the journey to the west

Depart: Incheon Int'l Airport 2:30PM Nov 28
Arrive: Tokyo Narita Airport 4:45 Nov 28
Mileage: 759
Travel Time: 2:15

Depart: Tokyo Narita Airport 7:05PM Nov 28
Arrive: Chicago O'Hare Int'l Airport 3:35PM Nov 28
Mileage: 6299
Travel Time: 11:25

Depart: Chicago O'Hare Int'l Airport 6:05PM Nov 28
Arrive: Philadelphia Int'l Airport 9:10PM Nov 28
Mileage: 665
Travel Time: 2:05

Total Mileage: 7723
Total Travel Time: 15:45

the end

It'd be nice if I could put together an essay of some sort about my experience in Korea, seeing as how it's now over. It could detail all the things I've learned, how it's changed my perspective, altered my expectations...you know, that kind of shit. But the fact is, I don't know yet what those changes and alterations are, or even if they will occur. I'm willing to bet, however, that I figure them out within a week of being home.

On another note...

Saying goodbye to my students was pretty rough. I teared up a couple of times, once when saying goodbye to my youngest students, and again when saying goodbye to my favorite student. What amazed me was that when the little kids noticed the tears in my eyes they didn't deride me for it. Rather, they seemed affected by it, realizing that they'd never see me again, and understanding that that fact upset me.

I got about 40 notes from kids of all ages, saying goodbye and wishing me luck, written in the kind of broken English I've grown accustomed to. I put them in a shoe-box along with every other gift a student has given me this year. So that's nice.

I also took a decent amount of pictures, but I can't post them right now. Maybe I'll put them on flickr when I get back to the States. Or you could just ask me to show them to you the next time you see me.

Well, that's about it. Thanks for reading.

beginning of the end

I'm about to go into work and teach my Monday Wednesday Friday classes. This will be the last time I do this, as I have off Friday. So, I'm saying a lot of goodbyes today. I'm gonna have to try real hard to not cry like a baby.

Some of my older students have known for a couple weeks that I'm leaving, and they're okay with it. But I only just told my younger kids on Monday that Wednesday is my last day. They didn't like that idea.

I've seen the same little faces smiling widely at the sight of me for a year now. I've had the same 6 year olds holding my hands as we walk to class. I'm going to miss them terribly.

The guy who is replacing me is actually a friend of mine I've met since I've been here. He's been here for 4 months, but his school is closing. It was good timing though, as he can just start at my school and not have to go home. He's a good guy, so I know my students are in good hands.

My camera's battery is fully charged. It's time to say goodbye.

bittersweet

This is the last week of my contract. My last week of teaching. I've got mixed feelings about it all, but I suppose that it's time to go home for a while.

It's a bittersweet feeling. I'll miss Korea, and the friends I've made. I think that anybody who does this sort of thing has a character trait or worldview that is similar to others who do it. So in coming here I've met some like-minded people who are genuine friends, and not just people to pass the time with. I realized when I got here that the people I meet and friendships I make are merely rentals; I'll have them for a year but then never see them again. So it stings now to see it coming to an end, and I try to convince myself that if/when I come back, it'll all still be the same.

But I look forward to being home, even though it is, much like me, indelibly changed from when I left.

bad chicken! mess you up!

I missed work today due to illness for the second time this year. I got food poisoning, and spent the better part of the hours between 5 and 10am vomiting and...you know...uncontrollably. My Korean boss took me to a doctor around 11 or so, who put a couple needles in my arse and gave me a few days worth of pills. The culprit, he said, was most likely the chicken I made for dinner last night.

This was the third time I've been to a doctor in Korea, not including the mandatory check up I had shortly after arriving. All in all, I think I've had 8 needles in my body this year. That seems, to me, to be a lot more than usual.

So, the doctor gave me the shots, gave me the pills, told me to eat some rice porridge and drink hot water. I don't know if hot water is some sort of Eastern medicine panacea, but every time I've been sick here someone has told me to drink it.

It appears that I'm on the road to recovery. I haven't felt the need to vomit in about 12 hours, and I've gotten a bit of an appetite back. I certainly hope it's over; my time with my students is rapidly running out, and it upsets me to have a day with them stolen from me.

sporadicity

You may have noticed the frequency of my posts has kind of tapered off over the past few months. There's several possibilities as to why: I've exhausted all possible topics to write about, I've spent too many nights out with friends, laziness, and all of the above.

I've tried to write some things. When the Phillies lost the World Series, I wrote a post about a student of mine who I've converted into a Phillies fan over the past 9 months, and how we bonded over them and so on and so forth. However, after re-reading it I realized it sounded like Rick Reilly or Bill Plaschke had written it-- in other words, it sucked. The high standards we (the royal we, the editorial we) have here at The Journey to the East prevented me from posting it.

Regardless, I'm in my final month now, only a couple of weeks before this experience ends and a new one begins. What's the new experience, you ask? Well, it's most likely half-heartily and unsuccessfully searching for a job in America, and then returning to Korea for another go round. You're welcome to join me.

full circle

It's November. It's the start of my 12th month in Korea.

I've enjoyed my time here, so I haven't ever been counting down the days until I was done. However, I'll admit that every now and again I'd flip through the calendar on my desk and gauge time; how long I'd been here, how much longer I'd be here. November always seemed a long way off, like it'd never actually arrive.

But, here I am, in the same month of 2009 that I left in 2008.

I've always enjoyed how each season has it's own trademarks- it's own sights and smells, just a certain ambiance which accompanies it. Well, now that it's the same time of year as it was when I first got here, I'm experiencing the Korean autumn's sights and sounds for a second time.

