"Hey Bae-by!

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...

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!

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!

"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...

Beyond These Walls

Phew! It's effing cold right now, and either my keyboard's keys are getting slightly stuck as I type, or my fingers aren't working so well. Cold, however, is a relative thing it seems, as the weather compared to Canada right now is very good. Unfortunately my school still hasn't bought into the idea of indoor heating, so my work environment is at best unpleasant and at worst a painful struggle. It does create an opportunity to play a lot of active games with my kids in the classroom; though as always, getting the little guys all riled up can be like playing tag with a hungry tiger - eventually, it's going to bite you in the ass.

To date, my blog has given (I feel) a fairly in-depth description of life at my school, covering all the good, bad and strange times that have befallen me. The experiences I have had, however, are not necessarily typical of all English teachers in Korea. Every school has its own unique environment for staff, and there is an amazing contrast between different schools I've found. Shannon's school and mine, two demographically similar schools, are quite far apart in terms of what kind of work environment we face, and her experience has not been nearly as positive as mine when it comes to enjoying her teaching position.

The kids are always hit-or-miss when it comes to being bad-asses. I hate to say it, but income demographics certainly has a lot to do with how they are in class, though the spoiled rich kids can be as bad as the disrespectful poor kids. In the end, the kids can be rough, but they’re not usually what makes or breaks a good school.

Co-workers however can ruin a school, and principals can make your life hell. At Shannon’s school, the teacher is a horrible person (she’s bald, so we call her a witch). She threatens to take away Shannon’s vacation time, pays other teacher 3 or 4 times what Shannon gets for the same job, and subtly makes fun of her clothes (which are really nice, so I just don’t get that). Another English teacher in town was dealt a sexual predator for a co-teacher. That’s right, the man who she worked with, side-by-side everyday, had been busted for sexually harassing both fellow teachers and students. His punishment? A week off the job and a different school to teach at. Of course, the English teacher didn’t learn all of this until AFTER he took her out for a day long hike, then drove to a secluded area outside of town. She was fine in the end, thank goodness, but the 30 minutes sitting in the car waiting to get back to town took an eternity, she said.

Most other teachers who have difficult times don’t face such threatening situations. There are several teachers who have been given homes with cockroaches and another whose power is rather suspect at the best of times and may possibly give her a good jolt one rainy day in the future. Some people are given tones of extra hours to work with little or no overtime pay (Shannon falls slightly into this category), and some –such as myself – will find themselves doing out-of-town English camps where the only money you get is to cover your travel costs. Yep, you never really know exactly what it’s going to be like here until you finally start at school.

(Brief interlude – I’m listening to a friend, Pete Golden, over the radio. I tell my kids, and what do they do? They grabbed the speaker and tried to talk to Pete. So cute.)

Well, I think that’s my tale for today. Holidays are coming up fast, and while I won’t have any exciting stories about them for a while, Shannon and I have just booked our flights to Australia and New Zealand. Spending January lying on a beach is going to be wonderful.

Slacking Off

I've decided to take a week off and let someone else fill in my blog for me this week. The following in verbatim from the Sang-dong Korean Police Substation.

Dear Mr. Bergen.
This is KP(Korean Police) substation in Sang-dong, Mokpo.
Yesterday, we recieved a statement about lost wallet from one citizen.
We searched your fitness membership card from your wallet.
Then we called Vitamin Fitness Club and found out that you are that club's member.
We also found out your cell-phone number(010-5825-1247) by asking to that club's client.
We tried to call up many times, but there were no answers.
In our opinions, you maybe lost your cell-phone with wallet together.
So, we drop in your club and kept your wallet to client necessary.
Please, get back your wallet from client safely.
And if you any questions, contact us below telephone number.

Korean Police substation in Sang-dong, Mokpo

Yes, the Korean Police have come to my aid by finding my lost wallet. Hopefully my letter of thanks I send to them will bring as many chuckles and good times as their's has for me.

The full story goes as follows: Saturday night, we were playing hockey at a friends house (wait till I publish the blog on my home-made goalie pads), and spent the rest of the night having a few beers and playing cards at his house. Somewhere between his place and mine, my wallet was left behind. I was convinced it was at my friends place, but he left town the next day, so I had to wait to check. Meanwhile, my wallet has actually (I strongly believe) ended up in the back of a taxi. The driver gave it to the police (after taking $10 from it), who then gave it to my gym (or maybe the police took my money), who then tried to give it to another Canadian girl in town, before finally giving it to her boyfriend, possibly because he looks just slightly like me, and by that I mean we're both Canadian. Oh, and he's 6'8", so maybe they knew it was the "tall" Canadian's wallet.

Anyway, it's been two days of only minimal anxiety, as I was so sure where my wallet had been, so it's nice to have it back. One of the teacher's in town here has lost, or had stolen, her passport 5 times up to this point, so I'm not feeling too bad. Thanks for checking back in everyone, I'll post again sometime mid-next week.

Ummm... killing time

It's 4:00 - 30 minutes into my class - and I'm just sitting here... waiting. My principal decided today to take over my class, which is fine by me. But I just thought I should write about the random and unexpected events that happen on a daily basis while teaching here.

Hah! One of the kids just asked me to "Please!" start teaching class. I guess I'm not the only one who thinks this sudden change of teachers is a little bizarre.

Crime and Punishment

It’s time for the section on Crime and Punishment for the Everyday English Teacher here in Korea. I’m sure you can all remember what discipline was like for yourself when you were in school, and while the principles have generally remained unchanged (bad behaviour = discipline measures), the means by which discipline is carried out here in Korea is quite different than anything I remember back home. Perhaps it is the Korean culture that brings this out, or maybe it's the language barrier between teacher and student. Either way, you should find this a very exciting and intriguing subject.

As a brief aside, I would like to point out I never get angry with my students. I tried that once, and it failed miserably. Each and every method listed below is done in a friendly, usually smiling manner, and most often the student is laughing too. I never want them to feel bad or as though they’re in serious trouble. I just want them to shut up.

Classical Methods of Discipline

These are the traditional ways to get the kids to settle down and behave themselves. A good scolding is always an easy way to begin, however since Korean children generally don’t understand what you’re saying, they reactions won’t be in line with what you’re looking for. Simple words such as “sit” “stop talking” and “shhh” are about all you can expect to use. “Hajima!” – or, "stop that" - is a good Korean word to try out, but once the initial shock of it has worn off, children will generally just laugh at your funny accent.

Most kids hate corners, so putting them in one always seems to get some results. Keeping them there is a challenge, as even if you catch them sneaking away, which they usually try and do, they may not understand “get back in the corner.” Pointing and gesturing becomes key, and you can always threaten a kid by pointing at them, then at the door. Sending kids out of the room works most of the time, but is a little harsh and deprives them of the education you should desire to give them. I try and send only the worst of instigators out of the room – those kids who thrive on getting a rise out of others and send the whole class into a tailspin.

