About one and a half weeks ago Fulbright fed us for the last time. While this does mean no more snacking on Triscuits and cheese cubes (or just Triscuits if you've found yourself in line behind Keely Foutch) at swanky hotels, it does signal the coming of the end of my Fulbright grant year.
Our "final dinner" ... or "last supper" as I liked to call it, because everything just sounds better with a Biblical reference, took place in America. That's right, 'merica. 90+ of us Fulbrighters were herded to an American army base in Seoul for a buffet of semi-delicious food.
Sidenote: I've found that anytime Fulbright coaxes us into coming to a fancy dinner (a la Thanksgiving at the ambassador's, the annual Jeju or Gyeongju conference feasts, etc) I'm always a little let down after I've finished stuffing my face with the 3 vegetarian options. I don't know why, but it seems as if American or Western food is only good if it's actually served in America.
However, the dinner was pretty nice because all of us grantees were together one last time before we parted ways in hopes of spreading our wings, learning more about ourselves, and generally improving the planet. (At least that's what it seems like Fulbright thinks we will do ... so apparently they've heard my future plans of winning Chili's "Employee of the Month" [February] somewhere in or around Knoxville, Tennessee.)
Fun fact: About half of the grantees in my grant year (2009 - 2010 if you're not keeping track) have decided to stay in Korea for at least another year with the Fulbright program, teaching English and cultural ambassador-ing. And while I was definitely considering staying for another 12 months because I'm terrified of the kimchi withdrawals, I am happy to be returning to the states in mid August. Sorry Korea, it's not you, it's me.
So after listening to a couple obligatory "feel-good", "look what I learned", "my friend and I traveled to Macau one time and checked our e-mail" speeches, I stuffed my face with some foods and called it an evening.
Next on the agenda for the weekend was the final (spoiler alert) World Cup game for the Korean national team. The game started around 11 pm, which perfectly coincided with our final dinner and the fact that I needed at least 4 hours to digest 20 helpings of mashed potatoes.
I watched the game in Hongdae, a flashy college area in Seoul (home of Hongdae University ... the fightin' Koreans) with some Fulbright and some Korean friends. In the midst of the World Cup frenzy it should be noted that any attempt to watch a match in a public place requires an extreme amount of planning, a little luck, and a basic knowledge of Korean usually helps (but when doesn't it in Korea?). It is super difficult to score a place in any local bar / restaurant / place that has a television during and about 3 hours before game time. And add the fact that it was pouring down rain ... and you just get a whole wet mess (as opposed to a "hot mess") of trouble.
However, some of my Korean friends were able to snag a table in a small bar / restaurant and I was able to watch the game in the company of many a Korean fanatic.
And as I'm sure you all are well aware (most likely because of my aforementioned spoiler alert) Korea lost the game and was thus kicked out of the competition, ending all hopes of ever achieving Kim Yuna celebrity status - reserved for gold medalists only. It was a real bummer for everyone, although it was an exciting game (well, about as exciting as any soccer game can be ... I mean, 90 minutes of kicking around a ball on a gigantic field isn't exactly what I would call "crap your pants exciting" ... but few things are).
The real excitement of the night came when Korea scored its one and only goal and one of my Korean friends, in a fit of sheer excitement, fist pumped so hard (yeah, fist pumping is not held only to residents of New Jersey) that he fist pumped his hand all the way into a light bulb and cut his hand pretty badly. So much so that he immediately went to a hospital and later had to have surgery. If that's not dedication to your country, I don't know what is.
Yes I do.
What is = fist pumping at a normal intensity where one does not destroy their hand (and their dignity) while simultaneously cheering on their Asian country.
Last week Hwasun High School decided to be like every other high school in Korea and make their students suffer through a week of final examinations for the spring semester.
While this was major suck-age for every single student ... it was major awesome-age for me.
5 days, paid vacation?
Sure I'll take it.
During my week of awesome-age I didn't go anywhere.
After my week of finals vacation my school asked me to come back and finish teaching. So I decided to honor my contract and finish out the school year. I mean, to quit now would just be a waste of 51 weeks.
Although, to be fair, I don't really know if what I've been doing during my last week of school actually qualifies as "teaching". With 2 weeks before the students' summer vacation (which lasts only one week) and less than 100 hours before I'm on a plane out of Korea, it seems pretty much pointless to do anything remotely related to academics. Rather, I've spent each class period saying my goodbyes (all 500 of them), taking class pictures (because every Korean school child loves them a class picture), exchanging e-mail addresses, and letting my students write me the most ridiculously awesome goodbye letters.
Arming them with a blank sheet of paper and a Power Ranger marker (because at the local Hwasun marker store you can find only two varieties of marker: Power Ranger and Disney Princesses) I asked them to comment on class, what they've learned, what they haven't learned, how amazing English class is, how horribly awful English class is, etc. And amidst the many letters claiming how awesome I am and how much everyone loves me (because really, isn't that what this blog is really all about?) I've found these little jewels and thought I'd share:
"I think Nonen I'm always your face."
"I'll kill you. Give me e-mail. You better be careful."
"I'm so exciting and funny with your during 1 year. Last year, when I saw you first, your teach way a little stick and hard. But time is flow flow, you teach way is more than fun and activity!!! And I saw you first, I'm short than you, so that time I tell you "Oh. I and I'm short!!!". And present my height is as tall as you. Wow!!! Next year, may be I taller than you! During 1 year I'm happy and I will miss you. I meet you is my fate."
"You're my best E.T. I have ever meeted."
"Hi Lauren. I love you. But I don't love you because many girl love me, so girl want to hit you. Sorry. From David Beckham."
"I'm sexy Lee. I will superstar. Meet America."
"Im not good at English. Why? because we were interacted with body-ranguage!
"I miss you and I guess you don't miss my speech, "I have diarrhea!" because I have enteritis. Bye bye."
"Your class is very speciall for me. Expecially begining the class watch music video. I like that. I think you class is malty class. And if you lose weight more pretty. I think. Don't worry. You're pretty now."
"Lauren please. Picture and phone number for handsome guy and muscle man. Blond hair. Please. I love you. I'll wait."
"Lauren beautiful more than me. I hate beauty girl. But I want going U.S.A. so with me go U.S.A. Joke. Yes, I love you and I want handsome guy."
"Laluan. I like your English. Very fun. I'm sorry we are very ugly."
"Your first impresion is so tall and thin. I'm sure you can be a good teacher or something."
"I love English class. I'll miss ya. U R a nice teacher. Very kind and very sexy and hot. U know what I mean. God bless you."
"I'm sick. I'm dope. I'm cool. I'm sexy. Send e-mail please. Let's burn tonight."
"I like your class. Don't forget my high school. If you forget this memory, then I finding you and I hate you."
"Hi Lauren. Is this wonderful flower. Oh ...... oh ....... oh ...... Give me freedom five me fire give me reason take me highter. See the champions take me fools now. You exist finds you in the street now."
"Your English class is really funny and exciting. I will miss you forever and ever. Teacher, I love you. I'm not lesbian! I just respect you."
"Zoo!"
"I don't hate Lauren. But English is very very very hate."
"I love Lauren. Lady Gaga no sexy. Lauren is sexy much more. Lauren's pretty shoes."
"Bye Lauren. HI Lauren. I cant miss you. But I will sending e-mail often to you. Please don't forget me. Always be happy to you. From smallest boy."
"I love English. English is fantastic. English class is very fun and good. I write e-mail for you. Stomach cancer."
"I'm teaching fun. I'm you leaver sad."
"English class is good. I love this. Yo I got it. You got it?"
"Never forget kimchi."
While most all of my students are sad to see me go, many (mostly the girls) are super excited for the prospect of a "handsome American boy" to come teach them English. I've been taking requests for the next native teacher (because I totally have a say in it) and so far my students have requested everyone from "large black man" to "small white girl". One student also told me it would be really great if I could somehow find a half black and half white American, but none of this mixed stuff ... he actually requested someone who "look like ying yang".
I've also had to say goodbye to all the teachers and administrators at school. And while I'm not as close to them as I am with many of my students (mostly because they're quite a bit older and don't enjoy discussing Lady Gaga's sex change as much as my students do), it's been really sad to say goodbye, knowing that I'll probably never see their faces again.
However, with the end of the school year comes end-of-the-school year gifts ... all of which have been pretty glorious, in their special Asian way.
These gifts include, but are not limited to:
a small Korean house
potato cake
an entire watermelon
homemade fish soap
used headbands and earrings
thirty bucks
chopsticks and spoons
a song preformed by one of my most favorite teachers
about 10 fans
wine (which I was told could "destroy even men" ... whatever than means)
specially drawn Japanese anime cartoons depicting myself as the heroine
... and any other random crap students have in their pockets
I'm coming back to America with some pretty legit swag.
And as this week was my final week at school, it was also the last week spent with my host-family. I actually said a tearful goodbye to them this morning, as I headed to Seoul / Incheon. It was super difficult to say goodbye, knowing that it's possible I may never see them again. While they currently have plans to visit the states in a couple years after Eun Sue, the youngest daughter, graduates and I hope to return to the ROK sometime within the next 10 years (after I do all the grown up stuff I'm planning and have some grown-up [non-Fulbright] money) ... I know it will be a while until my host-mom makes me another ketchup-peanut butter-jelly-egg-cabbage sandwich and my host-brother makes me listen to ridiculously awful music.
Sidenote: Sang Che, my host-brother, recently broke up with his girlfriend and as he drove me to the bus terminal today (about a 45 minute drive) we listed to one song over and over, on repeat. And while the majority of the song was in English, I could very well understand that it was most likely his way of dealing with their breakup. I get the whole "this sucks, my 12 year old girlfriend broke up with me" ... but 1 song over and over for 45 minutes, come on.
So as of now, I'm officially on my own in Korea ... lugging around 2 gigantic suitcases (which weigh at least 2 million pounds) ... waiting to return to the greatest nation on God's green Earth.
But before I land in those amber waves of grain I've set aside about 1 month to travel ... putting those awesome blossoms on hold for just a little longer.
And since I will be traveling and thus outside the range of regular Internet service, I'm explaining in advance for my future lack of blogging. However, if you'd still like to keep tabs on me, here is my travel schedule so you don't have to do any of this "Carmen San Diego" business.
July 11th: I'm leaving the glorious nation that is the Republic of Korea and heading to Vietnam and Cambodia for a 2 weeks tour with some of my Fulbright friends. We will be stopping off at Hanoi, some beaches along the Vietnam coast, and finally reaching Siem Reap and checking out something called Ankor Wat. I hear it's kind of a big deal.
On the 23rd of July I'll be returning to the ROK for one last day of Asian before leaving the country forever. Forever ever ... ever ever.
I will then be headed for a week layover (thanks Fulbright) in Honolulu ... putting my feet down in real American soil. Or sand. Pretty sure soil doesn't exist in Hawaii.
After perfecting the art of the hula hoop, I will then venture to Austin, Texas to visit some of my most awesome friends Miss Kathy James and Miss Lara Kramer (blog shoutout! ... that's a big deal) for a week of cowboy boots, forgetting the Alamo, and looking at all the big things down in Texas.
When I have finally had my fill of Texican food, I figured I might as well head "home" home to the greatest mid-sized state ever ... the "crossroads of America" ... Indiana itself. I will be landing in the mother land August 9th, so everyone who is anyone better have some macaroni and cheese ready for me at the arrivals gate.
And as this is my last ever blog post from Korea, I know what you all must be thinking. "Oh! I'm so sad! Lauren is so awesome at writing down everything she does (because it is so cool) and now that she's no longer living in a foreign country doing cool things she will probably stop writing things down on the Internet!" (You think in run-on-sentences)
Fear not, friends.
I've been considering my post-Fulbright blogging life (probably just as seriously as I've been considering my post-Fulbright working / adult life) and I've decided to remain a part of the Interwebs, continuing to relay my thoughts and happenings to the larger cyber world.
Right now, once returning home I'm planning to move to Knoxville, Tennessee ... in hopes of finally meeting Justin Timberlake when he returns home to do his laundry ... and take an eight to ten month job (preferably at the neighborhood Chili's) while applying to graduate school, studying for the GRE, and being an all-around awesome 23 year-old.
And while my post-Korea life will probably not be as unique / hilarious / full of Asian as 2009 - 2010 was, I promise to keep my blog as non-sucky as I can ... relying on my friends, family, and the kind townsfolk of Knoxville, Tennessee to provide blog worthy stories.
Friends, family and kind townsfolk of Knoxville, Tennessee: You have your work cut out for you. You'll be following some of the most interesting and hilarious people (read: all of Korea) I've ever met.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
George Glass has nothing on Obama.
So it’s June 2010. And everyone knows what that means ... the World Cup.
A time when Americans pretend to care about soccer and Koreans become so nationalistic they make even McCarthy look like a commie.
The first game between Korea and Greece took place a couple weekends ago, and I chose to watch it in a local Gwangju bar with some friends.
Sorry Grandma, but I figured I would forego my host-family’s barely functioning television that has but two channels and emits only the color green ... and watch it with a room full of die-hard Korean soccer fans, dressed head to toe in “Hey, let’s go Korea!” gear.
This “Hey, let’s go Korea!” gear consists of: Red anything
Red scarves (because it was only about 80 degrees that night)
Red t-shirts
Red mini skirts
Red socks and shoes
Red Korea national jerseys (one of which I now proudly own)
Red bang-together-make-a-really-loud-noise-sticks
and
Red devil horns - pretty much every Korean ever had on a pair of red devil horns, because as I later found out the soccer fan-club / mob calls themselves the “red devils” (I still have no idea why) and shows solidarity by imitating Lucifer.
Side-note: Lucifer = a cutes-y Korean girl who wears devil horns with miniskirts, stilettos, on the arm of her ambiguously gay Korean boyfriend.
Anyway, I won’t bore you all with the events of the game (because I’m sure you all watched it at home, at 7:30 in the morning). Basically, Korea dominated ... they were able to put the ball inside the goal 2 times more than Greece.
I had a fantastic time watching the game with my friends and the “red devils” ... and as I later discovered, it was the first time I had ever watched an entire soccer game from start to finish. (Minus those 30 minute games in which I was forced to participate in high school physical education class.)
With Korea’s first win, the country only intensified its Korea-ness. My students were super concerned with me knowing that Korea won their first game and America only “same same” with England ... and then later “same same” with Slovenia.
Come on America.
Weak sauce.
However, there’s nothing I love more than a little “who’s country is better”. Because, isn’t that really why I came to Korea?
I’m tempted to wear my American flag sweater to school everyday this week ... even though it’s late June.
America!
As for the second game, Korea went head to head with Argentina and sadly the outcome wasn’t as awesome as the first. As I’m sure you’re all aware (because you keep a close tab on the Korean soccer team) they lost. And pretty badly.
But my students didn’t seem to make it a point to tell me how Korea was dominated by Argentina. They must have forgotten.
And the third game? A tie with Nigeria. And even though it’s pretty lame to tie, (unless, of course, you’re America ... and then anything you do is awesome because you have guns) the tie allowed Korea to advance into the sweet 16 round. (While I’m no soccer buff I am not totally sure if “sweet 16” is a legit term for the World Cup, but it is as far as I’m concerned.)
This advancement into the sweet 16 revived Korean spirits, and once again every Korea nand their mother (really, the ajummas are totally into Korean soccer) are wearing red, shouting “대한민국” / “Republic of Korea” every 10 seconds, listening to the new national anthem (a pop song produced by Big Bang - one of Korea’s hottest boy bands - and Yuna Kim - remember, the gold-medaling figure skater - especially for the 2010 World Cup), and dancing the national “we are awesome at soccer” dance that coincides with this new national anthem. There really is a choreographed dance.
(I’ll post a link to the song and its video at the end of my post, so you all at home can get in on all this “Korea-ness”.)
Moving on.
Things around the Eee / Lauren’s home-stay house have been pretty hectic. This past week Eun Sue, my youngest host-sister, the high school senior, is preparing for her KAIST interviews.
As I’ve mentioned before, she’s in the process of applying to KAIST ... Korea’s top science university that is super difficult to get into. The application process is also insanely difficult / ridiculous, and includes multiple test scores, recommendations from many of her high school teachers, a portfolio of all her academic awards, a portfolio of all her extracurricular activities (volunteering, taekwando, green tea ceremonies, pretty much anything else that doesn’t involve books), and on top of that she must pass through about a million interviews in English and Korean (and maybe one in German, you never know). This past week she met with the KAIST people for the first time and had her first of the interviews (in Korean).
I’m not exactly sure how it went down (because strangely they didn’t invite me to sit in on it), but I’m sure she did fantastically because she’s been memorizing answers to what she thinks the interviewers will ask her for weeks. Questions such as:
“Why is KAIST so awesome?” “Are you awesome enough to come to KAIST?” “What awesome things will you study at KAIST?” “What have you done in high school to prepare you for this much awesome?”
Her English interview is sometime next week ... of which I’ve been helping her prepare for. It’s only a 5 minute shindig, but 5 minutes ... speaking in a foreign language ... about how awesome you are requires a lot of preparation. She is talking specifically about an experiment she did last year that won her the 2nd most awesome award a Korean science student can receive, and I’m helping her to craft her English sentences so she sounds super smart and super awesome.
The experiment she preformed dealt with nails, oxidation, roofs, and urine.
Yeah, I’m teaching her how to best talk about urine.
Apparently she discovered that in old time Korea when rust-fighting agents weren’t that popular, old Koreans would dip the nails they used to build houses in their pee, which would prevent rust. So being the little scientist that she is, Eun Sue recreated this experiment and dipped some nails in some pee. And what do you know; her pee was so awesome she won a legit science award.
So after her Korean and English interview, she has a third interview ... or a 10 minute meeting with the KAIST people to “sell herself” and show that she does indeed have enough awesome for KAIST.
I’m also helping her with her final interview, because she said she needs to be really creative and unique ... so default to the American, because we’re all creative and unique (so thinks Korea). Actually, the new president of KAIST is American, and this new and more rigorous interview process is thanks to him and his desire to mimic the “American style” of university admissions ... not relying on the traditional Korean way (take one super important test that basically decides your entire future). So I told Eun Sue that a pretty sweet way to woo / sell yourself to the people at KAIST would be to do so in the best and most glorious of American ways.
Jeopardy.
Yeah, the game show.
(Forget for a minute that Trebek is Canadian.)
We’re working out a way for Eun Sue to play Jeopardy with the KAIST people (she being Trebek, of course) and they, the contestants, choose from categories such as: “Awesome awards Eun Sue won”, “Fun facts about how awesome Eun Sue is”, or “I bet you didn’t know Eun Sue was awesome at these things too!”
Jeopardy never fails. I’m sure she’ll get in.
As I know you all will remember, this semester I’ve been teaching an English novels club class for 10 advanced English students, to prepare them for the much anticipated (by my principal) English-novels competition this June.
And well, guess what. It’s June ... meaning the competition was this past week.
Each participating school in my province sends in two of its most glorious English students to compete in this competition (makes sense, right?).
As I’ve said, I teach 10 students in my novels class, 8 of who are 1st grade students ... i.e high school freshmen ... and they are glorious.
I like to think I am aiding in their English awesomeness as we read Pride and Prejudice and basically talk about how douchey is Mr. Wickham, how incredibly silly Elizabeth is being, and how my students feel about Hwasun High School love (which basically functions similarly to the love Austen displays in Pride and Prejudice).
Side-note: My novels class is also equipping students with much more distinguished insults, as one of my more glorious students once informed me (speaking about this fellow classmate): “Rauren. He is no Darcy. He is a Wickham.”
Anyway, after teaching this 6 month novels class I thought I would be able to choose who I thought were the two most glorious students to send along into the competition.
