Changes: Students, Co-workers, Venues for Thankfulness, and Holidays

Well, we just began a new term. (13 weeks per term, so to evenly divide the year). As it turns out, I have a few of the same students again. One particular lower-level munchkin has to be one of the laziest people I’ve ever met in my life! Doesn’t EVER do homework, and would sit in class the entire three hours without lifting a finger if it weren’t for my insistence at him giving it a try. The thing is, he’s pretty smart and completely capable of doing his job as a student. He drives me crazy though! And we were supposed to have a minimal amount of students two terms in a row, I guess I just lucked out. At least he’s not actively disobedient and doesn’t really disrupt class. I’m excited about the books I get to teach this term! (My favorite last term was The Roots of Rock and Roll). Hamlet, Robinson Crusoe, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Pride and Prejudice, The Call of the Wild, Great Expectations...

We just got two new teachers, Kayleen from Korea (who studied English in New Zealand) and Benjamin from Canada (who also speaks French—this should be fun!) It’s going to be weird having a bigger “family” here, but they seem nice enough so hopefully it will be fun.

Speaking of co-workers, I’ve previously mentioned the guy from Utah. Well, he truly is an awful person. Not only is he one of the biggest hypocrites I’ve ever encountered, but he can be pretty ignorant as well as selfish. It’s true that I’m pretty laid back and go-with-the-flow about things, especially those beyond my control. It takes a lot to make me angry and it’s pretty difficult to make me lose my temper, but this asinine jerk had my blood boiling this past week. A month or so ago, we were supposed to get a new teacher. They set up an apartment for him and everything. However, it didn’t work out, so the bed that Mr. Lee bought for him was then stored in Andy’s apartment. I had a friend coming up from a city about 2 hours away, so I went to ask Andy if I could move the bed down to my apartment for my friend. Keep in mind, the bed belongs to Mr Lee. It also weighs about 5 pounds and someone half my size could move it (this is Korea, that happens often). Here’s a recap of our convo:
Andy: Well, I’m really rather attached to the bed
Me: I’ll move it. It’s just for a night.
Andy: See that’s it, it’s just for a night.
Me: Yeah but I have a friend who needs a place to stay. Why would I not have him in a bed if there’s one available?
Andy: Why are you even accommodating this guy? Make him sleep on the floor, it’s Korean culture.
Me: He’s American. What’s the point of that?
Andy: He’s in Korea.
Me: Andy, this is absurd.
Andy: Olivia, I’m sure when your father comes here I’ll let you take it. But for now I don’t feel like it. I want it where it is, I like it there.
Me: Are you KIDDING me? You don’t have to do ANYTHING. I will move the jackets you have on it, hang them up, move the bed myself, and return it.
Andy: I don’t have room to hang my jackets.
Me: I’ll put them in my closet, I don’t mind.
Andy: I just want it to stay where it is.
Me: Andy, please.
Andy: Please.
Me: I can’t believe this. It is absolutely no inconvenience to you, but you won’t do it. This makes no sense.
Andy: You standing here right now is an inconvenience to me.
Me: So you’re telling me that because you want your two jackets and a fleece to lay there, my friend doesn’t have a place to sleep?
Andy: Pretty much.

I was completely livid. I marched out of his room and down the stairs to my room so I could avoid sharing an elevator with such a jack@$$. I have made a conscious effort to not be any friendlier towards him than necessary. I knew he was a bad person the first week I met him and he talked about how his efforts to change the world and help the Socialist party rise in the US began with throwing bricks through the windows of businesses he and his friends didn’t like. He has since stolen from a hotel, run around on his girlfriend multiple times and openly talks about it, and God only knows what else. His character rivals that of an ex boyfriend of mine. However, I still have to work with this guy. No sense in telling him what I think of him if I have to look at him everyday for a year. It takes a lot more energy to hate someone and be ugly to them than it does to just be a big phony. But, it also takes an effort to be nice. I’m doing neither for the time being. We have mutual friends and at some point, I’m bound to have a conversation on a non-work-related level. Until then, I plan to keep right on with my middle-of-the-road attitude.