Neo-Classical Methods

When I was a student, push-ups were an occasional method of discipline my teachers used. Sometimes, this is a great discipline measure to pull out, especially for students who are lacking the constitution or physical attributes to complete more than one or two push-ups. However, they demand a great deal of attention from the teacher, and I have learned that having students hold their arms up or out to the side is almost as effective and requires less personal attention. Of course, students will cheat and do whatever they can to lessen the burden, so you should keep an watchful eye on them.

If they continue to be a problem, have them sit on their knees for a while. For students who refuse to pay attention to class, have them do this front and centre of the classroom, and only once they can answer your questions, allow them to sit down again. In extreme measures, you can place books in your student’s hands. Should they continue to put down the books when you turn away, balance something on the books that you can hear drop. This subtle tactic should not be done too long, as it can cause the entire class to pay more attention to the student than to your lesson.

Seating Arrangements

Students will inherently sit with their friends. That way they can talk. They also like to throw things at each other, which is just way to distracting to deal with. Moving them around will usually solve this. Students don’t like being moved generally, but you should be careful not to move them to a more precarious situation. If there are no sound places to move a student, I may elect to move them to an isolated area of the room, or have them sit on the floor next to me.

Some students, those ones who really don’t want to be in school, much less your class, and hold little respect for you or any teacher (I only have one like this, thank goodness) will refuse any of the above or below discipline measures. Since I can’t give grades, speak Korean, send them to the Principal, or tell their parents they were bad (the parents blame the school for not being able to properly teach them), I will move all the students sitting around them, leaving them to sit on their own. It only furthers the anger that student may feel, so I would suggest isolating them like this only in the worst of cases.

Embarrassment and Other Bizarre and Exciting Discipline Methods

This is where the more creative teachers begin to show their quality when it comes to disciplining students. Embarrassment is always an enjoyable method for both you and the class, and often the student being punished – just be sure they aren’t apt to break down and cry in front of the class. Having students stand up is a good start in having them stand out from the rest of the class, and moving them to the front of the room can be even better. Having them read and answer questions is good, but it can backfire as it may make participating in class seem like a chore rather than something to enjoy. Singing is my preferred method of embarrassment.

Occasionally you will come across a student where no amount of punishment will affect their poor behaviour. One exciting method I’ve started using is to teach the class while sitting down next to this student. Most children’s faces will light up like a fire engine, and they will very quickly cease any and all inappropriate behaviour. If you feel you cannot properly teach a class from a desk, perhaps having the student accompany you around the room may work. Hold their hand if they start to sneak away at any time, which will make even the toughest of students beg for release (just don’t actually hurt them!).

For students engaged in any kind of combative behaviour with each other, forcing them to make up can often be very effective as well. Holding hands is a great sign of friendship, and while the students may not love each other the way you wish them to, at least all their frustration will be directed towards you and not each other. A more extreme example of this used by a fellow teacher, is having fighting students stand at the front of the room shoulder to shoulder, then touch heads and form a heart with their hands above their heads. This may cause the class to get a bit too out of hand (everyone thinks this is hilarious), so maybe save it till there’s only a few minutes left to go.

Given these lessons, you now should be able to control even the most unruly of classes, and have an entertaining and fun time whilst doing it. Teaching can be a great experience, and no one wants that ruined by loud-mouthed children putting gum in each others hair. Just be sure you’re in a country where parents aren’t likely to sue you for putting their child through “unnecessary embarrassment and mental anguish” - those are the best parts of growing up.

Kyo Jang Soeng Sang Nim, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Principal

Another week, another blog. Thanks to all of you who're keeping up with it, I so glad I’m entertaining enough to be worth reading on a regular basis. I think I was able to make it so you don’t need to log in to comment, so feel free to drop a line on here whenever you like. Especially if you know a good travel agent who can find cheap flights out of Soeul.

There's been some exciting, bizarre, and ever (heaven forbid!) regular nd routine times here in Mokpo over the last little while. Halloween has come and gone, and with it we experienced one of the larger parties here in South Korea, at least for us Waygooks (foreigners). Teachers from all over the province of Jeollanamdo traveled up to 4 hours to take part what's become an annual Halloween gathering, put on by a teacher who's been here for about 6 years now. There were some very exciting costumes (Shannon and I were a Smurf and Arch-Bishop, respectively), and you'd be impressed at how creative people can be given the lack of materials for costume building here in Korea. Or how outlandish and inappropriate they can be. I won't go into too much more detail regarding the night, though there was much Noraebonging (karaoke), dancing and finally it all ended with a number of us catching a bus at 6am for the 4 hour trip home.

The weather is finally starting to cool down, hinting at what might almost be classified as a winter. Well, not by Canadian standards anyway, though there has been one day cold enough I needed a jacket. My school, of course, does not have any heating system in it, and while I was fairly comfortable in the cold, all the students and teachers kept their big winter coats on all day. For a while we looked more like a ski school than an English class room, and while I know the idea of adding in a heating system to the school won’t happen anytime soon, perhaps I could suggest closing all the windows for a change.

Vacation time is coming up, but it’s been tough to figure out holidays, as my Principal, as great a guy as he is, is a bit off his rocker. He’s always forgetting what month it is, will come into my class Thursday afternoons to run our Friday class, and can never quite get the difference between a competition and a seminar. A lot of this is a result of language barriers, but my principal’s also the kind of guy to show up to school on Monday with a bandage on his forehead from some random fall or flying object. Anyway, over the past few weeks, the dates he’s told me my vacation is has changed 4 times. He’s finally started to agree with himself though, so I think I know for sure now what days I have off.

Three times a week, my principal helps me teach my extra class. His job is to mark their homework, and he likes to review some of the material from last class as well. I haven’t had the heart to try and solve the homework issue, but I usually try to keep the class from falling into total chaos while he teaches it, as his methods can be a little unusual. Yesterday, he was working on pronouncing the “f” sound with the kids, which was awesome ‘cause he can’t pronounce the “f” sound either, it’s always “puh”. He ends up trying to work with this one kid who’s doing terrible, so I try to help the kid by getting him to pull up his upper lip. It looks ridiculous, but it works, and the principal digs this, so he gets the whole class to pull up their upper lips and start going “fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff”. So now there’s 35 kids going “ffffffffffff” with their hands in their mouths, the principal is holding up his lip smacking his foot on the ground to get their attention, kids are laughing, he’s yelling (with his lip held up), and by the time I got class started we had wasted almost a full half hour.

Well everyone, thanks for tuning in for another weekly adventure of English teaching in Korea. it’s been a blast as always, and I hope you can make it back next week!

Konglish

Whew, I'm all for integrated classrooms and students of all learning abilities working together, but I just had a mentally challenged kid jump on my back. I like the kid and all, I just wish he didn't weigh 120 pounds already.

