So as always, I've been meaning to write for a while not but haven't gotten all of my thoughts in one place yet. So I will break it down.
My students
They make my classes. They are so intelligent, so funny and creative and they all work too damn hard! Most of them are always tired and go straight from school to hagwon to hagwon (hagwon is a private academy that they go to to learn anything from cooking, tae kwon doe, english, science, piano, etc.). Some of the sixth graders I teach here blow the sixth graders back at Sprague out of the water. Their comprehension and understanding of the English language is simply amazing. I remember teaching the sixth grade class in Lamont about impromptu speeches and most of the boys especially couldn't come up with something that didn't include saying 'fart' a bunch of times.
First off is Konglish
Konglish is Korean and English spliced together (think Spanglish but for Korea). And in Korea they do not ever end words in soft sounds.
-So the favorite place to shop here: Home Plus, becomes the four syllable "Home-ah Plush-ah"
And if a student wants to tell me they want to go outside: "Teacher-ah. I want-ah –to go-ah out-side-ah."
At which to I respond. "Oh'ah Yeah'ah?! You-ah Do-ah?" Then they all giggle and the student must repeat is one more time with proper pronunciation.
I have this one student named Hong which speaks his own crazy version of English, Korean and Honglish, so now there is a new rule; No Konglish and No Honglish.
Another interesting quirk of Korean culture is writing names in red on the board. Apparently when you write someones name on the board it means that they died. Well as part of my lesson last week I started to show the 4th graders how to write in cursive and I was writing my name and they all screamed at once "TEACHER, NO!!!"
The weather...
It is a little too hot for my taste, and much more humid that the Pacific Northwest. The school has good AC as does my apartment, which I usually leave running throughout the night. So the humidity usually keeps me indoors during most daylight hours. And now monsoon season is upon us. Lots of rain, thunder and lightning.
After Class gets out at 10 PM my fellow workers and I usually go to eat at a restaurant by our school or to a local pizza place. The pizza place is fun because the guy knows us (although he does not speak any English) and we never seem to get what we order (we just look at the pictures on a takeout menu and then hold up how many pizzas we want on our fingers then "Pojang" means "to go" if we are going to take it back to John and Anne's to Play Wii or watch a movie on their 42 inch plasma.
Buying a bike and tv. Haggling
So here haggling is an art form. As for me, who can only order 3 different things off of the menu, the art of negotiation is lost. The other teachers at my school, 2 of which are Korean-American who speak Korean very well, and another two who are restaurant Koreans who can order food and haggle a bit say "oh yeah, just go to this place and tell them blah blah blah." To which i respond with a dumbfounded look...... "that's OK, i will just wait until a Korean takes me." The next few purchases I want to make are
1.) A Nice big flatscreen TV (at least as big as John's, I mean, honestly).
2.) A Bike
3.) a guitar
There are of course the usual places with which you cannot haggle. Like the aforementioned Home-Plus. Think of it as a Wal-Mart of Korea, but without the stigma. I pack of Ramen will still cost 1,900 Won no matter how much you try to say otherwise. But, i am ok with this fact. it is still dirt cheap. however as i go to check out the teller asks me a question, to which i have only a hope that she asks "do you want a plastic bag?"
I have become Pavlovianly trained that if I nod my head I will get the plastic bag and she will continue to ring the rest of my food up.
As for travel to Seoul.I have been a couple times but its kind of a pain in the heat and humidity especially if it rains to get around. I went on a River Cruise in Seoul for the Fourth of July which was really fun. It was nice to be able to eavesdrop on a conversation and understand what they were saying! It was about 200 Americans and Canadians on a barge boat for 4 hours drinking beer and listening to America themed cover songs. That night we went out to a casino. Funny thing about the casinos here. Only foreigners are allowed to gamble. It is kind of weird you either have to be white or if you look Asian you have to show them your foreigner Visa or Alien Registration Card. Someone asked me why and i told them i thought it was because that gambling can be a bit of a generative addiction, and then i asked them when the last time they saw a native american in a casino?
Lack of ranch dressing and dill pickles.
Well, most of you who read my blog know my few true food passions. And they are that anything can be saved with the right amount of Ranch dressing (a lot) and that dill pickles count as enough food groups to serve as a full meal. Unfortunately, Koreans think that sweet pickles (the arch-nemisis of Dill) serve as topping for everything from burgers to pizza (yes, with every pizza you order you get a side of sweet pickles). I miss dill pickles and ranch.
Last weekend I did go with a group of white people (plus Hlee our Asian teacher from North Carolina (it's funny because all the Koreans look to her when we want to order food thinking she might be able to speak Korean)), we went to Ansan Station. two metro stops away from where we live (but the taxi was quicker) to get some good foreign food. I was also able to see a Korean food here known as dog. yep. Lassie. (Picture on the picasa site)
Ansan station is known for is foreign population from all over Asia as well as a considerable Turkish population. We went to a Kebab shop where the worker spoke no Korean and a very limited amount of English. It was nice to speak to someone who was just as lost as I am in this country.
Anyway, I don't want to jinx it but I have been getting some pretty good compliments from my boss lately. He tells me the kids say they really enjoy me and they call me a "kind teacher". I enjoy teaching a lot and I cannot say enough good things about the kids here. I still am enjoying Korea very much and have very very little bad things to say about it. And the bad things i have to say about it are the same type of bad things I would say about working at a job in America.