Yeah, I was wrong about that.
My high school principal figured that he knew what was best (because he has totally sat in on zero of my classes) and he sent two students that don’t even attend my class into the novel battle. (It sounds more dramatic that way.)
The two students he sent are fairly good (if not more glorious than the 1st grade students) at English, but have absolutely no idea of the basic contents of any of the books we have read.
Sweet life, Mr. Principal.
But our hard work is promised not to be wasted, as my co-teacher promised to send two of the currently 1st grade students to the competition next year.
And next year they will dominate.
(But I have yet to hear the outcome of this year’s competition ... or how much Hwasun High School dominated ... but once I do I will totally inform the blogging world. Because I know you’re all super anxious to know.)
One of my students recently came to me seeking relationship advice.
Adorable, I know.
Apparently he’s the 3rd grade class heartbreaker, and it’s really interfering with his studies. Seriously, his biggest concern is not how to get a girl, but how to un-get a girl so he can focus more on math and science.
(I too had that problem in 3rd grade ... and my multiplication tables really suffered from it.)
So a particular girl in his class ... we’ll call this girl “Hwasun High School’s president” ... or “Obama” for short (because she may or may not be the Hwasun High School president) ... has a crush on this dude, and quite a big one.
It is so big that she went to the lengths of stealing his cell phone just to see who he’s been in contact with. Such a presidential move.
Dudebro then came to me, the only female teacher under 30 at school, seeking advice on how to handle this particular silly “Obama”.
So I gave him a plethora of advices, many of which I hope he at least attempts:
1. Steal her cell phone. Hammurabi style.
2. Tell your class teacher and hopefully get her Nixon-ed.
3. Become so horribly unattractive that she will give it back to you out of pity and end her little crush.
4. Create a fake girlfriend, a la “Georgina Glass”, so she might give up.
He promised to let me know how this drama plays out, as he hopefully implements some of these strategies to get rid of “Obama”.
Also ... if this doesn’t affirm the belief that Eun Sue should have won the Hwasun High School presidency, I don’t know what does.
Oh hey there weekly readers.
The promised answers from last week’s logic puzzles:
1. Put a math symbol between (5 __ 9) to make a number bigger than 5 and smaller than 9.
. (decimal point)
2. Two girls were born to the same mother, on the same day, at the same time, in the same month, and in the same year.
But they are not twins.
How is this true?
They are 2 girls, in a set of triplets
3. How can you add eight 8’s to equal 1,000? (use only addition)
888 + 88 + 8 + 8 + 8 = 1,000
4. What letter comes next in this sequence?
J ... F ... M ... A ... M ... J ... J ... A ... __ ... O ... N ... D
S = September
5. How can you cut a cake into 8 parts with just 3 cuts?
First cut - across, vertically
Second cut - across, horizontally
Third cut - cut the cake in half, to separate the top half and the bottom half
6. In the equation: 101 - 102 = 1, move one number in order to correct it.
101 - 10(insert small 2 “squared” symbol here, because I can’t find it on my Mac) = 1
7. An electric train is traveling south. The wind is blowing from the north. What direction does the train’s smoke blow?
An electric train doesn’t produce smoke.
8. A farmer has 17 sheep. All but 9 die. How many are alive?
9
9. How much dirt is in a hole 3 meters x 3 meters x 3 meters?
0 ... in order to be a hole, there must not be any dirt inside
10. How can you throw a ball and have it come back to you?
It doesn’t bounce off anything.
Nothing is attached to it.
No one catches and throws it back to you.
Throw it up ... to the sky.
As promised … the Korean World Cup fight song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik44awloHsM
And here’s an instructional video for you all to follow in hopes of perfecting the dance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq5cPaTPTpA
A time when Americans pretend to care about soccer and Koreans become so nationalistic they make even McCarthy look like a commie.
The first game between Korea and Greece took place a couple weekends ago, and I chose to watch it in a local Gwangju bar with some friends.
Sorry Grandma, but I figured I would forego my host-family’s barely functioning television that has but two channels and emits only the color green ... and watch it with a room full of die-hard Korean soccer fans, dressed head to toe in “Hey, let’s go Korea!” gear.
This “Hey, let’s go Korea!” gear consists of: Red anything
Red scarves (because it was only about 80 degrees that night)
Red t-shirts
Red mini skirts
Red socks and shoes
Red Korea national jerseys (one of which I now proudly own)
Red bang-together-make-a-really-loud-noise-sticks
and
Red devil horns - pretty much every Korean ever had on a pair of red devil horns, because as I later found out the soccer fan-club / mob calls themselves the “red devils” (I still have no idea why) and shows solidarity by imitating Lucifer.
Side-note: Lucifer = a cutes-y Korean girl who wears devil horns with miniskirts, stilettos, on the arm of her ambiguously gay Korean boyfriend.
Anyway, I won’t bore you all with the events of the game (because I’m sure you all watched it at home, at 7:30 in the morning). Basically, Korea dominated ... they were able to put the ball inside the goal 2 times more than Greece.
I had a fantastic time watching the game with my friends and the “red devils” ... and as I later discovered, it was the first time I had ever watched an entire soccer game from start to finish. (Minus those 30 minute games in which I was forced to participate in high school physical education class.)
With Korea’s first win, the country only intensified its Korea-ness. My students were super concerned with me knowing that Korea won their first game and America only “same same” with England ... and then later “same same” with Slovenia.
Come on America.
Weak sauce.
However, there’s nothing I love more than a little “who’s country is better”. Because, isn’t that really why I came to Korea?
I’m tempted to wear my American flag sweater to school everyday this week ... even though it’s late June.
America!
As for the second game, Korea went head to head with Argentina and sadly the outcome wasn’t as awesome as the first. As I’m sure you’re all aware (because you keep a close tab on the Korean soccer team) they lost. And pretty badly.
But my students didn’t seem to make it a point to tell me how Korea was dominated by Argentina. They must have forgotten.
And the third game? A tie with Nigeria. And even though it’s pretty lame to tie, (unless, of course, you’re America ... and then anything you do is awesome because you have guns) the tie allowed Korea to advance into the sweet 16 round. (While I’m no soccer buff I am not totally sure if “sweet 16” is a legit term for the World Cup, but it is as far as I’m concerned.)
This advancement into the sweet 16 revived Korean spirits, and once again every Korea nand their mother (really, the ajummas are totally into Korean soccer) are wearing red, shouting “대한민국” / “Republic of Korea” every 10 seconds, listening to the new national anthem (a pop song produced by Big Bang - one of Korea’s hottest boy bands - and Yuna Kim - remember, the gold-medaling figure skater - especially for the 2010 World Cup), and dancing the national “we are awesome at soccer” dance that coincides with this new national anthem. There really is a choreographed dance.
(I’ll post a link to the song and its video at the end of my post, so you all at home can get in on all this “Korea-ness”.)
Moving on.
Things around the Eee / Lauren’s home-stay house have been pretty hectic. This past week Eun Sue, my youngest host-sister, the high school senior, is preparing for her KAIST interviews.
As I’ve mentioned before, she’s in the process of applying to KAIST ... Korea’s top science university that is super difficult to get into. The application process is also insanely difficult / ridiculous, and includes multiple test scores, recommendations from many of her high school teachers, a portfolio of all her academic awards, a portfolio of all her extracurricular activities (volunteering, taekwando, green tea ceremonies, pretty much anything else that doesn’t involve books), and on top of that she must pass through about a million interviews in English and Korean (and maybe one in German, you never know). This past week she met with the KAIST people for the first time and had her first of the interviews (in Korean).
I’m not exactly sure how it went down (because strangely they didn’t invite me to sit in on it), but I’m sure she did fantastically because she’s been memorizing answers to what she thinks the interviewers will ask her for weeks. Questions such as:
“Why is KAIST so awesome?” “Are you awesome enough to come to KAIST?” “What awesome things will you study at KAIST?” “What have you done in high school to prepare you for this much awesome?”
Her English interview is sometime next week ... of which I’ve been helping her prepare for. It’s only a 5 minute shindig, but 5 minutes ... speaking in a foreign language ... about how awesome you are requires a lot of preparation. She is talking specifically about an experiment she did last year that won her the 2nd most awesome award a Korean science student can receive, and I’m helping her to craft her English sentences so she sounds super smart and super awesome.
The experiment she preformed dealt with nails, oxidation, roofs, and urine.
Yeah, I’m teaching her how to best talk about urine.
Apparently she discovered that in old time Korea when rust-fighting agents weren’t that popular, old Koreans would dip the nails they used to build houses in their pee, which would prevent rust. So being the little scientist that she is, Eun Sue recreated this experiment and dipped some nails in some pee. And what do you know; her pee was so awesome she won a legit science award.
So after her Korean and English interview, she has a third interview ... or a 10 minute meeting with the KAIST people to “sell herself” and show that she does indeed have enough awesome for KAIST.
I’m also helping her with her final interview, because she said she needs to be really creative and unique ... so default to the American, because we’re all creative and unique (so thinks Korea). Actually, the new president of KAIST is American, and this new and more rigorous interview process is thanks to him and his desire to mimic the “American style” of university admissions ... not relying on the traditional Korean way (take one super important test that basically decides your entire future). So I told Eun Sue that a pretty sweet way to woo / sell yourself to the people at KAIST would be to do so in the best and most glorious of American ways.
Jeopardy.
Yeah, the game show.
(Forget for a minute that Trebek is Canadian.)
We’re working out a way for Eun Sue to play Jeopardy with the KAIST people (she being Trebek, of course) and they, the contestants, choose from categories such as: “Awesome awards Eun Sue won”, “Fun facts about how awesome Eun Sue is”, or “I bet you didn’t know Eun Sue was awesome at these things too!”
Jeopardy never fails. I’m sure she’ll get in.
As I know you all will remember, this semester I’ve been teaching an English novels club class for 10 advanced English students, to prepare them for the much anticipated (by my principal) English-novels competition this June.
And well, guess what. It’s June ... meaning the competition was this past week.
Each participating school in my province sends in two of its most glorious English students to compete in this competition (makes sense, right?).
As I’ve said, I teach 10 students in my novels class, 8 of who are 1st grade students ... i.e high school freshmen ... and they are glorious.
I like to think I am aiding in their English awesomeness as we read Pride and Prejudice and basically talk about how douchey is Mr. Wickham, how incredibly silly Elizabeth is being, and how my students feel about Hwasun High School love (which basically functions similarly to the love Austen displays in Pride and Prejudice).
Side-note: My novels class is also equipping students with much more distinguished insults, as one of my more glorious students once informed me (speaking about this fellow classmate): “Rauren. He is no Darcy. He is a Wickham.”
Anyway, after teaching this 6 month novels class I thought I would be able to choose who I thought were the two most glorious students to send along into the competition.
Yeah, I was wrong about that.
My high school principal figured that he knew what was best (because he has totally sat in on zero of my classes) and he sent two students that don’t even attend my class into the novel battle. (It sounds more dramatic that way.)
The two students he sent are fairly good (if not more glorious than the 1st grade students) at English, but have absolutely no idea of the basic contents of any of the books we have read.
Sweet life, Mr. Principal.
But our hard work is promised not to be wasted, as my co-teacher promised to send two of the currently 1st grade students to the competition next year.
And next year they will dominate.
(But I have yet to hear the outcome of this year’s competition ... or how much Hwasun High School dominated ... but once I do I will totally inform the blogging world. Because I know you’re all super anxious to know.)
One of my students recently came to me seeking relationship advice.
Adorable, I know.
Apparently he’s the 3rd grade class heartbreaker, and it’s really interfering with his studies. Seriously, his biggest concern is not how to get a girl, but how to un-get a girl so he can focus more on math and science.
(I too had that problem in 3rd grade ... and my multiplication tables really suffered from it.)
So a particular girl in his class ... we’ll call this girl “Hwasun High School’s president” ... or “Obama” for short (because she may or may not be the Hwasun High School president) ... has a crush on this dude, and quite a big one.
It is so big that she went to the lengths of stealing his cell phone just to see who he’s been in contact with. Such a presidential move.
Dudebro then came to me, the only female teacher under 30 at school, seeking advice on how to handle this particular silly “Obama”.
So I gave him a plethora of advices, many of which I hope he at least attempts:
1. Steal her cell phone. Hammurabi style.
2. Tell your class teacher and hopefully get her Nixon-ed.
3. Become so horribly unattractive that she will give it back to you out of pity and end her little crush.
4. Create a fake girlfriend, a la “Georgina Glass”, so she might give up.
He promised to let me know how this drama plays out, as he hopefully implements some of these strategies to get rid of “Obama”.
Also ... if this doesn’t affirm the belief that Eun Sue should have won the Hwasun High School presidency, I don’t know what does.
Oh hey there weekly readers.
The promised answers from last week’s logic puzzles:
1. Put a math symbol between (5 __ 9) to make a number bigger than 5 and smaller than 9.
. (decimal point)
2. Two girls were born to the same mother, on the same day, at the same time, in the same month, and in the same year.
But they are not twins.
How is this true?
They are 2 girls, in a set of triplets
3. How can you add eight 8’s to equal 1,000? (use only addition)
888 + 88 + 8 + 8 + 8 = 1,000
4. What letter comes next in this sequence?
J ... F ... M ... A ... M ... J ... J ... A ... __ ... O ... N ... D
S = September
5. How can you cut a cake into 8 parts with just 3 cuts?
First cut - across, vertically
Second cut - across, horizontally
Third cut - cut the cake in half, to separate the top half and the bottom half
6. In the equation: 101 - 102 = 1, move one number in order to correct it.
101 - 10(insert small 2 “squared” symbol here, because I can’t find it on my Mac) = 1
7. An electric train is traveling south. The wind is blowing from the north. What direction does the train’s smoke blow?
An electric train doesn’t produce smoke.
8. A farmer has 17 sheep. All but 9 die. How many are alive?
9
9. How much dirt is in a hole 3 meters x 3 meters x 3 meters?
0 ... in order to be a hole, there must not be any dirt inside
10. How can you throw a ball and have it come back to you?
It doesn’t bounce off anything.
Nothing is attached to it.
No one catches and throws it back to you.
Throw it up ... to the sky.
As promised … the Korean World Cup fight song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik44awloHsM
And here’s an instructional video for you all to follow in hopes of perfecting the dance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq5cPaTPTpA
Thursday, June 10, 2010
"What happen when Bill Gate throw ball at window?" "He make Windows 98!"
This week I discovered that my school recently blocked Facebook from any of its school computers. While this travesty pretty much puts an end to the record-breaking amount of time I would usually put towards chatting or general procrastination ... it does, however, mean an increase in blogging.
Two weeks ago Hwasun High School held one of the greatest sports spectacles in the history of sports spectacles. The annual “Hwasun High School sports day” ... and it rivaled the Beijing games, both in the sheer athletic ability displayed by all participants, and in the Asian-ness.
Sports day was held in the local Hwasun multi-purpose gymnasium ... because the school decided that its gymnasium (which is the size of a small coat closet) just wasn’t big enough. So I headed down to the gym around 8 am (helping my host-mom, who was in charge of feeding all the teachers because she was recently appointed captain of all the parents) carry in boxes of kimchi. Actual boxes of kimchi, of which I ate none.
I then was able to watch the grand parade of classes (at least that’s what I called it) ... where each of the 1st and 2nd grade classes preformed for all the teachers and the school principal. Each class prepared a 2-3 minute dance and/or some type of entertainment as they walked into the gym, Olympic style. The performances consisted mostly of the students imitating famous K-pop dance moves to the latest Korean jamz, so really just some fancy arm moves and pelvic thrusts. (Something that the Beijing Olympics were really lacking).
What was so great, was that the pelvic thrusting was directed right at the school principal, who honestly seemed to enjoy it.
After the performances ... and a 20 minute stretching drill where all the students lined up and did synchronized stretching to music that I believe was actually titled “Land of the Morning Calm” (which was surprisingly scary) ... so began sports day.
The day basically consisted of students battling in badminton (because they’re Asian), ping pong (because they’re really Asian), couples dodgeball (because they’re absolutely adorable), jump rope (because they’re 5 years old), and tug of war (because Korea is actually at war).
The students had a great time because really, who wouldn’t rather play some badminton instead of learning about whatever it is that they actually learn about inside super hot and smelly classrooms. It was pretty much a free day to have fun and be children, something that Korea’s not very good at promoting. But when they do have fun, it is organized, awesome, Sports Day fun.
Unfortunately I didn’t get to participate in any sports during this Sports Day, and was only an observer. None of the teachers really played any of the sports ... besides the gym teacher who is so scary I didn’t even want to challenge in badminton (because I seriously think that he could have killed me via shuttlecock). So observe I did, and had a great time.
I also got some free french fries.
As you will remember from reading my last blog posting (because you’re still reading, right?) my host brother Sang Che has recently acquired a new girlfriend.
And this girlfriend is baller.
She pretty much speaks 3.5 languages (the .5 sadly being English ... the 3 being Korean, German, and Japanese) and is soon heading to Germany in order to practice one of her 3.5 languages ... and I’m pretty sure it’s German. Anyways, Sang Che recently informed me (via translator host-mom) that his new girlfriend has decided that when she has a family and children, she will speak to her children in all 3.5 languages, so they too can be baller.
This worries poor Sang Che, in that he functions in only 1 language (that being German) ... (no, it’s Korean) and he is scared that when he marries this girl and they have insanely cute Korean children, he will have no idea what she is saying to them.
This should be noted: the fact that Sang Che is planning to marry her after only 1 solid month of dating speaks volumes of the Korean dating mentality, because after 3 dates you’re pretty much wearing complete couple attire ... i.e. matching couple shirts, pants, shoes, headbands (really), scarves (if it’s cold), rings, glasses, etc ... pretty much anything that you can put on your body is made in pairs for obnoxiously adorable couples to proudly display their couple-ness.
So Sang Che has come to me in hopes of learning English, explaining that he wants to be able to talk to his future children in at least 1.5 languages.
I’m not totally sure how this will work, but we will see.
I was recently given my own English classroom at school because:
“Rauren teacher is too loud.”
It looks fancier to have the foreign teacher teaching in a more high-tech classroom (high tech = functioning computer) when important people come visit school, i.e. parents, superintendents, President Bak ...
The classroom is actually really sweet, I’ve got my own computer and “Cyber Computer Board” which the students touch at least once a week in hopes of it transforming into a touch board, and I can arrange the desks in anyway I please.
“Oh hey you’re going to be sitting in rows this week. But watch out, because next week you’ll have to maneuver around the desk maze I created when bored during 3rd period.”
And besides from my students not bringing anything to write with to class (because obviously they wouldn’t need a pencil in English class, but instead cartons of milk, their cell phones, chopsticks, and/or clothes hangers ... all of which they have brought to class) and it being about 1 million degrees inside, it’s actually quite nice.
Went to Seoul last weekend, and after some searching (that little phrase has been used one too many times, but I really did some searching) made a quick $300.
Well, not so much “quick” ... more like “extremely painful, slow, agonizing” $300. But that’s neither here nor there.
I signed up to be a proctor for a pretty intense English test some Koreans (and a dude from Brazil) took in order to be a CFA ... which means either “Certified Financial Analyst”
“Corporate Financial Analyst” or “Cool Foreign Ambassador”. It was basically an insanely difficult test (all in English) for them to take in order to work abroad doing stuff involving money.
So I proctored the exam, proctored meaning standing around for 6 hours making sure all the future “Cool Foreign Ambassadors” weren’t cheating on their tests.
It was super fun and I would definitely do it again.
On opposite day.