You may have noticed my late blogs these days, which is a result of a new, busier schedule. I'm running an after-school English class now, so I'm swamped Mondays and Tuesdays. If you've been keeping up with my weekly adventures, be aware they'll be popping up a litle later in the week. I think I'll make Wednesday night my deadline now.

Eugh... that same kid just spat in my ear. He wasn't really trying, so I shouldn't be mad at him, but his slight loss of motor control has made it a challenge for him to whisper things into your ear without slobbering as well. Yeuck.

I'm almost at a grade 1 level now with my own Korean skills. Hah! Me and the 6 year olds, talkin', hangin' out... kay, maybe we don't have an instant rapport due to language levels (they don't understand why I can't understand them), but our vocabulary is about the same. My advantage over the little wieners is that I can read their language - Hanguel, the Korean writing system, is remarkably easy to pick up, and I've been rather competent at deciphering it for over a month now. Heck, I could sound out words after a few days, however recognizing those words is a problem. Though not as much as you'd think.

"Konglish" is slang for the mixture of English words taken into the Korean vocabulary, and I'm sure there's something like it that every developing or newly developed country in the world has to some degree or another. While the Korean language is fairly complex (I think they have words to express any feeling or action you'd come across), there's so many western culture pieces and technologies that have drifted into Korea, that a whole dictionary of English words taken into the Korean vernacular. Here's a few examples:

"Pocketball" is playing pool, "aircon" is airconditioning, "talent" - TV or movie stars. "Fighting" is a bit of a strange one, and Koreans use it in place of "good luck" or "break a leg". After work, I can go to the "cope-ee see-yope" (coffee shop), or maybe stop by the "hell-suh-kuh-lope" (health club), but it's a long walk, so I'll need to catch a "take-see" (taxi). Hair conditioner is "rin-suh", a one piece dress is a "won-pee-suh", and apartments are shortened to "apar-tuh".

Besides learning the language, I'm also giving it my all to pick up the accent. I don't know how successful I've been so far, but I'm quickly learning about the Korean syllable-factor and how important it is. Hanguel, when being read, is written by forming syllables our of letters, the words out of syllables. When translating, it makes for some interesting results. Allow me to demonstrate:

The word "strike" in English is a one-syllable word. If you were to sound it out for someone, maybe you would put two in there (str-ike), so there's potential to make it a longer word. The Korean language system turns it into five syllables. Yep, "strike" quickly becomes "suh-tuh-rah-ee-kuh" when translated into Konglish. And there's tonnes of words like this, which means that even though you are trying to say a word that Koreans use all the time, they might be clueless about it - and the same goes for the other way around. Today, some kids of mine wanted to call their team "Barcelona", after the soccer team. I had to get them to come up to the board and spell it for me, and it was 7 syllables long. And if you want to catch a taxi to E-mart (just like Wal Mart), you have to be very clear thay you want to go to "E-mar-tuh", as "E-mart" will generally just get you looks of confusion.

Shannon's uploaded a bunch of photos onto Flickr. The links below should take you there.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shan_korea/sets/72157594308304205/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/shan_korea/sets/72157594297423735/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/shan_korea/sets/72157594308265638/

Hope everyone's doing well, thanks for taking the time to read the ol' blog here! Till next week!

"A" is for Bomb Pt 2

It was mentioned to me from one of my faithful readers that my blog gives the impression I'm not having a great time, or that the new and unusual oddities of Korea are dragging me down. I should make it clear that's not the case in the slightest, and I think I have enjoyed my time not in spite of the challenges and weirdness I've come across, but because of it. Heck, if there's exciting or bizarre to write about, I think I'd quickly grow bored and wonder why I came here at all.

I did have my first pangs of homesickness however, which were brought about by the trip to Japan. I really enjoyed Japan, and was a little let down at only having the time and money to stay for a 5-day whirlwind tour. There was something so honest and genuine about the country, and how despite the cultural differences I could still feel quite at home. This has a lot to do with Japanese being used to and accepting of foreigners (Koreans still stare and giggle at Shannon and I), and coupled with the interesting and deep history and culture of the country, I would really like to visit there again.

Korea has been a middle ground, a stepping stone from China to Japan for hundreds of years, and the history has been scoured with a mix of both cultures creating a strange identity crisis. Confucianism dominates personal daily life, Buddhism is hidden throughout all the nooks and crannies of the country, and everything you see always comes with the opening line "Originally from Japan/China..." In Japan, even the small farming communities had a slight air of dignity to them. Old buildings and architecture, which normally would leave villages drab and unkempt, but the tiny outskirt communities and inner city areas still had this rich and solemn colour to it that gave off an impression of culture and history rather than of a run-down neighbourhood or poorer district of town.

As everone I'm sure is well aware of by now, North Korea's recently set off an underground nuclear weapon. Pretty scary for sure, though it's strange how any economic or military insecurities are felt not so much from NK having a bomb, but from the response by the rest of the world, specifically the US. North and South Korea are separated by economic and diplomatic issues that, until a few years ago, were being worked through nicely. They both want to be reunited, and probably one day will. But when the Bush administration came into power, a very anti-North Korea sentiment came about over there (remember the "Axis of Evil" comment?) and suddenly NK goes on the defensive. Photo-ops between leaders were cancelled, botht he US and NK start making waves in the media talking down to each other, and now NK starts setting off missiles and nuclear weapons just to get attention.

North Korea's in a terrible state economically, and the idea of it going to war with anyone over anything is a little far-fetched. They pour huge amounts of money into the military, but huge is a relative term for them, as the country doesn't make much money to begin with. In fact, if it weren't for aid from China and other countries, NK wouldn't even be able to feed it's own people. In fact, it's estimated the population has decreased several million people over the past years (not sure how many).

So, a sudden war is very, very unlikely. What is possible is economic and political pressures exerted by other countries could put leaders of NK into a position where it was either step down and let the foreign powers dictate how the country should go, or show them that they have some power left too, and launch whatever they can as a last resort, probably agains SK or Japan (most likely Japan).

But, enough war talk. As exciting as it is to be this close to a possible one, it's much more fun drinking beer and not worrying about guns 'n stuff. On that note, it's time to teach some school.

"A" is for Bomb

I know that's not the cheeriest title to an entry, but with what's going on in and around Korea right now, somehow I find it funny. Perhaps I should be taking the whole North Korean nuclear development a little more serious, at least in terms of how it will affect me personally, but at the moment I'm content and happy to be working and living in Korea now, and the idea of leaving hasn't taken up more than a slight flicker in my mind.

Shannon and I just had a week (almost) off for Chuseok, which we spent frolicking around in Japan. Wow, what a country Japan is. Everything about that place had something to it that made it just a little unique and special. Heck, even if you were just looking at a plain ol' can of beans, you'd still take a while to get over the bloody cost of them, as the cost of living in Japan is freakin' unreal.