And so! Thanksgiving here went virtually unnoticed. It was strange. I have always been grateful for holidays with friends and family, but it just made me appreciate it more. You truly cannot replicate the atmosphere and feeling of having the ones you love around. Sam came up from Daegu and there was a crew of seven of us having a makeshift Thanksgiving dinner at Outback. Sally from my Korean class even brought our Korean teacher, who is completely adorable. Fish, steak, pasta—sounds like a thankful main course to me! (On the actual Thanksgiving day, our Assistant Director took us out for a steak lunch. I thought it was so nice!) At both celebrations, everyone enjoyed both the cuisine and the company. I don’t imagine we will get any time off for Christmas at all, but Mr Lee told me that he plans to get a Christmas tree for the school. I’m really excited about this! The closest thing to a Christmas plant that I have is a $2.50 poinsettia, but maybe I’ll hang some earrings on it and pretend.

Copyright 2005 Olivia R. Reed

It pays to get in a car with strangers!

Parent conferences turned out not to be so bad. Unfortunately, most of the parents of the good students came and not enough parents of the students who need the most help. But the advantage of that is that I didn’t get yelled at for kids having bad grades and if the parents wanted me to focus on one particular thing with their child, I’m now at least aware of it. My students also had to write essays this week. Each class had two different topics they could choose from. I asked them to create a rough draft and email it to me for revision. I didn’t get many, but some were funny, some needed a lot of work and I was glad they were trying ahead of time, and one started talking about stem cell research! Hello! She’s 12! When I mentioned to another class that President Bush was going to be in Korea last week, one student said, “Oh yeah, for APEC.” I nearly fainted! Okay not really, but for a ten year old, that was pretty impressive. While I’m talking about how great students can be, I have to mention that I am impressed with how well they share here, too. It was not uncommon for American students to say “but it’s my last one” or “but I didn’t have breakfast” if someone asked for a piece of their snack. Here, they bring an extra set of chopsticks or whatever, and share with everyone.

I’ve been asked about the earthquake that Japan felt last week. Korea and Japan have water between them, as some of you may know. Japan hardly felt the earthquake this last time, and I didn’t feel the earthquake in Japan the first time I was here, so no, for those of you wondering, I did not feel the last one, either. I think earthquakes are fun anyway—I was in the 7.4 and 7.2 twin earthquakes in California in 1992 and actually had a good time with the whole ordeal. One coat hanger didn’t stop moving the entire week we were there because there were so many aftershocks.

One of my first weekends here, I was trying to hail a cab, but the one who stopped and asked me where I was going drove off in the middle of my request because he couldn’t understand me. A nice gentleman was standing behind me and saw the whole thing happen. He said, “Where are you going?” and I wrote it down for him. He was bringing his friends home, and his house was passed mine, so he said, “If you don’t mind, I wait for my friends, I take you.” Against everything I’ve ever been taught, years of schooling about strangers and talking to them, much less getting in the car with them, I said ok. I sat with my hand on the door handle the entire time. But the friends were polite enough, even opened the door for me. Stone, as the guy’s English name turned out to be, spoke a tiny bit of English. (As it turns out, he owns the Red Mango yogurt store at the corner by my school. For those of you who know me, you know what a HUGE fan of any sort of frozen dessert I am). Nonetheless, after just 5 or so minutes, he pulled up at the nearest corner to my apartment, I said thanks and hopped out, and that was the end of the story. I saw him a few times after that because we live in the same area, just waved and said hello. Well I went to dinner this past week with Brian and Andy. When we were finished, they wanted to drink more, and I wanted Red Mango, so we split. I walked into the yogurt place and who do I see but Stone! He gave me free yogurt (pretty exciting) and then I sat with him to chat. He told me that he needs an English tutor for he, his wife, and his children. They can read and write, but they need the most help with conversational English. Get PAID to talk? Are you kidding? That and keeping in touch with people are probably my two favorite pastimes. What a DEAL! He said he wants a few hours twice a week and would pay me above the average. I told my dad that it, quite literally, pays to get in the car with strangers.