Last week I had Wednesday off school, due to South Korea being a democratic country and holding elections. Pretty much no one went to work / school / the kimchi fields and took a whole day to decide who they wanted to run their local town / city / kimchi field. Me being a foreigner and not being allowed to vote, I celebrated by treating myself to a movie ... “The Prince of Persia and the Sands of Time”. And after sitting through 1 and a half hours of Jake Gyllenhaal trying to act in a desert, I think I rather would have voted all day.
But election day was great because that meant the end of campaigning ... something Koreans are obnoxiously good at doing.
Each potential politician is given or raises a certain amount of campaign money, which they put to use by hiring ajummas (super old Korean ladies) to dress in insanely bright neon colored shirts to:
Hand out business cards
Talk people up outside the grocery store / bank / post office / kimchi field
Stand in the middle of intersections and bow to cars as they pass through
Sing and dance on the side of the street (really) in a synchronized fasion
and
Play super annoying campaign music outside your house at 7 am (that is usually set to the tune of either “Joyful, Joyful” or “We will Rock You”)
For what it’s worth, I guess I’m pretty glad I’m living in South, and not North Korea ... but these past couple weeks in the height of the campaigning frenzy have really made me wonder exactly what it would be like not having to endure the “Joyful, Joyful Rocking” and just accept the fact that Kim Jong Ill fell from heaven riding on the wings of a unicorn.
On Tuesday of this week, my school decided to be awesome and schedule me to teach 6 classes in one day ... all back to back ... with only a one hour lunch break.
The reason? Because it was Parent’s Day at school, meaning that the teachers had to teach “open classes” and all the parents who didn’t have anything better to do (i.e. my host-mom) came to school to check out what their children are actually learning, if anything.
So the school, in it’s infinite wisdom, decided: “Oh hey. Let’s have Rauren teacher teach 6 classes ... and we will switch around her classes so the douchiest ones are in the morning (when most of the parents come) ... and then lets give all the students crack-cocaine so they are super loud and annoying ... and then lets make all these scary old women watch her.”
Actually, it wasn’t nearly that bad, but it was pretty awesome teaching the same lesson 6 times over and over, with parents standing in the back of the classroom, having pretty much no idea what is going on.
Hint: sarcasm.
So I wasn’t really that stressed out, because whatever I said (so long as it was in English) was super impressive to the teachers and parents because I:
Don’t speak English with a Korean accent.
Speak English fairly well.
and
Am pretty tall.
Parent’s Day = dominated.
And what exactly did I teach while all these parents who were checking out my 178 centimeters?
Well, nothing really. I had the students race to answer 10 logic puzzles (in English) and threw some candy at the winning team.
But I chalked it up to “creative” learning and the Koreans went crazy for it, because it’s one thing that the Korean school system is definitely lacking.
Here are some of the puzzles I gave my students. Give them a whirl.
And remember, these puzzles are in your native language ... unlike for my students (who were able to answer all of them in a 40 minute period).
Unless, of course, you are a student and both found and are reading my blog on the Interwebs. In that case, touche student.
1. Put a math symbol between (5 __ 9) to make a number bigger than 5 and smaller than 9.
2. Two girls were born to the same mother, on the same day, at the same time, in the same month, and in the same year.
But they are not twins.
How is this true?
3. How can you add eight 8’s to equal 1,000? (use only addition)
4. What letter comes next in this sequence?
J ... F ... M ... A ... M ... J ... J ... A ... __ ... O ... N ... D
5. How can you cut a cake into 8 parts with just 3 cuts?
6. In the equation: 101 - 102 = 1, move one number in order to correct it.
7. An electric train is traveling south. The wind is blowing from the north. What direction does the train’s smoke blow?
8. A farmer has 17 sheep. All but 9 die. How many are alive?
9. How much dirt is in a hole 3 meters x 3 meters x 3 meters?
10. How can you throw a ball and have it come back to you?
It doesn’t bounce off anything.
Nothing is attached to it.
No one catches and throws it back to you.
Want to know if you’re as smart as a 17 year old Korean kid?
Check back next week for the answers.
That’s right. Cliffhanger.
Two weeks ago Hwasun High School held one of the greatest sports spectacles in the history of sports spectacles. The annual “Hwasun High School sports day” ... and it rivaled the Beijing games, both in the sheer athletic ability displayed by all participants, and in the Asian-ness.
Sports day was held in the local Hwasun multi-purpose gymnasium ... because the school decided that its gymnasium (which is the size of a small coat closet) just wasn’t big enough. So I headed down to the gym around 8 am (helping my host-mom, who was in charge of feeding all the teachers because she was recently appointed captain of all the parents) carry in boxes of kimchi. Actual boxes of kimchi, of which I ate none.
I then was able to watch the grand parade of classes (at least that’s what I called it) ... where each of the 1st and 2nd grade classes preformed for all the teachers and the school principal. Each class prepared a 2-3 minute dance and/or some type of entertainment as they walked into the gym, Olympic style. The performances consisted mostly of the students imitating famous K-pop dance moves to the latest Korean jamz, so really just some fancy arm moves and pelvic thrusts. (Something that the Beijing Olympics were really lacking).
What was so great, was that the pelvic thrusting was directed right at the school principal, who honestly seemed to enjoy it.
After the performances ... and a 20 minute stretching drill where all the students lined up and did synchronized stretching to music that I believe was actually titled “Land of the Morning Calm” (which was surprisingly scary) ... so began sports day.
The day basically consisted of students battling in badminton (because they’re Asian), ping pong (because they’re really Asian), couples dodgeball (because they’re absolutely adorable), jump rope (because they’re 5 years old), and tug of war (because Korea is actually at war).
The students had a great time because really, who wouldn’t rather play some badminton instead of learning about whatever it is that they actually learn about inside super hot and smelly classrooms. It was pretty much a free day to have fun and be children, something that Korea’s not very good at promoting. But when they do have fun, it is organized, awesome, Sports Day fun.
Unfortunately I didn’t get to participate in any sports during this Sports Day, and was only an observer. None of the teachers really played any of the sports ... besides the gym teacher who is so scary I didn’t even want to challenge in badminton (because I seriously think that he could have killed me via shuttlecock). So observe I did, and had a great time.
I also got some free french fries.
As you will remember from reading my last blog posting (because you’re still reading, right?) my host brother Sang Che has recently acquired a new girlfriend.
And this girlfriend is baller.
She pretty much speaks 3.5 languages (the .5 sadly being English ... the 3 being Korean, German, and Japanese) and is soon heading to Germany in order to practice one of her 3.5 languages ... and I’m pretty sure it’s German. Anyways, Sang Che recently informed me (via translator host-mom) that his new girlfriend has decided that when she has a family and children, she will speak to her children in all 3.5 languages, so they too can be baller.
This worries poor Sang Che, in that he functions in only 1 language (that being German) ... (no, it’s Korean) and he is scared that when he marries this girl and they have insanely cute Korean children, he will have no idea what she is saying to them.
This should be noted: the fact that Sang Che is planning to marry her after only 1 solid month of dating speaks volumes of the Korean dating mentality, because after 3 dates you’re pretty much wearing complete couple attire ... i.e. matching couple shirts, pants, shoes, headbands (really), scarves (if it’s cold), rings, glasses, etc ... pretty much anything that you can put on your body is made in pairs for obnoxiously adorable couples to proudly display their couple-ness.
So Sang Che has come to me in hopes of learning English, explaining that he wants to be able to talk to his future children in at least 1.5 languages.
I’m not totally sure how this will work, but we will see.
I was recently given my own English classroom at school because:
“Rauren teacher is too loud.”
It looks fancier to have the foreign teacher teaching in a more high-tech classroom (high tech = functioning computer) when important people come visit school, i.e. parents, superintendents, President Bak ...
The classroom is actually really sweet, I’ve got my own computer and “Cyber Computer Board” which the students touch at least once a week in hopes of it transforming into a touch board, and I can arrange the desks in anyway I please.
“Oh hey you’re going to be sitting in rows this week. But watch out, because next week you’ll have to maneuver around the desk maze I created when bored during 3rd period.”
And besides from my students not bringing anything to write with to class (because obviously they wouldn’t need a pencil in English class, but instead cartons of milk, their cell phones, chopsticks, and/or clothes hangers ... all of which they have brought to class) and it being about 1 million degrees inside, it’s actually quite nice.
Went to Seoul last weekend, and after some searching (that little phrase has been used one too many times, but I really did some searching) made a quick $300.
Well, not so much “quick” ... more like “extremely painful, slow, agonizing” $300. But that’s neither here nor there.
I signed up to be a proctor for a pretty intense English test some Koreans (and a dude from Brazil) took in order to be a CFA ... which means either “Certified Financial Analyst”
“Corporate Financial Analyst” or “Cool Foreign Ambassador”. It was basically an insanely difficult test (all in English) for them to take in order to work abroad doing stuff involving money.
So I proctored the exam, proctored meaning standing around for 6 hours making sure all the future “Cool Foreign Ambassadors” weren’t cheating on their tests.
It was super fun and I would definitely do it again.
On opposite day.
Last week I had Wednesday off school, due to South Korea being a democratic country and holding elections. Pretty much no one went to work / school / the kimchi fields and took a whole day to decide who they wanted to run their local town / city / kimchi field. Me being a foreigner and not being allowed to vote, I celebrated by treating myself to a movie ... “The Prince of Persia and the Sands of Time”. And after sitting through 1 and a half hours of Jake Gyllenhaal trying to act in a desert, I think I rather would have voted all day.
But election day was great because that meant the end of campaigning ... something Koreans are obnoxiously good at doing.
Each potential politician is given or raises a certain amount of campaign money, which they put to use by hiring ajummas (super old Korean ladies) to dress in insanely bright neon colored shirts to:
Hand out business cards
Talk people up outside the grocery store / bank / post office / kimchi field
Stand in the middle of intersections and bow to cars as they pass through
Sing and dance on the side of the street (really) in a synchronized fasion
and
Play super annoying campaign music outside your house at 7 am (that is usually set to the tune of either “Joyful, Joyful” or “We will Rock You”)
For what it’s worth, I guess I’m pretty glad I’m living in South, and not North Korea ... but these past couple weeks in the height of the campaigning frenzy have really made me wonder exactly what it would be like not having to endure the “Joyful, Joyful Rocking” and just accept the fact that Kim Jong Ill fell from heaven riding on the wings of a unicorn.
On Tuesday of this week, my school decided to be awesome and schedule me to teach 6 classes in one day ... all back to back ... with only a one hour lunch break.
The reason? Because it was Parent’s Day at school, meaning that the teachers had to teach “open classes” and all the parents who didn’t have anything better to do (i.e. my host-mom) came to school to check out what their children are actually learning, if anything.
So the school, in it’s infinite wisdom, decided: “Oh hey. Let’s have Rauren teacher teach 6 classes ... and we will switch around her classes so the douchiest ones are in the morning (when most of the parents come) ... and then lets give all the students crack-cocaine so they are super loud and annoying ... and then lets make all these scary old women watch her.”
Actually, it wasn’t nearly that bad, but it was pretty awesome teaching the same lesson 6 times over and over, with parents standing in the back of the classroom, having pretty much no idea what is going on.
Hint: sarcasm.
So I wasn’t really that stressed out, because whatever I said (so long as it was in English) was super impressive to the teachers and parents because I:
Don’t speak English with a Korean accent.
Speak English fairly well.
and
Am pretty tall.
Parent’s Day = dominated.
And what exactly did I teach while all these parents who were checking out my 178 centimeters?
Well, nothing really. I had the students race to answer 10 logic puzzles (in English) and threw some candy at the winning team.
But I chalked it up to “creative” learning and the Koreans went crazy for it, because it’s one thing that the Korean school system is definitely lacking.
Here are some of the puzzles I gave my students. Give them a whirl.
And remember, these puzzles are in your native language ... unlike for my students (who were able to answer all of them in a 40 minute period).
Unless, of course, you are a student and both found and are reading my blog on the Interwebs. In that case, touche student.
1. Put a math symbol between (5 __ 9) to make a number bigger than 5 and smaller than 9.
2. Two girls were born to the same mother, on the same day, at the same time, in the same month, and in the same year.
But they are not twins.
How is this true?
3. How can you add eight 8’s to equal 1,000? (use only addition)
4. What letter comes next in this sequence?
J ... F ... M ... A ... M ... J ... J ... A ... __ ... O ... N ... D
5. How can you cut a cake into 8 parts with just 3 cuts?
6. In the equation: 101 - 102 = 1, move one number in order to correct it.
7. An electric train is traveling south. The wind is blowing from the north. What direction does the train’s smoke blow?
8. A farmer has 17 sheep. All but 9 die. How many are alive?
9. How much dirt is in a hole 3 meters x 3 meters x 3 meters?
10. How can you throw a ball and have it come back to you?
It doesn’t bounce off anything.
Nothing is attached to it.
No one catches and throws it back to you.
Want to know if you’re as smart as a 17 year old Korean kid?
Check back next week for the answers.
That’s right. Cliffhanger.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
The most legit, fo shizzle, baller blog ever ... you'll be sure to make it rain for your shawty after this one.
No cutesy intro ... BAM!
Blog.
Coming at you.
About 50 weekends ago I had the pleasure of visiting one of my teacher friends, his home, and his adorable little Korean family.
Moon teacher (as he asks me to call him ... because his Korean name is actually “Moon”) was one of my most favorite teachers last semester, but had to change schools in March, due to Korea’s making all public school teachers abandon ship (ship being their current school) every 3 years to find a new ship.
Well, actually the government finds them a new ship, they’re not like pirates or anything.
Anyways, last Saturday Moon invited me to his house, to meet his wife, and have lunch with the family. Moon has two sons, one of which is a first grade student of mine, Benjamin (note: this is the English name he chose in my class, and how Moon now refers to him. Pretty sure his actual Korean name is “Star” or something). So Moon came and picked me up at 9:30 am (because every Korean deems there should be at least 4 hours of “hang-ee out” time before lunch).
He first took me to his new school ... the “Gwangju Technology and Electricity High School” - at least that is what Moon called it. And even though his English isn’t stellar, I’m going to guess he was at least partially correct, in that the sign with the school’s name on it outside was about a mile long.
After a pretty sweet tour of the outside (which definitely put Hwasun High School to shame and quite possibly Gwangju University because the school grounds were roughly the size of a small town) he invited me into the gym to “watch-ee and play” volleyball with the high school’s volleyball team.
Moon teacher knows that I enjoy playing volleyball, and also that I’m not absolutely terrible at it (due to my previously mentioned volleyball domination during teachers’ sports day), so he thought it would be best for me to come and watch his high school boy’s volleyball team practice on Saturday morning.
Side-note: Moon’s high school boys’ volleyball team is supposedly the “best in the nation” as he explained ... which I think could very much be true, after watching them practice for a couple of hours.
These dudes were tall. I’m aware that I’ve been in Asia for almost a year, and that my definition of “tall” is now somewhat skewed, but these dudes were legit tall. I’d give them 6-5 / 6-6. Probably the tallest dudes I’ve seen in Asia in the past 10 months. Not including Yao Ming and that one guy who holds the “tallest man in the world” record. (But I’ve only seen them on TV, and we all know that TV adds about 2 feet, so Moon’s volleyball boys are currently the “tallest dudes in Asia”.)
So Moon and I watched them practice for about 2 hours. And yes, it was awkward. For everyone.
“Hey guys. This is a white girl. She’s just going to sit over here in the corner and watch you hit balls around. It’s ok. She’s cool.”
And that’s what happened.
Moon really wanted to play with them ... God knows why, his volleyball skills are nothing to write home about, and the fact that he’s about 5-2 is cause for some concern ... but I wasn’t aware for his desire to ball, and thankfully wasn’t properly dressed.
After an exciting round of volleyball, Moon and I headed over to his house (or rather his 13th story apartment ... George Jefferson would be proud) to meet his adorable little family.
Moon introduced me to his wife, and we met up with his son Benjamin, who speaks really good English and is probably the most adorable thing ever.
So we did whatever anyone else would do on a Saturday afternoon, Moon’s wife made me strawberry juice and the family showed me the 7 (yeah, 7) photo albums full of pictures that they took during their European family vacation a couple years back.
For those of you who are lucky enough to be friends of mine on Facebook, or be able to see my Korean photos, rest assured that Moon’s picture-taking abilities far surpass my own.)
There was a picture of them in front of absolutely everything ... totally living up to the age old “I’m a Korean and I love to take pictures” stereotype.
“Hey ... here’s a rock ... let’s take a picture of it. And then with it. And then of it again, just incase it changed.”
“Oh look! It’s an escalator ... let’s take a picture of that too. And a picture of us standing on it. And maybe a picture of these white people standing on it, just for good measure.”
Among the many European pictures I viewed, I also saw a lovely portrait of a handsome older Korean man in a super fancy suit, hanging in their coat room. When I asked who the handsome man was Moon replied, “My dead father.” If that wasn’t awkward enough, they then posed for what seemed like a moment / eternity of silence, in the coat room.
If you’re ever in Asia, I would recommend not inquiring about any pictures of old people, as it’s about 80% sure that they are in fact deceased.
(Also made that mistake with the host-family circa August 2009.)
So after we all got our coats from the coat / dead man room, we headed to VIPS, the classiest of Western buffet restaurants. And it was absolutely delicious.
Anytime there is a buffet of something other than octopus and/or kimchi, I’m game.
Moon and his family treated me to an excellent lunch and some pretty stellar conversation ... topics including, but not limited to: religion, bread, movies, and Roachdale, Indiana.
During our day of fun, Moon also talked me up about this “amazing, Rauren, amazing!” movie he recently saw ... “The Blind Side”. He said it was the best movie he’d ever seen, and probably the best movie in the history of movies.
Quite intrigued, I told Moon I would see the movie later that weekend, to his delight.
He then asked me to e-mail him with my critique of the movie, writing to him as I would a friend.
So I did.
Saw the movie, and while it was pretty inspirational, I thought it was kind of lame and in no way should have Sandra Bullock an Oscar. I thought her portrayal as Gracie Hart in “Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous” was much more convincing.
I have yet to hear back from Moon. I hope the friendship isn’t over.
My oldest host-sister, Eun Lae, recently informed me that “like Rauren ... take the bus!” She explained that last week she drove the side of her car into a guardrail, the one that lines the bridge outside of the house. So her car is now at the “car doctor”.
Again, not helping the whole “Asian-women-aren’t-the-best-drivers” stereotype.
My host-brother, Sang Che, recently visited a tarot card reader, because that’s just something you do when you’re 25 and a boy.
I think he was just too lazy to actually attempt to plan his life, so he thought he’d check out a fortune teller and make her do the job for him.
But said fortune teller wasn’t much help, in that her only advice / prediction was that Sang Che was too fat and should exercise more.
This was all told to me by my host-mother, who is also on the “Sang Che is fat” band wagon, and thought this was absolutely hilarious. And she’s pretty happy because she now has a reason to call her son fat.
Burn.
Fortune teller: 1
Sang Che: 0
In all fairness, Sang Che is no where close to “fat”. Granted, he’s no Rain .. but he’s definitely not “fat”.
I seriously just made a Rain joke. I need to leave Korea.
However, Sang Che’s 2 extra pounds of body fat are not keeping the ladies away. He recently started dating one of the smallest Korean girls I’ve ever seen, and a couple weeks ago brought her home for all of us to check out.
She is incredibly nice and speaks a fair amount of English, so I got to talk to her for a bit. She does, however, look like she’s about 12 years old. She claims to be a university student studying German, (because that’s a solid major choice ... German majors are in super high demand ... and I, as a Religious Studies major, know a thing or two about choosing practical majors) and to be only a few months younger than Sang Che, but throughout the entire course of the evening I could not stop wondering when she’d have to head home to prepare for her 5th grade spelling test the next day.