We took a hydrofoil (some kind of jet-boat) to Fukuoka from Busan, and within an hour or two, we had caught a bus to Hiroshima. Over the course of our Japan trip, Shannon and I spent at least half our waking hours travelling from one place to another, which at times was perhaps not the best move as I'll explain later. Nevertheless, we were safely in Hiroshima, and our foreigner adventures were about to begin.

We hadn't done any real preparations for the trip, and had only booked one hotel for the 5 nights we'd be away (and even that we didn't know if they had space until the day before arriving). Experienced as we may be at travelling, it was constantly a challenge finding information booths around Japan, getting hotel info, finding cheap ones and making sure they had vacancy for us. Yep, almost everyday we did this, but it worked out pretty well in the end.

Hiroshima is an amazing and terrifyingly sad city. Our hotel was two blocks from where the atomic bomb was first dropped back in 1945. We spent nearly 4 hours wandering around Peace Memorial Park, looking at sights, taking pictures of one the building left standing after the A-bomb, and visiting the Peace Museum. I still can't quite come to grips with how dramatic and catastrophic the bomb dropping was to Hiroshima, but I've tasted a part of it, and travelling through the city now I noticed many of the remaining signs from that day, including what seems a very high number of people suffering health problems and physical dsifigurements or handicaps.

That evening we went to Miyajima Island, literally translated as Shrine Island. We had a cute little Ryokan to stay in, a traditional Japanese accomodation where we lay out mats on the floor and share a community bathroom (we had the building to ourselves though). Meals in Japan were wonderful up to and including our stay at Miyajima, though the night before arriving was especially noteworthy. Shannon and I walked around Hiroshima for an hour or so before finally deciding to enter this tiny little Japanese restaurant. The chef, who spoke a little English, was a giant ball of giggling, smiling Japanese delight. He talked, laughed and yelled around the restaruant, muddled through charades to figure what we wanted, and walked us out the door once we left, possibly to thank us for not complaining when the bill came out to be a shocking $50.

But, back to Shrine Island. We took far too many pictures I think here, though there was an amazing amount of (you guessed it) shrines and other sights to see. And the deer, the darn things will sneak up to you and eat your backpack while you're wearing it if you're not careful.

After Myajima we went to Nara City - an awesome little town with a ton of random events taking place, yet it was a little too remote perhaps and maybe we should have avoided it. It was a 5-6 hour busride to Nara, and we were only going for one night, so we took the bullet train. $210 later we were there, hunting for a hotel again (somehow this time we ended up in a travel agents office). We only came to see this giant wooden castle, but we did manage to find some other exciting things while in Nara, such as an evening boat ceremony (yeah, I don't really know what it was) and some traditional Japanese musicians. The castle itself was very impressive, with a 25 foor Buddha dwelling inside, however, did I mention the travel cost to get here? That was only one-way, so now we had to spend another $350 to get back to catch our boat. Whooooo, that was a fair chunk of change.

Our last night in Japan was spent at a Japanese Onsen - a natural hot springs bath. While not very "traditional", this bath did have an outdoor setting to it and was naturally spring fed. Since you do it completely naked, Shannon and I had to have our own separate Onsen adventures, but it was amazingly relaxing to just lay around and do nothing for an hour.

Of Volleyball and Other Sports

Korea is starting to feel more and more like home, and if I ever get a handle on the language (I'm still stuck on my few silly phrases that don't really get me anywhere), I'm sure I'll fit in quite well here. Yet... there's always "something to write home about" in daily Korean life, and today, it's Volleyball!

Every Wednesday, the staff at school plays volleyball. I remember the first Wednesday - everyone was so excited to see me on the court, as I'm a genuine monster in height and size by Korean standards, so they felt certain I could spike the ball like no one else could. Sadly, these thoughts quickly proved wrong, as they saw how uncoordinated I am when trying to pick my feet off the ground, and how my height did little to translate into skill on the court. But they saw potential, so they started to set up "training" times for me.

But why train? We only play against our own school, we put every teacher on the court at once (it's usually 10-on-10), and no one is really any good except the gym teachers. Yet there's a "need" to be great. My principal will at times stay late with me, setting and bumping the ball back and forth, and teachers are constantly showing me how to 1-2-3-jump-uh and SPIKE-UH!And it seems that maybe all this training has worked, if only a little, as the last time we played I dominated the game, though I'm a little embarrassed now because of it. I won't go into my amazing volleyball antics (I still really am terrible) but I'm not sure how good it is to encourage an unfair physical advantage to become so competitive. Remember that movie "Meet the Parents" where Ben Stiller, pressed by his in-laws to play harder, spikes the ball into the girl's face? Well, I may not have made anyone bleed, but when I crushed the poor tiny kindergarten teacher to the floor, I certainly felt like Ben Stiller did. Only everyone was giving me high-5's.

We also had Sports Day at our school last Friday, which was a really great event put on by the parents and teachers, though of course there were a few unexpected hmoments to mention as well.

The first was the race - a race between myself, the school principal, and a grade 6 girl. Why? I don't know, no one was watching, it wasn't any kind of kick-off event, they just decided we should race. I'm told that I should have let the principal win to make him look good, but wow was he slow. At least he beat the grade 6 girl.

The rest of the day was measured out in starting lines and cups of coffee. That's what I did - start a race, have a cup of coffee, then do it again. I don't really drink coffee, so after the 4th big cup they gave me, I was feeling flat-out loopy. If only the had fed me I may have help it together, but despite the heaps of pizza given to the kids, I was only allowed little buckets of re-constituted deep-fried chicken. And coke, they gave me lots of coke. When I was finally fed, it was fresh octopus, which I did manage to eat but not without some serious grumblings from the ol' tummy.

To close, I'll emphasize my point on the volleyball matter - here's the clip from "Meet The Parents", enjoy http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/02b0ebc616/meet-the-parents-volleyball-scene-from-rihannaisagoddess

Short and Sweet

Well, it's Chuseok, and you all know what that means... 'kay, most of you probably have no clue what that means, which is just fine. It's kind of like the Korean Thanksgiving over here right now, or will be starting tomorrow. We get every day but Monday off this week, so Shannon and I are heading over to Japan to see what how much of the country we can cram in during a 5 day trip.

It's almost starting to feel like "home" here in Korea, and every day that passes leaves me a little more accustomed to the things that were once so strange and bizarre. I'm getting used to eating the bones (and sometimes head) when served fish at lunch, I almost miss it when Koreans don't come running up to me to say "hi" when I pass them on the street, and wearing garbage bags on my feet is something that just has to be done now and then. Oh yeah, I should write about the garbage bags here quickly.