This past weekend I met my third “friend-of-a-friend” here (a fourth is in the works in the next couple of weeks). My buddy Tom works Dallas, went to LSU, but is from Baltimore, and so is his Korean friend Gus. Gus moved to Maryland when he was in fourth grade, not knowing so much as the alphabet (his cousin gave him a shirt in 5th grade that he wore to school, not knowing what it said, that read, “Itty Bitty Titty Committee.”). Now, Koreans tell him they envy how well he speaks English. We went to check out the largest palace in the city, and it was pretty cool. They weren’t really elaborate as far as gold and trinkets go, like Versailles or whatever other homes of royalty you may have seen. Their paint jobs, on the other hand, were incredibly pretty. Their furniture was nice, but not extremely elaborate. They just had a lot of separate buildings with different functions, and what is certainly a hot commodity in this city, a lot of space. There were two museums on the grounds, but we only went into one. The translations into English were pretty good! After Gus and I finished the museum (pictures coming soon!), he wanted to take me to a bookstore. Turns out, it was the same one I’d been to before, but I got a couple of books that they had in stock that have been recommended to me recently. When I ship things home, I’m going to need a box just for books! I needed to finish my Christmas shopping, so we went to Insa-Dong next, which is the part of town best known for traditional Korean arts. We saw a comedy show (didn’t look that funny, but what does this English-speaker know!) and just some neat little shops I hadn’t noticed the first time I went there. Then we headed over to meet Amy at Seoul Station because I’d heard that there’s a massage place for $25. It’s a sauna (or as they say here, sow-nah). What they mean by “sauna” is not what you may think of as just a room where you can sweat your brains out, sitting in a towel, then take a shower and go home. It’s a public bath. $7 to get in for steam rooms, oxygen rooms, and all that type of jazz. For such a conservative culture, it’s pretty ironic that all of these people have no qualms about running around in the buff in front of complete strangers. Women of all ages, shapes, sizes, and degrees of personal grooming were completely stripped, talking to each other, running around as if they didn’t even notice their naked-as-a-jaybird neighbor. This part of the sauna is homogenous. The men, too, have their half of the sauna for parading around exposed, a sight I’m not sorry I missed. There’s a restaurant on the top floor in the heated room where people sat around (coed and clothed at this point) talking, reading, and other activities they consider relaxing. Also on that floor, Amy and I both opted to get the “sports massage” that they told us would last about 30 minutes, and Gus went for the steam bath on another floor. Our massage really lasted about 50 minutes, but not without a violent cracking of my neck. When it was over, my masseuse told me that he tried to give me a chiropractic massage and my spine is aligned incorrectly, so I should either go to a chiropractor or do yoga. He said I would be sore for 2-3 days. Yowsa! Still though, a grand total of $32 for nearly an hour massage—can’t beat it! After releasing our tensions, we all had a hearty Italian dinner (Amy and I have an understanding, and that’s that we don’t eat Korean food on our weekend outings together) and then went our separate ways to head home.

For the fourth straight week in a row, we are pretty busy with school-related activities, in addition to the normal teaching. This week, I am training to teach the appropriately named Bridge English. It’s a course for our more advanced students who have progressed in their Memory English, but not enough for an “Interactive” class just yet that teaches English as a second language (ESL) rather than as a foreign language (EFL). It is a “bridge” to the next level. I wake up at 6am, get my books and notes together, eat, dress, make myself appear awake, meet Andy at 6:45 and walk to the subway together. It takes about an hour and a half to get to the training center by train (if I had a scooter, it would be no longer than 40). We train from 9a-2p with a 40min lunch break. We head back to school, prep our lessons, then teach til 10p, getting home around 11. So we invest about 15 hours of our day to school, and we only get paid for 6. That’s okay though, we got a free lunch! And we only have to do this for three days. We took our first test today, and the entire class of 9 trainees passed. The training the first two weeks we got here and had several days to study had between a 20 and 30 percent attrition rate, so today’s results are good.

Copyright 2005 Olivia R. Reed

Going South in the Far East

Debbie told me yesterday, “Olivia, I have bad news.” I thought it was going to be something awful, I had no clue what to expect. “Seventy one teachers had fake degrees last month, so you have to go back to immigration with your diploma and verify it.” Seriously, what a PAIN. Do people really want to forego college and come teach overseas? Pretty lame.

Speaking of lame, man, if you thought Valentine’s Day was lame, has Korea got a surprise for you! Pepero Day. What the heck is a pepero? It’s like a cracker in a stick form (like those things that you get with salad, but without the seasoning), dipped in chocolate. That’s it. There’s an entire day for this! I’d like to meet the marketer who promoted it to the status it is today. I went to the store with Andy to get some for his girlfriend, since she’s coming in January. I considered getting some for my students, but I brought them Halloween candy to celebrate an American holiday, I figured Pepero is theirs and not mine. Of course, my students brought me TONS of freaking Pepero! One gave me this wine bottle holder, all decorated with hearts and bows and beads, full of Looney Tunes-wrapped Pepero. Cracks me up!