Along with those sights and sounds, as if piggybacking on them, come the thoughts and feelings I had when I first got here. So, walking down the street I'm reminded of the apprehension and doubt I once felt. I'm bombarded by the ghosts of these feelings I'd long defeated or learned to ignore, but rather than being haunted by these things, I simply give them a wink and a nod.

26

Today is my birthday. I'm now 26 years old, and thereby, as my father would no doubt remind me, beginning my 27th trip around the sun.

I had a pretty wild 26th year. I spent the bulk of it on a completely different side of the Earth, and one of the two people directly responsible for my life passed away. Busy busy busy.

I'd imagine that when I'm older I'll think back to that 26th trip around the sun and see it as particularly important; for better or worse I don't know yet.

so it goes

The weather has been getting chillier here in Daejeon, South Korea. I reckon there won't be too many more nice Sundays, when one can wander about town and end up on the side of a mountain.

Luckily for me, today was a nice Sunday, and since I didn't drink last night I had the day to do with what I please, and not just lay on my couch nursing a hangover and watching any number of awful American movies that the Korean movie channels insist on playing.

Sometimes you hear people talk about "clearing their head" or something like that, and I'm not entirely sure what that means or if it's an appropriate summation of what I was hoping to accomplish. I'll just say that I haven't been thinking very well lately, and it'd been a while since I spent a day alone doing nothing and something at the same time.

So I put Slaughterhouse-5 in my back pocket and stepped outside. I was surprised to find that, just outside my door, one of my fellow tenants in the building was using my table to dry some red peppers.



I headed north toward the closest of the mountains that surround Daejeon. I wasn't sure of exactly where to go, but after 15 minutes or so I found myself out of the city and into nature.

I saw a chicken.



I kept walking.

A few minutes later I found a little creek at the base of a mountain, and a spot where sunlight was scattered through some leaves, and I sat down.



I took out Slaughterhouse-5 and read for a little bit. However, I was in a mildly trafficked area, and the curious looks I was getting from Koreans caused me to continue along the side of the mountain.

Around now my path became more vertical. I soon found another spot, this one in the shade, and picked up where I'd left of in Slaughterhouse-5. The Tralfamadorians were explaining to Billy Pilgrim about their concept of time, so that gave me something to think about. Tralfamadorians, Vonnegut tells us, see all of time at once- past, present, and future. This can best be expressed in a Tralfamadorian's reaction to seeing a dead person, which is that the dead person is in a bad condition right now, however there are plenty of other moments in which the same person is doing just fine. I tried to decide if that was a comforting thought, but concluded that since I don't see time in 4 dimensions, it didn't do me too much good.

My thoughts were interrupted by a couple of bees that were fighting. I watched the battle for a while and then kept walking. I was getting pretty cold, anyway, sitting in the shade.

I found another nice spot, this one in the sun, with a nice view and overlooking a path below.



I sat here for a good long while, took out a good chunk of Slaughterhouse-5, and decided that when I got home I should write something on my blog about what I was doing. I tried to think of what exactly I would write about, but nothing really came to mind. When my legs started to go numb I stood up and kept walking.

The next spot I came to was my favorite yet; large rocks covered in sunshine, with no one near me.



I stayed here for a while more and finished Slaughterhouse-5. This is some of what I read:

Later on in life, the Tralfamadorians would advise Billy to concentrate on the happy moments of his life, and to ignore the unhappy ones-to stare only at pretty things as eternity failed to go by.

I tried to do the same, focus on the good things, but in time I figured that this was a mighty stupid way to go through life. After all, "Your eyes gotta do some raining if you're ever gonna grow." If all you do is think about happy times, you're better of just getting a good heroin addiction or something. I bet it sucks to be a Tralfamadorian.

I climbed higher up the rocks and was rewarded with a nice view of Daejeon, my home away from home.





I puttered around for a little while longer, but I was getting hungry so I decided to call it a day. Given that I had no idea at this point how I had gotten to where I was, I had no idea how to get back to where I'd been. I found a path and started walking, eventually making it to a road. I walked the road for a while until I found myself in familiar surroundings. I went to a little restaurant and ate some kimchi stew.

I got home to find the peppers gone.



I went inside and wrote this post.

coordination

Let's play a game!

Let's assume that you asked me this question: What are the three things that you will most remember Korean children by?

Well, I'm glad you asked, because that's the exact topic that I was going to write this post about.

1) No matter how many times you tell them to stop speaking Korean in the classroom, they will carry on speaking Korean.

2) They are very generous. If a kid has some candy or any kind of food, they will freely share it with their classmates and teachers.

3) They have the absolute worst hand-eye coordination of any living thing on the face of the Earth.

#3 is the truest of the statements I just made. In several of my classes, particularly with the younger ones, they like to play a game in which they steal several of my teaching materials...i.e. my markers, pens, or board erasers. Inevitably they return my belongings, but they like to do so in the manner of throwing them at me as hard as they can. Now, given that they are children, their arm-strength is pretty low, so I can catch anything the throw at me with relative ease. However, regardless of how easily I can catch a given object, they are quite amazed at my ability to do so.

Contrast to this, are the times when I toss something for them to catch. Without fail, they tighten up, and either flail their arms in a pathetic attempt to grasp the object, or quickly slam their arms together in a futile attempt to trap the object thrown at them. It's a paltry thing to witness.

Now, I've already stated their lack of coordination and their willingness to give pieces of candy to their teacher, and there's a middle ground to be found which directly relates to this post of mine.

