Graduation at ShinGwang

I'm sorry. We all know what for. Now let's move on.

Today was graduation day at my main school. Since high school isn't mandatory in Korea, middle school graduation is a much bigger deal here than it is back home. The parents come with bouquets of flowers whose blooms are difficult to see under all the colored lace and fabric (because the flowers themselves aren't pretty enough already?), sappy music is played as the principal hands out diplomas, some of the students cry, and others are just thrilled to get the hell out of there.

Graduation didn't mean much to me last year. I'd only been teaching for six months, and was still struggling to adapt to the culture, let alone connect with my students. My attention was still frantically focused on not doing anything wrong or stupid-looking. I obediently stood in the line of teachers while graduating 3rd graders filed past after crossing the stage, and I did exactly what the teacher in front of me did: smile, shake hands and wonder how many more students could possibly be left to congratulate. Please God, don't let me catch whatever creeping crud is going around, since I'm being required to squeeze the clammy hand of every student who walks by. Add that to the fact that I'd just gotten back to frigid Korea from a gorgeous vacation in balmy Thailand and Malaysia, and I was just not a happy camper.

Today was much different. Having taught these kids for a year and a half, I was surprised to find that I've actually grown quite fond of them. That's really saying something for a person who's never liked children (i.e. anyone under 16, including adults who act like they're under 16). I was also somewhat dismayed to realize that most of my favorite students are leaving. It was touching, though, as many of them wanted a hug rather than a handshake, looking pleasantly surprised that I was actually there to see them off. A few came into the office for pictures before they left the school. I was certainly feeling much more emotional than I'd expected to, current time of the month notwithstanding.

One more semester left before I leave my students to the next native Englishee teacher. Rising 2nd and 3rd graders, you have big shoes to fill!

The Adventures of Caity Teacher at EIC

A few weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to participate in Gwangju’s own English Immersion Camp program, also known as EIC. (I will not call this “EIC Camp”, because that is redundant. “English Immersion Camp Camp.” Like “ATM Machine / Automatic Teller Machine Machine.” Not cool.) The camp is in the countryside just outside of town. A group of 30 of the “best” third-year middle school students from all over Gwangju are sent to spend five days speaking nothing but English. The camps are divided by gender, and I worked during a boys’ week. To herd these students and make sure they leave with hyper-stimulated language centers in their brains, three native Englishee teachers are brought in from various public schools to help the native Englishee teacher who is regularly in charge of the camp. That basically means that we showed up, followed the pre-determined plan, and ensured that each student was sore in both brain and body. Yes, body - they had to do pus-ups, squats or run laps if they spoke Korean. Which, during our camp, was fairly often. It’s amazing how such smart kids can be so dense sometimes.

It took about a day for the kids to get used to each other and start goofing around, but by the second day they had already established some interesting nicknames for each other: Giant Messi (the fat kid who liked soccer), Real Messi (the kid who was actually good at soccer), Grandma (something about his permed hair cut), Brother (the kid who looked older than all the rest), Monkey (take a wild guess), Super Strong Stick (use your porno-imagination), and Secret Power (another masturbation reference - go figure, they’re middle school boys). Grandma changed to American Grandma as soon as he picked up the toy shotgun. Interesting how these stereotypes can be so pervasive in the world.

Speed quiz

As with every group, there was also The Crazy Kid. That was our nickname for him, not one from the other students. The early teenage years are filled with drama for everyone, but this kid took it absolutely over the top. Everything was a crisis, and Jimmy Teacher ended up talking him down at least once each day. He was clearly extremely intelligent, but also extremely socially awkward. Personally, I went from feeling sorry for him to thinking we might be able to stem his outbursts by not paying attention to them. (Mainly because I was swiftly losing patience with him. This, friends, is why I’m not cut out to be a teacher.) But it soon became clear that wouldn’t work, and our main concern was just getting him home in one piece before he went mental with the toy shotguns. I suspect there were some legitimate emotional health problems, but in Korea, these sorts of things are routinely ignored and the sufferers very rarely receive the treatment and support that they need. Jimmy tried, bless his heart, but what can anyone really do in the space of just five days, especially when there are 29 other students to tend to?

There were many activities that filled the 60 hours of teaching time. The boys were divided into four groups - one group per teacher - to make English movies. I got the best group, who decided to do an action film. The other groups’ movies all had something to do with zombies and/or masturbation. Go figure.

Another of my favorite activities was the speed interview. Three teachers sat in the office and the students had to come in one at a time to answer as many questions as they could in the space of two minutes. And these were not normal questions that they had encountered before in their English classes. Oh no. These were the stupidest, most random questions we could think of: What’s the best name for a dragon? Why did you eat your cat? How old is your husband? Why do you hate David Teacher? Why did you steal my car? Some kids picked up on it quickly and rolled with it, coming up with some fantastic answers and even stringing some ideas along through the entire interview. One decided to answer each question as though he were the President of the U.S. Others just looked at us like we were crazy. They usually weren’t the fun kids, anyway.

Practicing for presentations

On the last full day, each student group had to present a project that they prepared on some aspect of environmentalism. I was quite impressed with their presentations. Not only was the speaking reasonably good, during the Q&A at the end of each presentation the students asked and answered some excellent questions. They were clearly thinking deeply about the subjects, and were able to express themselves in English, a language so radically different from their own. All this at the age of 15. I’m not sure I could’ve done as well when I was in middle school! It was inspiring to see Korea’s next generation honing their critical thinking skills. The Korean economy has skyrocketed in the past 50 years, and in many ways its society has struggled just to embrace their new prosperity and the vastly different lifestyle it has brought. It’s hard to fathom the drastic change that has taken place here in such a short period of time. And social constructs always lag behind progress in any society, so it’s encouraging to see this generation progressing so rapidly. Despite their goofing off, whining, obsession with masturbation and occasional denseness (i.e. being teenagers), these kids really are the the leaders of Korea’s future.


All in all, it was easy work and good fun, even if we were exhausted after spending nearly 12 hours with the kids each day. It was also extremely refreshing to hear almost nothing but English all week, and to have the kids genuinely trying to communicate with the teachers and (gasp!) each other in English. Oh yeah, and not having “hello!” shouted at me 200 times a day (I’m not exaggerating, and it gets old fast). While it’s been a bit difficult to return to the world of  “average” students, it was inspiring to spend a week with these kids and catch a glimpse of what Korea’s future has in store.

Jeju Redux

I've been back in Korea for almost four weeks now, and I'm amazed at how strangely normal everything here seems. The trip home was fabulous, but I was actually pretty happy to get back to my apartment, my friends, and yes, even my job here. I may not miss Korea itself very much when I leave, but I sure will miss my people.

Anyhow, I can now highly recommend that potential Englishee teachers start with the February intake, as second semester is soooo much easier than first. Doing what I did - beginning with the easy semester and then being like, "Wait, what happened to all of those holidays and school events?" the next semester - is a little bit tough. Happily, I'm now doing a repeat of the easy road. And our first holiday was only a few weeks into the semester.

Apparently our first time in Jeju wasn't enough - not enough warm weather, not enough tromping around in nature, and not enough sleep (stupid roe deer). So Paul and I decided to go back again, with a few extra days in hand thanks to the Chuseok holiday. This time we rented a car instead of a scooter (protection from the rain and more time for nature tromping) and stayed in love motels instead of camping (more sleep - sort of).