I really liked her and thought she was super sweet, as did pretty much the rest of my host-family, although host-mom was a little peeved that Sang Che didn’t call and tell us that he was bringing her over.
They arrived around 8pm, unbeknownst to any of us. Host-mom was wearing her usual hammer pants and giant, stained-with-hairdye t-shirt ... so she was a little embarrassed. She also didn’t have time to cut up the nice fruit, and we were stuck drinking orange juice.
Oh the troubles in Korea.
Host-mom still talks about it to this day.
And as far as I know, Sang Che and his new girlfriend are still dating, even though I hardly ever see him now that he’s moved out of the house and into his bro-pad.
Get it, Sang Che.
My lunchbox has recently become something of extreme celebrity at Hwasun High School. Many a teacher and student are enthralled with the fact that I eat food that was not prepared by the 20 old ladies behind the school’s cafeteria counter.
I mean, it is pretty marvelous, but come on.
There is one teacher in particular who finds this pretty interesting and often moseys over to my lunch seat to see exactly what I’ve got going on in my box.
After checking out the usual sandwich, salad, and fruit (all while touching just about every piece of food I have) she sometimes decides that it’s just too much food for one foreign girl to eat, and uninvitingly noms on my food.
And she’s usually right ... host-mom packs an obnoxious amount of food in my daily lunchbox (in addition to cutesy flowers and other foliage she finds in and around our house), but I’m starting to get pretty annoyed with this one particular song-sang-neem.
Fulbright Orientation definitely didn’t cover this topic in July.
I’m thinking of applying to give a supplemental talk this summer to all the incoming ETAs ... something along the lines of “Hey. There’s this one annoying teacher who won’t stop touching my sandwich. What should I do?”
Earlier this month, Hwasun High School had their semi-annual mid-term exams.
This was awesome for me (I got an entire week off from school!), not so awesome for my students.
During my free week I didn’t do anything or go anywhere.
Recently at school I’ve made some new teacher friends.
This is exciting because my new teacher friends aren’t 50+ years old (like every other teacher at Hwasun High School) and are super cool (which is pretty much my only friend requirement).
Two university students have started student-teaching at school in the art and science department. They both speak a good amount of English and when we’re not busy making students learn American culture or practice their anime drawings (guess which one I do) we usually hang out in the teacher’s room and do the whole “let’s learn about each other’s culture” thing. They’re super interested in my American-ness and it’s really cool for me to be able to talk to someone at school who didn’t just become a grandmother for the 3rd time.
(That also happened to one of my fellow teachers last week ... along with her turning the big Korean 6-0 (60) ... so she celebrated by bringing in a cake for all of us and wearing an extremely short mini-skirt to school.)
Happy Birthday.
The scary important superintendent for the Jeollonando province came to visit my school this week. It was an insanely big deal (so says my co-teacher) because he’s pretty much the guy that decides if it’s worth actually giving us our paychecks. So Hwasun High School rolled out the red carpet (literally, they put a maroon-like carpet walkway down in the library) and treated the guy like he was Jesus himself.
I’m not exactly sure what he and all the higher-ups at school talked about, because for some strange reason I wasn’t invited to the meeting, but I did get to meet and talk with him for a while.
He walked around and observed all the English classes during the 3rd period (and thankfully I didn’t teach 3rd period that day, or otherwise he would have walked directly into my legit American slang lesson where I taught the kids what it is to be fo shizzle crunk, while making it rain in da club with their dudebros and shawtys). So instead, I was appointed to walk around with the superintendent and observe classes with him.
This was pretty interesting, because I had never before sat in on a Korean teacher’s English class, and this was a perfect time to do so because with the superintendent there all the teachers taught only in English.
So I sat, listened, nodded my head like I thought I should, and saw how drastically different their classes are from mine.
And the superintendent looked impressed, so I’m still banking (pun) on getting a paycheck this month.
Went to Seoul a couple of weekends ago.
That was fun.
A couple dudes in the Fulbright program have started / are starting their own band / 2-person guitar thing and actually got a gig (as the once popular Uncle Jesse would say) at a sweet bar in Seoul. And after digging on their tunes and jams (which consisted of actual legit covers) the crowd was also treated to a performance of what one rather loud lady called Korea’s “up and coming ... you should watch them ... they are good” rap groups, “One Way”. They are actually American born Koreans who have migrated to Seoul (not unlike myself, save the whole “born Korean” thing) and have a pretty solid following both here and in the states.
And after legally downloading some of their tracks (emphasis on the “legally”) I have to agree that they’re pretty decent.
So ... blog plug ... check them out, if you don’t want to go down the “wrong way”.
I’m sorry, this blog post is shaping up to be sub-par with the puns.
Now, I don’t want you all to think that my life is just lollipops and rainbows ... or slacking off and going to bars (I’m talking to you, Grandma) ... I actually do some pretty important work when in school / the classroom.
Exhibit A:
A couple weeks ago I taught my students what I have deemed probably the best lesson ever ... provided that you’re an English teacher in Korea, with students who are pretty low level and like to make sexy jokes.
And that is exactly my situation.
Korean kids love them a sexy joke. And when not phrased properly, the jokes are even funnier.
So after teaching my students all the “cool” and “hip” slang terms that every American teenager uses on a regular basis, I armed them with some markers, a blank comic strip, and had them go at it.
For those of you who aren’t totally aware of what is “cool” and “hip” in America these days, here’s a rundown of what I thought was worthwhile to teach my Korean students.
Note: The majority of the things that I teach are now chosen only for my entertainment. And to create a strong understanding of each other’s culture. Duh.
But who doesn’t love hearing 35 Korean students attempt to pronounce “baller”?
Ripped straight from my Power Point:
Fo Shizzle - an alternative way to answer “yes”, or “affirmative”.
“Hey. Do you like Obama’s new health care plan?”
“Fo shizzle.”
Baller - meaning “awesome” ... and when students still don’t understand quite exactly what “awesome” is, “something that is really good”.
“Do you like squirrels?”
“Yes. They are baller.”
Shawty - how you (if you = Jay-Z) refer to your girlfriend (who is most likely a bootylicious black lady)
“Jay-Z, do you have a girlfriend?” “Yes. I have a shawty.”
Make it rain - a way to express spending large amounts of money (most likely on your shawty)
“That car is 40,000,000 won!” “It’s ok. I will make it rain.”
Legit - a synonym for “good”
“Did you get a good grade on the test?”
“Yes. It was legit.”
Crunk - when one is intoxicated
“Hey. You are 21 and responsible. What are you doing tonight?” “I am getting crunk with my friends.”
Woof - a reference to an extremely ugly person ... a la Buzz’s girlfriend ... “Home Alone”
“Is this boy attractive?”
“Woof.”
Get it - what one says when a friend is engaging in the fine art of flirting
(Because really, how could I come to Korea and not teach my students this?)
“Get it, Steve!”
Kicks - an alternative word for shoes
“Grab your kicks and lets go!”
Dude bro - an affectionate term for a dear friend
“Hey dude bro, want to play soccer today?”
What resulted was probably the best thing ever, no less great than if the Messiah himself decided to both take and participate in my conversational English class.
I was able to keep the comics and store them away in my “this is really awesome” file at school ... but I did take some pictures of my absolute favorite ones and uploaded them to Facebook. So check them out, friends.
I would post some here, but I’ve made it about 11 months so far without putting anything other than words out in the blog-world, so just check out my Facebook.
In addition to making my students super cool and spreading “get it” throughout Hwasun High School, I’ve also been letting them in on some other prized American culture in the form of song and dance. (That just sounds so much classier than, “I’ve shown them some music videos”.)
Students eat this stuff up.
What has been most popular is anything involving Lady Gaga (whom a good majority of the students think is either a man and/or transgender ... pretty sure that rumor started in Asia), Beyonce, and / or Justin Timberlake.
And I’m proud to say that after showing some classes Beyonce’s prized “Single Ladies” dance, it’s inspired them to learn part of her choreography and preform it at the annual Hwasun High School’s sports day, in front of the principal himself.
There is no greater joy than seeing your students dance to Beyonce in front of the super conservative, super intimidating school principal.
The scary important superintendent for the Jeollonando province came to visit my school this week. It was an insanely big deal (so says my co-teacher) because he’s pretty much the guy that decides if it’s worth actually giving us our paychecks. So Hwasun High School rolled out the red carpet (literally, they put a maroon-like carpet walkway down in the library) and treated the guy like he was Jesus himself.
I’m not exactly sure what he and all the higher-ups at school talked about, because for some strange reason I wasn’t invited to the meeting, but I did get to meet and talk with him for a while.
He walked around and observed all the English classes during the 3rd period (and thankfully I didn’t teach 3rd period that day, or otherwise he would have walked directly into my legit American slang lesson where I taught the kids what it is to be fo shizzle crunk, while making it rain in da club with their dudebros and shawtys). So instead, I was appointed to walk around with the superintendent and observe classes with him.
This was pretty interesting, because I had never before sat in on a Korean teacher’s English class, and this was a perfect time to do so because with the superintendent there all the teachers taught only in English.
So I sat, listened, nodded my head like I thought I should, and saw how drastically different their classes are from mine.
And the superintendent looked impressed, so I’m still banking (pun) on getting a paycheck this month.
I also had the great pleasure (pleasure being a stretch) of interviewing about 15 students who took part in an English competition.
Competition is also a stretch, in that it was basically some students who wrote an in-class essay about their favorite friend or trip ... which produced winning sentences like, “My best trip was Jeju, because airport suitcase machine is great.” ... or ... “My best friend is good because she is tall and handsome.”
So after the students wrote essays that would make the late Dr. King speechless / dreamless (pun) (does that even make sense?) they had to come talk to me for about 5 minutes about whatever I chose.
This meant that we talked mostly about their life’s ambitions, hopes, dreams, etc.
Or what their favorite boy band / anime show / hot Korean superstar is.
Last weekend I had the great honor to head down to Jeju for what looks to be the last time. (Insert strange Korean sad face here.)
It was about a million people’s birthdays, so some of the Jeju “crew” (the name given to them by God knows who) threw a birthday celebration for some of Fulbright’s most baller ETAs.
I won’t bore you with the long and tedious details of everything that was the Jeju birthday weekend ... because it was just that ... a snooze-fest.
False.
So I’ll bullet point you the high / low lights ... because there were definitely some of each.
The Jeju birthday bash was, but was not limited to:
Flight delay out of Gwangju - this sucked
Delicious macaroni and cheese - made with actual cheese (as much as processed cheese can pass as real cheese) instead of host-mom’s mayo
Super party-planning by Miss Ashley Pinney and Chelsey Taylor - feel special, only a select few earn blog-shout out status
Sweet tunes - both in the form of I-pod jamz and glorious Happy Birthday parodies (sung to the tune of the Eagle’s “Hotel California”) and a stellar Jeju Birthday mash-up
S’mores - “Oh hey there non-vegan Lauren, want a s’more?” Non-vegan Lauren: “mmhmp” (Too busy eating s’mores to talk.)
Extreme sleeping on super comfortable floor mats.
A day spent on one of Jeju’s finest beaches - I’m sure they’re all pretty fine, but seeing that it’s the first Jeju beach I’ve actually been to, and that I’ve now been to Jeju a total of 4 times, I thinking calling it anything than “fine” is just a tragedy.
Mexican food - pretty sure I gained at least 5 pounds this weekend. Happy Birthday.
Guy-liner made an appearance
Sexy hotel tunes - because who doesn’t love to clean the pool? Those UCLA ones are atrocious.
The Dome - actually happened, and that’s all I have to say about that.
Saw an elephant - that also actually happened.
More extreme sleeping on the floor.
Then an amazing 6 hour ferry ride back to the mainland - complete with more floor sleeping, farting old men, an ajumma giving me an entire bag of tomatoes, and getting ripped off during a taxi ride (which did not actually happen on the ferry, but worth mentioning)
And that was the Jeju birthday bash in a nutshell ... a very sparkly, lime-green nutshell.
And that was the past 50 million weeks ... I apologize again for not blogging in such a terribly long time.
But my grant year is almost over, and with that comes the un-welcomed frenzy of, “What are you going to do next year /slash/ the rest of your life? Because seriously, you have to do something.” And I blame my lack of blogging on just that.
If anyone has an idea of what that “something” is ... I’d be glad to hear it, because I’m getting a little annoyed doing the whole “chase your dreams” thing.
I’m too tired to be chasing my dreams. So I’m just going to ask them where they’re going and catch up with them later.
Totally can’t take credit for that great joke. Get it, Mr. Hedburg.
Until next time ...
(Which I promise won’t be in 50 million weeks.)
Blog.
Coming at you.
About 50 weekends ago I had the pleasure of visiting one of my teacher friends, his home, and his adorable little Korean family.
Moon teacher (as he asks me to call him ... because his Korean name is actually “Moon”) was one of my most favorite teachers last semester, but had to change schools in March, due to Korea’s making all public school teachers abandon ship (ship being their current school) every 3 years to find a new ship.
Well, actually the government finds them a new ship, they’re not like pirates or anything.
Anyways, last Saturday Moon invited me to his house, to meet his wife, and have lunch with the family. Moon has two sons, one of which is a first grade student of mine, Benjamin (note: this is the English name he chose in my class, and how Moon now refers to him. Pretty sure his actual Korean name is “Star” or something). So Moon came and picked me up at 9:30 am (because every Korean deems there should be at least 4 hours of “hang-ee out” time before lunch).
He first took me to his new school ... the “Gwangju Technology and Electricity High School” - at least that is what Moon called it. And even though his English isn’t stellar, I’m going to guess he was at least partially correct, in that the sign with the school’s name on it outside was about a mile long.
After a pretty sweet tour of the outside (which definitely put Hwasun High School to shame and quite possibly Gwangju University because the school grounds were roughly the size of a small town) he invited me into the gym to “watch-ee and play” volleyball with the high school’s volleyball team.
Moon teacher knows that I enjoy playing volleyball, and also that I’m not absolutely terrible at it (due to my previously mentioned volleyball domination during teachers’ sports day), so he thought it would be best for me to come and watch his high school boy’s volleyball team practice on Saturday morning.
Side-note: Moon’s high school boys’ volleyball team is supposedly the “best in the nation” as he explained ... which I think could very much be true, after watching them practice for a couple of hours.
These dudes were tall. I’m aware that I’ve been in Asia for almost a year, and that my definition of “tall” is now somewhat skewed, but these dudes were legit tall. I’d give them 6-5 / 6-6. Probably the tallest dudes I’ve seen in Asia in the past 10 months. Not including Yao Ming and that one guy who holds the “tallest man in the world” record. (But I’ve only seen them on TV, and we all know that TV adds about 2 feet, so Moon’s volleyball boys are currently the “tallest dudes in Asia”.)
So Moon and I watched them practice for about 2 hours. And yes, it was awkward. For everyone.
“Hey guys. This is a white girl. She’s just going to sit over here in the corner and watch you hit balls around. It’s ok. She’s cool.”
And that’s what happened.
Moon really wanted to play with them ... God knows why, his volleyball skills are nothing to write home about, and the fact that he’s about 5-2 is cause for some concern ... but I wasn’t aware for his desire to ball, and thankfully wasn’t properly dressed.
After an exciting round of volleyball, Moon and I headed over to his house (or rather his 13th story apartment ... George Jefferson would be proud) to meet his adorable little family.
Moon introduced me to his wife, and we met up with his son Benjamin, who speaks really good English and is probably the most adorable thing ever.
So we did whatever anyone else would do on a Saturday afternoon, Moon’s wife made me strawberry juice and the family showed me the 7 (yeah, 7) photo albums full of pictures that they took during their European family vacation a couple years back.
For those of you who are lucky enough to be friends of mine on Facebook, or be able to see my Korean photos, rest assured that Moon’s picture-taking abilities far surpass my own.)
There was a picture of them in front of absolutely everything ... totally living up to the age old “I’m a Korean and I love to take pictures” stereotype.
“Hey ... here’s a rock ... let’s take a picture of it. And then with it. And then of it again, just incase it changed.”
“Oh look! It’s an escalator ... let’s take a picture of that too. And a picture of us standing on it. And maybe a picture of these white people standing on it, just for good measure.”
Among the many European pictures I viewed, I also saw a lovely portrait of a handsome older Korean man in a super fancy suit, hanging in their coat room. When I asked who the handsome man was Moon replied, “My dead father.” If that wasn’t awkward enough, they then posed for what seemed like a moment / eternity of silence, in the coat room.
If you’re ever in Asia, I would recommend not inquiring about any pictures of old people, as it’s about 80% sure that they are in fact deceased.
(Also made that mistake with the host-family circa August 2009.)
So after we all got our coats from the coat / dead man room, we headed to VIPS, the classiest of Western buffet restaurants. And it was absolutely delicious.
Anytime there is a buffet of something other than octopus and/or kimchi, I’m game.
Moon and his family treated me to an excellent lunch and some pretty stellar conversation ... topics including, but not limited to: religion, bread, movies, and Roachdale, Indiana.
During our day of fun, Moon also talked me up about this “amazing, Rauren, amazing!” movie he recently saw ... “The Blind Side”. He said it was the best movie he’d ever seen, and probably the best movie in the history of movies.
Quite intrigued, I told Moon I would see the movie later that weekend, to his delight.
He then asked me to e-mail him with my critique of the movie, writing to him as I would a friend.
So I did.
Saw the movie, and while it was pretty inspirational, I thought it was kind of lame and in no way should have Sandra Bullock an Oscar. I thought her portrayal as Gracie Hart in “Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous” was much more convincing.
I have yet to hear back from Moon. I hope the friendship isn’t over.
My oldest host-sister, Eun Lae, recently informed me that “like Rauren ... take the bus!” She explained that last week she drove the side of her car into a guardrail, the one that lines the bridge outside of the house. So her car is now at the “car doctor”.
Again, not helping the whole “Asian-women-aren’t-the-best-drivers” stereotype.
My host-brother, Sang Che, recently visited a tarot card reader, because that’s just something you do when you’re 25 and a boy.
I think he was just too lazy to actually attempt to plan his life, so he thought he’d check out a fortune teller and make her do the job for him.
But said fortune teller wasn’t much help, in that her only advice / prediction was that Sang Che was too fat and should exercise more.
This was all told to me by my host-mother, who is also on the “Sang Che is fat” band wagon, and thought this was absolutely hilarious. And she’s pretty happy because she now has a reason to call her son fat.
Burn.
Fortune teller: 1
Sang Che: 0
In all fairness, Sang Che is no where close to “fat”. Granted, he’s no Rain .. but he’s definitely not “fat”.
I seriously just made a Rain joke. I need to leave Korea.
However, Sang Che’s 2 extra pounds of body fat are not keeping the ladies away. He recently started dating one of the smallest Korean girls I’ve ever seen, and a couple weeks ago brought her home for all of us to check out.
She is incredibly nice and speaks a fair amount of English, so I got to talk to her for a bit. She does, however, look like she’s about 12 years old. She claims to be a university student studying German, (because that’s a solid major choice ... German majors are in super high demand ... and I, as a Religious Studies major, know a thing or two about choosing practical majors) and to be only a few months younger than Sang Che, but throughout the entire course of the evening I could not stop wondering when she’d have to head home to prepare for her 5th grade spelling test the next day.
I really liked her and thought she was super sweet, as did pretty much the rest of my host-family, although host-mom was a little peeved that Sang Che didn’t call and tell us that he was bringing her over.