When I really want to blow their minds, I'll accept a piece of candy from one of them, and, in full view of the class, I'll toss it in the air and catch it in my mouth. This, to them, is the greatest achievement in the history of mankind. When successfully done, the classroom erupts with emphatic "Ooooohs," and, "Aaaahs," followed by a polite round of applause. It gives me an empowering feeling, a feeling that vanishes at the end of the class, when I scour the room picking up the pieces of candy left behind after their failed attempts at emulating my accomplishment.

I can't think of a witty way to end this post, so instead I'll simply write this sentence.

chuseok

I have a 4 day weekend right now, due to the Korean Thanksgiving Day, called Chuseok. I think it's pretty much the biggest holiday in Korea. Most businesses are closed, including restaraunts, for a couple of days. I didn't realize that people get that serious about it, and I'm ill prepared to deal with it. What I'm trying to say is that I don't have any food.

That's not entirely true. On Wednesday, my last day of work before the holiday, all the teachers at my school were given a gift. On my desk was a decorated box inside a little carrying case, the contents of which I had no idea. If I were to have guessed what was inside, I'd have probably said some soaps or candles or something, since the packaging led itself to that kind of aesthetic theme. I'd have been way off.

I popped it out of its carrying case and opened the box to find: 3 cans of spam, 6 cans of tuna, 2 bottles of canola oil.

Happy Chuseok!

aggression

I'm the member of a gym. I work out there. Yes, I, the scrawniest guy you know, have begun lifting weights and doing various other muscle building activities. You want to know why? Well, I weighed myself not long ago and found that I was slightly over 55kg. 55kg is 120 pounds. I'm a fully grown 25 year old male. This cannot stand.

As a part of my exercise routine, I play squash. Squash is basically racketball, but with a less-bouncy ball. It's fun.

My gym is on the 5th floor of a building nearby. On the 3rd floor is a bar. Almost every time that I get on the elevator to go up to my gym, a few drunken men get on with me. Sometimes they talk to me, as they did the other night.

"Where are you from?" one of them said to me in barely discernible English.
"USA," I replied, after which followed a moment of awkward silence. "Mi-guk-saram," I said, saying the Korean word for 'American.'

At this, the question asker flipped the hell out, and began yelling at me. I believe the gist of what he said pertained to a foreigner attempting to speak in his native tongue, rather than relying on his knowledge of what 'USA' means. His friends quickly apologized, and we went on our separate ways; them to get more drunk, me to play squash.

A few days later I was at my local watering hole. After a few hours of drinking awful Korean beer, we were ready to call it a night, when a couple of Koreans the next table over struck up a drunken conversation with us. They proceeded to buy us many, many more beers, as we tried to get past the language barrier between us. One of the Koreans in particular was especially drunk, and often referred to us as "ssibal-may-ya," which can most literally be translated as saying, "hey you, motherfucker." We knew this fact, and every time he said it to us we responded with a puzzled expression, while saying the Korean word for "why?" He never explained himself, and went on for the next hour or so calling us motherfuckers.

So, if you ever come to Korea and encounter a drunken Korean man (odds are you will, since most of them are), try to get on their good side.

two things

First, Koreans are insane. I walked into school today and what did I see? My school has installed dispensers of hand sanitizer in the main area. This is to protect the students from the teacher who recently visited America, and now most certainly has swine flu. To be honest, I don't know for sure if I'm the reason why they did this, but the timing is certainly curious.

Second, many months ago I published here a paragraph written by a student. It was about machines and how this student didn't trust them because, if I remember correctly, they have knives and are reproachful. Well, I haven't taught this student in about six months, but this week I got him back in one of my classes. I was curious to see if he'd lost his magic tough of writing awesomely bizarre paragraphs. This is what he handed in today:

I believe in alien, because many people saw UFO in the world. I will go to space. I want to see aliens. In comic books, they look like octopus. Sometimes, strange people say "I speak to alien." I think it is lies, because aliens are very smart than people. Aliens are very interesting.

The kid's still got it!

The best part is that I'm not assigning these topics, which means this is just shit that he thinks about. It's a rare chance to get a glimpse at his peculiar mind, because he's the kind of kid who doesn't say a word, and probably wouldn't even if I offered him a dollar for every syllable.

first day back

I went back to work today. It was nice to have something to do.

I was welcomed back cordially, from both my fellow teachers, who had to pick up the slack left by my absence, and the students.

To give you a good look at what South Koreans think of America and Americans, about 60% of my students think I now have swine flu. "Teacher, you were in America?" they ask, "you have swine flu," they diagnose. I may even have to go to a hospital to get checked out, just to appease the parents. No lie.

I didn't tell any students that I was leaving, but the secret as to why I did leave seems to have found its way out during my absence. I had a few say something along the lines of, "Teacher, your dad is died?" I'd correct their grammar if I wasn't using every fiber of my being to not punch them in the face. They're just kids though, too innocent and oblivious to hold their insensitivity against. Besides, to them I only exist inside a classroom; they probably have a hard time believing I know anyone else other than them. Maybe if they remember me when they are older they'll empathize and identify with me.

worst case scenario

I'm a private person. I typically keep my own affairs to myself. For the past few days I've debated whether or not to write about this.

That being said, this is a blog about my time in Korea; something to document the best and worst times of it.

As it turns out, I'm presently going through the worst time of it.

My Dad's in the hospital, he has pneumonia. Give me pneumonia, I'll fight it off. Give a 58 year old man who's wheelchair bound because of 30+ years of living with MS pneumonia, and it's a bit dicier.

This was my biggest fear before coming here, my worst case scenario. The one thing that could have possibly kept me home.

