shin's personal life, and a short while later, Kim Yu-Shin, as a good Korean at the time, got a little too drunk, and entrusted his horse to get him home. The horse, of course, took him to where it always did when Kim Yu-Shin got drunk, which was to the dancer's house. When Kim Yu-Shin realized where the horse had taken him (as he was oblivious to everything on the way, I guess), he immediately killed his horse.

The Korean's see this as a noble tale of a man who respected his mom, knew (or learned) right from wrong and showed an iron will. The painting made depicting it showed a fearsome Kim Yu-Shin standing proud over his dying horse, his mother beaming in the background. But me, I just see it as a guy who, drunk, got himself into a bit of trouble and his horse was the one who paid the price. Poor thing.

Anyway, that's all for this week. If I can ever find a picture of the horse thing, I'll have to put it up here, it's pretty intense. Thanks for the comments everyone! Steph, I'm glad I could remind you of your times in Japan - Korea seems to me a million light years from life in Japan, but the little things like naked sauna's, the random touching and staring, it definitely makes for some familiar feelings, eh.