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.