Well this weekend was the greatly anticipated hiking trip! We met before 7am outside the Family Mart—Amber, her boyfriend Sean, her co-worker Mojca (pronounced Moitza, she’s Slovenian Canadian) and me. We took a cab to Jamsil Station and arrived 20min before we needed to meet Ya Ho, the leader of the hike, so we sat down and had breakfast. Even though our entire day of hiking was an all-inclusive 10,000 won, we knew the meals would be Korean, so we wanted to be sure we had a breakfast we would eat. When the other hikers arrived, only 3 other whities (one of whom was wearing a Tennessee sweatshirt), the rest were Korean women and a few men. The 7 white people ended up sitting together and the leader of the bus trip was a very entertaining Korean woman. She spoke no English, but she had a microphone and talked for probably half of the drive. I attempted to read, but it made me nauseous, so I slept for a little while, until I got smacked in the arm. Ya Ho was sitting behind me, and for a woman who is probably in her 60s, she gave me a pretty good thud. Well we weren’t even to the mountain yet, but she was waking me up because we were stopping off at a place that had “medical instruments.” And by medical instruments, they meant we had to sit through a 15min presentation on heated mattresses, these belt things that look like the trophy of a heavyweight champion, magnetized pillows, and the like. La dee da… the white group got out of there and went back to the bus as soon as it was over—we weren’t shelling out $5k for a mattress or anything else that was for sale. So back on the road again, back to catnapping, and then we stop again. Yes! The mountain. No. Just kidding. It was a ginseng farm. We whities opted to stay on the bus this time. No wonder the trip was so cheap—all these promotional stops had to be footing part of the bill. They gave us ginseng candy, which tasted pretty terrible at first, but ended up being okay. Then they gave us some fancy soap worth about $5, recouping half the cost of my bus ride. And on the road again we were, finally headed to the mountain without any further distractions. Once we reached our destination, we went into the restaurant where we had reservations for lunch. Reservations or not, this is like a nourishment assembly line. You march in, sit down, get served, eat eat eat, get out so the next herd can come in. It was peebimpap, which is about 5 veggies, a fried egg, some chili sauce, and rice, all mixed together. Most foreigners like this food, but I haven’t had good peebimpap since I’ve been here, until this meal. Yum! Our tour guide started hollering at us because we were talking to each other. She came up and motioned for us to eat quickly, then she pointed outside. We were prodded out of the restaurant and headed up the hill, that was so steep it reminded me of San Francisco, to the adventure. We had to get our ticket to the cable car and, as is not uncommon here, this little old lady butted right to the front of the line in front of Mojca and motioned to her friends to come get in behind her. She had to be in her 70s, an especially mobile older woman, but I really thought it was rude! If there’s room for someone to get in front of you as you’re getting on the subway car, they’ll do it, even if there’s no one else around and you’re both clearly going to get on the train before the doors close. It’s impressively impolite. Well this woman’s friends had manners, because they stayed where they were. We all got on the cable car and rode for just a few minutes to the top of Mt. Daedunsan. On the way up, we could see a bridge that stretched between two mountains that looked pretty narrow and was at least a hundred meters up (I’m really bad at distance measurements). Even higher than that bridge was a staircase that was only one-man wide and had a 60person maximum. It may as well have been a ladder given how steep it was! We got off at the top and began the hike. There was only room to go a few hundred feet higher, and then the option of returning to the cable car or hiking back down. I know I’ve already mentioned how mobile the older generations are, but boy do they MOVE, even on a mountain! There were piles of leaves on some of the rocks that didn’t deter this group. I was being extra cautious, given the tennis shoes and jeans I chose as hiking apparel (not the wisest selection), and these old folks just took it on like they were fearless toddlers, ready to roll! So we made it across the narrow bridge and up the ladder (click the pic to see the staircase in the background). I must add that these stairs are clearly made for Asians and not for