The elementary schools in town have a big city-wide English competition, which most of the Canadian teachers will coach the students in. We had no student going, but I was told I'd be going anyway. So, the day of it comes, I'm driven to this other school, however there's nothing that resembles a competition here at all. After 5 or 6 tries to figure it out, I finally learn from the Korean teacher with me it's a "seminar" (nothing at all to do with the compeition). So, for the next 4 hours (4 hours!!!) I listen on how to be a better teacher. All in Korean. There was a 50 minute English class workshop, but it was 75% Korean, and the discussion afterward was all Korean as well.

Oh right, the bags.

Since this was at a neighbouring school, no one brough slippers with them, and you can't wear your outdoor shoes in the school. What to do... why not garbage bags tied to your feet? I thought it was the silliest thing you could have done, yet here are all these Koreans in suits and ties etc. with garbage bags on their feet. It was like visiting hour at the Howard Hughes residence.

I heard it's snowed at least once in Calgary lately, which I bring up only because I slept on a beach last Saturday. Korea has some really nice beaches around, and we went to this one that looked like a picture from a Californian tourism magazine. Except it was completely desserted. There was about 2 dozen people on the beach, and a baptism congregation. The town? Well, I saw more stray dogs than people, and our attempt to find a hotel room was rather ridiculous. We found at least eight hotels, however none had any staff at all to help us. We finally managed to find our way into one, but the onwner, or possibly a random guy who found some keys, was so drunk and showed us the nastiest smelling room imaginable that we decided to skip that idea and sleep by the water.

I tell you, Koreans will do things when it's time to do it, but soon as the time's past, not at all. When the beach season ends, no one even thinks of going. Every local we mentioned to that we were going to the beach asked us why and said, "too cold, beach season over."

Anyway, gotta run now. I'm 20 minutes from my holidays, and I should probably say goodbye to my teachers and principal. It was suggested I buy them presents (?) but I think I'll settle for just giving them a handshake.

Taking the Good With the Bad Pt.1

It looks like this is going to end up being a pretty hefty entry this week, so I think I'll break it up into two parts.

I've come down with my first illness here in Korea, a Korean flu bug or cough or something. It wasn't too bad, I'm still expecting something to come along and pound me into the ground and put me to bed for a week. The worst of it came over the weekend, which was no fun at all. At least during the week I can stay home and sleep, but we had plans to go hiking this weekend and, with a little convincing from Shannon, I managed to keep them.

We went hiking up a mountain known as Mt. Wolchulsan, which I'm sure has some kind of spiritual significance, and is one of the tallest peaks in the region.

Like everything else, Koreans go about hiking in their own way, unlike anything I've seen anywhere else. There were generally two types of Koreans going up the hill - those who just wore whatever they would wear on a regular weekend afternoon (jeans, t-shirts, etc.) and those who were "geared to the extreme" with hiking poles, boots, waterproof-breathables, etc. They even put bells on their backpacks to, well, I never was able to figure out quite why.

I unfortunately don't hike enough to know what constitutes a crowded trail in Canada, but I'm pretty sure nothing will quite compare with the route we took at Wolchulsan. For the last hour or so going up (3 1/2 up, 3 down) it was "face-to-behind" hikers, with 10-30 second waits at times as people scrambled around more difficult spots. And once we reached the top, it was a mad-house of hikers, their kids, picture taking and just plain crowded-ness.

Still, it was a pretty stellar day, and I managed to make it through without collapsing, though I slept for over 14 hours that night. We're going to have some pictures up on flickr real soon, at which point I'll add a link to it so you can check 'em out. In the meantime, a friend put his up at http://www.flickr.com/photos/thedumpinghole/sets/72157594296130014/

We've finally become a little more mobile in the here country, as Shannon and I have picked up a couple of bikes. Oh, the terror it's gonna be riding down the Korean streets - for a people that conforms to what's normally accepted, they certainly seem to have no regard for traffic laws and expectations. We're definitely getting helmets, which will bump the total helmet wearing population of the city to 5, all of us being waygooks.

I'm learning more and more about what it's going to be like working with Korean's for the next year, as many people in our ex-pat community have some wild stories to tell. One of the most bizarre was "School Boot Camp". The poor kids, I don't know how they manage to get through traumatic events like this. For two days, they were put through nasty physical exercises and psychological torment. After being divided by gender, they would be given tasks such as 100 jumping jacks to be done in unison. Anyone gets out of line, and it's back to zero again for everyone. Then the same with pushups. Then situps, and on and on. And at night, it got really cruel.

The kids were all taken from their bunks just before going to sleep, and brought to a big candle ceremony of sorts. Sounds neat, right? Well, the teacher at this event (in case you forgot, it was a friend doing this, not me), is kind of enjoying this, though she can't understand what the speaker is saying. The kids however, as she turns around to look at them, are all bawling. Every one of them is crying his or her eyes out. It seems the speaker was telling the children that one day their parents would be dead, so they should respect them now while they're alive. Why, they might even be dead before they made it home from boot camp.

So life as a kid can be tough here (there's some more wickedness ahead to be told), and I think a lot of it has to do with the adults being a little nuts. Korean teachers will occassionally go on group vacations or tours, and I've met two waygooks who have joined their teachers on one of these overnight excursions.

The first was a sightseeing trip to some nearby city. They charted a bus, and took off for a 3 or 4 hour trip. The English teacher on this, Chad, was a little nervous about the trip, and I don't think he had a lot of fun. It was mere minutes before the Koreans were Norebonging (karaoke) on the bus. Not so bad at first, but once they started in on the drinking, they cranked the volume to maximum distortion levels, and just went all out for the next two hours. They reached their first destination, a mountain look-out. 10 minutes of picture taking later, back on the bus for 2 more hours of drunken norebonging. One more 10 minute photo-stop, and they arrived at their intended destination, where they all went out for dinner and, yup, norebong. I think Chad managed to sneak away and get some sleep around this point, but the unavoidable 2 hour bus ride home was another norebong filled adventure, and I don't think he'll ever go on a trip with his teachers again.

Another friend, Brent, went on his teachers overnighter with his girlfriend Steph as well. The teachers at his school went to the nearby island called Jeju, a sub-tropical place that's supposed to be amazing. He had quite a bit of personal space from his teachers, and it wasn't until the evening's activities that things got a little strange.

After a nice big dinner, they went to a jazz bar for drinks and dancing, and were eventually treated to a traditional Korean dance. Sort of, anyway. Despite the fancy costumes and dancing, it turned out just to be a stripper in pasties and a g-string. Now, this would normally be enough to freak a person out, and might have merited inclusion in the blog here, but it got even worse. Across from Brent was one of the more senior (older) teachers, and the dancer started doing her thing around him, and there, with all his coworkers sitting at the table, this older dude grabs a dollar bill and with the care and precision of a neuro-surgeon, places the bill as deep and far down this girl's g-string as he could (and I think she) could handle. Then, as she turns away to make it a little more difficult for this guy, he takes for himself a mouthful of her breast.