Our main goal for this visit was to climb to the top of Hallasan - the tallest mountain South Korea. Having not yet even vanquished my local foe of Mudeung mountain, I was quite nervous, and rightfully so - hiking in Korea is brutal. Koreans don't believe in switchbacks, seem to love climbing over big rocks rather than smoother trail materials, and - because you couldn't possibly have gotten enough exercise just climbing to the top of a mountain - there are usually workout equipment stations along the way. I comforted myself with the guide books that say the trail we planned to take is much less steep than most hiking trails in Korea, and by the impressively large number of hikers who climb that very trail every day. Never mind that the estimated time to get up the mountain (just one way) is 4 hours, and that if you don't reach the half-way point by half past noon, you're not allowed to climb to the summit. Oh, and the other fact that I was (am) so very out of shape. Poor decision? I think so. Too stubborn to let the mountain get the best of me? Definitely.

On our second day on the island, goaded on by the pictures of that damn deer on the "Protect our local fauna!" billboards (we were not going to let that island or its fauna get the best of us again!), we ignored the forecast for a second day of rain and drove to the trail head. As soon as we pulled into the parking lot, hideously early in the morning, it started pouring. And I don't mean cats and dogs. It was more like pumas and dingoes. We squinted through the rain-washed windshield at the vague outline of three hikers who were apparently going up the mountain anyway - full hiking gear in place but perhaps a few marbles shy of an ideal collection. A bit of a shower is one thing, but hiking in this deluge would have bordered on masochism. So we sighed, choked down our remaining roasted eggs, and drove back down the mountain to see some of the sights we'd missed the day before.

Ilchulbong from a distance

We climbed up the Seonsang Ilchulbong and took the ferry over to Udo and back. Encouraged by how much we were able to accomplish during the day (since we got up so early), we stashed our hiking provisions in the little love motel refrigerator (soggy kimbap, anyone?) and planned to get up ass early again the next day. Surely the weather would be better - if it rained like that again, the entire mountain might wash away and it'd be a moot point anyhow.

Come Monday morning, the sun was actually shining and the two intrepid hikers dragged themselves out of bed, trying not to think about the fact that our friends were all going to spend the day on the beach. We drove to the trail head - the sun was still shining. We decided to go for it. As did everyone else on the island, apparently. The trail was packed with hikers of all ages and abilities, from grandparents to small children. I'm not sure how those on the extremes of the age spectrum made it to the top and back, as we perfectly healthy young(ish) folks were struggling. Hard. The trail might not have been quite as steep as most others in Korea, but it was still no laughing matter. The beginning seemed easy enough, and we thought we were just going to breeze right up to the top, but maybe 100 kilometers in, things got rocky. Literally and figuratively. I'm not sure whose decision it was to "pave" large portions of the trail with big chunks of volcanic rock, but it was a bad one. Makes climbing very hard on the feet and ankles.

At the summit! And still standing!

Four and a half hours after we started, we had huffed, puffed, snacked, gasped, tripped (me), and hauled our way to the top. The top of Hallasan sits in what seems to be a perma-cloud, and a chilly rain was falling during the final portion of our ascent. It stopped when we reached the summit, though, and the cloud even cleared away long enough for us to get a few pictures of the volcanic crater-like hole in the top of the mountain (which does not, by the way, look anywhere near as cool as it does in photos that they use to advertise trips to Jeju). The glassy lake that I was expecting was more like a muddy puddle, and the summit was so crammed with other hikers, they were nearly all you could see besides the cloud that we were in. Oh yeah, and the crows lurking around, hoping I'd drop some of my lunch. Fat chance, birds. Even if I had dropped part of it, at that point I'd probably have fought them to get it back. We stayed there for about half an hour, then began our descent.

I did not expect that the way back down would be even more difficult than the climb up. Our legs were already fatigued, and the rain had made all of those rocks very slippery. It's a real miracle that I got down the mountain without breaking something critical, like my arm or face. But we did finally make it to the bottom, stumbled our way to the car, drove to Jeju City, and found a nicer-than-usual love motel with decent pillows to rest our exhausted, aching bodies.

It may have been painful, but as we flew home the following morning, I was quite happy to have finally climbed The Highest Mountain in Somewhere. Good thing, too, as that "happy feeling" stuck with me all week, making even the set of stairs to my classroom seem like an almost insurmountable obstacle. It's probably not something I'll do again, but at least I can tick it off the bucket list. Hike the highest mountain in Korea: Check!

Learning: It's what schools are for

Disclaimer: These are really just my own ideas from personal observation during 11 months of teaching in Korea and having completed K-12 in the American public school system. (Back in the 80s-90s, admittedly. It’s entirely possible that U.S. schools have already adopted some of these suggestions, but I doubt it.) The list is far from exhaustive, the ideas are not studied or polled, and they are far from scientifically proven. In addition, it should be noted that I, myself, am about as far form being an expert in this area as I can be. I am also an extremely talented bullshitter. Take that as you will.

What American schools can learn form Korean schools:

• Metal lunch trays. Yes, they conduct heat and you sometimes burn your hand, but kids learn pretty quickly. And they are the most durable things EVER. Buy them once and you’re set until doomsday. Plus no questionable plastic-y chemical content!
• Give students an hour break for lunch. Encourage them to play soccer or badminton (or something a bit more American) when they finish eating. It’s like recess for middle and high school students, and it’ll keep them from being so fat.
• At the end of each day, have students clean the classrooms themselves. It teaches them responsibility and helps them feel some ownership of their environment. Theoretically (key word there), this means they will take better care of the school.
• Turns out uniforms aren’t such a bad idea. I would’ve hated them as a student, but they really do level the playing field a bit.
• Require more formal respect for teachers and authority in general. Small acts of formalized respect provide a far less serious line for rebellious students to cross when they feel like testing their limits.
• Require every student to study a foreign language, beginning in early elementary school when they have a better chance of becoming fluent. The fact that we are lucky enough to have been born speaking the international lingua franca is no excuse for willful ignorance of other languages and cultures. Also, studying a foreign language helps students better understand their own language and culture.
• OMG, we had some seriously crappy and generally unhealthy school lunches compared to Korean schools. Work on it.

What Korean schools can learn from American schools:

• Have professional cleaners come in at least a couple of times per semester. Honestly, the kids just don’t cut it in the long run.
• Never require uniforms that consist of plaid pants and striped shirts/jackets. It’s just not right.
• Encourage your students to question authority, find their own answers and problem-solve. (This can be done in a respectful and productive manner. We just have to teach them how.) Creative, free-thinking adults are much more beneficial to society than memorization robots.
• 14 hours of school per day, plus occasional Saturdays, is just too much. Give them time to be children (and pre-teens, and teenagers). That way they’ll be ready to actually be adults when the time comes.
• I’m pretty sure it actually takes less energy to heat/cool a room and then keep it at that temperature than it does to constantly turn the heat/air conditioning on and off all day. It also helps to keep the temperature in the hallways regulated as well, so there’s not a blast of cold/hot air to fight every time a student opens the classroom door (which is very often). Even if all that’s not true, it most certainly does not help to have the windows open while you’re running said heat/air conditioning.
• Students who are not sweating or freezing tend to pay attention better during their lessons. And teachers teach better. And we all think better.

I'm leaving on a jet plane.....

...but I do know when I'll be back again!