Not knowing what's going on is excruciating, sending fragmented emails full of questions to Mom, getting bible verses as replies. Hearing "the best thing you can do for him is pray." Things like "slow progress," "long recovery," "we'll let you know if anything changes" tighten my chest and make my hands shake.

I've tried to put it out of my mind when I'm at work, but I find myself staring into nothing trying to organize my thoughts. When distraction does alleviate the feeling, it's ephemeral, serves only to slam it back down on me again after a few moments.

I want to go home.

what i did

It's funny how we can gauge time. A couple weeks ago I got my fourth haircut since I've been in Korea. Afterward I remember thinking that it must be a while since I've been here, if I've had four haircuts. It's not as precise a way to measure time as, say, minutes or days. However, it works for approximations; a way to classify time as "a while," or "not long".

Another way that I can determine that I've been here a while is that now both of my week-long vacations are over. I have only the occasional 3-day vacation to look forward to from here on out. The vacation was good and I got to spend a lot of time on the beach and in the sun, enough that today some students told me I looked like I was black.

Here's where I went, and how I got there:

Train to Daecheon beach
Ferry to Iwindo island
Train back to Daejeon
Train to Mokpo
Ferry to Jeju
Ferry to Mokpo
Train back to Daejeon

With a few dozen taxi or bus rides in between.

Daecheon beach was nice, not too many people (no other foreigners other than my friend Adam and me), and great weather. We spent all day on the beach or in the warm Yellow Sea, and caught a nice sunset.



After a day there, we went to Iwindo, which is an island a two hour ferry ride away. Birds chased our ferry the entire time, catching snacks that Koreans through to them.



There was not much on the island, so we went exploring for a few hours, climbing the rocks along the coast.



We saw a big jellyfish which chased us out of the water.



After exploring for a few hours we were about to head back when a group of Koreans spotted us. They yelled "hello!" to us and waved us over to them. It was a group of six middle-aged Koreans sitting on the rocks next to the water, eating a freshly caught fish and drinking soju. They could speak very little English, while we could speak very little Korean, but we managed to communicate okay. They poured us a lot of soju, and the man sitting next to me pleaded that I eat some of the fish, because the fish, as he put it, "make penis stamina strong!" So that was strange.

After sitting on the beach for a while they invited us back to their house, to eat and drink some more, which we did. Back at the house we met one of the couple's children, who could speak English surprisingly well and served as effective translators. They invited us back to their house the next morning, where they served us breakfast: rice porridge with abalone. The food was great, surpassed only by their seemingly boundless generosity.

At 9am we caught our ferry back to the mainland, and from there headed back to Daejeon. We met up with Jose and Justin, and caught the train to Mokpo, where our ferry ride to Jeju departed from the next morning. The ferry was huge and luxurious, and we passed the time drinking soju on the deck.

Upon arrival in Jeju, we immediately headed to the nearest beach and spent a few hours in the Pacific. At night we drank some more, and then spent the night, as we would the next two as well, in a jimjabang. Jimjabangs are all over the place in Korea. Essentially it's a big spa house where you can sleep in a big room on the floor with about 50 or so other people. There's no privacy (in the spa area you even have to walk around naked), it's not terribly comfortable (a blanket and a slab of wood for a pillow), but for 7 bucks a night it serves its purpose.

We spent the next day on the beach again, and the day after that we saw some sights that Jeju island has to offer. They were things I saw back in December as well, but this view just doesn't get old:



The second night we were there, we came across a sight that nearly brought a tear to my eye: a Mexican food restaurant. When people back home ask me what I miss about the States, one thing I tell them is Mexican food. It's not that I ate it all the time back home, but you go 8 months without a burrito and tell me if you notice it. Eating one for dinner on back to back nights might be enough to hold me over until I get back.



All in all it was a great week, and went by too quickly, as vacations tend to do. Check flickr for more pictures.

plans

I spent the past two days with a friend of mine at Daecheon beach, and an island off the coast of Daecheon beach. I can testify to the tourist information from my last post; not only is the beach fluent and the bottom of the sea regular, but the water temperature is also appropriate.

There's more to write about regarding this trip, but it will have to wait. In a few hours some friends and I will be catching a train to Mokpo, which is due south. From there we have a ferry to catch which will take us to Jeju. You may remember I went to Jeju in December as well, so I'll be retreading the same ground. However, Jeju in summer is much different from Jeju in winter.

The plan is to be in Jeju until Saturday. I'll write more then.

vacation

I'm an idiot, if you really want to know.

Technically, my vacation started an hour and 16 minutes ago. I have all next week off, so this weekend, plus this week, plus next weekend = 9 days. I've known about it for months. I haven't got a damn thing planned.

I had plans, at one point in time. At first I was going to to the the Philipines, but that fell through because of outrageous flight costs. Then I was going to go to Cambodia, but that fell through for the same reason. Now my best option seems to be to just wander around Korean beaches for a few days or more. I may even have to do this alone, but I'm not certain of that yet.

One place I'm looking into is Daecheon beach. It's close to Daejeon, and seems pretty nice. I mean, just look at what the tourism website has to say about it:

Youthfulness, romance, comfort and natural beauty are harmonized in Daecheon Beach. Daecheon beach has all sorts of conditions, as the place to make the memory for the young people who love each other, as the resting place for the family and as the mecca for the marine sports.

Because of those reasons, the outsiders more than ten million a year never stop visiting Daecheon beach, and it is also occupy a position as the international tourism attraction as well as the best resting place in west coast.

First of all, the white sand is 3.5 km long and 100m wide as the big beach. The fantastic rocks and stones are well developed in the south of the white sands, and you can enjoy the congenial sea bathing because the water temperature is also appropriate.
The sands in Daecheon beach is made of shell powder that is unique in the East as the shell had been broken to pieces for long years and transformed into the sands.