(Carried on in next entry)

Taking the Good With the Bad Pt.2

(Continued from last entry)

Most of this behaviour, which we foreigners find so bizarre but the Koreans take as normal, stems from (I believe) the social heirarchy established in the country from hundreds of years of confucianism. It has it's ups and downs, though the downs seem to be much more noticeable to me.

Age has a big thing to do with a person's status. Old people will regularily budge in front of you in lineups and get annoyed at you if you don't give them their way. You shouldn't disagree with them, you shouldn't touch them (though they can touch you), and you must be respectful.

So, while the elderly here enjoy a level of respect not generally found at home (not to be rude at all, but the term "useless" and "senile" don't seem to ever come into play when talking about elders here), they have the ability to walk all over young people. Middle aged men are like demi-gods, physically fit, older than most of the co-workers, and while they are responsible for everything, they are required to do little or nothing at all.

I also saw an elderly (40's or 50's maybe?) lady give crap to a homeless man. She was walking down the street, saw this dude squatting down begging for change (they don't sit here, they squat generally), and started giving him grief. While I couldn't understand what she was saying, his and her body language gave me the impression she was telling him to "get it together" and stop being such a waste of space. She then gave him a few good smacks with her umbrella. Poor guy.

As with age, gender also gives status, and men are seen as superior to women. This leads to different levels of mysogeny and abuse, and while I haven't seen or felt the presence of it, I've been told spousal abuse can be as high as 30% of married couples.

What I have seen is abused children, which I've come across a few times now at school. There has been a few young girls now who have come to school with massive black eyes, and I'm convinced it's not from playing around with their friends. There's still not a lot of support for situations like that here, and there can be as many problems with reporting it as there can be with not.

What's really scary (sorry to be dwelling on the bad stuff, but it's on my mind today) is how things are so closely tied with the drinking of soju here. Soju is cheap, and drinking is common, hence, accepted. Normally well-behaved Korean men easily turn into drunk, aggressive and scary people, and while I haven't seen any very aggressive types, there's been many encounters with public drunks now, often running up to us to talk, dragging us one way or another, and just generally getting in the way. For some reason they usually seem to be peeing as we come across them.

Not everyone is like this, and I've met quite a few nice Koreans so far. It does help account for why so many foreign guys date (and marry) Korean women - friendly, they do housework, complain little and "know their place" - while foreign women date Korean men so rarely - expecting women to do housework, they take care of money and family worries, need to feel in charge and act dominant.

Hmmm, a coworker just came in and gave me a Chuseok (like Thanksgiving at home) present. It's a giant box of mushrooms. A little bizarre, but that's what's done here, and I guess they think I'm an okay kinda guy.

Okay, enough for now, I've nearly worn the keys off the keyboard here. I'll be back next Monday as that seems to be my regular writing time. Thanks for your time and for reading my yammerings, I love hearing from everyone so keep the comments coming!

How Far Stupid Takes You

As the struggles of language barriers and miscommunications continue, I've found that feigning stupidity is often the easiest solution to a challenging situation. For example, when trying to locate photocopy paper, it's much easier to ask someone to photocopy what you need rather than try and fix exactly what's wrong (plus the other person always seems proud to have solved the problem that was originally plaguing you). Often asking a person the same question 4 or 5 times has to be done, that way you can determine which answer is the most likely one, as usually every response given will be different (it took 4 teachers nearly a week to figure out what my thanksgiving holidays were). And of course, if someone asks you a question you know you could never properly explain with out a dictionary, an interpreter and the acrobatic-charading ability of a olympic gymnast, it's always easier to say "I don't know" and leave it be.

Teaching children however does not leave any of these options, and I'm quickly becoming a v-e-r-y s-l-o-w t-a-l-k-e-r, capable of charading the first three stanzas of any top 40 song without missing a beat. I teach grade 1-6, I have no co-teacher (I run all the lessons on my own, though usually there is a Korean teacher in the room to help translate and tell the kids to shut up), and most of the kids think I'm awesome, though sometimes it's hard to be impartial when the kids with strong English are so much easier to work with.

Most Korean kids are pretty darn cute, and you rarely see any of the mutant-type kids that you get at home. If you have a spiky haired, pointy headed, buck toothed, bug eyed, big eared little caucasian kid, you've got something awful on your hands. In Korea, they pull it off pretty well. Though something happens to them around the 4th or 5th grade. With the guys I can't quite put my finger on it, but I think it mostly has to do with kids coming up with an identity and style to call their own. Their parents no longer choose their hair cut or clothes, and, well I guess it's just like home. Except the number of girls who suddenly spawn these horrific, nasty, 40-year-old woman mullets is surreal! There's this terrible triangle chunk of bangs that starts near the top of their head and spreads nearly to their ears. I guess they find it attractive, but I have a feeling these girls think living in a dumpy trailer park in the US is exotic.

There's about 200 or so "waygooks" in Mokpo here, and it's quite an interesting community. While no one "knows" everyone, you "know of" everyone in town, and suddenly the city of 300,000 really does feel like a tiny Canadian hamlet community. For anyone who's never lived abroud, I'm told it's no different than the minority communities within Canada, and I now find it a little less bizarre that I would see Polish or Irish or Italian Community gatherings and events.

This weekend ended up being quite the party weekend for Shannon and I, and I learned a number of interesting things about this country and its nightlife:

1. The only people who look at you cock-eyed for playing twister in a bar are those who wish it was them playing.

2. The bars here don't close (in the places we go to anyway). The staff leave after the patrons, whether that's 3am or 8am.

3. Most waygooks such at singing. And the males are generally worse than the females. However what we lack in talent, we make up for in decibels.

4. Everyone in this town is crazy except for me. Which is funny, cause I'm pretty nuts.

Thanks for the comments Steph, it's great to hear that teaching is teaching, regarless of the country. Though I'm sure there are some different mannerisms between the Japanese and Koreans that would get a laugh from both of us. It's not that uncommon I'm finding for kids to pull (out) my arm hair here, for example.

Thanks for reading everyone, leave a comment if you have a moment.

Quick addition - trying to upload a photo, so I'm gonna put it here first, then see if I can stick in onto my blog profile.

I Loathe the Smell of Kimchi in the Morning...

While not being able to speak Korean is definitely a drawback while living here, it does provide a near limitless number of strange situations to try and muddle through. Communicating with my co-teachers is quickly becoming the biggest challenge, and while there are one or two strong English speakers, they're lower in the social heirarchy, and so many times I'm forced to discuss events with people who command a very limited vocabulary.

"Ah, Mr. Park. Dinner - where do we go?" I say very slowly.
"5 o'cloak." He replies.
"Time, yes, 5 o'clock. Where? Ga odie oseyo?"
"Yes, 5 o'cloak."
"Okay. Who is going?"
"Yes, feeshie. Fresh feeshie, no pire."

and the Konglish battle continues. So you know, we were having raw fish, or "fish, no fire".