My exploratory committee has informed me that I have enough support to secure another contract with EPIK, and I have decided to embrace that opportunity. In order to win over the hearts and minds of the people, I will be home for a 3-week visit in August before coming back to start my new contract/finish out this school year. (Korea runs on a calendar school year, so summer break is really mid-year.) The Caity Teacher Non-Korean U.S. Tour will be making stops in and around Northeast Tennessee, Washington, DC and Maryland's eastern shore. Please see Facebook for dates and times of public appearances. Campaign donations will be accepted in the form of Mexican food, nice cheese and alcoholic beverages. (And of course, actual money. Plane tickets to the U.S. in August are no joke, y'all!)

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, "Why should I support this woman? She's really been letting me down when it comes to regular blog posts recently." Well, I have heard your voices and this is what I have to say: I've been really busy preparing myself to be the best Native Englishee Teacher, and the best person, that I can be. Here's what I've accomplished in the past month or so:

• I planned and executed what I firmly believe was a successful open class. Feedback was positive from all arenas: Office of Education representative, Korean teachers and other native teachers. Well, I'm kind of guessing that the feedback was positive from Korean teachers because, though they can all presumably speak English, they of course gave their feedback in Korean. For 15 minutes each, followed by a 2-sentence translation from my co-teacher. Not sure what got left out, but at this point I don't really care.
• I paid a diplomatic visit to the Demilitarized Zone and subsequently drafted a motion to have all South Korean breweries taken over by North Korean brewers. Daily life might generally suck for North Koreans, but at least they have decent beer to knock back after a hard day at their state-sponsored jobs. I believe that this privilege should be extended to all citizens of the Korean peninsula. Good, affordable beer is a basic human right, and Cass and Hite just don't cut it.
• I attended two Native Englishee Teacher retreats at Myeongsasimri Beach in Wando. We discussed superior teaching strategies, how to keep the peace within our borders, and ways to improve and expand our territories....sort of.
• I conducted historical research in the city of Gyeongju, learning about leadership from the Great Shilla Kings.
• I attended a summit of EPIK teachers in Boseong, inspected some green tea fields for their efficiency, and acted as a mediator in the disputes between local crabs and mudskippers.
• I signed my new contract and successfully navigated the bureaucracy of the Gwangju Immigration Office on my own. The strange thing is, it was significantly more difficult to get the required drug test done at the hospital than it was to navigate the red tape of visa renewal. In fact, the immigration office was a remarkably timely and not-unpleasant experience. Kudos, Korea.
• I kicked off the season of goodbye parties for those brave and honorable folks who have served their schools well and are now returning to their respective homes. They will be greatly missed.
• I attended an international celebration of American Independence Day, forging lasting bonds with representatives from England, Ireland, Canada and South Africa, and introducing them to the American wonders of deviled eggs and apple pie.
• I completed my second Korean language course, thus allowing me to awkwardly communicate with Koreans in a slightly more effective way. We shall see on Tuesday whether or not I will get official credit for this (i.e. whether or not I passed the damn final exam).

As you can see, I have been working diligently to become the best that I can be. I hope that you will be able to overlook my blogging delinquency, and throw your support behind me once again!

In a future post, I will explain in detail my positions on certain key issues related to English education in Korea. In the mean time, may God bless the pilots who will be flying me home.

School emails according to Google Translate

Korean and English are very, very different. And they're not only different in the obvious ways - writing system, vocabulary, basic sounds. They also have nearly opposite sentence structure and entirely distinct approaches to verb conjugation, the use of articles, and even which words need to be included in a sentence at all. This is on top of the divergent cultural approaches to linguistic expression. In short, Korean and English are, appropriately, about as different as East and West.

And that is why, despite its valiant efforts to accurately translate from Korean to English, Google Translate often spits out some of the most nonsensical and hilarious sentences I have ever seen. That said, it is still the easiest and most reliable method that I have for translating inter-office school emails, so I continue to use it. My daily Google translations have become more of an entertaining pastime than an actual information-gathering activity these days, so I thought I'd share with you some of the better snippets I've collected. Google translations are in italics; my thoughts/interpretations are added in plain text.

If you're a 10,005-year-old children, school staff refer to official documents, please contact your office

We don't take kindly to mummy-students in the classroom. They require more paperwork than normal students.

Concerts ever since the resurrection of the teachers.

Zombie musician teachers!!!!

I think that our school will make shine gloriously.

This sounds more like it should have been written in North Korea.

Check the status of clean and ask the map to go to class.
Uneducated maps will lead our students astray.

Student Ministry ovule is zero.
Um.......

To establish availability and expertise of our colleagues held hostage every time the kidney will be OK.
If you have healthy kidneys, your most expert and available colleagues will be abducted by terrorists.

Lee, Jin Sam's moans, the office ...
The reason
So do not you come in each subject's test range .....
Please help the tears to cease .....
Seriously, guys, get within those subjects' test ranges or this woman is never going to stop moaning.

Two won by modifying the objective Taxonomy send back riohni
Because subjective taxonomy is just unscientific.

For information contact, our Chairman of the teacher to contact you when the Nordic Council session to say how you want to rust.
I would like to rust slowly into a nice burnt-orange color that brings out my eye color.

Hard to do two days rest to start a new Monday ildeulgo many hair pushed hard for everyone is not working well right? There are no see pony up more jobs.
The hair pushing isn't keeping everyone busy enough. Better find more jobs to give them.

Clean the area around the ruins remain drawn out sludge schools are a lot of things to do.
Sludge schools are commonly found in sewers and at the bottoms of ponds.

Teachers need to please take advantage of you.
It might be wise for me to quit soon if this email has been translated correctly.

WHOOSH!

One day, while I was sitting in my local 김밥천국 chowing down on some 돌솥 비빔밥 and wondering whether to go drinking at Speakeasy or Soul Train that evening, the Six Month Mark whizzed past me with barely an “안녕”. (The Six Month Mark is kind of rude.) In three days, I will have been in this country for 7 months, a fact I’m having difficulty getting my head around. I’m more than halfway through my stay here and I feel like I barely have my act together enough to navigate daily life like a semi-normal person. And now, with my head still spinning from the passing of month #6, I’m already being asked whether I will be leaving or renewing my contract. This is not a good question. In fact, I refuse to answer that question. I am going to sit here, inert, until the universe hands me the answer on a divine silver platter. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, EPIK.

In the mean time, school has begun again, and with it another round of Find the Open/Cracked Door/Window and CLOSE IT So It's 3 Degrees Above Freezing Rather Than Just 2. Although with spring slowly making its entrance, it is now frequently colder inside the school than it is outdoors. Much colder. Figure that one out. I suspect it has to do with buildings in Korea somehow being made entirely of poured concrete, which grips the cold like the hand of death and stingily holds onto it until summer arrives and then *poof!* suddenly we’re all sweltering again.

This semester has brought a few changes with it. I am now working at two schools instead of just one, like most people in EPIK. This means I spend three days at my main (old) school, two days at my visiting (new) school, and get paid an extra 100k won per month just to walk a bit farther two days a week. I’m teaching four more hours than I did last semester, but so far the only thing being negatively affected is my Facebook presence. I don’t really have much more lesson planning to do, which is good because I never did get any planning done over the break. I teach grades 2 and 3 at my main school and grades 1 and 3 at my visiting school, but I’m teaching one of the two grades at each school straight from the textbook. This is not my idea, mind you. I find the textbook material more than a little bit boring, but the regular English teachers are having a hard time getting through all of the material, so it falls to me to pick up the slack. Not only does this cut down on lesson planning, it also helps make up for the fact that, after two months off, I’ve forgotten how to teach (not that I really ever learned).