Not to mention:

Like this, Daecheon beach is fluent and the bottom of the sea is regular, and the white sands boast the clarity that does not have foreign substances.

Daecheon beach is obviously the place to have the heaven's blessing for the sea bathing with family from a child to elder people because the wave is not so rough with the shallow depth of water.

Have another:

Daecheon beach overcomes its limitation as the seasonal place where the people visit only during summer. Daecheon beach holds various winter events with the romance of winter sea so that visitors during winter increase more and more and we can say the number of visitors during winter is not less than that during summer.

Except those things, for the convenience and the safety of the visitors, the summer city hall and the summer police station are managed and each related organization deploys service activities.

If incoherence in tourist information translates to a great travel destination, I think I'm in for a good time.

cuisine

Last week I went out to dinner with a few coworkers. My boss was craving some samgytang, which is a chicken and ginseng soup. We went to a little restaurant nearby that none of us had been to before, and took our seats on the floor at a table.

An old lady, in time, came to our table to take our orders. My boss said, "Nega samgytang chuseyo," which means please give us four samgytangs, to which the lady replied, "Ne, nega boshintang," okay, four boshintangs. Pretty certain that she hadn't gotten our order right, we soon clarified that we didn't want boshintang, but samgytang. "Ah, nega samgytang," said the old lady, and soon we were eating our chicken and ginseng soups.

A little curious about what we nearly had ordered, what boshintang is, my boss sent a text message to a friend asking just that. The reply he got was simple- dog.

The impression I've gotten regarding Koreans and eating dog is that most find it to be very antiquated and barbaric. However, there is still a portion of Koreans, most of them older, who still do it.

Some fellow foreigners that I talk to over here say that they wouldn't mind trying dog. When asked why they respond alone the lines of, "Well, when will I ever get the chance again?" I don't quite follow this logic, and view eating dog as something I could never do, especially because of how the dogs are killed. It's believed that the meat tastes better if the dogs experience a rush of adrenaline shortly before death. To achieve this the dog will be placed into a burlap sack and beaten to death with a baseball bat.

I'll stick with the samgytang.

eclipse

I've found a temporary but unreliable solution to my no internet problem: I'm using my laptop's wireless capability to steal it off some random, unsuspecting, nearby Korean.

There was a solar eclipse today, visible to those of us in Asia. When I woke up this morning it was in full swing, however there were cloudy skies and I couldn't see it right away. In time, the cloud cover gave way enough to produce the optimal conditions to view a solar eclipse: the bright disk in the sky was powerful enough to poke through the clouds, but not powerful enough to blind somebody who happened to be staring directly at it.



Apparently it was the longest solar eclipse that the 21st century will see, not to be surpassed until 2132. I was glad I got to see it; viewing it made me feel a connection with ancient man, who perhaps saw a similar sight thousands of years ago and then sacrificed a yak or something because of it. I wasn't compelled to do the same, but I did go back inside afterward and Raid the hell out of some ants that have been terrorizing my kitchen. So you tell me: how much progress has mankind really made?

advertising

So, my internet doesn't work. Hasn't worked for about a week now. This explains my lack of posts. Sorry.

July is a month of transition for me. A lot of my friends who I've met over here have either already left, are leaving right now, or will leave at some point during the next 2 weeks. It's sad.

On another note: there's going to be a lot of things that I've gotten accustomed to over here that will be noticeably absent when I go home. One of these things, I think, will be the way that Koreans advertise. Often times, an electronics store or something will hire a woman or two, clad in tank tops and short skirts, to dance outside their storefront while music blares from a set of speakers. It's always grim to see this sight, the girls are 100% dead behind the eyes, emotionlessly flailing around, slaves to rote memorization.

Other places, like a cell phone store or Dunkin Donuts, will have a similarly dressed young woman also outside their store, but in leiu of dancing she just stands there yelling into a microphone, presumably about how great the cell phones or doughnuts are.

Finally, there's an amalgam of these two strategies, mixed with an extra element of absurdity. Occasionally, a particularly ambitious store, will have a couple girls dancing to music while another one yells into a microphone, all while on the back of a small flatbed truck as it drives around the area. It's an extraordinary thing to behold.

So yeah, it'll be weird to go home and just see billboards.

interactions

Being a foreigner, I tend to stick out a bit. I see it sometimes in the faces of the people on the street when they look at me. They aren't startled or taken aback at the sight of me, as say one would be at seeing an amputee or something; it's more subtle than that, like seeing a black hockey player.

Some of the people I interact with have a cursory knowledge of English and want to practice it. These conversations usually extend no further than, "Why are you in Korea?" or, "Where are you from?" (I respond to the latter question with simply "USA" and if they ask what city, I tell them Philadelphia, since it's close to home and maybe somewhere that they've heard of before. The one's who have heard of it almost always respond, "Ah, Rocky, yes?")

The most common interactions with random Koreans on the street are with kids. Typically there's a group of them hanging around somewhere, and take note of me when they see me. As I pass I am greeted with a barrage of sardonic hellos and how-are-yous. It's a common joke among fellow teachers that any kid who is able to say "hello" and "how are you" has just proved that they've been in a hagwon for at least 2 years, and just used the entirety of the English that they know.

It's an interesting thing, being on the other side of the looking glass.

flickr

I recently added a link, to the right left, to my flickr account. Rather than uploading pictures to this blog, which is a tedious and time consuming task, I'll instead just put pictures up there. I mention this because right now I'm in the process of doing just that. So, if you'd like to see a few pictures of the past 7 months, and a few recent one's of a fellow teacher's going away party, as well as of my new apartment, they're there for you to see.