Lying to each other has becoming a popular pastime here in Korea, one which I'm pretty sure no amount of miscommunication can account for. Many Koreans have told me my pronnunciation of Korean is very good. Okay, maybe, but they also tell me I'm a great singer and an excellent volleyball player. In return, I tell them I like kimchi for breakfast (pickled cabbage with red pepper sauce), and everybody's happy.

I had my first night out with my teachers this past week. While I knew it was going to be quite an experience, I was amazed at how comfortable they all became with me after a few drinks of soju (that Korean vodka like drink). It seems intoxication can transcend all language barriers, and as the night moved on, I seemed to be sharing deep philosphical conversations with Koreans using only gestures and mono-syllabic grunts.

We also went Norebonging (or more properly, to the Norebong. I don't know if I can put Norebong into a verb or not yet). It's like Japanese karaoke, but you have your own private room and the mic is set to a strange reverb setting which makes anyone who can't sing worth a darn sound like a drowning cat. This was where I was told my singing skills were pretty good, but I think that was just them trying to be polite - I was definitely playing the part of a drowning cat.
This weekend will be Shannon and my first chance to speak regular, non-broken English other than with each other for nearly a week. Our tiny contigent of foreigners has put together a boat trip in a city called Yeosu. It's going to be quite a challenge for any locals we run into - most of them only see a foreign face a few times a year, so coming across 60 or more of us yelling and mulling about may be too much to handle. I'm not kidding when I say they may ask one or two of us for an autograph.

Korean Time

I'd like to start by thanking my few fans out there for their comments. Auntie Lori, and I'm pretty sure the other was Mel, but the aonymous "time-on-my-hands" commenter may have to go unthanked if it's someone else.

Getting to the nitty-gritty - I just had my first "squat-toilet" experience. My, how I wish it could have been held off indefinitely, but if this is as bad as it will get, I'll consider myself lucky. I'm pulling cobwebs out of all the nooks and crannies of my body still, and I'm still rather cramped after squeezing myself into a stall built for a young Korean's stature, not a 6'2" Canadian. I think I'd like to throw both the building architect and the janitor off a bridge right now.

I've titled this entry as "Korean Time" after thinking of all the places I've been where people tell me "We're meeting at 6pm, but in (insert city or country here) time." Usually I find it's someone trying to add some spice to a dull story or conversation, or their just trying to say they plan on being late. But here, things definitely move a little differently than at home.

The music and pop-culture is certainly trapped in the late 80's and early 90's. People are often in a rush to get somewhere, but only so long as they don't have to do anything once they arrive. Meetings scheduled for 8:30 don't actually start till 8:40, but if you're late, you're in trouble. And while I'm only required to work 20 hours a week, I have to stay in school the other 20 hours of the work week. I think they may tell me what I should be doing by mid-March.

Traffic and laws are another mind-boggling thing. At home (Canada), there are laws to govern how traffic works. In Tailand, not at all. Here, they've reached a point of having laws, but no one really bothers you if you don't follow them. Red lights are optional, four way stops can be avoided with a quick blast of the horn, and lane demarkations are more like the starting lanes for a NASCAR race, and become meaningless after the starting flag.

Shannon and I had a rather alarming experience on Sunday. We were working on some English grammar items, when I thought I heard a plane flying rather low outside our apartment. Shannon wasn't so sure, and went to look outside, but was stopped at the door, as our hallway was wildly thick with smoke. "Oh shit, the building's on fire!" We grabbed our wallets, I grabbed a shirt, and bolted out of the building, crouching low, shirts over our faces. Outside, it was a little desolate for a fire - no other people, no emergency vehicles... just the damn gardener fumigating the garden, filling the whole building with pesticides. So, Shannon (in her pajamas) and I went for a walk up the local mountain to pass the day and let the poison dissipate.

I'll end on the note that today has been my first day of class. Korean kids are just like Canadian kids, except they do whatever I ask them to, which may mean they're very well disciplined, or there's something slightly terrifying about a giant, bleached white guy who stands over their shoulder and won't stop talking in tongues. They are well disciplined mind you, and it's the kids who are in charge of cleaning the schools here, which brings me back to my thoughts on how that damn toilet got so dirty...

Baptism by Fire

I think the title is a little more to Shannon than to me, as she's off for her first day of school already, but it still feels as though we've been tossed head first into the mix of things here in Korea, and no amount of orientation can really prepare you for starting to live on your own.

We arrived in Mokpo yesterday after concluding our orientation in Gwangju. It was a very strange end to the week, which almost made it feel pretty good to get out of there. Things were winding down, I was quickly running out of clothes to wear (it's hard to keep up with laundry when you're doing it in the bathtub and have nowhere to dry things), and some of our group was getting a little restless. But then, things got almost out of hand at the closing ceremonies when a couple of English teachers tried to see just how far they could push the envelope in terms of being inappropriate.

Two people from our group decided to do a thank-you from ourselves to all those who helped arrange the week of training. While it seemed a little out of place, it was overall a nice gesture, until the unusal thank-you's began, which included thanking one of the group members for being Mexicain, and thanking Confucianism for helping with one of the speaker's marriage. It was all a little too tongue-in-cheek, given that most of the audience was Korea, spoke little English, wouldn't understand the humour, and probably wouldn't be impressed even if they did. The two speakers managed to top it all off with a brief story about girls farting, hinting about mooning local Koreans, and then handing out soju to everyone for a toast. I think even for the Koreans it was too early in the morning for soju.

But I really shouldn't dwell on that, we got through it, and Shannon and I are now down in Mokpo, living in our new place and sweating more than I knew I was capable of ever doing. The humidity in this city is amazing! and neither of us were hardly able to sleep last night. It didn't help that we accidentally left the floor heating on all night, which kept our apartment at a balmy 25+ degrees all night long.

Our apartment is huge, especially for Korea. We have three bedrooms, a full bathroom plus on ensuite bathroom, a nice kitchen and large, open living room. Unfortunately, the mess left in here was terrible.and we spent 3 hours cleaning last night and will probably need to put in another 3 or 4 before we can get rid of the smell of mold and animal grease. Our lack of skills when it comes to garbage are also hampering our abiltiy to keep a clean house at the moment - we took out a bunch last night, but seeing as we didn't properly sort it, the garbage we took out is still sitting on the street. There's been a lady on and off a megaphone this morning talking about something (I can understand her say "Thank you"), and I'm worried she's looking for who left the pile of un-sorted trash on the street. What a wonderful first impression we're going to give the neighbours.

We had dinner last night with a number of Shannon's co-teachers and a VP and Parent Leader from mine. Compared to earlier meals, dinner was rather good, but now that we're eating with Koreans, it's a little harder to pick and choose what to eat. Shannon sat next to the man with the best Engish (Mr. Yeun), who may have been the head of the table as well, and he put at least 3 giant pieces of beef on her plate throughout the night. He then had the rest packed up for us to take home for breakfast, but it seems to have been forgotton at the restaurant, which neither Shannon nor I am really worried about.

