July thus far...

for all the pictures of July look at my Picasa site. 


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. 

Updates

Ok gang, done a bit of revamping. Pictures can be located under the photo tab. It's a link to the Google Web albums I started back in Europe.

I also have the ability to add people to an e-mail list, it will send an e-mail everytime I post a new blog. If you want to be on this list to avoid checking back often and wondering if I have posted something new just let me know. Send me an e-mail at jeff@eagles.ewu.edu

I got a new phone yesterday and my bank account is all set up. So now I can call and text people here in Korea and meet up with them easier. Last night John, Anne, Lee and I went out to eat at a restaurant. We took a cab to get to the part of town that we wanted saying "Junang -bowling alley?" Since that is where we wanted to go after food. After sitting down I asked for a "menu" while opening my hands and pretending to read them as to pantomime what I wanted. They gave me a small sheet all in Korean of what they served and the prices. I used my phone to call one of the Korean-Americans we work with "Hey Ethan. I got a favor to ask. The four of us are really hungry and we don't really care what we get we just want a lot of it." He laughed and said that I need to carry around flash cards with pictures of a pig or cow on them to better navigate the restaurants. I told him this would probably be a good thing. He talked directly to the waiter and they started bringing us plate after plate of salads, kimchi, peppers, and meat which is cooked on coals in a pot that sits directly in the center of the table with a large ventilation hood that comes down. We ate until we were stuffed and then took off to go bowling.

Anyway, Its almost 6 and I have class at from 7-10 tonight, which is sad because Korea is playing their second game in the World Cup tonight at 8:30. Hopefully I will be able to catch the last few minutes.

Seoul, FIFA, Noribong, Costco and More.

So week two of teaching is down. I feel extremelly good about it. So let's break down what has happened.
I moved from the previous apartment I posted about due to the comically small loft area.
I now am a short three minute walk from the school in a place that has a bigger liveable loft. I helped out one of the teachers I am replacing and got a ton of stuff from her including a couch, stereo, food, towels, blankets, books etc., so big score there. That and the teacher whose apt i moved into had a couple of other things like internet already setup with a wifi router, and a queen size bed and office setup.

So, now on to the classes. I teach 24 hours a week MWF from 4-10 PM and Tues/Thur 7-10 PM (classes are 3 hour blocks with 5 minute breaks every hour). Let me break down even more what happens here. These kids study way way way more than American kids. After they get out of school at around 3 they go to academies like the one I teach at. These academies are called Hagwons. They can go to English Hagwon, Tae Kwon Doe hagwons, cooking hagwon, etc. You want to learn it, you can do it. It costs around 300 american dollars a month to send their kids to school at our hagwon. Now, you may say 24 hours a week ain't nothin. But keep in mind that is not including the hours i take to prep. I usually get to school at about noon - 2 to start prepping for the day but as I get more in the rhythm that time should be decreased dramatically.

So now the kids. The kids I teach are awesome. The classes range from 4-9th grade and vary depending on english level. Some of them I have to speak much slower and definitely watch my vocab. But the highest level I teach understand me very well, although I have to get them definitions for words a lot more often, but it is all really good and fun. I will speak more of the kids later once I can get some pictures or some videos of them.


Service
So they have this thing here in Korea called service. No I'm not just being funny. When you order food or drinks they come and will every so often bring a plate of snacks. Last week we went out and they first brought a plate of hotwings. Then later a plate of watermelon and bananas covered in syrup, followed by more wings. Every time they say 'service' or 'free'. Their way of trying to get you to come back for more. Really good stuff.

So what next? Well let me tell you about last weekend. I went out to the local foreigner bar The Manhattan. from there i met some awesome girls from Indiana who took me out with some local Koreans to enjoy some Noribong. Noribong is karaoke but with a bit of a twist. they building consists only of private rooms where you sing with just you and your friends. There were about 8 of us there Friday night.

So now Saturday rolls around and John, Anne, Hlee and I (the four new teachers that went through training together) all decide to make a trip into Seoul. We took the subway which was took about an hour and made our way through the rain trying to find another friend of ours that went through training with us. I learned an amazing thing. Not have a cell phone is like being blind when trying to find a friend in the 21st century. We did actually run into him on the street about an hour after we were supposed to have met him and had some good Vietnamese food. From there we made our way to a large bookstore after stopping several times for directions and stopping to admire how wet we were all getting. After looking around Kyobo Books for about an hour we got some hot coffee in us and decided to call it a day, that is right after we went to Costco for a quick grocery run. We asked one of the people at a concierge desk if he knew where Costco was. We did this by looking very wet and holding up my Costco card with a confused look on our faces. He printed out a Metro map (with all the stops in Korean) and circled the one where we needed to go. Well after a week of taking the subway during training and the fact i had a seoul subway map in english on my ipod we felt fairly confident in getting there ourselves. We stopped by the Apple store to pick up a new set up earphones for me and then we were off. We arrived at the station and were approached by a guide who offered to help, we asked which exit costco was. He told us Exit 7 and then take bus 4422......

So now we are outside looking this proverbial needle of a bus and sorry for John and Anne (Lee left us after coffee) I inherited one of my father's quirks involving hunger and temper. we ended up just taking a cab the rest of the way to costco and braved the sea of people that shop there at 5 PM on a saturday. Which seems to be the majority of Seoul. Costco was a trip unto itself, it was the closest to home that I have seen since i was here. So many brand names and just everything that was the EXACT same exept everyone was Asian.

So after John and Anne loaded up (i didnt want to carry anything back as we had no idea how we were to get home, and it was still raining A LOT) we made our way back home and very very wearily we started walking through Ansan back to our apartments. Then the entire city erupted in cheering. I cannot stress to you enough the amount the ANSAN WAS CHEERING! The FIFA world cup had started and Korea scored the first goal right off the bat. We all immediately looked at each and found our second wind. We all went home and changed into dry clothes and met up and went out looking for a good place to watch.

We found on open table on the city street in front of a restaurant with a bigscreen tv wheeled out. immediately the Koreans started talking to us in their broken English and we were bonded as friends straight away. They kept on bringing us food (see the pictures of Chicken's feet and Pig's Blood sausage) and asking us questions about where we were from and how old we were. They also brought this Korean rum, a white coconut-milk looking substance that i think was called Mokolee? Anyway, we stayed and finished out the game with our new friends having an absolute blast.

Well its 2 AM here which means i need to watch some more tv and then turn in. I got my Alien Registration Card which means I can now open up a bank account which in turn allows me to buy a cell phone! Go me! Tomorrow one of the teachers who speaks Korean is going to take the newbies out and help get us started. I hope you enjoyed the blog and I apologize for the delay!