In the department of funny sentences that my student's wrote me for homework, here's something 8-year-old Lucy put together using the vocabulary word "boring":

My homework is boring (but not your homework Sim).

It seems I have managed to instill the fear to criticize.

i am

drunk.

(in)conspicuous

The other day I walked into school and found a parcel on my desk. I opened it to find a forged Pat Burrell autograph, and a postcard with explicit images and words which made me thankful that it came in an inconspicuous envelope. I want to now thank everyone who wrote something or had anything to do with getting it from the States to Korea. It was an unexpected surprise and put me in a good mood for the rest of the day.

There's no smooth segue to be found from this topic into my next one, so, instead of trying to conjure one up, I'll instead compose a run-on sentence of embarrassing proportions and thereby create the very segue that I was bemoaning not having when I started such an abortion of a sentence.

Often times while walking around town I'll see Koreans in shirts with English words or phrases. I don't mean just the name of a brand or anything; I'm talking about shirts who's sole purpose is to convey a thought in huge lettered English. Examples that I can think of off the top of my head include, "WALK DON'T DRIVE," or, "EAT AND DRINK."

They're phrases that don't necessarily mean anything, but are just written in English; sort of the equivalent of an American getting a tattoo of the Chinese character for "strength," or something, in the sense that it's owner probably doesn't fully comprehend the meaning of it. Well, the other day I saw an old man wearing a shirt that fully illustrated this point.

The shirt read, "WHEN IN DOUBT WHIP IT OUT."

moving

When I first got to Korea and was crammed into this tiny apartment, I was told it would be temporary. A month or two became three, three became six...but here I am, nearing the end of my seventh month still looking at the same walls. That will change soon though; I will finally be moving at the end of the week.

My new place is, honestly, about four times bigger than my current apartment. It also has air conditioning, and just in time- the past few weeks have really been hot. These facts are enough to alleviate any guilt that I feel by taking it. See, I'm taking the apartment of a teacher who is leaving, while the new teacher coming in is going to be taking my old haunt. I feel a little bad about that, but seniority has got to be worth something, and, amazingly, at the end of the week I'll be the most senior member of the foreign teaching staff at my school.

So I've got that going for me, which is nice.

self-destruction

Last month, a former South Korean president killed himself. When I say former, I don't mean he was president in the '70s or '80s; he was president as recently as 2007. It'd be like if early next year W killed himself. This isn't an anomaly, but rather part of a disturbing trend.

Seven months ago, South Korea's most famous actress killed herself. Eight months ago a Korean actor killed himself. Two years ago, in the span of two months, a Korean pop star/sex-symbol, and a young Korean actress killed themselves. Four years ago another young, famous Korean actress killed herself.

Korea has the highest suicide rate among first world countries. Suicide is the second highest cause of death among Korean teenagers.

Could you attribute this to Korea's materialism, over-emphasis on social status, unrealistic expectations, and a clearly defined -but largely unattainable- idea of "success"?

Yes, I believe you could.

discipline

When I was in elementary school, the biggest deterrent for bad behavior was missing 5 minutes of recess. Recess was, I believe, no more than 20 minutes, and missing out on the first 5 meant not being around when teams were picked, and therefore not getting into the game. Here, there's no recess, so the punishment I dish out is a little different.

My go-to punishment is "stand up, hands up." This is exactly what it sounds like: the student must stand up at his or her desk, and reach for the sky. This tactic is typically used in the case where a student hasn't done their homework. It's effective for two reasons: 1) arms tend to ache after they've been held up for a few minutes, and, 2) you look like a real piece of shit just standing there with your arms in the air.

If a student does something blatantly out of hand during class, like throwing something or fighting, it's "stand up, hands up," except out in the hall. This couples the two effects I've already mentioned with the added shame of not even being allowed in the same room as the rest of the children. It also means that if one of the Korean managers walks by and sees a student in such a dire state, they know the student has misbehaved and can proceed to lecture them.

Along with these tactics, there are two ways that I handle different kinds of classes. If a class has a bunch of kids who act out on a regular basis, I institute the "minus 10" method. This consists of writing names on the board underneath a header that reads "-10." If a student is disruptive or won't stop speaking Korean, they get their name on the board. If they accumulate a certain amount of -10s, I tell their Korean teacher to phone their parents. The threat of having a parent phoned because of misbehavior is extremely effective, but unfortunately it's because physical abuse is a common response from a Korean parent. I have yet to tell a Korean teacher to phone a parent because of misbehavior; I couldn't live with having any student, no matter how much they annoy me, show up the next day with a bruise. Still, the threat is there.

If a class has only two or three students who cause problems, I supplant the -10 technique with the 5-strike rule. When a student is being bad, I put a mark on the board. After five strikes, the entire class gets extra homework: five strikes means five sentences, six means six, and so on and so on. This works because it alienates the few troublemakers, who are shamed and embarrassed by their fellow students. This technique runs the risk of having the good students get angry with me, but I've found kids to be pretty fickle; it's easy to get back into their good graces.

I think that covers everything, other than just flat out giving up and getting a Korean teacher to come in a yell at everyone. I typically reserve that for the days when I'm hungover.

cogito ergo sum

You'll have to forgive me, as I'm typing right now with a belly full of soju. I have this terrible affliction in which a belly full of soju, or any alcohol really, causes me to seek out some form of dialogue with the outside world. So, rather than go talk the ear off of the Korean food vendor at the end of my street, I'll put a few paragraphs up here.