Americans of gargantuan sizes. My sasquatch feet hung off of every step. When we got as far up as we had time for, we realized there was not time to walk back to the bottom, so we would have to take the cable car. Some of our group, who had separated at different parts along the hike but reunited at the lookout point, felt like they were shortchanged when they couldn’t take the trails down. As for myself and my knee, we didn’t care. Weak, I know. Regardless, the views from the cable car are grand! (I have pictures. If you haven’t received them yet, email me). And back down we went. They made such a big deal out of us being back at the bus on time, but we waited for a good 30 minutes for several of the older women who were AWOL. Anyway, back on the road again! We had only one stop at a fish market on our return trip, and that’s where we had dinner. The whities sat together again, with Ya Ho, and had what I think was seaweed soup and lots of fixins. Koreans typically give you 5 side dishes with your meal. Several of these had eyes, which is not really a surprise given that we were at a fish market, so I stuck to the soup. We sat with the couple from the US who are in Korea because John is in the military. They have two children here with them and their son just went to Japan last week for a Cross Country meet. What a lifestyle! John is an architect with a second degree in structural engineering (pretty smart combo there!) and Sue just checks out the sights and does mom duties. It was really interesting to get a take on things from people who have been here longer but live in what is basically an American city, only venturing off post when they feel adventurous. With our meal, we were served makali, which is a rice wine. Christine bought 3 bottles, and then we all hopped back onto the bus and were chatting and ignoring the tour guide who was cracking jokes with the Korean women behind us. Then she turned off her microphone and turned on the lights. Not just any lights, disco lights. There were orange, green, red and blue lights along the top and bottom of the aisle. One woman from the very back row of seats paraded up to the front to say a few words to the bus driver, and then it all started. Dancin’ in the seats! Before long, the entire aisle was full of women dancing and having a great time right there on a moving bus! It was an absolute riot! I joked to Mojca that my grandmother would never engage in these activities—first and foremost, if she and her friends were on a tour together to go hiking, I’d pass out cold. If they got up and started dancing in the aisles, I’d die of shock! These women closed the window curtains and got me, Christine, Amber and Mojca on our feet to join. Later, they even got John to start dancing with them! Everyone was laughing and having a ball. Christine broke out the makali and shared with everyone. There was one Korean man on our trip and he sat in the second to last seat with his bottle of liquor and a mischievous look on his face. Before long, even he was cutting a rug! (or an aisle). He was passing out shots from his bottle to anyone who would have it, and one other woman had salted fish to boot. I, fortunately, did not partake in that part of the excitement. I did, of course, take many pictures. What a story! This is apparently the norm when it comes to both traveling for adventure’s sake and for passing a good time once the sun goes down. We arrived back at Jamsil Station around 9:45pm. Amber, Mojca, Sean and I got a cab back to our part of town. We had a nice driver, but he kept randomly putting on the breaks. There wouldn’t be anyone in front of us, and he’d slow down. All the stop and go had the four of us talking about crazy cabbies! Mojca told us how one of her drivers was the only car on the road one afternoon and out of nowhere, he let out a big sigh and punched the horn. (It may not be funny to read, but when she told us about it, we laughed pretty hard). Sean had a friend whose tire got deflated, so he brought it to get replaced. He and the tire man pulled a nail out of the tire and when they were in the car together, the tire man looked at the friend, then looked at the nail, and knowing that anyone who had tire problems right there in front of his shop would stop in and give him business, threw it out the window into the road. So by the end of our trip back home, the day full of adventure and laughs was coming to a close, but not without our constantly breaking cab driver having us all queasy and desperate for air. We pulled up in Gangseo, piled out of the car, and went our separate ways. And such was the end of my one day off.

