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.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
"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.
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.
Monday, October 09, 2006
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
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
Monday, October 02, 2006
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.
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.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
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)
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!
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!
Monday, September 18, 2006
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.
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.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
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.
"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.
Monday, September 04, 2006
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...
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...
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
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.
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.
Friday, August 25, 2006
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.
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.
Monday, August 21, 2006
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
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
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