Shannon started school today, while I begin on Friday. My first trip to the school was a little bizarre - it's one of the oldest schools in town, many things were in a state of disrepair, and nothing in my classroom worked properly, though it may just be that no one knows how to work them and my lack of Korean prevents me from trying. I'm anxious for my teaching to begin, but I think I'll be a little better off after hearing about Shannon's day.

That's all for today, I think my fingertips are starting to sweat, so I should go take another shower perhaps. I'll be back with an update on how school went, as well as whether we can ever remove that smell from the kitchen.

Stereotypical Stereotypes

The oddities of this country are definitely starting to become more and more apparent. There are so many times that things here seem almost like home, then suddenly it reverts back to the stereotypical asian culture that people are so familiar with.

Shannon and I have made a few trips to downtown Gwanju now, a city of 1.4 million people. On our first walk into the edge of town, we nearly got a guy killed. This poor Korean guy was trying to cross the road, when he caught sight of us and started staring at the two strange foreigners behind him. An oncoming car came within a few feet of tearing his legs out from under him, after which I'm fairly sure the driver took a moment to gawk at us as well.

The city here is like a giant amusment park without any rides. Lights are flashing at you from every direction, there 101 different pop- and techno-music songs always within earshot, and billboards assault your English skills with strange slogans like "Happy Awesome 100" or "Ace Perfect". It's never really wrong, it just feels so far from being right.

The food is definitely something that will either take some getting used to or simply have to be avoided. The vegetarians in our orientation group are having a bit of a struggle finding full meals to eat while maintaining a bit of diversity in their diet. If you can handle Kimchi - pickled vegetables in hot pepper sauce - you're in okay shape, but if not there's not a lot of options. Yesterday they served us a western dinner in the restaurant we eat at for orientation. It looked promising at first, with a plain salad and clam chowder soup served to us. But the main course was a bit of a disaster. Again, vegetarians were hung out to dry after being served with a big hunk of steak. There was a baked potato to go with it fortunately, but it seems the cook mixed up "sour cream" with "whipped cream". That was by far the sweetest potato I've ever eaten.

Our orientation is going well, though from all the stories I'd heard about teaching overseas, this seems above and beyond what you go through with any other group. Steve (my step-brother for non-family members reading this) spent six months in Taipai teaching English, and from what he told me it sounded as though his job was more to look pretty, play games and teach the occassional phrase for the kids to repeat back to their parents. Teaching was left to the Taiwanese teacher, and their wasn't really any work to it. It seems that Korean children are worked half to death at school, and while English class is a chance to take it easy and not have tests, they are still required to follow the lesson plan and ciricullum we work with and behave in class lest they get a whack with the stick. Each class requires a lesson plan put together by us, and there's a growing movement in the Korean school system to have good English teachers, as the slackers and babysitters of the past few years have started to upset the system that demands so much from the children.

I've finally found out about the school I'll be teaching at. I'll save writing about it in great detail till I actually see and experience it, but I've found out that there are no English speakers at the school and that I have no co-teacher to aid me in classes and living in Mokpo. This could prove challenging, though Shannon's co-teacher said she would help out where ever she can. By next Monday, I should know what it will be like, so I'll be sure to write again after then.

Day 1 - Sort of...

To title this as day 1 is a bit misleading, as it's now Monday in Korea, and we left Saturday from Calgary. However, two days of travelling have finally taken us to our temporary residence in Gwanju, South Korea, capital of the province Jeollanamdo (which I believe can also be referred to as simply "Jeollanam").

Travelling here was long, but of course I guess that's inevitable when going overseas. The fact that Shannon and I were up till the time we had to leave for the airport on our depature day (4am), cleaning and moving out of the house, didn't help our ability to travel at all - we both slept on the one hour flight from Calgary to Seattle, which left us nearly incapacitated and unable to function at all once we arrived, forcing us to sit down for 10 or 20 minutes before even trying to find the correct gate for our next flight, and then curling up in a corner to sleep on the floor for the next three hours.

The flight from Seattle to Gwanju was delayed for an hour and a half. At the time I really didn't mind this at all, I had started reading the Lonely Planet travel guide for Korea, Shannon was sleeping, so a little extra time to enjoy the ample leg room was appreciated. 11 hours later however, when it dawned on us we were going to miss our connecting flight to Gwanju, I wasn't so pleased with the delay. We tried to make a mad dash from Incheon airport to the domestic, Gimpo airport, but even with the effciency of the Korean shuttle drivers, we were much too late (until now I'd never even heard of an airport shuttle that didn't wait for 20 minutes after loading your bags then make 8 or 9 stops before leaving the airport to go to your hotel or other location. We had hardly sat down before this one peeled out of the airport and drove straight to where we needed to be).

Shannon and I seem to be travelling very well together, though we have a very different way of going about things, especially when it comes to language barriers. I get a little embarrassed at not speaking the language of the country I'm in, and I don't like the expectation that it seems so many English speaking people have that other countries should all speak English. So, I mutter, stammer, and have so far avoided conversation with a lot of gestures, pointing and, welll... getting Shannon to speak. She's to the point, persistent, and while at times bordering on rude, she gets the job done. So when we couldn't find the shuttle for the hotel we now had to stay in, I tried to go back and ask where and when it was coming. Of course, every Korean lady who I see looked the same, I couldn't find the lady we spoke with before, no one knew what i was talking about it seemed, and I quickly left, a touch embarrassed. Shannon returned to talk to them all a moment later, and the entire group of women had a good laugh as she came to do the job I just failed so badly at.

We're in Gwanju now, after catching a connecting flight the next morning. Shannon is ill already, though we're not sure from what as we've both eaten all the same foods so far. We started our teacher orientation today (boring!) and she had to leave at least 3 times to be sick in the bathroom. She says she's a little better now, hopefully that's the case.

Some interesting things I've leanred so far:

Women's washrooms have an etiquette button - if you're going to be making "noises" while on the toilet, push it, and an array of chirping birds and ocean waves will ensure no one is the wiser.

Just because you order vegetables doesn't mean a pig didn't get cooked up and served with it.

There are people from Saskatchewan who have never been anywhere in the world except Saskatchewan. It's quite a mind-trip to meet one of them here in Korea (this girl is going to:
1) see the mountains for the first time
2) see the ocean for the first time
3) see another country for the first time
and all of this on the same trip. You'd think a person would take some baby-steps, but hey, why not just throw yourself into it all like this.

Well, I think I just fried my power adapter, which could quickly become a giant pain if I can't get another one. But for the moment, I'll have to get off it before the battery dies, so this brings an end to my first blog ever. Lee, this has been done on your request so I hope you've enjoyed it!

Rich