Copyright 2005 Olivia R. Reed

Strangers at the door, USArmy in the north, and a bad knee!

If you’ve ever been to Sam’s Wholesale Club, you know how they have little samples of all kinds of different foods they want you to buy. Great promotional idea that some other grocery stores have picked up. Well, the Carrefour right next to my house has them as well. (They give away free things all the time. I got a Rubbermaid sandwich container with my cereal. I got a free Spam giftset with my cellphone, for that matter. Talk about cross-marketing!!) I sampled several of the things and last time I went in, the woman said, “One plus one” meaning if I bought one, I got the second free of the product she was advertising. So I figured what the hey. I bought it, took it home and cooked it, and had it with my dinner. When I say “it” though, I don’t know what I’m talking about. Because, truth-be-known, I have no idea what I was eating, buying, and cooking. It was sorta like a veggie burger, but in chicken nugget size. The woman said it was chicken, but there were vegetables in there as well. What vegetables, I don’t know that, either. But when I consider what I could’ve indulged in and still have half of in my freezer, I can pronounce what’s in the package, but I just can’t translate what the heck it is.

My second strange knock on the door came at 11:30p this past Sunday night. It was the Census people. The first knock was one morning the week prior. I have a camera and a speaker at my front door, so I can talk to and look at whoever makes the alarm sing “Fer Elise,” but that poses a problem when our languages don’t coincide. I opened the door and the first woman came in and sprayed some white stuff in my shower and under my sink, made me sign, and then left. I have no idea what this was about. When I opened the door for the Census lady, she gave me a surprised, “Oh!” Then said, “Englishee” and gave me a version of her questionnaire that I could answer. You know, simple stuff like how many bathrooms do you have, etc. But 11:30pm? Geez people! I’ve really gotta learn not to answer the door for strangers.

Common in a big city, but not in a small town like the one where I am from, is not seeing stars at night. There are a few areas of town where you can see the sky, peppered with stars. Unfortunately for me, where I live is not one of them. It’s not something I ever realized I’d miss or appreciate, but every night, I lay in bed and try to spot at least one before I fall asleep. What I’ve found is that if I wake up in the middle of the night (I drink so much water while I teach that a mid-sleep bathroom run has become more common for me) I can see three from my window. I actually get excited! I have to make sure that my “stars” aren’t coming in for a landing, though, because I am just a few kilometers away from the airport.

Americans use the signs of the zodiac, Chinese use animals, Koreans use blood type. Type A blood has a similar connotation as a Type A personality. Mr Lee was telling me that O blood type is more of a humane, laid back, giving person. We didn’t really go through AB, B, RH and all the others. He thinks I’m type A though, because I keep a planner and a “to do” list, and I have A type blood. Just an interesting take on things. It’s one of those things that you can’t help, but to them, it says a lot about you.

The weather here is getting cooler. Not freezing or miserable, but sweater weather. (We were actually supposed to have our first freeze this week. It was close, but not quite there.) Sometimes I just wear long sleeves and that’s okay. It’s nice, but Debbie tells me to wear a jacket. I thought I was a wuss when it came to cold weather, but I’ve heard Koreans are even worse. Regardless, I don’t like the bulkiness of winter. A big, heavy coat, lots of layers of clothes, insulated and massive shoes... I just feel like you oughta put me in a mattress and cut out a hole for my eyes and it’s the same thing.

Looks like there’s another LSU guy in Korea! I got an email from a fellow marketing major who graduated in December '04. He's in Tongduchon, which is up along the border with the North. Here’s an excerpt from his first email:

Where we go to on the DMZ is not very touristy. They should just call it the MZ
because there are soldiers, artillery cannons, tanks and razor wire everywhere.
It is kinda neat, they also have these big concrete structures with explosives
over the roads, so when the north attacks, they will blow them up so the north
can’t use the roads. It really hits home the fact that we could be at war any
moment. But there is a big observatory up there where you can look into N.
Korea. It is called Odusan Unification Observatory. Google it, I am sure there
are tours. It is kinda funny, after the South built the big observatory; the
North built a fake village across from it. Now they force people to live in it
and act like they are farming and doing well.

And another:

...no, we will not go to war anytime soon, but when you come up here in what we
call "Area 1" you really realize the potential, however unlikely it may be.
Also, I kinda exaggerated the showers and heaters. We stay out for a week or so
and come in for one night to shower and clean up. The rest of the time we keep
clean with baby wipes, and a lot of the time we are in our tanks, which are
heated.

Reminders like this one about not only how much hell our military goes through, but how easily things change and we could be at war are a little bit of a wake-up call. I’ve been noticing more anti-American articles from news sources all over and it’s disheartening. The US seems to have the worst reputation with the rest of the world now than we ever have before. I don’t think ole GW has the right equipment upstairs or desires to straighten this out before it gets worse in his remaining 3 years. (If you read about him campaigning for the governor’s election in Virginia, it said that the Democrats encouraged this because they thought it would help them out. Sure enough, the Democrat won the race!) I don’t expect it to affect me while I’m here, but I’d be some kind of livid if it did!