Besides, this being the first post of the month for me means that I'll get to see "June" listed in my archives. I always get excited when a new month shows up there.

Some months ago, shortly after arriving here and being overwhelmed with the prospect of living and teaching in a foreign land, I remember wistfully imagining, say, March. By the time March came around, I figured I'd have it figured. When March came around, I figured I'd have it figured by May. Now that it's June, I'm not sure what "figured" meant back in December and I don't really care. Figured or not, I can now refigure what figured meant in the first place. In that sense, I've got it figured.

Another thing: shortly after arriving here and being overwhelmed with the prospect of living and teaching in a foreign land, I remember wistfully imagining fast-forwarding the next six months and finding myself in a routine, in a place where my fears and worries were long forgotten or resolved. Now that I'm there, I wonder if that's not what has happened. Can I prove that the Almighty didn't grant my wish, and I woke up on Monday with all the memories of successes and failures over the past six months implanted in my head?

Can I prove that today wasn't the first day of my life? Can I prove that yesterday I wasn't someone completely different and in a completely different situation, and that tomorrow I'll be someone else? Maybe yesterday you were me, and we all just go round and round, trading and taking turns living a day in the life of whatever scenario happens to pop up. That's my definition of utopia.

Of course, this is all nonsense; the inane ramblings of a soju addled mind. But, on the off chance that I'm someone else tomorrow, I sure hope that that someone else knows about this song:

garbage

Trash disposal in Korea is a pain in the arse, and something I was never entirely schooled in.

For the entirety of my life, throwing something away has consisted of buying a few hefty bags at the store, piling all that I can into it, putting it into a bin and forgetting about it. Here, there are no such hefty bags. Here, your trash bags are the bags that you carry your groceries home in. So when I buy groceries, I get one small trash bag with them, a bag for which I pay 30 cents.

Now, when I'm in the checkout line, I have options. I can ask for a white bag, which I believe is reserved for recyclables, or a green bag, which is for all other trash. It seems to be a pretty sneaky way of forcing people to be environmentally friendly. But, I don't mind too much.

One thing I do mind is the way I have to get rid of food scraps. Food scraps cannot be put into either the white or the green bags. Food scraps have to be disposed of by walking them to the nearest food disposal bin, which are at the end of most streets. Now think about that: every time I, say, eat an apple, I don't have the freedom to just toss the core into a bag. No, I have to walk down the street and put it into the most foul smelling container you can imagine. Of course, I don't do this every time I eat an apple, rather I put it into a bag or bowl that I use to compile all of my food scraps- a bag or bowl that I don't empty nearly often enough and inevitably attracts a myriad of bugs which are a whole other nuisance.

So that's how it is for me. I suspect that if you just read this whole thing, you now have a nagging feeling that I just wasted a minute of your time. If that's the case, the title I have chosen has a double meaning.

1/2

I've been here six months.

I've been sitting here for ten minutes or so trying to think of something to say about it, but nothing has come to mind.

Rather than trying to produce a few contrived paragraphs, I think I'll just leave this here as a marker.

But, so as to not completely waste the time of anyone who reads this, here's a recent sentence spoken by a student, Steven, in a speech about the merits, or demerits, of television:

Television is a bad box that makes stupid humans.

hangukeo

Some months ago, when I told people I would soon be living and working in Korea for a year they often replied with something along the lines of, "A year! You'll be fluent in Korean by the end of it!" I'm here to tell you I don't believe this will be the case.

Here is a list of things I can say in Korean:

Hello
Goodbye
Yes
No
Fuck you (Not a literal translation of it, but the Korean equivalent of it. Basically just a highly offensive phrase.)
Here
Thank you
Excuse me
How much is it?
Shit
What?
Do you want to die?
Korea/Korean
America/American
Hey!
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7...
Really?
Please

I think that's about it, other than random food related vocabulary (beer, tuna, etc) and names of dishes. Also, I can read and write the Korean characters, so even though I don't know what it means, I can walk down the street and read the signs if I want to.

So, it's not quite fluency, but I manage alright.

cheese is not confined

The way my school is set up, each class has two teachers. One is a foreign teacher (like me), and the other is a Korean teacher. The Korean teachers generally focus on English grammar, while the foreigners cover a range of areas: reading, pronunciation, comprehension, etc.

Often, when one of the Korean teachers is struggling to understand something to do with English, they will ask me what is right. Usually I can give them the answer and explain why it is; sometimes though it's not so easy. I can quickly identify what the right answer is, but explaining it is a lot more difficult.

For example, today one of the Koreans was struggling with this: the book she is teaching with had the sentence, "He is making a cake." Her problem was that she was teaching that "cake" isn't something that you count, and so she wondered if the book was wrong and should instead read, "He is making cake." I thought about it for a moment and told her that, well, both sound just fine. Confused, she asked if one could also say, "He is making a cheese." I told her no, that's not right, "He is making cheese" is the way to say that.

I mulled it over for a while, breaking it down for simplicity's sake. He has cake. He has a cake. Both can be used. He has cheese. He has a cheese. No.

I tried to explain that you could say, "He has a piece of cheese," and that would be fine, or you could use cheese as an adjective such has "He has a cheese sandwich," but you can't just say he has an ambiguous amount of cheese. A cheese could mean any amount, cheese is not confined*, whereas when you're talking about cake, everyone has a set idea of what a cake is.

The discussion ended as all of my discussions with Koreans about tricky aspects of the English language end. With me saying, "English is stupid like that," while the Korean smiles and says, "Okay, thank you."

So: I still don't entirely understand the reason why one cannot say, "He has a cheese." Do you?