There are definitely some perks to being the new teacher again this semester, at least for two days of the week. More curious students staring at my eyes, screaming “I love you!” in the halls, telling me that I’m pretty and giving me candy (even though they’re not in any of my classes). With 6 months of teaching under my belt, I knew what pitfalls to watch out for in the first weeks, and I hope I’ve begun on a better foot with my visiting school students than I did with my main school students last semester. Only time will tell if I can hold it together or if this is just another honeymoon period. I have once again been blessed with good co-teachers at the new school, and the one co-teacher I didn’t like at my main school has moved on. And! The principal at my visiting school is not only a very warm and friendly woman, she is a woman who likes decent coffee and has a drip coffee pot in her office. We are friends. Coffee friends.

You can check out the photos for other stuff I’ve been up to recently, including attending my second soccer game ever (not nearly as exciting as baseball in this country). Intermediate Korean language classes begin in a couple of weeks (God help me), and I plan to fill my spring with many interesting activities so that I may entertain you with a recounting of them.

Until next time! (or until the Japan-centered nuclear holocaust reaches Korea)

International Women's Day

Today is International Women’s Day. I’d only vaguely known, and never really thought, about this day while living in the States, where Mother’s Day is the main women-related holiday.

For reference among my American readers, International Women’s Day is like a combination of Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day, when appreciation is expressed for women and our roles in society, and our social progress is celebrated. It began as a socialist holiday, but has lost its political meaning in many countries and is still celebrated today with little regard for its potentially controversial origins. Just goes to show there are some ideas that are good no matter who puts them forth. Different countries usually have different themes for each year. This year’s United Nations/global theme is “Women and men united to end violence against women and girls”. You can read U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Women’s Day address here.

It’s interesting to hear such words coming from a Korean, particularly given the plight of women in Korea despite its status as a modernized country. (Yes, I know he was saying them as U.N. Secretary-General and not as a representative of Korean society. Bear with me.) While no country – including the U.S. – is a stranger to violence against women, I’d not come face to face with this fact before moving here. I have found, from conversations with foreigners and Koreans as well as personal observation, that domestic violence in Korea is disturbingly commonplace.

One Saturday afternoon, my usual brunch-making routine was interrupted by a couple yelling at each other in the hallway. I was annoyed, but didn’t think too much of it, as at that point the woman was certainly holding her own. However, once the couple went into their apartment at the end of the hall, the yelling turned to desperate screaming from the woman and absolute rage from the man. In a flash of righteous indignation, I threw on my coat, shoved on my shoes and stormed down the hallway to do something about it. About a foot from the door, my courage evaporated as I heard the woman pounding on the door, continuing to scream as though her life were in danger, trying to get out. Standing so close and yet so far away, I had never felt so helpless in my life. What exactly was I going to do? My three sentences of Korean were not going to help in this situation – there was no way I could make myself understood. I was just as likely to make the situation worse as to help, and I had absolutely no means of defense if the man’s anger encompassed me and my intrusion. So I stood in the hallway, momentarily paralyzed, trembling with my heart pounding in my ears, before running back into my own apartment to call the police. But the police don’t speak English, either. So I just stood there, listening, hoping the woman would make it through all right, and feeling like a coward and a traitor to womankind.

I still feel guilty for not pounding on the door anyway. Much can be communicated by tone of voice. I later spoke to one of my co-teachers about the situation, and she told me that next time I could call her and she would call the police for me. Fortunately there has been no “next time” (at least none that I’ve heard), but I still wonder whether the police would even do anything about it. Addressing domestic violence is a tricky thing, particularly in a society that is still very patriarchal and tolerant of violence in everyday life. Several of my friends here have told me they’ve heard similar rows from their neighbors, and no one seems to have come up with a good solution. I am told that there are services for women who are victims of domestic abuse, but they must have a reference from the police. That means something really bad has to happen that somehow gets the attention of a Korean-speaking neighbor or friend, and the abuser must almost literally be caught in the act.

Evidence of how normalized domestic violence is in Korea slapped me straight in the face during my winter camp. I was a bad teacher and didn’t fully preview all of the music videos I was showing during a lesson on how to discuss preferences and tastes in music. The first one, a K-pop video, featured a scene in which the singer is hit several times by her boyfriend. (You can watch the video and see how she gets her revenge here.) Before beginning the intended discussion, I asked the girls in the class what they should do if a man ever hit them. Now, these were bright students; that’s why they were in my camp. I know they understood the words of what I was asking. But the concept just didn’t compute.
“You should break up with him, and maybe call the police!” I told them.
Blank stares. Why would they do that? In Korea, being in a relationship is of utmost importance. What’re a few knocks to be endured once in a while?

I have mixed feelings about special laws and protections for women. Ideally, these would not be necessary, and in a way I feel that putting women in a special category permanently makes us more vulnerable in the eyes of society and negates the equality that the measures themselves are striving for. But I have now been about as close as I ever want to be with the fact that, (almost) no matter what, a man will always be stronger than me. What can I do to defend myself? And abuse is never just about the physical violence. The accompanying power-play of emotional entrapment makes it extremely difficult for women to get out of abusive situations. The strength of men over women also applies in the halls of power in business, politics and religion. While I would rather ignore it or laugh it off, women are still marginalized and kept out, to some extent, of many of the real positions and gatherings of power in my own beloved and supposedly forward-thinking, equal-rights touting city – the one that should be a shining beckon of true freedom and equality for all the world to see. Are these initiatives promoting the defense and uplifting of women necessary to get us over what seems to be an ever-rising mountain ahead of true equality? Will we ever see the other side? And if so, will we have a need for Women’s Day at all?

This post is NOT about New Year's resolutions.

Christmas Day has come and gone, and New Year’s, and plenty of Caity Teacher’s Daily Korean Adventures™. The best and brightest (or maybe just the ones that come to mind at the moment) shall be recorded herein.

Best Christmas gift EVER

For Christmas the group of friends affectionately known as the Lenny Crew put together an admirable potluck, which we ate using our host’s bed platform as a large table (we are resourceful people), sitting on the floor in classic Korean fashion. The pumpkin pies (ingredients sent by the Jacobs American Food Goods Acquisition Service in Kingsport, Tenn.), complete with real whipped cream, were a big hit. I was also introduced to the European Christmas desserts known as mince pies with custard and Christmas pudding. The mince pies are decidedly not worth the calories, but the Christmas pudding was rather nice (especially smothered in whipped cream, as most things are). The winning ugly Christmas sweater was a neon-green & black snowflake fleece, and the winning Secret Santa gift was a holographic poster of Jesus arm-wrestling Satan. And I got cheese! The metaphoric angel on top of the non-existent tree was the snow that fell while we were eating dinner, covering the city in a peaceful white dusting, which we promptly ruined with our tipsily-made tracks heading toward the bar. Yes, the bars are open here on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day – it is a couples’ holiday here, remember?

Paul and I headed to Seoul for New Year’s weekend, expecting to be followed by several of the Lennies, but ended up being ditched at the last minute. But that was their loss (Seriously. Lennies). We literally rang in 2011 outside City Hall, where an enormous Buddhist bell was struck at midnight. The bell ringing was preceded by cheesy Korean musical performances (e.g. Seasons of Love in Korean – yes, I was a RENT-head back in the day, so I loved it) and followed by a few performances of more traditional Korean musical arts. The crowds weren’t nearly as bad as we were expecting, as New Year’s by the solar calendar isn’t nearly as big a deal as Lunar New Year on this side of the world. Temperatures were well below freezing the entire weekend, especially on NYE. After nimbly avoiding the storm of roman candles in the streets and the human maze created by lines of way more policeman than could possibly have been necessary, we landed ourselves in a McDonald’s to warm up. Then we decided to go to a few bars, but near where we were staying so we wouldn’t have as far to go when we were done. Well, maybe just one bar. Ok, so we just got to our subway stop and decided to go to bed. We’re not old people! It’s just that kind of cold can really get to you after a while….