I’m going on a trip this weekend that I found out about through my Canadian friends who live around the corner. I’m pretty excited! It’s $10 for breakfast, lunch, dinner, the bus ride, admission and cable car, and of course a day full of hiking. I asked if there was a troop for loser hikers, but no such luck. My patella femoral syndrome (that’s for you, Ward) might act up, causing me to lag. All I have is New Balance tennis shoes and no hiking boots—I hope that’s not a bad idea! Mt. Daedunsan and Mt. Munsusan, where we are going, are on the mid-West side of the country in Chungchung-do province. I’m looking forward to checking out another part of the country!

Copyright 2005 Olivia R. Reed

Changing of the Leaves and Measurement

This past weekend Amy and I had our usual rendezvous. (Remember, this is New York Amy, not the one I work with, who, by the way, randomly hugged me in the teacher's lounge the other day. It's so bizarre, I'm becoming a total homophobe). I met Sally, from my Korean class, on my way to Amy’s subway stop and the three of us went to check out the foliage of the Northeastern part of the city. We hiked up a mountain—Sally having a bit of a harder time because she chose to have a cigarette shortly before our departure. It was just beautiful! I explained to my two Yankee friends that we don’t have this where I’m from. It’s not cold enough in Louisiana, or whatever causes the trees to change color, and by the time it is, the leaves all fall off. The weather here is mid 60s during the day and mid 40s at night. It’s pleasant though. I don’t have to wear a jacket and I can still wear flip flops, but recently I’ve taken to protecting myself a bit better because I don’t want to have to teach sick—that would be complete misery. Anyway, I took several pictures there and on my walk to school the following few days because I just love it! I always thought people who liked to look at leaves were gay. I guess I’ve become one of them though, because I could tolerate a life in a place that has an annual change like this one. (I emailed the pictures already. If you didn’t get them and are interested, just let me know).

Amy had an envie for some Indian food, so we headed toward Itaewon after our exploration of leaves and trees. We wound up at a Pakistani/Indian restaurant. I have had friends from the Middle East/Lebanon/Bangladesh/etc. whose mothers have cooked for those of us not accustomed to eating their normal dishes, and have loved them. But I didn’t know what the heck they were, and if I did at the time, I didn’t know when I had to order on Sunday. And so I wound up with mutton flavored with almond, and an order of roti. So amazingly good! I didn’t feel like Ben Stiller in Along Came Polly, either.

Time has changed and you guys are actually in Daylight Savings, something 70 countries participate in, Korea not being one of them. So that makes me now 15 hours ahead of my home time zone and 14 hours ahead of my Eastern pals. If you received the Excel sheet, please adjust accordingly ;o)

I have read SIX books since I’ve been here. This is double my post-LSU average, which is already infinitely higher than my during-LSU average. Anyway, I had lots of time to read on the train on my way to Korean class and now I use that time in the mornings to do housekeeping (literally and figuratively) and then I read at night. (The books I’ve finished? Black Like Me, Mountains Beyond Mountains –which I highly recommend), Kiss My Tiara: How to Rule the World As A Smart Mouthed Goddess, Culture Shock! Korea, A Confederacy of Dunces, The Tipping Point... and now I’m reading Blink).

Well some things in this country are measured differently than they are at home. One example is shoe size. I wear a 250 here. It’s done in millimeters—now that’s specific! (speaking of shoes—I tried to buy some the other day and I have a very, very narrow foot. The man insisted that the pair of shoes he put on me fit. I told him they were too wide. He was hollering at me, insisting this was correct. I just looked at him and shrugged. I might be American and use a different size, but I know when shoes fit and when they don’t, pal!) Another thing is temperature—my apartment stays about 24°Celsius. Another thing is weight. I weigh about 55 kilograms here (2.2kg/lb). And when you think about it, that doesn’t sound like very much. So it makes me wonder why the United States, land of obesity, doesn’t use this same standard for measurement. I mean, if you are a big person, wouldn’t you prefer to say that you way about half of what you really do? The disadvantage of this is for weightlifters. If you want to be the biggest, baddest guy in the gym, you sound like a total wuss when you can “only” lift 98kg.