They arrived around 8pm, unbeknownst to any of us. Host-mom was wearing her usual hammer pants and giant, stained-with-hairdye t-shirt ... so she was a little embarrassed. She also didn’t have time to cut up the nice fruit, and we were stuck drinking orange juice.
Oh the troubles in Korea.
Host-mom still talks about it to this day.
And as far as I know, Sang Che and his new girlfriend are still dating, even though I hardly ever see him now that he’s moved out of the house and into his bro-pad.
Get it, Sang Che.
My lunchbox has recently become something of extreme celebrity at Hwasun High School. Many a teacher and student are enthralled with the fact that I eat food that was not prepared by the 20 old ladies behind the school’s cafeteria counter.
I mean, it is pretty marvelous, but come on.
There is one teacher in particular who finds this pretty interesting and often moseys over to my lunch seat to see exactly what I’ve got going on in my box.
After checking out the usual sandwich, salad, and fruit (all while touching just about every piece of food I have) she sometimes decides that it’s just too much food for one foreign girl to eat, and uninvitingly noms on my food.
And she’s usually right ... host-mom packs an obnoxious amount of food in my daily lunchbox (in addition to cutesy flowers and other foliage she finds in and around our house), but I’m starting to get pretty annoyed with this one particular song-sang-neem.
Fulbright Orientation definitely didn’t cover this topic in July.
I’m thinking of applying to give a supplemental talk this summer to all the incoming ETAs ... something along the lines of “Hey. There’s this one annoying teacher who won’t stop touching my sandwich. What should I do?”
Earlier this month, Hwasun High School had their semi-annual mid-term exams.
This was awesome for me (I got an entire week off from school!), not so awesome for my students.
During my free week I didn’t do anything or go anywhere.
Recently at school I’ve made some new teacher friends.
This is exciting because my new teacher friends aren’t 50+ years old (like every other teacher at Hwasun High School) and are super cool (which is pretty much my only friend requirement).
Two university students have started student-teaching at school in the art and science department. They both speak a good amount of English and when we’re not busy making students learn American culture or practice their anime drawings (guess which one I do) we usually hang out in the teacher’s room and do the whole “let’s learn about each other’s culture” thing. They’re super interested in my American-ness and it’s really cool for me to be able to talk to someone at school who didn’t just become a grandmother for the 3rd time.
(That also happened to one of my fellow teachers last week ... along with her turning the big Korean 6-0 (60) ... so she celebrated by bringing in a cake for all of us and wearing an extremely short mini-skirt to school.)
Happy Birthday.
The scary important superintendent for the Jeollonando province came to visit my school this week. It was an insanely big deal (so says my co-teacher) because he’s pretty much the guy that decides if it’s worth actually giving us our paychecks. So Hwasun High School rolled out the red carpet (literally, they put a maroon-like carpet walkway down in the library) and treated the guy like he was Jesus himself.
I’m not exactly sure what he and all the higher-ups at school talked about, because for some strange reason I wasn’t invited to the meeting, but I did get to meet and talk with him for a while.
He walked around and observed all the English classes during the 3rd period (and thankfully I didn’t teach 3rd period that day, or otherwise he would have walked directly into my legit American slang lesson where I taught the kids what it is to be fo shizzle crunk, while making it rain in da club with their dudebros and shawtys). So instead, I was appointed to walk around with the superintendent and observe classes with him.
This was pretty interesting, because I had never before sat in on a Korean teacher’s English class, and this was a perfect time to do so because with the superintendent there all the teachers taught only in English.
So I sat, listened, nodded my head like I thought I should, and saw how drastically different their classes are from mine.
And the superintendent looked impressed, so I’m still banking (pun) on getting a paycheck this month.
Went to Seoul a couple of weekends ago.
That was fun.
A couple dudes in the Fulbright program have started / are starting their own band / 2-person guitar thing and actually got a gig (as the once popular Uncle Jesse would say) at a sweet bar in Seoul. And after digging on their tunes and jams (which consisted of actual legit covers) the crowd was also treated to a performance of what one rather loud lady called Korea’s “up and coming ... you should watch them ... they are good” rap groups, “One Way”. They are actually American born Koreans who have migrated to Seoul (not unlike myself, save the whole “born Korean” thing) and have a pretty solid following both here and in the states.
And after legally downloading some of their tracks (emphasis on the “legally”) I have to agree that they’re pretty decent.
So ... blog plug ... check them out, if you don’t want to go down the “wrong way”.
I’m sorry, this blog post is shaping up to be sub-par with the puns.
Now, I don’t want you all to think that my life is just lollipops and rainbows ... or slacking off and going to bars (I’m talking to you, Grandma) ... I actually do some pretty important work when in school / the classroom.
Exhibit A:
A couple weeks ago I taught my students what I have deemed probably the best lesson ever ... provided that you’re an English teacher in Korea, with students who are pretty low level and like to make sexy jokes.
And that is exactly my situation.
Korean kids love them a sexy joke. And when not phrased properly, the jokes are even funnier.
So after teaching my students all the “cool” and “hip” slang terms that every American teenager uses on a regular basis, I armed them with some markers, a blank comic strip, and had them go at it.
For those of you who aren’t totally aware of what is “cool” and “hip” in America these days, here’s a rundown of what I thought was worthwhile to teach my Korean students.
Note: The majority of the things that I teach are now chosen only for my entertainment. And to create a strong understanding of each other’s culture. Duh.
But who doesn’t love hearing 35 Korean students attempt to pronounce “baller”?
Ripped straight from my Power Point:
Fo Shizzle - an alternative way to answer “yes”, or “affirmative”.
“Hey. Do you like Obama’s new health care plan?”
“Fo shizzle.”
Baller - meaning “awesome” ... and when students still don’t understand quite exactly what “awesome” is, “something that is really good”.
“Do you like squirrels?”
“Yes. They are baller.”
Shawty - how you (if you = Jay-Z) refer to your girlfriend (who is most likely a bootylicious black lady)
“Jay-Z, do you have a girlfriend?” “Yes. I have a shawty.”
Make it rain - a way to express spending large amounts of money (most likely on your shawty)
“That car is 40,000,000 won!” “It’s ok. I will make it rain.”
Legit - a synonym for “good”
“Did you get a good grade on the test?”
“Yes. It was legit.”
Crunk - when one is intoxicated
“Hey. You are 21 and responsible. What are you doing tonight?” “I am getting crunk with my friends.”
Woof - a reference to an extremely ugly person ... a la Buzz’s girlfriend ... “Home Alone”
“Is this boy attractive?”
“Woof.”
Get it - what one says when a friend is engaging in the fine art of flirting
(Because really, how could I come to Korea and not teach my students this?)
“Get it, Steve!”
Kicks - an alternative word for shoes
“Grab your kicks and lets go!”
Dude bro - an affectionate term for a dear friend
“Hey dude bro, want to play soccer today?”
What resulted was probably the best thing ever, no less great than if the Messiah himself decided to both take and participate in my conversational English class.
I was able to keep the comics and store them away in my “this is really awesome” file at school ... but I did take some pictures of my absolute favorite ones and uploaded them to Facebook. So check them out, friends.
I would post some here, but I’ve made it about 11 months so far without putting anything other than words out in the blog-world, so just check out my Facebook.
In addition to making my students super cool and spreading “get it” throughout Hwasun High School, I’ve also been letting them in on some other prized American culture in the form of song and dance. (That just sounds so much classier than, “I’ve shown them some music videos”.)
Students eat this stuff up.
What has been most popular is anything involving Lady Gaga (whom a good majority of the students think is either a man and/or transgender ... pretty sure that rumor started in Asia), Beyonce, and / or Justin Timberlake.
And I’m proud to say that after showing some classes Beyonce’s prized “Single Ladies” dance, it’s inspired them to learn part of her choreography and preform it at the annual Hwasun High School’s sports day, in front of the principal himself.
There is no greater joy than seeing your students dance to Beyonce in front of the super conservative, super intimidating school principal.
The scary important superintendent for the Jeollonando province came to visit my school this week. It was an insanely big deal (so says my co-teacher) because he’s pretty much the guy that decides if it’s worth actually giving us our paychecks. So Hwasun High School rolled out the red carpet (literally, they put a maroon-like carpet walkway down in the library) and treated the guy like he was Jesus himself.
I’m not exactly sure what he and all the higher-ups at school talked about, because for some strange reason I wasn’t invited to the meeting, but I did get to meet and talk with him for a while.
He walked around and observed all the English classes during the 3rd period (and thankfully I didn’t teach 3rd period that day, or otherwise he would have walked directly into my legit American slang lesson where I taught the kids what it is to be fo shizzle crunk, while making it rain in da club with their dudebros and shawtys). So instead, I was appointed to walk around with the superintendent and observe classes with him.
This was pretty interesting, because I had never before sat in on a Korean teacher’s English class, and this was a perfect time to do so because with the superintendent there all the teachers taught only in English.
So I sat, listened, nodded my head like I thought I should, and saw how drastically different their classes are from mine.
And the superintendent looked impressed, so I’m still banking (pun) on getting a paycheck this month.
I also had the great pleasure (pleasure being a stretch) of interviewing about 15 students who took part in an English competition.
Competition is also a stretch, in that it was basically some students who wrote an in-class essay about their favorite friend or trip ... which produced winning sentences like, “My best trip was Jeju, because airport suitcase machine is great.” ... or ... “My best friend is good because she is tall and handsome.”
So after the students wrote essays that would make the late Dr. King speechless / dreamless (pun) (does that even make sense?) they had to come talk to me for about 5 minutes about whatever I chose.
This meant that we talked mostly about their life’s ambitions, hopes, dreams, etc.
Or what their favorite boy band / anime show / hot Korean superstar is.
Last weekend I had the great honor to head down to Jeju for what looks to be the last time. (Insert strange Korean sad face here.)
It was about a million people’s birthdays, so some of the Jeju “crew” (the name given to them by God knows who) threw a birthday celebration for some of Fulbright’s most baller ETAs.
I won’t bore you with the long and tedious details of everything that was the Jeju birthday weekend ... because it was just that ... a snooze-fest.
False.
So I’ll bullet point you the high / low lights ... because there were definitely some of each.
The Jeju birthday bash was, but was not limited to:
Flight delay out of Gwangju - this sucked
Delicious macaroni and cheese - made with actual cheese (as much as processed cheese can pass as real cheese) instead of host-mom’s mayo
Super party-planning by Miss Ashley Pinney and Chelsey Taylor - feel special, only a select few earn blog-shout out status
Sweet tunes - both in the form of I-pod jamz and glorious Happy Birthday parodies (sung to the tune of the Eagle’s “Hotel California”) and a stellar Jeju Birthday mash-up
S’mores - “Oh hey there non-vegan Lauren, want a s’more?” Non-vegan Lauren: “mmhmp” (Too busy eating s’mores to talk.)
Extreme sleeping on super comfortable floor mats.
A day spent on one of Jeju’s finest beaches - I’m sure they’re all pretty fine, but seeing that it’s the first Jeju beach I’ve actually been to, and that I’ve now been to Jeju a total of 4 times, I thinking calling it anything than “fine” is just a tragedy.
Mexican food - pretty sure I gained at least 5 pounds this weekend. Happy Birthday.
Guy-liner made an appearance
Sexy hotel tunes - because who doesn’t love to clean the pool? Those UCLA ones are atrocious.
The Dome - actually happened, and that’s all I have to say about that.
Saw an elephant - that also actually happened.
More extreme sleeping on the floor.
Then an amazing 6 hour ferry ride back to the mainland - complete with more floor sleeping, farting old men, an ajumma giving me an entire bag of tomatoes, and getting ripped off during a taxi ride (which did not actually happen on the ferry, but worth mentioning)
And that was the Jeju birthday bash in a nutshell ... a very sparkly, lime-green nutshell.
And that was the past 50 million weeks ... I apologize again for not blogging in such a terribly long time.
But my grant year is almost over, and with that comes the un-welcomed frenzy of, “What are you going to do next year /slash/ the rest of your life? Because seriously, you have to do something.” And I blame my lack of blogging on just that.
If anyone has an idea of what that “something” is ... I’d be glad to hear it, because I’m getting a little annoyed doing the whole “chase your dreams” thing.
I’m too tired to be chasing my dreams. So I’m just going to ask them where they’re going and catch up with them later.
Totally can’t take credit for that great joke. Get it, Mr. Hedburg.
Until next time ...
(Which I promise won’t be in 50 million weeks.)
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
I know, I know.
I haven't blogged in a while.
And I'm well aware that this is what most bloggers say when they are behind on their blogging (except for Julie).
Has it really taken me this long to make a "Julie and Julia" joke?
Well, my excuse isn't because I've got a duck in the oven (again with the Julie) ... rather, it's threefold.
1. It is nice and warm outside. So sitting in front of my computer is not something I really want to be doing any more than I have to.
2. I've been more busy these past couple weeks (most likely due to the fact that I'm no longer scared to go outside without 5 layers of clothes).
3. I'm getting lazier. Maybe it's the weather, maybe it's the fact that the end of Korea is so imminently near that I figure, "Why not just take a nap instead of blog? I'll tell everyone about this in a couple months."
But fear not. I will blog again ... and it will definitely be sometime next week.
And I'm well aware that this is what most bloggers say when they are behind on their blogging (except for Julie).
Has it really taken me this long to make a "Julie and Julia" joke?
Well, my excuse isn't because I've got a duck in the oven (again with the Julie) ... rather, it's threefold.
1. It is nice and warm outside. So sitting in front of my computer is not something I really want to be doing any more than I have to.
2. I've been more busy these past couple weeks (most likely due to the fact that I'm no longer scared to go outside without 5 layers of clothes).
3. I'm getting lazier. Maybe it's the weather, maybe it's the fact that the end of Korea is so imminently near that I figure, "Why not just take a nap instead of blog? I'll tell everyone about this in a couple months."
But fear not. I will blog again ... and it will definitely be sometime next week.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Kim Yuna isn't cold anymore.
I haven't blogged in a while. Thanks for pointing that out.
So why don't you all stop your crying, because here it comes.
Besides, there's no crying in blogging.
And I' pretty sure we can thank Forest Gump for that.
So about a million years ago (a million roughly equaling 3 weeks) I had an extended weekend vacation in the beautiful Jeju Island. Now I’m sure I’ve mentioned countless times that Jeju is Korea’s largest, self-governing island, but I’ll mention it again for good measure: Jeju is Korea’s largest, self-governing island. Like Hong Kong, minus the whole “Chinese thing”, and the whole “get your passport stamped when you visit there” thing. But I’ve never been to Hong Kong ... so it’s neither here nor there.
Anyways, I ventured down to Jeju to take part in the bi-annual Fulbright ETA conference, which was held at the very beautiful KAL hotel in Sogweipo.
But first, I was lucky enough to get down there a little early, because my school decided to let all the first and second grade students go on a field trip of their choice: provided that they chose Manyan Mountain, or Korea’s own Jeju Island.
As the first graders headed to Jeju, I did as well ... with my co-teacher hoping I would catch up with them and take a 12 hour tour together on the day it decided to rain about 100 inches of water.
However, I managed to get out of the 12 hour tour, scared that it would result in me being shipwrecked with 250 Korean students and a guy named Gilligan (a student who I actually do call Gilligan, because he looks exactly like him). I instead hung out with some Jeju friends and visited the school of my friend Adam, who teaches at an all boys high school in Jeju City. After a couple hours of being uncomfortably googled (not a reference to the Internet phenomenon, turned verb) it was time for the conference.
At the conference, we did little conferencing, and were instead given quite a bit of free time to do whatever we wanted. And what I wanted was to nothing, apparently. Except lounge around the beautiful hotel, take a bubble bath, and eat about 3 pounds of cheese.
Conference - success.
The weather is getting really nice, because it’s spring. Warm, beautiful, and the cherry blossoms are blossoming (fully living up to their name, minus the whole cherry thing).
Weather is kind of boring, but everyone always asks me about it, so this should curb all the annoying weather small talk from now on.
A couple weeks ago (a week after the Jeju conference if you’re keeping a calendar) I went up to Seoul and had an absolutely fantastic weekend.
Any weekend that includes: shopping in Seoul stores that carry sizes other than “Asian” (i.e. H&M, where H = hand me, and M = your Money), eating delicious foods (as delicious defaults to “not Korean”) and seeing Jamie Cullum in concert, is difficult to beat when playing “my weekend was better than your weekend”.
As the highlight of the weekend was definitely seeing Jamie live (yeah, we’re on a first name basis, now) in that I’ve been in love with him, his music, and his piano since high school. I went with three other friends, who also share my love of sexy pop piano jazz, and we had an absolutely fantastic time. We all were in the “general standing room” area right in front of the stage, and were pretty close to all the tunez and jamz.
(You know it’s a good concert if there are both tunez and jamz.)
The music and atmosphere was really great, and was definitely one of the best concerts I’ve seen. So next time you’re in Seoul ... the same time Jamie Cullum is ... and he happens to be playing a show ... and you have some free time ... and some wons ... I would definitely encourage you to check him out.
Lately, many people in Hwasun have been thinking that the air is getting kind of crappy. I don’t know why they think this - it seems like regular air to me - but during the past couple of weeks, those who run the city of Hwasun (mainly the old ajumma women and the guy that owns the toilet store) decided to do something about the said “crappy air”. They have been attempting to “clean the air” ... not by reducing their driving (because all they do is walk and pull their loads of cardboard around anyways), or discontinuing their practice of spray-painting everything ... but rather by releasing into the air some type of smelly chemical that is supposed to “knock out all the gross stuff in the crappy air”. Because everyone knows the best way in which to clean something is to dirty it even more. It’s just logical.
So as I’m walking in to school last week, I am preceded by a gigantic truck with a gigantic barrel of smelly chemicals that are being released into the air. I literally thought I was following a garbage truck that decided to liquefy its contents and put them up my nose.
I have no idea how this works, other than it doesn’t.
But when in Korea ... (you can’t do anything about it, so deal with it).
Another unpleasant smell that has recently been making its way up my nostrils is paint fumes. No, I’m not huffing. This isn’t 1995. (Not that I did that in 1995, but I feel as if that phenomenon was so 15 years ago.)
Hwasun High School is still under construction, and probably will be until at least 2050 ... and this means that there is many an ajumma painting many a wall.
Seriously.
They are employing old ladies to paint our school.
So the school constantly smells like the inside of a paint can.
I’m pretty sure I was high the last couple weeks of class.
And that, in addition to the paint fumes, was pretty unpleasant.
While I’ve been in Korea ... a solid 9.5 months ... I’ve managed to go through a total of 5 USB drives.
They hate me.
They either break, run away from me, or decide not to be USBs after I purchase them at the store.
I think it’s safe to say that I’ve spent at least 25% of my Korean income on USBs.
Recently, there has been some pretty intense drama at Hwasun High School. Drama in the form of two different love triangles, in two of my classes. When I noticed that one of my boy students had a black eye, I questioned him, asking what door he ran into ... but he informed me that his “friend” punched him in the face because he was super jealous that he’s “dating” the most awesome girl in class. Apparently dude-bro didn’t like that he was all holding-hands with his girl, so he punched him in the eye.
However, the two guys involved in this steamy triangle are now best friends, and a day later are all up in each others grill with some pretty intense bromance ... totally forgetting about said awesome girl. Although she doesn’t really seem to be into either of them, claiming, “No boy, teacher! I don’t know!”
In another class, there is a similar occurrence ... two guys fighting over the class hottie, as she sits dumbfounded, claiming to like neither of them.
My students are pretty hard-core ... straight out of “The Bold, the Beautiful, and the Korean”.