Feet fish

We did plenty of touristy things that wore us out, too. We toured the ChangDeokGung Palace, where members of the Korean royal family lived until 1989. That means there are still easily traceable living descendents of Korean monarchs. How weird must that be – to be living among the common people, knowing that your ancestors lived in a palace and ruled the country? And how much crap must said descendents have taken at school when they were kids? Must be like being the principal’s kid, only worse. Later, and after much searching, we finally found some doctor fish to spruce up our tired and beleaguered feet. What in the world are doctor fish? This is a perfectly legitimate and oft-uttered question. Doctor fish, also known (maybe just to me) as feet fish, are little fishies that eat only dead skin. People in Korea keep them in small pools in special cafes, where they freak out adventurous Westerners looking for a “cultural experience”. They also tickle quite a bit. I had the entire coffee-sipping, toast-munching café full of Koreans staring at me with all of my shrieking and laughing, and I was honestly trying to keep it down. I don’t think my feet were any smoother afterwards, but it certainly was an experience. On New Year’s Day we managed to find some sauerkraut at an Austrian restaurant (good luck for all!), and I even made it to an honest-to-goodness, English speaking, Lutheran church on Sunday. 2011 ought to be a good year; I’ve certainly started it out right.

With the help of a good friend and her glorified toaster oven, I baked my first (and possibly only) cake in Korea (from scratch!) for Paul’s birthday the following week. It was a huge hit, as real cakes, like cake mixes, are not to be found down here in the armpit of Korea. Winter camp started last Monday and has been fantastic. They’re all good kids with fairly high levels of English, the classes themselves are pretty low-key, I have a fantastic Korean teacher helping me out, and we get to have snacks during movie time every day! Planning the camp was plenty of work up front, but I’m pretty much sailing through now. Only two days left!

On Saturday I’m heading to Thailand and Malaysia for my allotted winter vacation days. I am eagerly anticipating the summer weather with every fiber of my frozen being. The difference between the cold here and the cold back home is not as much that it’s below freezing and snowy the majority of the time, but more that back home, when you go inside, it’s actually warm. Anywhere you go indoors. It’s pretty much a given. Here, not so much. There are days that I do not feel truly warm until I get home, crank up the heat and flatten myself against my ondol floor like a squirrel licking a brick in a walkway at Elon University. I also really miss having a bathtub. A hot bath would be an excellent way to thaw out after an entire day spent wrapped in my poufy coat, trying to warm my icy fingers and toes. I guess I could go sit in a jimjilbang, but the other patrons would likely disapprove of my wine, tea candles and book, and there’s no way I could afford enough bath salts to make the entire communal bath smell of lavender. So, the ondol and I are great friends.

Also in recent days, my attention has turned from crazies in North Korea to crazies back home. It seems that, periodically, the U.S. must be challenged by the realization of some of our deepest fears. Our response to this tragedy, our following discourse, the choices and changes we make together as a country and as a community, will be telling of who we have become. We had a chance to follow the path of compassion and courage after September 11, 2001. In my opinion, we chose a different road. I pray that, this time, we live up to the high ideals on which our country was founded – those of respect for individuals and individual liberties alike – rather than fear and scapegoating. May love and peace prevail, at home and abroad.

Two posts in one day!

I know, I know, but try to stay in your seat. I figure you’ve all got extra time on your hands with the Christmas/New Year’s vacation and all, so here’s some extra reading material.

There are few good things about not being home for Christmas, but one of them is that I don’t have to fight the traffic barreling down I-81, cowering in my tiny Civic between ever-present pairs of 18-wheelers. Admittedly, crossing the road in front of the Home Plus to get to the Christmas party that I am attending may well be a harrowing experience, as is crossing any road in Korea (never assume you have the right of way as a pedestrian), but that should only take 5-10 minutes as opposed to 7+ hours.

Christmas cheer at the Nutcracker

Christmas in Korea, while it is commonly observed, is not nearly the huge holiday that it is in the West. It’s a religious holiday for those who are religious, but the secular angle is not nearly as played up as it is back home. Mostly, Christmas Eve is like Valentines Day – a big date night when you hope it snows not because you’re dreaming of a white Christmas, but because the first snow of the year in Korea is thought to bring new love with it. So, in order to fill the void of family and warm fuzzies, we waygooks had to make our own Christmas cheer. For me, these activities included making 12 dozen Jack-Daniels-because-I-couldn’t-find-bourbon balls with the help of a green but promising Irish baker; helping to raise 670k won for the family of a migrant worker through a caroling session downtown (ok, so raising money was just gravy – I love caroling, especially with jingly antlers!); and attending a very Korean performance of the Nutcracker by the Gwangju city ballet company. The sentimentality of simply attending the Nutcracker at Christmas – and the fun of introducing the uninitiated to such a ritual – were quite enjoyable. However, the meat on a stick at concessions, what looked for all the world to me like a giant Tigger on stage during the party scene, the appearance of a tie-dyed flag and countless other features of the performance that were just slightly off all served to remind me approximately every 5 minutes that I was, in fact, still in Korea, Tchaikovsky or no. In anticipation of this, my group decided to class it up. Instead of purchasing an overpriced cup of mulled wine at intermission (there was none to be had anyway), we snuck in homemade eggnog and noshed on Christmas cookies during the performance. As a former usher, I was mortified at first, but since the Korean ballet is apparently an usher-less affair, I quickly relaxed.

In non-Christmas-related news, I enjoyed a nice day trip with……

…..Ok, I don’t know why I’ve danced around the subject for so long, especially since a good number of you probably already know that I now have a boyfriend. [Insert sigh of relief from the entire Korean community. Another case of the singles, cured!] As do all of my students, who have reported back to my co-teachers that Caity Teacher’s boyfriend (whom they’ve seen with me on the street) is handsome and that, therefore, they approve. His name is Paul; he’s from Ireland; and yes, he’s very handsome. Now you officially know and I can refer to him by his name and quit coming up with ways to work around his existence when I write my posts.

So, I enjoyed a nice outing to Namwon with some of Paul’s high school students a few Saturdays back. A group of them attend school on scholarship and live at the school like boarding students. Paul occasionally takes them on day trips to practice their English and expand their knowledge of their own country. (Koreans travel surprisingly little around Korea, despite its small size. I’m pretty sure I’ve already seen more of the country than a large portion of the teachers who’ve lived here their entire lives.) He gets to bring other Native English Teachers with him as co-chaperons, and we all end up with a bit more cash in our pockets and a bit more sight-seeing under our belts. Namwon is a village known as the setting of the famous love story of Chunhyangga. In a nutshell: Nobleman and woman of low birth fall in love and are secretly married; nobleman is transferred to Seoul; woman is taken as a wife by the mayor of Namwon but remains loyal to the nobleman; nobleman, having gained more power, returns to claim the woman and publicly takes her back to Seoul as his wife. A much nicer ending than Romeo & Juliet. We visited two lovely sets of gardens with love, of course, as their theme. Appropriately, this was the first time that any of Paul’s students had seen me, so I was also part of the love-themed entertainment. They were damn good students, though, and even the girls who have crushes on Paul caved and said nice things to or about me by the end of the day.

