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!

Exploring Geoje

Jin, Morgan and I

 The more I see of Geoje Island the luckier I feel to have been randomly placed in such a beautiful spot. Summer is ending soon, so to enjoy some of the last nice weather Injun, a Korean teacher I work with, brought Morgan and I to a local beach last weekend. For 1,500 won (about a buck fifty) we took an hour long bus ride that dropped us off a short distance from a beach in an area of Geoje called Okpo. Okpo is host to Daewoo Shipyards, which is even larger than the Samsung one in Gohyeon (the area of Geoje I live in).

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It was a beautiful day and while the water was a little too cold to swim, it still felt so nice to be on a white sandy beach and get some sun! I am glad I found these beaches now so next year when it gets unbearably hot again I will know where to go.

Afterwards we decided to explore the town a little. Okpo has over 50 "westerner only" bars as well as a lot of western themed restaurants. We thought the "only foreigners" signs seemed just a tad racist but soon learned they were really more of a warning-  most of the bars labeled as such usually contained more Vietnamese hookers than drinks. Luckily someone let us in on this little fact before we decided to check one out!

Samsung

Elisti and I overlooking Samsung Shipyards

 The next weekend Elisti and I decided to conquer a hike we had been hearing about a lot. It started basically right out the back door of our apartment building and went straight up the mountain side- and I mean literally straight up. Apparently Korean's aren't too into the whole switch-back idea. The two hour hike alternated between a vertical climb and long flat stretches. The best part was a viewpoint towards the beginning where you could overlook almost the entire Samsung Shipyard. It is insane how large it really is in relation to everything else on the island!

A temple in the town where the hike ended

Randomly along the hike we would come across these little 'outdoor gym' areas where excersize equipment had was being used by Korean hikers. During the two hours we were on the mountain we stumbled upon at least three of these clearings. What a great way to workout- outdoors mid-hike! The walk ended after basically sliding down another vertical path into a small town a few minutes walk down the highway from Gohyeon.

Outdoor excersize area

Hiking seems to be a pretty popular thing to do, at least on Geoje. I am constantly seeing locals covered head to toe (literally- they wear gloves, arm guards, and facemasks no matter how warm the weather) in sun protective hiking gear carrying walking sticks headed up the mountain. There are many more trails all over the Island that I want to check out as the year goes on.

Happy Chuseok!

Elisti and Sophia

Chuseok is a harvest festival very simliar to America's Thanksgiving. It usually lasts about three days and the focus of it is to honor elders and perform different rituals and customs. Typically a family will visit both sides of the family during the holiday, so the Chuseok weekend is rather long in order to have time to do so; we had from Friday until Thursday the next week off.
School on Friday was focused around teaching the children different customs that they may expect to see during the holiday. Every child wore their Hambok to school; the traditional dress of Koreans. The children looked adorable dressed up in every color of the rainbow! Us foreign teachers were given Hamboks to wear as well. They are very beautiful but definitely not the most comfortable or flattering outfit I've ever put on.

My Kindergarten Class

First my kindergarteners were taught the right way to bow, and the correct manners for drinking tea. Then they all made their own traditional rice cake dessert and finally they were taken to the gym where they played some traditional Chuseok games. These included throwing a stick into a bucket, kicking some sort of bouncy ball suspended on a string, and my personal favorite- running at a row of lit candles with a towel attempting to blow out all the flames with it at the end.

Learning the correct way to bow

Learning the proper way to drink tea

After a busy day at school I quickly packed up my things and basically ran to the bus station (of course when I actually need a cab there are none to be found). I BARELY missed my bus- i literally was standing at the crosswalk as it drove by, so ended up on the last bus of the night an hour later. I got to Jinju around 10:30 and spent the night there with Morgan, woke up early the next morning and headed to Daegu where we were meeting Shireen and a few of her friends. Shireen is a friend from home who is stationed in Uljin. She went through a program called EPIK, which places teachers in public schools, and had met some people through her training camp which they are all given when they arrive in Korea. 