Last week, my co-teacher, Mrs. Yun decided that Lauren doesn’t have enough stuff to do. She gave all her classes ... all 17 of them (with about 30 students each) ... an English writing assignment: write about your dream job, your future vision. And then, after you’ve written it, you must come find Lauren wherever she is (literally wherever - I’ve been approached in the: restroom, lunch line, while teaching class, while leaving school) and make her proofread it. Because she has time to read every Korean students’ visions. (or “pisions” as they so lovingly pronounce it).
So for the past couple weeks I have been proof-reading and editing every single students’ “pision”.
I’ve read my fair share of “pisions” ... as most of my students want to be either: doctors, nurses, teachers, world rulers, philanthropists, or flight attendants.
(Side-note: Being a flight attendant here in Korea is super intense, and has its own major in college. Handing out nuts is an art in Asia.)
And as I have mostly enjoyed learning more about my students and their “pisions” it’s become increasingly more annoying and tedious.
However, I am occasionally treated to gems such as one students‘ determination to “help poop people”. I’m going to assume he intends to help “poor people”, but pooping is difficult to sometimes.
Last Sunday at Church I had the honor to meet Reverend Kim ... a super old (70+) Korean-American / Korean-Korean guy, who recently moved to Korea after living in the states for 40+ years.
He’s literally lived in the US at least twice as long as I have.
Although he’s Korean born, he definitely knows more about American life than I do ... so my fancy cultural-ambassador hat (which I often imagine to be like a tiara) was definitely
downgraded to something like one of those paper hats you make in second grade.
Anyways, I met Reverend Kim, who is a super nice guy, very well educated, and worldly - worked a variety of business and church-y jobs, and has 3 grown kids who are all either doctors or lawyers. He’s the epitome of the Korean dream. (Sorry G-Dragon).
So on this precious little Sunday, I went to church ... with the idea that I would do what I always do, “volunteer” by saying some English stuff into a microphone to 8 year olds for about 30 minutes ... but Reverend Kim had some different ideas.
After listening and taking part in an English worship service - which was awesome - sarcasm ... I was then questioned by Reverend Kim as to exactly where I will be going to seminary school upon my return to the states. My church-lady friend, Hannah, had informed Reverend Kim that I graduated with a degree in Religious Studies. And as everyone knows Religious Studies = direct path to Jesus, Reverend Kim was delighted to hang out we me, future reverend.
So we hung.
And by hung, I mean that we dined at a delicious vegetarian restaurant in Gwangju, and talked about how desperately I need to confess my faith in Jesus, because it would be super awesome to have a “pretty foreign” girl love Jesus in their church.
Now at this point I have had enough of this (both the religious talk and the food - I ate like there was no tomorrow), and am starting to get super annoyed with their pushiness.
Reverend Kim then explained to me that “as you know, most Americans are rude and mean”.
Yeah, we’re total douches. Thanks for reminding me.
But when Americans have Jesus, their hostility subsides ... which is totally true.
Just ask Fred Phelps.
Then my church friends made me eat orange peels (which were healthy and good for stamina ... because I’m lacking “stamina”), and we got into a car accident.
Yeah, that happened.
It was just a little fender-bender, but I think that still falls under the umbrella of “car accident”.
I was sitting in the back with Reverend Kim, and at the wheel is the self-proclaimed “best driver in Asia” - seriously, that’s how he introduced himself to me. We were stopped at a red light, discussing Jesus and America (like lamb and tuna-fish) and we were rear-ended by a driver who just so happened to be Asian, and a woman.
No one was hurt, not even the car, so no worries ... but the other driver was pretty flustered.
So flustered and worried that she did damage to our car, that she reversed (on the highway) to check the damage. However, in reversing, she decided it probably wasn’t necessary to check if anyone was behind her, and just so happened to front-end (that’s a word) the car behind her. This, her second accident in under 30 seconds, caused much more damage to the other car. But since we weren’t hurt or disfigured and had a church meeting to get to, we drove off.
Now, during my first week in Korea, after witnessing all that is Korean driving, I figured I would get in at least one traffic accident during my year here.
I can check that off my to-do list.
In school, there is no toilet paper in the restrooms.
This makes life difficult, when I need to use toilet paper in the restrooms.
Instead, every teacher is given an entire role of toilet paper at the beginning of each week. We are to take the paper into the bathroom with us, because everyone knows that the worst thing in the entire world is to stock the restrooms with toilet paper.
And while I’m at school an average of 7 hours a day, I can’t seem to use up an entire roll in one week, by myself. This has led to an over abundance of toilet paper rolls in my desk drawers.
Ironically: this time last year (while living in a DePauw duplex) I often found myself “borrowing” toilet paper from various academic buildings, libraries, eateries, etc. I guess I didn’t know about the paper abundance in Korea.
I’m thinking about mailing some back to campus. I mean, I did just “borrow” it.
In class once time this week I made the “invisible quote” gesture with my hands, as I was explaining something. I don’t remember exactly what it was, but apparently I thought it was pretty lame, so I threw up the invisible air quotes.
A couple of my students noticed this, and later came to me, asking what that particular gesture means.
So I asked them what they thought it meant, and their first go-to answer was: “Means gay gay gay!”
So after attempting to explain that it does not, in fact, mean “gay” ... but rather “I think this is kind of lame, so I’m going to put it in air quotes” ... I don’t think they totally heard me.
And so was born the use of invisible air quotes to denote “gay” in Hwasun High School.
Last Wednesday was the bi-annual Hwasun High School teacher sports-uh day.
This is a big deal.
Every semester the teachers decide that they want to play some “sports-uh” ... so they organize an afternoon in which to do so. The sports-uh day lasts for about two hours, usually located behind the high school, in the giant soccer field. However, this year, since the high school is under some serious construction (still - since like 2002) sports-uh day was relocated to the much smaller, indoor gymnasium. (Even calling it a gymnasium is a stretch ... it’s about the size of the first floor girls’ bathroom.)
So we had sports-uh day in the girls’ bathroom.
Around 3:00 pm all the teachers headed to the gym - dressed head to toe in Korean workout gear (which is usually completely ridiculous) - leaving all the students alone in their classrooms for “self study”.
In Korea it’s no big thing for the teachers no to be present in the classrooms ... as the majority of night classes are just students studying alone, sans teacher. And the funny thing is that they actually study, not fart around.
(I can’t even do that. When I’m alone in the teacher’s lounge - usually every morning from 8 am to 9 am) - I make sure to be as unproductive as possible. On the other hand, my e-mail and Facebook-ing skills are now something to write home about.)
Anyways, teachers’ sports-uh day consisted of 2 hours of eating, taking (they talked, I smiled) and playing some insanely intense games of dodgeball and volleyball.
But before the games, all the teachers made sure to stuff their faces with live octopus, rice cakes, and beer.
Really. 10 minutes before the game, they were shoving squirming sea creatures down their throats.
So after ingesting (and not digesting) all the delicious Korean food, we played Korean dodgeball - which is pretty much all the men teachers throwing balls at all the lady teachers. The women, divided into two teams, were placed in the middle of the court, as all the men teachers lined up around it and threw their balls.
And it kind of hurt. They throw their balls hard.
After dodgeball, we played 5 games of volleyball ... or rather, I dominated 5 games of volleyball.
Being a fairly tall, American girl, who played volleyball like it was her job in high school, I had somewhat of an advantage.
But when you’re the only girl playing, and you are significantly taller then 90% of the men, and when you’re not Korean, this is cause for many a Korean to exclaim, “Rauren! You volleyball good! You bery (yeah, they pronounce it “bery”) tall! America!”
Yes. America.
So after my team (Team Paprika) totally dominated the other team (Team Corn) I won a box of kleenexes, a tube of toothpaste, and called it a day.
Went to a KIA Tigers baseball game last Saturday.
For all of you who aren’t too knowledged on the South Korean baseball scene, the KIA Tigers are the local Gwangju baseball team, who won the South Korean Series last year.
Last year, they were really good. This year, not so much.
But I went to the game anyways. They lost, but I didn’t cry. Remember, there’s no crying in blogging.
The game was a lot of fun ... the weather was nice and I went with some pretty legit friends. We had a great time cheering on the team, participating in an all-stadium wave that lasted a good 5 minutes, and sitting in seats that were in no way designed for people that are taller than 5-2.
As would be expected, baseball games are pretty insane over here ... the crowd is literally cheering nonstop, and the cheers are always positive, there was no slandering of the other team.
However, there was a disgruntled fan who threw a giant bag of trash over the fence. But I just like to think that he didn’t see a trashcan anywhere (because we’re in Korea and they don’t exist here) and thought maybe the left-fielder had a better chance of finding one.
A couple of students have gotten a hold of my phone number. I guess this is what happens when you tell them you don’t have one, and a week later they see you talking on it.
So after they took my phone and literally stole my number, I now receive quite a few texts from high school boys.
I feel weird.
And old.
And creepy.
I was recently treated to a private magic show, compliments of my physics teacher friend. She sits across from me in the teacher’s lounge and is super adorable, mostly because she knows little to no English and mimes everything.
One day I saw her playing with some string at her desk and did the standard “what are you doing” shoulder shrug. She then preformed a couple magic tricks for me - your standard rope and hoop illusions.
After she was finished and I acted as if it was the coolest thing ever (because it was, and I had no idea how she was doing it), she showed them to me for a second and third time, until I finally caught on. Asian magicians definitely do not follow the “Magicians Code”.
Then she gave me a box of kleenex for being such a good audience, and we ate lunch.
Lately I’ve been having regular lunch dates with a 3rd grade student, Chan Mihn (not to be confused with my other students Hong Mihn, Tae Mihn, Jun Mihn, Chan Tae, Chan Yuhn, or Chan Hyo). Chan Mihn is extremely interested in visiting America (because, really, who isn’t?) and is super into everything I tell him about it. His English isn’t stellar, but he tries really hard, which is extremely endearing. We talk for about 30 minutes every day - he brings in a sheet of paper with subjects to talk about (sound familiar, Mom?) and we discuss everything from LA’s Korea town to what type of dog is most delicious. He’s hoping to visit America for an extended period of time after he graduates high school, so most likely sometime next January.
While many of my students dream of visiting exotic America, few actually follow up on this dream. But Chan Mihn is pretty serious - he’s taken a part time job in order to pay for his expensive plane ticket, and constantly asks me if I know any jobs in America he can have. (I told him he doesn’t get one, until I do.)
He’s also looking to stay with some kind of host family situation ... so if any of you hospitable American friends of mine would like to hang out with a Korean kid for a few months, let me know.
The past couple weeks of class have been pretty superb. I’ve decided to wear my “cultural ambassador” tiara and teach all the little children about the right way to do things - the ‘merican way.
So class has taken the form of a type of quiz show game, as teams of students attempt to answer questions about American culture for prizes (aka small Tootsie Rolls that I brought back with me during Christmas time). I personally think Tootsie Rolls taste absolutely disgusting, however they are a huge hit in Asia ... oh why my students will do for a Tootsie Roll. Too bad Klondike already laid claim to that.
So I ask my students the standard questions:
“How old are most Americans when they learn to drive?” - most believing it is somewhere between 18 and 21
“If you bump into someone on the sidewalk, what should you do?” - a fair number answered “Punch him face!”
“What do Americans use under their armpits so they don’t smell?” - I rarely get deodorant, the correct answer ... and instead get jewels like:
“Lemons under armpits.” - also useful for a mid-day snack
“Cut the fur.” - they apparently think we are all wild animals
“Ferfume” - because it smells best when spelled with an “F”
“Why isn’t there any water on the floor of American bathrooms?”
(For my American readers, Korean bathrooms are like a giant tub - water is everywhere, as the drain is usually located in the middle of the floor.)
“Americans never shower.” - not true in all cases, just finals week
“There is no water in America.” - Seriously? That’s what you’re going with?
“Americans scared of water.” - my students have been watching too much Maury Povich
The following week I stole a lesson plan from my friend Adam, after witnessing it’s greatness during my visit to Jeju, and did a lesson on giving advice - letting my students give advice to people with some serious problems.
After explaining the concept of advice, and how Dear Abby was once a popular phenomenon, I let them go at it, and give their best advice to said people with said serious problems. (Serious problems beings ones I stole from Adam, or others I wrote myself.)
(Also: some names have been changed to protect those with the real problems.)
I told them to be creative, and the funnier their advice, the better.
Just opened a can of worms there.
The majority of their answers were pretty amazing ... and I think it’s safe to say that I have some future Abbys.
Here’s the best:
"Girls Generation (super famous all-girls Korean pop group) is lonely, they have no boyfriends. What should they do?”:
“You should ... come to me baby, we hot night together.” - from many of my hormonal boy students.
“You should ... be lesbians.” - Girls Generation is a group of 9 girls, so I guess that’s practical.
“You should ... deal with it.” - usually from girls, annoyed that they’re complaining.
"Brad Pitt's mustache tickles Angelina when they kiss. What should he do?"
“You should ... only use tongue when kiss.” - this was generally followed by a couple boys waving their tongue at me, demonstrating.
“You should ... kiss me. I no care about mustache.” - from both girls and boys.
“You should ... kiss Spiderman.” - I’m forced to think that this is in reference to the up-side-down kiss Toby and Kirsten shared, but really, who knows.
"Smessica drinks too much beer. What should she do?"
“You should ... change to vodka.”
“You should ... come to me baby, I love beer.” - Smessica has won the hearts of many of my boy students.
“You should ... be sexy bar girl.” - Done and done.
“You should ... your face.” - Not relevant in any way, but a “your face’ comment is always appreciated.
"Smustin's girlfriend isn't very smart. She also smells bad. What should he do?"
“You should ... buy her ferfume.” - again with the “ferfume”.
“You should ... put her in the trash. Her home.”
“You should ... make her smell like Lauren, because Lauren smells like Rosemary.” - I’m going to hope this was a compliment, and not implying that I smell like my great-aunt Rosemary.
“You should ... shower together.” - my students are really eco-friendly.
"Kim Jeong Il has a bad haircut and his friends make fun of him. What should he do?"
“You should ... nuclear missile them.” - got some future diplomats in class.
“You should ... it's not your haircut, it's your face = ugly.”
“You should ... get same haircut as bird boy.” - a popular student at Hwasun who does, have hair like a bird.
“You should ... watch sexy movie to grow hair.” - It was then that my students informed me that by watching sexy movies, your hormones increase, and your hair naturally grows faster. When I questioned a couple boys if that’s why their hair is so long, they admitted that yes, it was ... especially in middle school.
"Kim Yuna is cold. What should she do?"
“You should ... watch sexy movie with me.”
“You should ... take hot shower with white ruler.” - yeah.
“You should ... move to Afrika.” - Koreans hate “p”s.
“You should ... sell gold medal and buy jacket.” - or maybe a million jackets
“You should ... have people blow on you.” - They honestly meant people should blow their warm breath on her body, but you know it’s funny.
So that’s pretty much been my past couple weeks. Still in Korea ... still pretending to be a teacher.
And I apologize for writing so much in one blog post, because I know no one really likes to read more than 20 words at a time, but suck it up. You made it this far.
Until next time.
Also: came across this website while creeping on Facebook. It completely and totally hits the nail on the head.
If the “nail” is life in Korea, and the “head” is me.
Does that make sense?
http://roketship.tumblr.com/
So why don't you all stop your crying, because here it comes.
Besides, there's no crying in blogging.
And I' pretty sure we can thank Forest Gump for that.
So about a million years ago (a million roughly equaling 3 weeks) I had an extended weekend vacation in the beautiful Jeju Island. Now I’m sure I’ve mentioned countless times that Jeju is Korea’s largest, self-governing island, but I’ll mention it again for good measure: Jeju is Korea’s largest, self-governing island. Like Hong Kong, minus the whole “Chinese thing”, and the whole “get your passport stamped when you visit there” thing. But I’ve never been to Hong Kong ... so it’s neither here nor there.
Anyways, I ventured down to Jeju to take part in the bi-annual Fulbright ETA conference, which was held at the very beautiful KAL hotel in Sogweipo.
But first, I was lucky enough to get down there a little early, because my school decided to let all the first and second grade students go on a field trip of their choice: provided that they chose Manyan Mountain, or Korea’s own Jeju Island.
As the first graders headed to Jeju, I did as well ... with my co-teacher hoping I would catch up with them and take a 12 hour tour together on the day it decided to rain about 100 inches of water.
However, I managed to get out of the 12 hour tour, scared that it would result in me being shipwrecked with 250 Korean students and a guy named Gilligan (a student who I actually do call Gilligan, because he looks exactly like him). I instead hung out with some Jeju friends and visited the school of my friend Adam, who teaches at an all boys high school in Jeju City. After a couple hours of being uncomfortably googled (not a reference to the Internet phenomenon, turned verb) it was time for the conference.
At the conference, we did little conferencing, and were instead given quite a bit of free time to do whatever we wanted. And what I wanted was to nothing, apparently. Except lounge around the beautiful hotel, take a bubble bath, and eat about 3 pounds of cheese.
Conference - success.
The weather is getting really nice, because it’s spring. Warm, beautiful, and the cherry blossoms are blossoming (fully living up to their name, minus the whole cherry thing).
Weather is kind of boring, but everyone always asks me about it, so this should curb all the annoying weather small talk from now on.
A couple weeks ago (a week after the Jeju conference if you’re keeping a calendar) I went up to Seoul and had an absolutely fantastic weekend.
Any weekend that includes: shopping in Seoul stores that carry sizes other than “Asian” (i.e. H&M, where H = hand me, and M = your Money), eating delicious foods (as delicious defaults to “not Korean”) and seeing Jamie Cullum in concert, is difficult to beat when playing “my weekend was better than your weekend”.
As the highlight of the weekend was definitely seeing Jamie live (yeah, we’re on a first name basis, now) in that I’ve been in love with him, his music, and his piano since high school. I went with three other friends, who also share my love of sexy pop piano jazz, and we had an absolutely fantastic time. We all were in the “general standing room” area right in front of the stage, and were pretty close to all the tunez and jamz.
(You know it’s a good concert if there are both tunez and jamz.)
The music and atmosphere was really great, and was definitely one of the best concerts I’ve seen. So next time you’re in Seoul ... the same time Jamie Cullum is ... and he happens to be playing a show ... and you have some free time ... and some wons ... I would definitely encourage you to check him out.
Lately, many people in Hwasun have been thinking that the air is getting kind of crappy. I don’t know why they think this - it seems like regular air to me - but during the past couple of weeks, those who run the city of Hwasun (mainly the old ajumma women and the guy that owns the toilet store) decided to do something about the said “crappy air”. They have been attempting to “clean the air” ... not by reducing their driving (because all they do is walk and pull their loads of cardboard around anyways), or discontinuing their practice of spray-painting everything ... but rather by releasing into the air some type of smelly chemical that is supposed to “knock out all the gross stuff in the crappy air”. Because everyone knows the best way in which to clean something is to dirty it even more. It’s just logical.
So as I’m walking in to school last week, I am preceded by a gigantic truck with a gigantic barrel of smelly chemicals that are being released into the air. I literally thought I was following a garbage truck that decided to liquefy its contents and put them up my nose.
I have no idea how this works, other than it doesn’t.
But when in Korea ... (you can’t do anything about it, so deal with it).
Another unpleasant smell that has recently been making its way up my nostrils is paint fumes. No, I’m not huffing. This isn’t 1995. (Not that I did that in 1995, but I feel as if that phenomenon was so 15 years ago.)
Hwasun High School is still under construction, and probably will be until at least 2050 ... and this means that there is many an ajumma painting many a wall.
Seriously.
They are employing old ladies to paint our school.
So the school constantly smells like the inside of a paint can.
I’m pretty sure I was high the last couple weeks of class.