That trip began what I shall refer to as Caity Teacher’s Grand Week of Korean Cultural Experiences (Part I, as I hope there will be more to come). Final exams meant that classes were over after lunchtime, so the week began with a trip to a grade 2 teacher’s house outside the city. I had never been in any Korean home, but I understand that the vast majority of people in the cities, including fairly well-off and well-established families, live in apartments. So it was also a treat for the other teachers to have a change of scenery. We had tea and snacks, complete with three different kinds of persimmons – green, ripe and dried, all remarkably different in taste and texture. I spent about 3 hours sitting on the floor, picking out the occasional word that I knew from the lively Korean conversation going on around me, and enjoying the fruits of the special chestnut-roasting drawer in the wood stove that was heating the pipes under the floor. My legs were asleep and my ass was sore, but surely I’ll never get used to it without practice. The home itself is newly built, covered in what looked to me like stucco (very unusual in Korea), and models a strange fusion of West Coast USA-Spanish Mission and Asian styles. In true Korean fashion, there was next to no furniture except for cushions and low tables (they always sit on the floor), and the kitchen had no oven. Now I understand why my apartment came so sparsely furnished. On another afternoon, we had a teachers’ activity in which we made our own natural moisture cream while being lectured on the benefits of aromatherapy and how it’s replacing doctors in developed countries (??).

You may have wondered to yourself in the above paragraph just how much Korean I can understand these days. Well, folks, I can understand as much as a person who has diligently studied (ha!) for 48 hours worth of Korean language course credit at the prestigious Chonnam National University. I can now say many useful things, such as고양이가 어디에 있어요?(Where is the cat?) and 앤나씨 도서관사에 공부 하고 있어요. (Anna is studying at the library.) We wrapped up last night, and presented our course instructor (who is probably the awesomest Korean teacher EVER) with this little gem as a Christmas/thank you gift. This was honestly one of the most difficult subjects I have ever studied, probably not any less so because I haven’t taken a real class in 5 years. But I attended every session, I actually passed, and I am quite proud of me.

And in my final bow to Korean culture this month, I caved under the pressure to wear a coat indoors. In my Western mind, coats are for outdoors, hallways should be heated, and windows should NEVER be opened in the winter. When the other teachers asked me if I was cold and why I didn’t wear a coat, I firmly told them that where I come from, our mothers make us take off our coats when we come inside. But after weeks of seeing my breath in the restroom, scurrying down the frigid hallways between my classroom and the office, and enduring frozen fingers and toes while an arctic wind blasts through the windows at cleaning time (“Air must be presh-ee!”), I decided that it might be better to walk around the school in my down coat looking like the Michelin Man. At least my core is now warm, if not my hands and feet.

For those of you still worried, I have one more thing to say: Not surprisingly, Kim Jong-Crazy's bark is worse than his bite.

That’s it; that’s all I’ve got to say this time. Merry (or Happy) Christmas to all! I wonder if the Land of Morning Calm is still calm on Christmas morning?

A month of catching up

First, we’re all still alive down here in Gwangju, and aside from the few who were killed in Yeonpyeong, so is pretty much everyone else in Korea. Kim Jong Crazy still has his thumb above the button, not on it, and despite the tough talk, everyone seems to be exercising some measure of restraint. My students got over it a few days later, and there’s been little talk of it since, except on the news. Pray it stays that way.

So, a rundown of what I’ve been up to recently (and not-so-recently, you know, because I’m behind):

Nov. 6  Went hiking up Mudeung Mountain. I would like to say that I hung back with the kids who were getting over a cold because I was being nice and wanted to make sure they were ok. In reality, I just couldn’t hack that hike. I will be back to conquer you later, mountain.

Nov. 7  Visited the Biennale on the final day before it closed until the next one in 2012. Apparently the one here in Gwangju was Asia’s first contemporary art biennale. Interesting and surprisingly edgy stuff. One exhibit included front pages from newspapers published around the world on Sept. 12, 2001. Fascinating to see the varying international coverage.

Nov. 11  Veterans’ Day, also know in Korea as Pepero Day. Americans commemorate the end of World War I (Tom Nelson, if you’re reading this, I still remember that trench you made us dig) and thank the veterans who have fought to protect us. Koreans swap boxes of stick-shaped cookies dipped in chocolate because, um, 11/11 looks like four sticks of the stuff. And we complain about Valentine’s Day being created by the card companies! Also, my president was in Seoul for the G-20 summit. I watched him on TV.

Nov. 23  Giant box of Christmas goodness, including the necessary ingredients for pumpkin pie, arrived at my desk. And there was much rejoicing.

Nov. 25  Thanksgiving Day. Went to school; taught my students about Thanksgiving, complete with the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving Special. Went to Korean class; struggled. Yep, that’s pretty much it. They don’t do turkeys in Korea. Unless you’re really dedicated and have an oven and other such bourgeois contraptions. I am not and do not.

Nov. 26  Accepted that I was coming down with a cold. Also, decorated the apartment for Christmas.

Nov. 30  Box of cheese arrived from home. I now have sharp cheddar, haloumi, havarti with dill, and edam. My refrigerator is complete.

Dec. 1  Following much urging from all of the Koreans around me, I finally gave in and went to the doctor. He gave me a shot in the ass and mystery miracle pills. I felt worlds better. This is why Koreans don’t take sick days – why would you stay home and be miserable when you could go to the doctor and get a string of medication for less than 5 USD that makes you feel as healthy as a strung-out horse?

Yay for kebabs!

Dec. 3-5  A large crew from Gwangju piled on a bus and headed to Seoul for a fantabulous Western-style Christmas dinner. I had resolved not to eat a bite of Korean food the entire weekend, and I succeeded. Beginning with dinner on Friday, I ate Chinese food, greasy bar food, a total of three kebabs (the Turkish version of gyros), waffles, a full and proper Christmas dinner (TURKEY!!!), Italian food, and a roasted veggie sandwich. We also finished up our Christmas shopping and did some drinking and dancing. We love Seoul; we will be back.

On a more informative note, it’s hard to believe that such a vibrant, modern metropolitan city is just 30 miles from the flailing economy, starving population, extremely restrictive censorship and general backwardness of North Korea. It’s also surprising just how different Seoul is from Busan, the second largest city, let alone from Gwangju and other cities I’ve visited in the south of the country. It just has an entirely different feel to it. If you’re at all interested, this is a fantastic article on Seoul’s rising.

Dec. 6  Pictures from Seoul were posted on Facebook. I resolved to buy a scale and eat more Korean (read: healthy and super low-cal) food. Just because I know where to find Western food now doesn’t mean I should be eating it all the time. Maybe start exercising? Nah…..

Dec. 7  Today I finally figured out what it is that I’ve been drinking LOADS of in school every day since the weather turned cold: Solomon’s Seal tea. Apparently it’s good for sports injuries, broken bones, gastrointestinal issues, menopause, PMS, blood pressure, coughing and mental clarity. Just call me Super Woman.

ShinGwang School Festival: A Photo/Video Essay

Back home, we have field day and science fairs. We hop around in sacks and throw water balloons; show off large models of molecules and frothing volcanoes. Given the American stereotype of Asians, you'd think they'd be all into the science fair thing, displaying their Ph.D.-level projects on long, neat tables, waiting with their spectacles and clipboards, ready to explain their Latest Stroke of Genius (patent pending) to the know-nothing waygook English teacher. But you'd be wrong, my friends. Very, very wrong.