Out in Daegu

Mo and I trying to find Shireen at the bus stop
(turns out we were at two completely different
ones on opposite sides of town)

We spent the long weekend walking around exploring the town and putting the subway system to use. Daegu has a lot of great shopping. You can find some amazing deals, and also some very expensive stores. We made the  mistake of trying to order food at a Japanese restaurant in the middle of an ally full of upper end shops. Fifteen dollars a person later we had consumed about two thin slices of raw salmon each and a few chunks of tuna so frozen it had steam coming off of it (we thought we were ordering sushi). There are roads in Daegu where all of the shops on it are geared towards the same thing, such as "cell phone ally" where one can choose among many competing cell phone stores. The strangest one was puppy ally. There were hundreds of dogs lining the streets in little glass windows. They all looked impossibly small and like they must have been taken away from their mothers immediately after birth. The best part of the trip was definitely a short hike we took up a mountain/hill that was dead center of Daegu city. The view from the top was amazing and it was very nice to have this beautiful park located right in the heart of the city.

Hiking

The view from the top of our hike
in the middle of Daegu

Monday night we attempted to celebrate the Korean holiday authentically and cooked a big feast. The entire meal was pretty much all thanks to Shireen who did an amazing job at transforming all of the random and strange items we picked up at the market into a slightly less strange and very delicious meal! All in all it was a great trip and wonderful to finally meet up with Shireen! Many thanks to her very nice friends who slept on a hard wooden floor for three nights in order to let us girls have a comfortable bed!

Dicipline techniques

September 6th, 2011
Every day that I spend here I think I enjoy it a little bit more. There are definitely periods where it can be a little lonely, but I am loving my new apartment as well as living so much closer to some of the other teachers. They have been a great help getting settled in and have given me many helpful hints for getting around/surviving this place. Elisti even told me about a running trail that is only a short jog or walk from our apartment. It is very nice to find a great path where I do not look so out of place jogging down the street. Many of the people running or walking this path may be wearing face masks (still haven't figured out exactly what that is about), but still! And this morning I joined the gym that is right by my apartment that Elisti and Sophia go to. The island itself is very beautiful. It is a great mix of city life as well as beautiful surroundings. There are even supposed to be great hikes right out the door of my apartment that hopefully I will get to go on soon.

Teaching has been going much better as well. I have found that the trick is over-preparing extensive lesson plans for all my classes, at least for now until I get in the swing of things. When I can come up with the next task quickly I think the children are kept slightly more focused and it is a little easier. This is not to say that I have gained even close to complete control of ANY of my classes. The Kindergarteners jump all over me and I think often feel that my blabbing is getting in the way of their socializing time.The older kids typically listen a little bit better, but are much farther behind in the language learning process. I even got a class of "babies" yesterday where five or so did not have English names yet. I was given the task of selecting a list of names for those students to choose from. Regretably, no one went for any of the Kardashians; none of the girls seemed to like Kourtney, Kloe, Kim, Kylie, Kendall, or Kris. The boys did not even consider Bruce, Scott, Lamar, or Mason! However, they jumped all over the cast of the Jersey Shore and my class now contains a Deena and a Jenny, who I'm hoping won't notice if I slowly start calling J-Wow.

During the last period of the day I had an extremely unruly child, Henry. He had given me problems last class, but the hand raising technique had proven ineffective as he just waved his arms around making strange noises and becoming even more of a distraction. Today he refused to answer any question I asked him or participate at all (I'm not sure if he does not understand me or was trying to be spiteful) and then began banging his desk and chair. When ignoring him, and then pleading with him to quiet so the other children could hear did not work, I did as I had been told previously to do and stepped outside to grab a Korean teacher. My director was nearby and when I told her what was going on she said no problem and ducked into a side room to grab what I thought was a more forceful or intimidating teacher. However, when she entered the room she had a ruler in her hand and began talking extremely fast and sternly to Henry, who quickly sat on his hands to hide them... I guess this was the hand striking I had heard about from teachers at other schools. I felt a little sorry for Henry, but he was not hit and promised to quiet down. My sympathy ended quickly when the teacher had to be called in a SECOND time as he yet again would not shut up. This time he was pulled out of my classroom and did not come back until a while later, now with a much better attitude. Whether it was the ruler that did the talking or some other sort of persuasion I am still not sure.