And that, in addition to the paint fumes, was pretty unpleasant.
While I’ve been in Korea ... a solid 9.5 months ... I’ve managed to go through a total of 5 USB drives.
They hate me.
They either break, run away from me, or decide not to be USBs after I purchase them at the store.
I think it’s safe to say that I’ve spent at least 25% of my Korean income on USBs.
Recently, there has been some pretty intense drama at Hwasun High School. Drama in the form of two different love triangles, in two of my classes. When I noticed that one of my boy students had a black eye, I questioned him, asking what door he ran into ... but he informed me that his “friend” punched him in the face because he was super jealous that he’s “dating” the most awesome girl in class. Apparently dude-bro didn’t like that he was all holding-hands with his girl, so he punched him in the eye.
However, the two guys involved in this steamy triangle are now best friends, and a day later are all up in each others grill with some pretty intense bromance ... totally forgetting about said awesome girl. Although she doesn’t really seem to be into either of them, claiming, “No boy, teacher! I don’t know!”
In another class, there is a similar occurrence ... two guys fighting over the class hottie, as she sits dumbfounded, claiming to like neither of them.
My students are pretty hard-core ... straight out of “The Bold, the Beautiful, and the Korean”.
Last week, my co-teacher, Mrs. Yun decided that Lauren doesn’t have enough stuff to do. She gave all her classes ... all 17 of them (with about 30 students each) ... an English writing assignment: write about your dream job, your future vision. And then, after you’ve written it, you must come find Lauren wherever she is (literally wherever - I’ve been approached in the: restroom, lunch line, while teaching class, while leaving school) and make her proofread it. Because she has time to read every Korean students’ visions. (or “pisions” as they so lovingly pronounce it).
So for the past couple weeks I have been proof-reading and editing every single students’ “pision”.
I’ve read my fair share of “pisions” ... as most of my students want to be either: doctors, nurses, teachers, world rulers, philanthropists, or flight attendants.
(Side-note: Being a flight attendant here in Korea is super intense, and has its own major in college. Handing out nuts is an art in Asia.)
And as I have mostly enjoyed learning more about my students and their “pisions” it’s become increasingly more annoying and tedious.
However, I am occasionally treated to gems such as one students‘ determination to “help poop people”. I’m going to assume he intends to help “poor people”, but pooping is difficult to sometimes.
Last Sunday at Church I had the honor to meet Reverend Kim ... a super old (70+) Korean-American / Korean-Korean guy, who recently moved to Korea after living in the states for 40+ years.
He’s literally lived in the US at least twice as long as I have.
Although he’s Korean born, he definitely knows more about American life than I do ... so my fancy cultural-ambassador hat (which I often imagine to be like a tiara) was definitely
downgraded to something like one of those paper hats you make in second grade.
Anyways, I met Reverend Kim, who is a super nice guy, very well educated, and worldly - worked a variety of business and church-y jobs, and has 3 grown kids who are all either doctors or lawyers. He’s the epitome of the Korean dream. (Sorry G-Dragon).
So on this precious little Sunday, I went to church ... with the idea that I would do what I always do, “volunteer” by saying some English stuff into a microphone to 8 year olds for about 30 minutes ... but Reverend Kim had some different ideas.
After listening and taking part in an English worship service - which was awesome - sarcasm ... I was then questioned by Reverend Kim as to exactly where I will be going to seminary school upon my return to the states. My church-lady friend, Hannah, had informed Reverend Kim that I graduated with a degree in Religious Studies. And as everyone knows Religious Studies = direct path to Jesus, Reverend Kim was delighted to hang out we me, future reverend.
So we hung.
And by hung, I mean that we dined at a delicious vegetarian restaurant in Gwangju, and talked about how desperately I need to confess my faith in Jesus, because it would be super awesome to have a “pretty foreign” girl love Jesus in their church.
Now at this point I have had enough of this (both the religious talk and the food - I ate like there was no tomorrow), and am starting to get super annoyed with their pushiness.
Reverend Kim then explained to me that “as you know, most Americans are rude and mean”.
Yeah, we’re total douches. Thanks for reminding me.
But when Americans have Jesus, their hostility subsides ... which is totally true.
Just ask Fred Phelps.
Then my church friends made me eat orange peels (which were healthy and good for stamina ... because I’m lacking “stamina”), and we got into a car accident.
Yeah, that happened.
It was just a little fender-bender, but I think that still falls under the umbrella of “car accident”.
I was sitting in the back with Reverend Kim, and at the wheel is the self-proclaimed “best driver in Asia” - seriously, that’s how he introduced himself to me. We were stopped at a red light, discussing Jesus and America (like lamb and tuna-fish) and we were rear-ended by a driver who just so happened to be Asian, and a woman.
No one was hurt, not even the car, so no worries ... but the other driver was pretty flustered.
So flustered and worried that she did damage to our car, that she reversed (on the highway) to check the damage. However, in reversing, she decided it probably wasn’t necessary to check if anyone was behind her, and just so happened to front-end (that’s a word) the car behind her. This, her second accident in under 30 seconds, caused much more damage to the other car. But since we weren’t hurt or disfigured and had a church meeting to get to, we drove off.
Now, during my first week in Korea, after witnessing all that is Korean driving, I figured I would get in at least one traffic accident during my year here.
I can check that off my to-do list.
In school, there is no toilet paper in the restrooms.
This makes life difficult, when I need to use toilet paper in the restrooms.
Instead, every teacher is given an entire role of toilet paper at the beginning of each week. We are to take the paper into the bathroom with us, because everyone knows that the worst thing in the entire world is to stock the restrooms with toilet paper.
And while I’m at school an average of 7 hours a day, I can’t seem to use up an entire roll in one week, by myself. This has led to an over abundance of toilet paper rolls in my desk drawers.
Ironically: this time last year (while living in a DePauw duplex) I often found myself “borrowing” toilet paper from various academic buildings, libraries, eateries, etc. I guess I didn’t know about the paper abundance in Korea.
I’m thinking about mailing some back to campus. I mean, I did just “borrow” it.
In class once time this week I made the “invisible quote” gesture with my hands, as I was explaining something. I don’t remember exactly what it was, but apparently I thought it was pretty lame, so I threw up the invisible air quotes.
A couple of my students noticed this, and later came to me, asking what that particular gesture means.
So I asked them what they thought it meant, and their first go-to answer was: “Means gay gay gay!”
So after attempting to explain that it does not, in fact, mean “gay” ... but rather “I think this is kind of lame, so I’m going to put it in air quotes” ... I don’t think they totally heard me.
And so was born the use of invisible air quotes to denote “gay” in Hwasun High School.
Last Wednesday was the bi-annual Hwasun High School teacher sports-uh day.
This is a big deal.
Every semester the teachers decide that they want to play some “sports-uh” ... so they organize an afternoon in which to do so. The sports-uh day lasts for about two hours, usually located behind the high school, in the giant soccer field. However, this year, since the high school is under some serious construction (still - since like 2002) sports-uh day was relocated to the much smaller, indoor gymnasium. (Even calling it a gymnasium is a stretch ... it’s about the size of the first floor girls’ bathroom.)
So we had sports-uh day in the girls’ bathroom.
Around 3:00 pm all the teachers headed to the gym - dressed head to toe in Korean workout gear (which is usually completely ridiculous) - leaving all the students alone in their classrooms for “self study”.
In Korea it’s no big thing for the teachers no to be present in the classrooms ... as the majority of night classes are just students studying alone, sans teacher. And the funny thing is that they actually study, not fart around.
(I can’t even do that. When I’m alone in the teacher’s lounge - usually every morning from 8 am to 9 am) - I make sure to be as unproductive as possible. On the other hand, my e-mail and Facebook-ing skills are now something to write home about.)
Anyways, teachers’ sports-uh day consisted of 2 hours of eating, taking (they talked, I smiled) and playing some insanely intense games of dodgeball and volleyball.
But before the games, all the teachers made sure to stuff their faces with live octopus, rice cakes, and beer.
Really. 10 minutes before the game, they were shoving squirming sea creatures down their throats.
So after ingesting (and not digesting) all the delicious Korean food, we played Korean dodgeball - which is pretty much all the men teachers throwing balls at all the lady teachers. The women, divided into two teams, were placed in the middle of the court, as all the men teachers lined up around it and threw their balls.
And it kind of hurt. They throw their balls hard.
After dodgeball, we played 5 games of volleyball ... or rather, I dominated 5 games of volleyball.
Being a fairly tall, American girl, who played volleyball like it was her job in high school, I had somewhat of an advantage.
But when you’re the only girl playing, and you are significantly taller then 90% of the men, and when you’re not Korean, this is cause for many a Korean to exclaim, “Rauren! You volleyball good! You bery (yeah, they pronounce it “bery”) tall! America!”
Yes. America.
So after my team (Team Paprika) totally dominated the other team (Team Corn) I won a box of kleenexes, a tube of toothpaste, and called it a day.
Went to a KIA Tigers baseball game last Saturday.
For all of you who aren’t too knowledged on the South Korean baseball scene, the KIA Tigers are the local Gwangju baseball team, who won the South Korean Series last year.
Last year, they were really good. This year, not so much.
But I went to the game anyways. They lost, but I didn’t cry. Remember, there’s no crying in blogging.
The game was a lot of fun ... the weather was nice and I went with some pretty legit friends. We had a great time cheering on the team, participating in an all-stadium wave that lasted a good 5 minutes, and sitting in seats that were in no way designed for people that are taller than 5-2.
As would be expected, baseball games are pretty insane over here ... the crowd is literally cheering nonstop, and the cheers are always positive, there was no slandering of the other team.
However, there was a disgruntled fan who threw a giant bag of trash over the fence. But I just like to think that he didn’t see a trashcan anywhere (because we’re in Korea and they don’t exist here) and thought maybe the left-fielder had a better chance of finding one.
A couple of students have gotten a hold of my phone number. I guess this is what happens when you tell them you don’t have one, and a week later they see you talking on it.
So after they took my phone and literally stole my number, I now receive quite a few texts from high school boys.
I feel weird.
And old.
And creepy.
I was recently treated to a private magic show, compliments of my physics teacher friend. She sits across from me in the teacher’s lounge and is super adorable, mostly because she knows little to no English and mimes everything.
One day I saw her playing with some string at her desk and did the standard “what are you doing” shoulder shrug. She then preformed a couple magic tricks for me - your standard rope and hoop illusions.
After she was finished and I acted as if it was the coolest thing ever (because it was, and I had no idea how she was doing it), she showed them to me for a second and third time, until I finally caught on. Asian magicians definitely do not follow the “Magicians Code”.
Then she gave me a box of kleenex for being such a good audience, and we ate lunch.
Lately I’ve been having regular lunch dates with a 3rd grade student, Chan Mihn (not to be confused with my other students Hong Mihn, Tae Mihn, Jun Mihn, Chan Tae, Chan Yuhn, or Chan Hyo). Chan Mihn is extremely interested in visiting America (because, really, who isn’t?) and is super into everything I tell him about it. His English isn’t stellar, but he tries really hard, which is extremely endearing. We talk for about 30 minutes every day - he brings in a sheet of paper with subjects to talk about (sound familiar, Mom?) and we discuss everything from LA’s Korea town to what type of dog is most delicious. He’s hoping to visit America for an extended period of time after he graduates high school, so most likely sometime next January.
While many of my students dream of visiting exotic America, few actually follow up on this dream. But Chan Mihn is pretty serious - he’s taken a part time job in order to pay for his expensive plane ticket, and constantly asks me if I know any jobs in America he can have. (I told him he doesn’t get one, until I do.)
He’s also looking to stay with some kind of host family situation ... so if any of you hospitable American friends of mine would like to hang out with a Korean kid for a few months, let me know.
The past couple weeks of class have been pretty superb. I’ve decided to wear my “cultural ambassador” tiara and teach all the little children about the right way to do things - the ‘merican way.
So class has taken the form of a type of quiz show game, as teams of students attempt to answer questions about American culture for prizes (aka small Tootsie Rolls that I brought back with me during Christmas time). I personally think Tootsie Rolls taste absolutely disgusting, however they are a huge hit in Asia ... oh why my students will do for a Tootsie Roll. Too bad Klondike already laid claim to that.
So I ask my students the standard questions:
“How old are most Americans when they learn to drive?” - most believing it is somewhere between 18 and 21
“If you bump into someone on the sidewalk, what should you do?” - a fair number answered “Punch him face!”
“What do Americans use under their armpits so they don’t smell?” - I rarely get deodorant, the correct answer ... and instead get jewels like:
“Lemons under armpits.” - also useful for a mid-day snack
“Cut the fur.” - they apparently think we are all wild animals
“Ferfume” - because it smells best when spelled with an “F”
“Why isn’t there any water on the floor of American bathrooms?”
(For my American readers, Korean bathrooms are like a giant tub - water is everywhere, as the drain is usually located in the middle of the floor.)
“Americans never shower.” - not true in all cases, just finals week
“There is no water in America.” - Seriously? That’s what you’re going with?
“Americans scared of water.” - my students have been watching too much Maury Povich
The following week I stole a lesson plan from my friend Adam, after witnessing it’s greatness during my visit to Jeju, and did a lesson on giving advice - letting my students give advice to people with some serious problems.
After explaining the concept of advice, and how Dear Abby was once a popular phenomenon, I let them go at it, and give their best advice to said people with said serious problems. (Serious problems beings ones I stole from Adam, or others I wrote myself.)
(Also: some names have been changed to protect those with the real problems.)
I told them to be creative, and the funnier their advice, the better.
Just opened a can of worms there.
The majority of their answers were pretty amazing ... and I think it’s safe to say that I have some future Abbys.
Here’s the best:
"Girls Generation (super famous all-girls Korean pop group) is lonely, they have no boyfriends. What should they do?”:
“You should ... come to me baby, we hot night together.” - from many of my hormonal boy students.
“You should ... be lesbians.” - Girls Generation is a group of 9 girls, so I guess that’s practical.
“You should ... deal with it.” - usually from girls, annoyed that they’re complaining.
"Brad Pitt's mustache tickles Angelina when they kiss. What should he do?"
“You should ... only use tongue when kiss.” - this was generally followed by a couple boys waving their tongue at me, demonstrating.
“You should ... kiss me. I no care about mustache.” - from both girls and boys.
“You should ... kiss Spiderman.” - I’m forced to think that this is in reference to the up-side-down kiss Toby and Kirsten shared, but really, who knows.
"Smessica drinks too much beer. What should she do?"
“You should ... change to vodka.”
“You should ... come to me baby, I love beer.” - Smessica has won the hearts of many of my boy students.
“You should ... be sexy bar girl.” - Done and done.
“You should ... your face.” - Not relevant in any way, but a “your face’ comment is always appreciated.
"Smustin's girlfriend isn't very smart. She also smells bad. What should he do?"
“You should ... buy her ferfume.” - again with the “ferfume”.
“You should ... put her in the trash. Her home.”
“You should ... make her smell like Lauren, because Lauren smells like Rosemary.” - I’m going to hope this was a compliment, and not implying that I smell like my great-aunt Rosemary.
“You should ... shower together.” - my students are really eco-friendly.
"Kim Jeong Il has a bad haircut and his friends make fun of him. What should he do?"
“You should ... nuclear missile them.” - got some future diplomats in class.
“You should ... it's not your haircut, it's your face = ugly.”
“You should ... get same haircut as bird boy.” - a popular student at Hwasun who does, have hair like a bird.
“You should ... watch sexy movie to grow hair.” - It was then that my students informed me that by watching sexy movies, your hormones increase, and your hair naturally grows faster. When I questioned a couple boys if that’s why their hair is so long, they admitted that yes, it was ... especially in middle school.
"Kim Yuna is cold. What should she do?"
“You should ... watch sexy movie with me.”
“You should ... take hot shower with white ruler.” - yeah.
“You should ... move to Afrika.” - Koreans hate “p”s.
“You should ... sell gold medal and buy jacket.” - or maybe a million jackets
“You should ... have people blow on you.” - They honestly meant people should blow their warm breath on her body, but you know it’s funny.
So that’s pretty much been my past couple weeks. Still in Korea ... still pretending to be a teacher.
And I apologize for writing so much in one blog post, because I know no one really likes to read more than 20 words at a time, but suck it up. You made it this far.
Until next time.
Also: came across this website while creeping on Facebook. It completely and totally hits the nail on the head.
If the “nail” is life in Korea, and the “head” is me.
Does that make sense?
http://roketship.tumblr.com/
Monday, March 29, 2010
Where's Waldo? Check the vacuum.
So a foreigner walks into a bar.
The beginnings of any good joke ... and pretty much my life for the past 8 months.
Just switch out “bar” with “Korea” and the good times ensue.
Although many a Korean bar has been visited by myself and other Fulbright friends.
But that's neither here nor there.
The past couple weeks I undertook the extremely difficult challenge of teaching my students about St. Patrick’s Day and all that is the glorious Irish-American holiday. The fact that this is probably the most difficult thing I had to do all week (besides change the paper in the stupid I-don't-ever-want-to-work-for-the-foreigner copier in teachers’ office) is more than ok with me.
While explaining the cultural and aesthetic significance of wearing green, drinking green beer, dying various American canals green (which many of my students exclaimed, “Planet hurt!”), and explaining exactly what a leprechaun is, I think it’s safe to say that Hwasun High School can check one more thing off their “Know more stuff about America” list.
When I began my St. Patrick’s Day lesson, I figured the majority of students would have some idea what it’s about ... in that they all basically understood Halloween (costume = candy). However, I was completely wrong. Not a single student had even an inkling about what St. Patrick’s Day is.
Not being Irish, or a St. Patrick’s Day enthusiast, I wasn’t completely devastated, and it did provide quite the chuckle when I first asked them to explain to me what they thought people did on this particular holiday.
I gave them a couple minutes to think, then had them tell me what they thought Americans do/should do on this most sacred of holidays.
While I got the standard, “Americans visit family” ... or “Americans eat delicious foods” ... there were some jewels.
Now I’m not saying that I think we (‘mericans) should start implementing these into our standard St. Patrick’s Day celebrations ... but here are some suggestions from my Korean students:
“Americans should play computer games. All day.”
“Kill things.”
“Sleep forever.”
“Eat ham.”
“Kiss the boyfriends.”
“Play the soccer.”
Just think about it. Playing the soccer after eating ham and killing things, sounds like a good time to me.
In addition to sharing with my students the awesomeness of St. Patrick’s Day, I also introduced them to Waldo (of Where’s Waldo fame), in hopes that they would be more excited to practice giving directions in English.
So after a crash course / refresher of important English directional terms (left, right, across from the 7-11), I allowed a couple students to hide paper Waldo cut-outs in various places around the classroom (in the window, in multiple pencil cases, in the vacuum (hindsight - not the best idea), in their shirts, etc) and instructed the rest of the students to give directions to the poor kid I blindfolded at the front of the class. With a few exceptions, this turned out to be a pretty great lesson, as most students genuinely wanted their classmate to find Waldo and not wander aimlessly about the classroom. Although I did have those interesting moments when students (specifically boys) would tell their blindfolded friend to walk straight (towards a pretty girl), bend down (which for some reason they would do), and “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” ... which thankfully, they didn't. I also had some other, more mischievous students, lead the blindfolded kid out of the classroom, around the hallways, back into the classroom, and eventually to Waldo. While this wasn’t the most practical or orthodox of lessons, they were using English, so I let it slide.
This provided me with much entertainment ... something I’m desperately need in order to survive teaching the same lesson 18 times a week.