Yes, the ShinGwang Middle School festival did have an area displaying some of the students' projects. But these projects had absolutely nothing to do with science, and it was a very small display. My students are into art - particularly performance art - and they don't give a rat's ass about anything academic if they can possibly find a way to avoid it. They are pushed so hard for 6 days a week, up to 14 hours a day, that when given the choice, they run from their schoolwork like woodland creatures from a forest fire. So when the school festival rolls around, they are not budding Einsteins. They are singers; they are dancers; they are artists. They are divas.

The day before the festival, as I was tripping merrily home at 4:30, the students were still excitedly running around the school with their craft supplies, hanging out the windows and singing songs. They had been as horrid all week as the little girl with the curl, but their vibes of excitement and anticipation even put me in a good mood. Large groups of students had been running up to me all day, yelling "Advertisement!" (the previous week's grade 3 lesson topic) and making me pinky promise that I would come to their class's room to participate in whatever they were cooking up. Being the wonderful teacher that I am, I carried through with my promises.

This turned out to be both a good and a bad thing. While I was happy to partake of the pizza in the Halloween cafe (not sure how Halloween and pizza go together, but that's ok), I was quite glad that I didn't ask exactly what sundae is until after I ate it.

Students slicing up sundae for my valiant consumption

Free hugs were distributed in the hallways.

Not a very good businessman.....

....but a very nice student (most of the time).

I shot balloons with a toy bow & arrow in one classroom, got a shoulder massage in another, and went shopping in the little second-hand market on the grade 1 hall. There was even a beauty parlor, where I got my nails and the back of my hand painted. Yes, it was supposed to be face paint, but when the cat-shaped stain finally wore off my hand 3 days later, I was happy I opted out of the facial adornment. I also chose not to get my hair done, mainly because crimping and perms are still en vogue here. (Many things about Korean fashion just scream 1980s in the USA.)

Then came the performance part of the festival. Around lunch time, everyone headed to a brand new building downtown with a huge, tricked-out performance space. There was a flurry of costume changes and students transformed from neatly uniformed children into people I could have easily mistaken for Asian adults. (Mind you, it's damn near impossible to tell the age of a Korean between 15 and 65 by anything outside of their clothes.) The music teacher/concert director/stage manager rehearsed each group until each eye was crossed and each ㅜ was dotted.

Performances included dancing and singing; solos, duets, and group performances; comedy and instrumental performances.

 

This is a traditional Korean percussion ensemble whose loud banging rehearsals I had to was privileged to listen to every day after school for months.

Okarina ensemble playing "My Heart Will Go On" (Koreans love sappy songs). The Okarina is the Korean equivalent of the recorder, which we all learned to play in elementary school, much to the dismay of any musical ear around.

And here we see a full-on performance of what I see in the hallways every day. Shut up, boy!

This first-grader is approximately half my height. Makes his singing somehow better.

And yes, they made me sing, too. It hardly needs to be said that this was not my idea, and it somehow evolved from Caity Teacher teaching an American pop song to the kids (I was not happy), to Caity Teacher singing in a chorus of students directed by Music Teacher (I was slightly less unhappy), to Caity Teacher singing in a trio with two other teachers (I was not at all happy). Of course the trio part was sprung upon me the previous morning, so at least I had little time to dread it. It seemed the other two teachers were more worried than I was, but then again, they aren't native English speakers and we sang in English (the only part of the original plan that was preserved).

"You Raise Me Up". Not quite gospel when sung with a collective Korean accent.

Naturally we did not stick to the published performance order, and my little ShinGwang Chorus of Englishee Singers somehow ended up performing immediately after a dance number by some leather-studded high school boys that basically brought down the house. The first grade girls in my chorus screamed like, well, middle school girls as the high school boys came past us through the wings, reaching out to touch them like they were rock stars and screaming even louder when the boys obliged. The audience was still in the throes of OMGHOTBOYS and screamed through most of our first song, including our little trio. There's no way they heard a note we sang, which is probably why most of the students told me the next day that I "sing pretty."

They did calm down towards the end of the first song and showed great support for their fellow students in the second song, clapping along and cheering loudly at the end. That was probably the most touching part -- even the mediocre performances received rousing applause and great, encouraging cheers from the other students. It's illustrative of one of the main differences I notice between the students here and what I remember from middle school. My students beat the living crap out of each other every day and play many of the same tricks and jokes on each other as we did in middle school, but it's never malicious or done to hurt other students' feelings. The kids here are genuinely kind to each other (as middle schoolers go). This goes hand-in-hand, I think, with the fact that people are far more trusting here (and presumably more trustworthy?), even in the cities. What is it that Koreans are doing that results in what seems to be a kinder, safer society? And do the ends justify whatever those means may be?

The few reasons I'm not really homesick yet

This has been one superbly shitty week. And it’s only Wednesday. Record-setting unruliness in my classes, an indescribably frustrating inability to effectively communicate with my co-teacher, a 2-day fight with Nonghyup’s online banking system, insomnia, and the midterm election results (I am sorely disappointed in you, US voters) have collectively resulted in one very surly Caitlin. On the bright side, it’s hard to feel homesick when I’m just as annoyed with my home country as I am with this one. Perhaps I should have been knocking on doors back home instead of having my selfish little international adventure. But we’ll never know for sure, now will we?

Let me expound upon the harrowing experience that is dealing with online banking in Korea, as it is the only thing I can bitch about and still have my bitching be somewhat informative for you, dear readers. After the aforementioned inability to get my co-teacher to understand the nature of an automatic remittance account, I finally gave up and just asked if I could transfer money overseas through online banking. This way I won’t have to trek down to the bank during the rather restrictive Korean banking hours, armed to the hilt with passport and papers, every time I need to make a transfer. I filled out the forms, signed in the tiny spaces meant for signatures a third the size of most Western ones, received a few mysterious carbon copies and password cards, and 2 hours later, I was on my way to online banking convenience, just like I had back home, right?? Not so much. I knew that many Korean websites require the use of Internet Explorer – on a Windows machine only – in order to work properly. What I did not know is that the most recent version of IE has something troublesome about it that required me to downgrade my browser to use the online banking site. It took a while for me to figure this out, since the error message that kept appearing was in – you guessed it – Korean. When I finally got that sorted out, I had to jump through 50 bajillion hoops in order to log in for the first time. Now, about half of those hoops will be eliminated in the subsequent times that I log in, but that’s still 25 bajillion hoops every time I want to access my account online (and then again to pay a bill, or make a transfer, or check my balance….). These hoops are supposedly for security purposes, but Korea still insists on relying on ActiveX controls (the reason for the Windows IE requirement), which have widely known security flaws. Go figure. Some day I hope that Korea will cease its hostile campaign against any and all non-Windows users, but I doubt that day will come while I’m still here. In the mean time, I thank God for Parallels. Oh, and I’m sure you’re wondering if I ever actually got my money to my US account. It seemed that I finally figured everything out correctly on this end, but the answer remains to be seen during EST banking hours, which have not yet started for today.

So, in summary,
Points for Korean banks: awesome optical bill-scanner thingies on the ATMs, which make paying bills super fast and easy even though I can’t read them; on-demand printed bank statements rather than monthly ones in the mail; ease of making domestic deposits/payments/transfers via bank account numbers instead of checks or credit cards.
Points for American banks: reasonable hours; tellers who share my native tongue; online banking that doesn’t make me want to pull my hair out.

