Seoul Global Gathering

How many kids can fit on one bus?

October 7th- 9th



Last week all of the foreign teachers were called into a meeting by our very somber looking director. When she began talking about their poor financial situation and how so many schools are going bankrupt, our first thought was that our school was going to be closed down and turned into a chicken restaurant- something that had happened to another foreign teacher we knew. Luckily the situation at our school is not quite that serious yet, but they are hurting for money. Because of this they were getting rid of one of the afternoon teachers and dispersing all of her students into the other classes, so my class sizes doubled and even tripled in some cases. Sounds very similar to the situation teachers are dealing with in the U.S. Also, since it is a private school and there are many competing ones in the area Kids Club has to fight for every child that is enrolled. This means that every child that goes home at the end of the day and tells their parents they do not enjoy school could potentially mean a loss of business if they decide to move them to another one. It is a fine line to walk between actually educating these children and keeping the work easy and fun enough that none of them feel "overly challenged". This meeting seemed to be sort of suggesting to us to lean even more towards the latter. It is a frustrating situation to deal with but I guess I need to just let go a little bit and realize that this a just a job and it is not up to me to be concerned about whether or not we are truly doing the children a bit of an injustice. Another piece of this is the cultural aspect that male children are not ever really disciplined. I have heard that there are many Korean orphanages full of all male children due to the fact that many mothers find it very difficult to raise them without being able to properly discipline them. This adds some insight to why many of my male students have zero respect for me and often yell, tip desks, and even hit me with their papers during class... but even these lovely students must be treated well enough that at the end of the day they go home with only good things to say about our school. If the students, especially the males, decide they no longer want to attend, the mothers will usually allow them to either drop out of the after school club or switch Kindergarten schools. 

'Coincidentally' after this meeting we suddenly had a lot less educational things and more socially driven events on our calendar; starting with a picnic at a park in Okpo on Friday. Fine by me! We got to spend the day playing at a park (actually less playing, more posing for pictures pretending to play- their website is a very important marketing aspect of the company for them and its focal point is us foreign teachers) followed by a huge feast of everything the children's parents had packed us for lunch. They pack extra for all of the teachers, plus we are given whatever leftovers the students dont finish, so the result was a blanket covered in fruit and Kimbop. Kimbop is the closest thing they have to sushi here, it is rice and seaweed but the filling is always a piece of crab, ham, a couple pickled things, and some veggies. It's not bad and they make a tuna version that I eat a lot.

the spread

After school Friday I took the bus to Jinju, and then headed very early in the morning to Seoul with Morgan to meet up with Shireen and her friend Tom to attend the Global Gathering music festival. This is basically a huge techno concert, one of the biggest in the world along with the Global Gathering festival in the UK. I was not previously a huge techno fan, but it ended up being a great show with many different acts on different stages around the venue, and a huge crowd of people from all over the world. It is always nice to be around some more English speaking people even if just temporarily.

The amount of money I quickly dropped in the less than 24 hours I was there, along with the 2 hour subway ride it took to go about 15 minutes across town (it turns out Morgan has about the same sense of direction I do.. or should I say lack of... and this coupled with the signs almost entirely being written in Korean created quite the challenge when trying to transfer from station to station) made me very happy that I have been placed in a smaller town in the Southern region of South Korea. Places like Seoul are a lot of fun to visit, but I just don't think I am cut out for living in that sort of atmosphere- or constant smog- permanently.

Not sure who they are but they looked
kinda famous?





Lantern Festival/ Oktoberfest



Digging for Dinosaurs

Wishing Tree

 September 30th- October 2nd

Hanboks (I think?)

My School had a field trip Friday morning with our kindergarteners, which was great becuase it meant we did not have to teach! We boarded three tiny van/busses with kids sitting on Korean teacher's laps and on the floor and anywhere else they would fit, and headed to Okpo to visit the "Geoje Museum". This turned out to be a rather small building, pretty much a two story room, filled with old relics from around the island. I can't tell you what exactly since the entire tour was given in Korean, but following my class around listening to incomprehensible speach is still better than doing math. Every once in a while a Korean teacher would feel bad for us and let us in on some snippet of the conversation, or I would have my kids translate if something looked sort of interesting, but pretty much what I know now is that they tied pieces of paper to rocks and trees for wishes, and something about a boat. Oh and there must have been dinosaur bones here, becuase my kids spent awhile digging in a sandbox for plastic dinosaurs, and I'm guessing that's what that was all about.

During the daytime

Fire Breathing Dragon

At night

Tunnel of Lanterns

 Saturday morning I traveled to Jinju for something called the Lantern Festival. It seems Korea has many festivals taking place all over throughout the year, which is perfect for someone like me trying to absorb as much as possible in 12 short months (the longer I'm here the faster the time seems to go!) The festival is basically made up of a giant floating bridge that you pay a dollar or two to cross through a sea full of blown up floating animals and other characters. The bridge was sort of one long traffic jam but the rest of the festival was pretty cool, especially when it got dark and everything lit up! There was a dragon that spit actual fire, a glowing peacock with flapping wings, and best of all (besides the waffle stands of course) long tunnels full of thousands of hanging lanterns.

I think this picture says it all.. I was struggling

 We had heard from some other foreigners of an Oktoberfest Festival starting the next day in somwhere called Namhae so we decided to check it out. Namhae is a German village about an hour bus ride and half hour taxi ride away from Jinju. It is a small town created by Korean's who had gone to Germany to work, married, and then decided to return to their homeland with their spouses. This is the second year they have had an Oktoberfest and it was a lot of fun. Our taxi ride took us on a windy road that went so far away from what looked like civilization that we started to get worried that the driver had not understood us. But then suddenly we came over a hill and saw both sides of the road lined with parked cars. The taxi dropped us off at the bottom of a mile long steeply inclined hill that we then had to hike up. Once we finally got to the top though it was worth it. There were booths of food, free samples, and of course beer. Morgan and I participated on stage in a beer chugging contest with two other foreigners and a Korean. We thought what a great opportunity for a free beer! But it was not worth it. I truly must have graduated college becuase I only got through about half before the Korean in our round was already done! After that we met up with some other foreigners who were sitting near the stage and throughout the night watched magic shows, kareokee contests, and other performances. It was a lot of fun but we soon had to leave to race back to a taxi in order to make it to the bus station before the last bus left for the evening.

Not sure what this guy was about

Magic Show

 The long weekend was definitely a success but concluded with a bit of a fiasco... On the way home from Jinju Sunday I fell asleep on the bus to be awoken by the bus driver ushering all of the passengers off. We then were quickly boarded onto another waiting bus of people which sped off. I still am not sure WHY we were made to switch busses but about ten minutes into the second bus ride i suddenly realized I had left my backpack with all my belongings underneath the first bus in the storage compartment! I got off the bus at the next stop and began trying to mime what had happened to any bus station worker who would listen. Luckily a very nice Korean guy who spoke English overheard me. The Koreans as a whole are usually very helpful to foreigners, and this was a great example of that: this guy spent the next two hours of his day acting as interpreter for me as the bus holding my backpack traveled all the way back to Jinju and back again. I have never felt more relieved then I was when I finally had it back in my possession and was able to board a bus HOME!