Copyright 2005 Olivia R. Reed

Drugs, Conferences, Turkeys and Top 10s

I think Korean kids are, for the most part, pretty smart. People here are known for their work ethic, and some of my students are true testaments to this. (Some people just stay at work for long hours, but it doesn’t mean they’re slaving away.) The middle-level class I teach has some of my brightest, hardest-working students. There are at least three prodigies in this one section, and they are always on top of everything, from homework to current events. But I’m reminded of their youth and greenness once in a while, based on, amongst other things, questions they ask. The last book we read was Elian Gonzalez: Caught Between Two Countries. Toward the end, we were talking about demonstrations in the US and Cuba after the INS made the decision to send the boy back to Cuba to be with his father. Some people were arrested. Well, one of the examples in the workbook to explain the word “arrest” said,

“The man was ___________ when customs officers found drugs in his bag.”

Two of my smartest kids asked, “Teacher, what is ‘drugs’?” Wow. I was taken aback at the naiveté. (One of the same two children asked me in the following class, “Teacher, what is Big Bang?” I looked at my book trying to find the sentence to which she was referring and having no luck, I said, “Where is that?” and she said, “No, I just want to know.”) This is a different society indeed! How do you explain what drugs are to eleven year olds? Opportunity! If their definition of drugs describes how undesirable they are, I could plant a seed in their little brains in case their futures ever include them encountering such. My impromptu lesson was, “Drugs that you take for a headache are okay. When your doctor gives you medicine because you are sick, he is giving you drugs. They change your body and make you better. But some drugs are a really bad thing for your body. Some people take them, and they are a little bit crazy. You can smoke them, put them in your blood or in your nose, and some people swallow them. They change your body and make you worse. They hurt your heart and your brain. So when people get caught with drugs, because those drugs are so bad, those people are arrested and brought to jail.” I think they got the idea, but the topic has low importance here because the few drugs that do exist are hard to find and not really an issue.

My school divides terms into 13 weeks per course. Now that 9 weeks of this term are completed, there will be level-up tests the second half of this week to see if students are able to move to the next level. The tests are about 150 questions and they have 90 minutes total to complete a reading and a listening section. This shouldn't be an exceptional amount of concern for me as far as my regular class preparation duties go. Additionally, we have to write a report both to each student and about each student, which is also not a problem, just a little time consuming considering I have 51 underlings. However, we have to meet with each of their parents, as well. Of course, there will be an interpreter in the room. I can be pretty tactful when I want or need to be, and because I have to write the report before I meet with their parents, I will have everything diplomatically worded so that “Your kid is a slacker” doesn’t come out. My concern is the parents of three students in particular. Their averages are between C and F. They often make zeros on their memorization work, which is a direct result of the homework they didn’t do. Parents call already and say, “Oh, teacher doesn’t motivate my kid/give them more homework/I don’t like the way she writes her checkmarks” or whatever. (Andy has some especially ridiculous parents who have come up with some pretty exciting accusations which have made us all glad that there is a Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) in each classroom). I have 48 students whose parents I’m not really concerned about more than I should be. But still, my three students who make Fs and will go several weeks at a time without doing an ounce of homework and who would sit in class for an entire 3 hours and not lift a pencil if I allowed it… I just dread meeting with their folks. How do I say, “Your kid is lazy” in a nice way? No one wants to hear that. My grandparents in their 70s still don’t think my mom is ever at fault for anything, but an elementary student? Ahh geez!

My Korean class ended on Monday. I am officially a beginner! I feel like I learned a lot of words, but not necessarily how to correctly put them together. Well, I will have to train this month to teach a higher-level English course at my institute, which would require me to miss 3-5 days of Korean class. This past Saturday though, I received a late birthday present from my thoughtful cousin, Kerrie. Learn Korean on CD! 10 CDs full of I don't even know how many 30 minute lessons. Since I can already read and write Hangul, if I can understand what means what, I should be good to go. Or as good as I need to be for my stint here.

I got an email from a friend of mine who just recently moved from San Francisco, CA to Melbourne, Australia. He has a friend from college stationed in Seoul and is contemplating making a visit for Thanksgiving. Woohoo! The prospect of having someone even remotely familiar visit, especially for a cool holiday, is quite exciting. I don’t foresee my school giving any time off for the holiday, since Korea’s Thanksgiving was in September, but even if I only see him for a little while, it’ll still be pretty cool to have a somewhat recognizable face around!

I’m compiling several top 10 lists. Of course, there’s the list of the Top 10 things I miss. I also have Top 10 “Engrish” moments, Koreans I love/hate, Cultural Shocks, etc. Please send your suggestions and I plan to keep this list going for my stay here and disclose it upon my departure.

Copyright 2005 Olivia R. Reed