Fortunately, the happenings of last week were considerably cheerier. The fireworks festival in Busan was a blast (pun intended). I saw some fireworks like none I’ve ever seen before – cubes and flowers and strings of slowly floating lantern-like lights – and I also experienced crowds like I’ve never seen before. Even the 2008 inauguration was no comparison for the oppressive masses of the fireworks festival. The shoving was literally constant, and while I had no idea that so many tall Koreans even existed, they were all there at the festival, standing in front of me. Happily, fireworks are mostly in the sky, so I only had to stand on tiptoe and do some of my own shoving when the Gwangan bridge started raining sparkly fire. (Yes, raining fire. I’m trying to get a video to post in the photo collection.)

Friday was my official birthday celebration, since it’s never a good idea to drink on Mondays (at least not too much). I spent the afternoon looking after a student’s kitten that was rather unceremoniously dumped on me while the student was in class. I was quite happy to watch it, though my afternoon of lesson planning had to be scrapped and was replaced by gaggles of squealing ‘tweens (girls and boys), drawn by the siren song of cute that was climbing over my desk. I was unable to extract myself from the hordes, for fear that the kitten would be squashed or torn to bits by their eager hands. I then escaped to my apartment for a rousing yet all-too-short session of reliving college in the USA (a.k.a. beer pong), followed by a party at a bar in the nearby nightlife district. I was spoiled by all of my friends, sung to, fed cheesecake, and given the always en-vogue gifts of Engrish. Oh, and there was the Death in a Glass. I’m not sure if it’s common to feed the birthday girl a blue-flaming tumbler full of something akin to anise-flavored gasoline, but that’s what the bartender gave me, and demanded “One shot!” Ha! Who was he kidding? I had to share that thing with 5 other people before it was gone. Rough stuff, I tell you.

Apparently my birthday was such the occasion for everyone that some people even considered staying in on Saturday despite numerous Halloween parties being thrown by waygooks all over the city. Fortunately, they rallied and made it out. The party I attended featured a Mad Hatter with a very impressive homemade hat, a bust, a flasher, and FAN DEATH. I went as a Shot in the Dark – dressed all in black with a shot glass around my neck. Yes, it’s lame, but I must be allowed my occasional linguistic indulgences. Koreans don’t understand Halloween any better than they understand “a shot in the dark,” so what’s the difference?

School festival tomorrow. I currently have students running around me with tape, box cutters and giant roles of colored paper preparing for the circus that I’m sure it will be. They're all quite eager to have me visit their particular stations -- eager enough to come talk to me about it in English! I’ve also been roped into the performance part of the afternoon, and though we’ve been rehearsing our two songs for a month now, I was just informed this morning that I will be singing one of the verses as a duet with one of my co-teachers. That’s sure to clear the house in a hurry.

My budding Korean social life

This bit has little to do with Korea, but I feel that it’s necessary. On Wednesday night (morning in EST), my cat of 15 years passed through the veil to the state of true feline enlightenment (with lots of critters to chase and sun to lay in, I imagine). There’s nothing like the passing of a pet to make you feel both incredibly miserable and incredibly silly for feeling so incredibly miserable over an animal. I am fortunate to have friends here who understand, and was the recipient of one of the best group hugs EVER right when I needed it. Thanks, guys. You can all add “Comforter Extraordinaire” as a bullet point on your resume under the EPIK teaching section. I’ll even make you a certificate if you want, since everything in Korea comes with a certificate upon completion.

To follow up on a previous post, the purchase of my cell phone has come with a sizable boost on the Korean end of my social life. As far as Koreans are concerned, if you do not have a cell phone, you do not exist in the social sphere. But now that I have a phone to call, they are not afraid to call it. All of the promised outings are coming to fruition, fast and furious. A couple of weekends ago, one of my co-teachers invited me to go shopping with her, which was followed by several beers with her friends. Naturally, the very first question out of her friend’s mouth was, “Boyfriend?” But we’ve already covered that. It wasn’t long before we were chatting it up in halting elementary-level English, munching on dried squid and describing our ideal man. Dude, girl talk is so much more difficult with a language barrier. I have a hard enough time with fluent English speakers, let alone with people who don’t know anything beyond “tall” and “handsome” in my language. I eventually gave in to the temptation to just say the few words I knew they would understand and leave it at that. Despite (or maybe because of?) the fact that they have a somewhat skewed view of who I am and what I like, they told me that they “feel intimacy with” me and that I am like a Korean woman. I’m not sure what this means, exactly, but I’m taking it as a compliment.

This past week I was invited out with my other co-teachers for some makgeolli, a milky-looking traditional Korean alcohol typically served in an enormous metal tea-pot-looking thing that is then poured into and drunk from small bowls. [It should be noted that this time, we all decided together what day to go. I am a fan of this change in m.o.] It turns out that, contrary to what I hear about most Korean teachers, my co-teachers don’t drink very much. By contrast, I ended up looking like a lush with the fortitude and constitution of a rotund German man. Unlike my soju, I can hold my makgeolli pretty well. Conversation flowed freely with my flush-faced co-teachers and I’m sure we’re all better friends for it. In other social news of the week, I was invited to eat grapes in the administration room with the vice-principal and the music teacher this afternoon. I’m sure this has nothing to do with the cell phone, but it’s still a step in the right direction!

Last week we had midterms, which means that we had the afternoons free for lesson planning. Or, as was the case on Wednesday, sports day at the neighboring middle school! I am not a sports person. Sports may provide health and vitality for most people, but for me, they are a threat to my un-injured existence. I am clumsy, uncoordinated, and terrified of any and all balls that fly through the air, because in all likelihood, they will eventually hit me in the head. Somehow I made it through several rounds of a dodge ball-like game and another kickball-inspired game with some really weird twists without bruising or any major humiliation. Until the hula-hoop competition. Hula-hoops are a HUGE fad in Korea, and I’m pretty sure that all Koreans – men and women – spend several hours a day just practicing their hula-hoop technique. Probably while they watch those crazy TV shows about people in animal costumes with pop-up bubbles on the screen. They naturally assumed that this hooping prowess extended to me and the other native English teacher at the school we were visiting. They gave us three giant hula-hoops each and, when we protested that we couldn’t possibly manage all three at once, insisted that using just one would take too long. The first round was over in less than 5 seconds. The second round lasted maybe 10, but that’s because they let us use just one hoop each. We were then put to shame by two Korean teachers whose face-off lasted 5 entire minutes. With all three hoops. And I think they would’ve gone on longer if one of the teachers’ hoops hadn’t been slightly bent. We followed up the sports part of the afternoon with the eating part of the afternoon, an area in which I am much more skilled.

In food-related news, I tried my first persimmon a couple of weeks ago. Persimmons are very popular in many forms – fresh, dried, ripe, green, in teas and in sweets. I had to try one eventually, so a friend and I each purchased one from a halmoni (grandmother) on the street. We thought we’d been charged a rather steep price because we’re foreigners, but it turns out that may not have been the case. What we unknowingly purchased were the cream-of-the-crop persimmons, with very soft, brown insides and a particularly sweet/creamy taste. After that experience, one of my co-teachers brought me a huge bag of persimmons she picked herself that are now ripening in my kitchen. Being the nerd that I am, I’ve read up on persimmons and know to mind the laxative effect they can have if eaten in large quantities. I’m quite glad that I did my research this before eating the entire bag in one sitting. That could’ve been interesting. I also made it to the Costco in Daejeon last weekend, where I bought some proper cheese. There was no cheddar to be had (*sniff*), but they were selling some rather nice Parmesan (for a not-so-nice price, but what do you want?). Now the Parmesan from Daejeon is sitting in my fridge, beneath the personally picked persimmons, making me smile every time I open the door.