I’ve now determined that all future lessons will be chosen/created on the basis of exactly how much entertainment they provide me. While word-searches somehow have a magical silencing effect on high schoolers, they are not nearly as entertaining as watching the class-clown dig through the vacuum cleaner in hopes of finding Waldo, or listening to about 30 students attempt to pronounce the sentence, “I really like lilies.”
Last week, while in the midst of explaining the difference between “fart” and “smell” (which did happen) ... the school nurse barged into my classroom and demanded that all my students stop class and pee on sticks.
As this request was carried out only in Korean, I had absolutely no idea what was going on and was pretty confused when all my students stood up and ran to the bathroom together.
The school nurse, who speaks little to no English, showed me one of the sticks, and just kept saying “test, test, test”.
When some of my students returned to class (pee sticks in hand) I asked them what was going on, only to be met with a myriad of responses:
“We pee on this.” Ok. Ew.
“Pee test, Rauren.” Oh. We’re getting somewhere.
“I am the best!” (said while waving around the used pee stick) Congratulations. Stop that.
Then my husband, who speaks a tad bit better English, informed me that it was a school-wide pee test - testing every student for what he called “drugs”, followed by the cigarette smoking motion.
That makes more sense.
(I later found out that this wasn’t a drug test, but instead a test to check each student’s sugar levels, in an attempt to find diabetic kids. This still seems strange, but whatever.)
Anyways, the school-wide pee test resulted in a 15 minute disruption of my class, where the entire student body was running around school, to and from the bathrooms, waving their pee sticks in triumph.
Girls and boys.
I don’t exactly understand why it was a good idea for every single class to be tested at the same time, as this caused what can only be described as complete and utter chaos in the restrooms / hallways.
I also don’t understand why the nurse and/or teachers didn’t collect the pee sticks in the restrooms, but instead felt like having the students run around the hallways with their used pee sticks was a better idea.
Additionally, I was offered about 5 or so used pee sticks as “gifts” ... while students exclaimed, “Oh Rauren, my gift for you” ... “I made for you.”
No thanks. I can make my own. I don’t need yours.
While not busy being the cultural ambassador to Hwasun and trying to avoid sticks with my students’ urine on them, I found some time to visit friends around my area - in two different cities, Gurye and Jeonju. Both are “cities” in my province ... making a visit not only necessary, but super easy via the Korean public transportation system. So I hopped on a bus and an hour and a half later found myself in Gurye ... a town that (no joke) makes Hwasun look like a booming metropolis, except for the whole Clark Kent / Superman thing. Gurye is a city known for two things - the two stoplights that it proudly owns. Also, my friend Beans lives there. And when she wasn’t busy getting hit by cars (yeah, that happened) she gave us a tour.
So after the 20 minutes or so it took for her to show us the entire town, we headed to a nearby flower festival - one of only a billion festivals that Korea boasts of.
This particular festival was one for the record books. The record books that record “mediocre, not too exciting festivals”.
To be perfectly honest, I’ve found that during my time spent in Korea the festivals that are supposed to be “Awesome!” and “Super cool!” are in fact, not that “Awesome!” and not that “Super cool!”
I feel that I now have the credibility to judge Korean festivals (8 months gives you that somewhat “pretentious” ability). And I must admit that the festivals that I have visited (Chrysanthemum, Kimchi, Green Tea, Fire, Flower) have been built up immensely - by Koreans, the Korean tourism web-site, fellow ETAs, practically the Buddha himself, only to be shattered by their so-so-ness.
But, you have to give Koreans some points for trying so hard ... celebrating that which would usually not be celebrated ... but I think it’s safe to say that I’ve had my fill of Korean festivals.
Most festivals include about 500+ stands selling various obscure food items, some type of “traditional” thing (i.e. dancing, music, rope making) that I feel is only thrown in there to make it more legit, and usually awful weather. The Gurye flower festival was no exception to this new rule I just created. The weather was pretty awful ... come on Korea, stop sucking in the weather department ... and it was basically an open field with many a gross food stand, some traditional dancers (who looked as if they stepped off the “Alice in Wonderland” set), and some flowers. In the parking lot.
The entire Flower Festival, which advertised one thing and one thing only - flowers - had no flowers. Not even fake ones. With that, I was completely disappointed.
It should be noted that most every Korean city has some type of festival, be it large or small, only because most cities receive so much money from the government they have nothing else to do with it, so they hold a festival, spice up the town a little. However, I would much more appreciate a Spice Girls concert, instead of a flower festival without flowers.
Anyways, I had a pretty good time with my friends, wandering around the festival, checking out the latest ajumma fashions, and witnessing an authentic re-enactment of traditional Native American flute playing.
Really.
Apparently an old Korean guy thought the festival was lacking just one thing: him dressed in head to toe Native American (can I say “Indian” here?) gear, playing some type of wooden flute. I was thoroughly engrossed in it for 5 minutes.
It was that good.
After getting my fill of Gurye and its flowers, I headed over to Jeonju ... a fairly large city, known for having the most delicious bi-bim-bap in Korea, and thus the world. (And that’s saying a lot.)
Bi-bim-bap (a dish with rice, various vegetables, sometimes an egg, and some spicy red sauce/paste - gotuchang ... not ketchup) just happens to be my favorite Korean food ... next to live octopus and dog, of course. So while in Jeonju I by-passed the standard sightseeing “stand here, look at that, take a picture” and instead spent a glorious night with some ETA friends.
But I did manage to eat some delicious bi-bim-bap ... and it was the best I’ve had in Korea so far. Now I know that I’m probably biased a little bit because it’s supposed to be “most delicious” ... and the fact that I don’t really know how to accurately judge the deliciousness of Korean foods (festivals, on the other hand, are a different story). But I went with the crowd and agreed that it was probably the best ever.
And while the time spent in Jeonju consisted mostly of: spending an evening at a local bar with friends, hearing some white girl rap, being asked to “keep it down” in said bar, and eating more Papa John’s pizza than should be allowed ... I had a fabulous time.
If anyone is interested: In my time spent as “cultural ambassador” (I block off selected times in which I hold this title) I’ve discussed, to the best of my ability, the recent passing of the health care bill with my host-family, some students, church-lady friends, and fellow teachers. Basically getting their take on the whole “USA marching their way towards communism and doing their best to speed up the coming of the Antichrist” thing. And surprisingly, absolutely every single Korean I have spoken with thinks this whole health care thing is a pretty sweet move on our part, wondering why the US hadn’t done something like this earlier.
Not to get all soap-boxy (because this is a blog, and not a bathroom), but nice job America. The Koreans give you two thumbs / peace signs way up.
Also ... discussing health care legislation allows me to address important and urgent questions like these, which are inevitably brought to the forefront of discussion:
“How do Americans clean their ears? Do they use Q-tips?” - courtesy of my co-teacher.
This past weekend (Gurye and Jeonju were two weekends ago. Keep up.) I ventured into Gwangju to enjoy the performance of a couple fellow ETAs, in their Korean debut as “Boomerang” - basically two guys, with guitars, who bring all the hits to Korea. They actually managed to book a gig (is that still cool to say?) at a Gwangju bar called “Crazyhorse” (Koreans love them some Native Americans) and jammed (is this acceptable slang?) for a couple hours. Playing hits such as, “She’ll be coming around the Mountain”, a currently popular K-pop hit “외톨이야”, and even some of their own stuff, they were able to please absolutely everyone in the bar - “absolutely everyone” being their foreign friends, as the “locals” were not to be found.
So that was basically my past week and a half, nicely packaged and brought to you in “Lauren’s blog”. I keep telling myself that I will eventually get around to coming up with a more interesting and exciting title than the current, “Fulbright Korea 2009 - 2010” ... but then, why change something that I don’t want to take the time to change?
Also ... I’ve been meaning to figure out how to get a snazzy template for my blog (I mean, if I’m going to own some Internet real-estate, it might as well be fancy) but again, I don’t necessarily know how / have the burning desire to do it. And besides, I don’t want to scare away all my precious readers with a sparkly stars background, or by blasting the latest emo song into their headphones.
With that, make sure to check back next week - to find that I’ve changed nothing, but have hopefully posted what went down in Jeju.
(I am heading to Jeju Island this Wednesday to help chaperon my school’s first grade students on their annual field trip, and take part in the 2nd Fulbright Korea ETA Conference.)
The first should be an adventure, because taking 250 Korean high schoolers anywhere is always a good idea ... and during the latter, I’m hoping to find out exactly what I’m supposed to be doing here in Korea. I’m not sure if i get it yet.
The beginnings of any good joke ... and pretty much my life for the past 8 months.
Just switch out “bar” with “Korea” and the good times ensue.
Although many a Korean bar has been visited by myself and other Fulbright friends.
But that's neither here nor there.
The past couple weeks I undertook the extremely difficult challenge of teaching my students about St. Patrick’s Day and all that is the glorious Irish-American holiday. The fact that this is probably the most difficult thing I had to do all week (besides change the paper in the stupid I-don't-ever-want-to-work-for-the-foreigner copier in teachers’ office) is more than ok with me.
While explaining the cultural and aesthetic significance of wearing green, drinking green beer, dying various American canals green (which many of my students exclaimed, “Planet hurt!”), and explaining exactly what a leprechaun is, I think it’s safe to say that Hwasun High School can check one more thing off their “Know more stuff about America” list.
When I began my St. Patrick’s Day lesson, I figured the majority of students would have some idea what it’s about ... in that they all basically understood Halloween (costume = candy). However, I was completely wrong. Not a single student had even an inkling about what St. Patrick’s Day is.
Not being Irish, or a St. Patrick’s Day enthusiast, I wasn’t completely devastated, and it did provide quite the chuckle when I first asked them to explain to me what they thought people did on this particular holiday.
I gave them a couple minutes to think, then had them tell me what they thought Americans do/should do on this most sacred of holidays.
While I got the standard, “Americans visit family” ... or “Americans eat delicious foods” ... there were some jewels.
Now I’m not saying that I think we (‘mericans) should start implementing these into our standard St. Patrick’s Day celebrations ... but here are some suggestions from my Korean students:
“Americans should play computer games. All day.”
“Kill things.”
“Sleep forever.”
“Eat ham.”
“Kiss the boyfriends.”
“Play the soccer.”
Just think about it. Playing the soccer after eating ham and killing things, sounds like a good time to me.
In addition to sharing with my students the awesomeness of St. Patrick’s Day, I also introduced them to Waldo (of Where’s Waldo fame), in hopes that they would be more excited to practice giving directions in English.
So after a crash course / refresher of important English directional terms (left, right, across from the 7-11), I allowed a couple students to hide paper Waldo cut-outs in various places around the classroom (in the window, in multiple pencil cases, in the vacuum (hindsight - not the best idea), in their shirts, etc) and instructed the rest of the students to give directions to the poor kid I blindfolded at the front of the class. With a few exceptions, this turned out to be a pretty great lesson, as most students genuinely wanted their classmate to find Waldo and not wander aimlessly about the classroom. Although I did have those interesting moments when students (specifically boys) would tell their blindfolded friend to walk straight (towards a pretty girl), bend down (which for some reason they would do), and “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” ... which thankfully, they didn't. I also had some other, more mischievous students, lead the blindfolded kid out of the classroom, around the hallways, back into the classroom, and eventually to Waldo. While this wasn’t the most practical or orthodox of lessons, they were using English, so I let it slide.
This provided me with much entertainment ... something I’m desperately need in order to survive teaching the same lesson 18 times a week.
I’ve now determined that all future lessons will be chosen/created on the basis of exactly how much entertainment they provide me. While word-searches somehow have a magical silencing effect on high schoolers, they are not nearly as entertaining as watching the class-clown dig through the vacuum cleaner in hopes of finding Waldo, or listening to about 30 students attempt to pronounce the sentence, “I really like lilies.”
Last week, while in the midst of explaining the difference between “fart” and “smell” (which did happen) ... the school nurse barged into my classroom and demanded that all my students stop class and pee on sticks.
As this request was carried out only in Korean, I had absolutely no idea what was going on and was pretty confused when all my students stood up and ran to the bathroom together.
The school nurse, who speaks little to no English, showed me one of the sticks, and just kept saying “test, test, test”.
When some of my students returned to class (pee sticks in hand) I asked them what was going on, only to be met with a myriad of responses:
“We pee on this.” Ok. Ew.
“Pee test, Rauren.” Oh. We’re getting somewhere.
“I am the best!” (said while waving around the used pee stick) Congratulations. Stop that.
Then my husband, who speaks a tad bit better English, informed me that it was a school-wide pee test - testing every student for what he called “drugs”, followed by the cigarette smoking motion.
That makes more sense.
(I later found out that this wasn’t a drug test, but instead a test to check each student’s sugar levels, in an attempt to find diabetic kids. This still seems strange, but whatever.)
Anyways, the school-wide pee test resulted in a 15 minute disruption of my class, where the entire student body was running around school, to and from the bathrooms, waving their pee sticks in triumph.
Girls and boys.
I don’t exactly understand why it was a good idea for every single class to be tested at the same time, as this caused what can only be described as complete and utter chaos in the restrooms / hallways.
I also don’t understand why the nurse and/or teachers didn’t collect the pee sticks in the restrooms, but instead felt like having the students run around the hallways with their used pee sticks was a better idea.
Additionally, I was offered about 5 or so used pee sticks as “gifts” ... while students exclaimed, “Oh Rauren, my gift for you” ... “I made for you.”
No thanks. I can make my own. I don’t need yours.
While not busy being the cultural ambassador to Hwasun and trying to avoid sticks with my students’ urine on them, I found some time to visit friends around my area - in two different cities, Gurye and Jeonju. Both are “cities” in my province ... making a visit not only necessary, but super easy via the Korean public transportation system. So I hopped on a bus and an hour and a half later found myself in Gurye ... a town that (no joke) makes Hwasun look like a booming metropolis, except for the whole Clark Kent / Superman thing. Gurye is a city known for two things - the two stoplights that it proudly owns. Also, my friend Beans lives there. And when she wasn’t busy getting hit by cars (yeah, that happened) she gave us a tour.
So after the 20 minutes or so it took for her to show us the entire town, we headed to a nearby flower festival - one of only a billion festivals that Korea boasts of.
This particular festival was one for the record books. The record books that record “mediocre, not too exciting festivals”.
To be perfectly honest, I’ve found that during my time spent in Korea the festivals that are supposed to be “Awesome!” and “Super cool!” are in fact, not that “Awesome!” and not that “Super cool!”
I feel that I now have the credibility to judge Korean festivals (8 months gives you that somewhat “pretentious” ability). And I must admit that the festivals that I have visited (Chrysanthemum, Kimchi, Green Tea, Fire, Flower) have been built up immensely - by Koreans, the Korean tourism web-site, fellow ETAs, practically the Buddha himself, only to be shattered by their so-so-ness.
But, you have to give Koreans some points for trying so hard ... celebrating that which would usually not be celebrated ... but I think it’s safe to say that I’ve had my fill of Korean festivals.
Most festivals include about 500+ stands selling various obscure food items, some type of “traditional” thing (i.e. dancing, music, rope making) that I feel is only thrown in there to make it more legit, and usually awful weather. The Gurye flower festival was no exception to this new rule I just created. The weather was pretty awful ... come on Korea, stop sucking in the weather department ... and it was basically an open field with many a gross food stand, some traditional dancers (who looked as if they stepped off the “Alice in Wonderland” set), and some flowers. In the parking lot.
The entire Flower Festival, which advertised one thing and one thing only - flowers - had no flowers. Not even fake ones. With that, I was completely disappointed.
It should be noted that most every Korean city has some type of festival, be it large or small, only because most cities receive so much money from the government they have nothing else to do with it, so they hold a festival, spice up the town a little. However, I would much more appreciate a Spice Girls concert, instead of a flower festival without flowers.
Anyways, I had a pretty good time with my friends, wandering around the festival, checking out the latest ajumma fashions, and witnessing an authentic re-enactment of traditional Native American flute playing.
Really.
Apparently an old Korean guy thought the festival was lacking just one thing: him dressed in head to toe Native American (can I say “Indian” here?) gear, playing some type of wooden flute. I was thoroughly engrossed in it for 5 minutes.
It was that good.
After getting my fill of Gurye and its flowers, I headed over to Jeonju ... a fairly large city, known for having the most delicious bi-bim-bap in Korea, and thus the world. (And that’s saying a lot.)
Bi-bim-bap (a dish with rice, various vegetables, sometimes an egg, and some spicy red sauce/paste - gotuchang ... not ketchup) just happens to be my favorite Korean food ... next to live octopus and dog, of course. So while in Jeonju I by-passed the standard sightseeing “stand here, look at that, take a picture” and instead spent a glorious night with some ETA friends.
But I did manage to eat some delicious bi-bim-bap ... and it was the best I’ve had in Korea so far. Now I know that I’m probably biased a little bit because it’s supposed to be “most delicious” ... and the fact that I don’t really know how to accurately judge the deliciousness of Korean foods (festivals, on the other hand, are a different story). But I went with the crowd and agreed that it was probably the best ever.
And while the time spent in Jeonju consisted mostly of: spending an evening at a local bar with friends, hearing some white girl rap, being asked to “keep it down” in said bar, and eating more Papa John’s pizza than should be allowed ... I had a fabulous time.
If anyone is interested: In my time spent as “cultural ambassador” (I block off selected times in which I hold this title) I’ve discussed, to the best of my ability, the recent passing of the health care bill with my host-family, some students, church-lady friends, and fellow teachers. Basically getting their take on the whole “USA marching their way towards communism and doing their best to speed up the coming of the Antichrist” thing. And surprisingly, absolutely every single Korean I have spoken with thinks this whole health care thing is a pretty sweet move on our part, wondering why the US hadn’t done something like this earlier.
Not to get all soap-boxy (because this is a blog, and not a bathroom), but nice job America. The Koreans give you two thumbs / peace signs way up.
Also ... discussing health care legislation allows me to address important and urgent questions like these, which are inevitably brought to the forefront of discussion:
“How do Americans clean their ears? Do they use Q-tips?” - courtesy of my co-teacher.
This past weekend (Gurye and Jeonju were two weekends ago. Keep up.) I ventured into Gwangju to enjoy the performance of a couple fellow ETAs, in their Korean debut as “Boomerang” - basically two guys, with guitars, who bring all the hits to Korea. They actually managed to book a gig (is that still cool to say?) at a Gwangju bar called “Crazyhorse” (Koreans love them some Native Americans) and jammed (is this acceptable slang?) for a couple hours. Playing hits such as, “She’ll be coming around the Mountain”, a currently popular K-pop hit “외톨이야”, and even some of their own stuff, they were able to please absolutely everyone in the bar - “absolutely everyone” being their foreign friends, as the “locals” were not to be found.
So that was basically my past week and a half, nicely packaged and brought to you in “Lauren’s blog”. I keep telling myself that I will eventually get around to coming up with a more interesting and exciting title than the current, “Fulbright Korea 2009 - 2010” ... but then, why change something that I don’t want to take the time to change?
Also ... I’ve been meaning to figure out how to get a snazzy template for my blog (I mean, if I’m going to own some Internet real-estate, it might as well be fancy) but again, I don’t necessarily know how / have the burning desire to do it. And besides, I don’t want to scare away all my precious readers with a sparkly stars background, or by blasting the latest emo song into their headphones.
With that, make sure to check back next week - to find that I’ve changed nothing, but have hopefully posted what went down in Jeju.
(I am heading to Jeju Island this Wednesday to help chaperon my school’s first grade students on their annual field trip, and take part in the 2nd Fulbright Korea ETA Conference.)
The first should be an adventure, because taking 250 Korean high schoolers anywhere is always a good idea ... and during the latter, I’m hoping to find out exactly what I’m supposed to be doing here in Korea. I’m not sure if i get it yet.
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