*Upon rereading this post before publishing, I realized this statement had to be my title, supplanting my original title,"cake and cheese."

housekeeping

It was a boring, rain-soaked weekend in Daejeon, so, as you can see, I spent part of it fiddling with blogger.com's layout and font options. I seem to have unconsciously (subconsciously?) duplicated friend Pete V's background color. Oh well, the black background and white lettering just got old; now my blog looks like the lobby of a fancy hotel in St. Lucia, or something.

The "warning" to the left is a quote from Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. It fits the mold of a blog named after another Hesse novel with a blog description from said novel. It also fits the way I feel about this blog, though could never express as eloquently: the things I write in here never seem very important after I read them again. Reading or writing about something can never betray what it's like to live it. It's strange, but verisimilitude seems easier to obtain through fiction, where the reader's interpretation and imagination play a more important role. Here, the words are just a bunch of shit that happened to some guy.

I'm going to make an effort to produce more posts. Whether or not I will, and what about, I'm not entirely sure, but- and this is not to discount my appreciation for anybody who reads this on a regular basis- I think I owe it to myself to document my thoughts and experiences here well. If for nothing else, so that I can look back on this when all's said and done and maybe pull some education or inspiration from it. So, that's what I'll aim for. After all, Bokonon tells us:

Tiger got to hunt,
Bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder, "Why, why, why?"
Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.

I can't believe it took me almost 6 months to quote Bokonon in here.

teacher's day

In the past two weeks here in Korea we've had Children's Day and Parent's Day. In keeping with the trend, yesterday was Teacher's Day. In my mind, a teacher's day would mean that I don't have to work. That's not the case; rather it just meant that some of my kids gave me gifts. Here's a sampling:The basket flower was from Polly, with a note which reads: Thank you for your teaching. The rose (for which I'm using a soju bottle as a makeshift vase), from my phonics student Jen. The Big Bang playing card came, curiously, from Billy.

I got some other stuff as well which I left at school, including a set of five porcelain soju drinking cups, and some handmade soaps. I think my favorite gift though was from a phonics student I named Leslie. She gave me a set of Disney magnets. Now, I will get zero use from the things; I have no practical uses for magnets, not even ones with Goofy or Minnie Mouse on them. However, I still like her gift best because it's something she clearly picked herself to give me. All of the presents are nice, but are just things that the student's mom gave them to give to me. Leslie's magnets are more sincere and thoughtful. And as always, it's the thought that counts.

monday wednesday friday

I took my camera into school again today. While there, I used it to take pictures. I will now reproduce those pictures here, via internet, for you to look at.

First off is the little monsters. I got to name most of these kids, so some of you will be looking at your namesakes.

This is Dylan. He looks harmless, but looks can be deceiving. Notice how he's not sitting down, that's because he never sits down.

From left to right: Randy, James, Rocky's head walking into the frame, and Liz.

Liz and Jenna.

Alright, that's enough of them. New class, and really there's only one picture worth showing here, because it's...

CHAD!
This is about par for the course for him.

I'll include another of Chad's class, because it's such a rare moment- nobody is crying.

New class, we are now venturing in the levels which can communicate and understand English moderately well.


4 of my favorite students: half of Alex, Tommy, Amy, and Jane.

Jerry. Jerry used to be Tom, but when he got moved to a new class which already had a Tom, he wanted to be called Jerry (get it?). After a few weeks of being Jerry, he petitioned to be called Hitler. He's still Jerry.

Moving on. Next class.


The two girls in the center here are the bane of my existence. Any amount of anger or frustration that I've written on this blog can probably be traced back to these two. They were not happy about me covertly snapping this picture.

Phillip and Sid. Their only stipulation for having their picture taking was that they be allowed to flick the bird. I gladly acquiesced.

I've got more pictures, but it's pretty much the same stuff with different faces.

For the grand finale, here's some video of the first class. Enjoy:

germs

The comments on my last post have inspired me to relay the following.

I remember when I worked at the gas station, Plizous and I used to talk about how our immune systems would, in time, be super-human because of the amount of germs we would come into contact from handling money all day. Had I gone on to any other job, I'm sure that my immune system would've thrived. As it turned out, I went on to probably the only job that produces more germs.

See, I've been sick pretty much since January. My level of illness waxes and wanes, but for 4 months now I've had a least a touch of something. It's not hard for me to understand why, especially when I'm standing in front of a class of 1st graders with dried snot caked onto their noses.

I wash my hands as much as possible, but avoiding germs here is a Sisyphean task, particularly because students are quite keen on giving me candy or food. Now, if they hand me an individually wrapped piece of candy, sure I've got no problems taking it. But all too often a kid will pull a bit of crumbling chocolate or something directly out of their pocket, and offer it to me in a pair of sweaty hands with the instructions, "Sim-Teacher, eat!" At times like these, I'll take the food, cause some sort of diversion, and discreetly toss it in the trash can.

Also, there are times when germs are just thrust at me. Today, for instance, I was making my usual homework checking rounds in a class when out of nowhere the kid sitting in front of me sneezed. He made no effort to hide his snot projecting prowess, and covered my left arm with God-knows-what.

If a case of swine flu pops up in Korea, I'll probably contract it within hours.

ah geez, here come the waterworks

This job can be heart wrenching at times; namely any time one of the little kids starts crying.

Today, toward the end of my first class I had to run to the teachers room to make copies because I didn't have enough homework sheets. Upon reentering the class one of the kids tells me that Ally is crying. I've had kids cry before; hell, it happens every week. Typically the crying student goes through three phases: 1.) Clearly upset about something, the student goes silent; 2.) The student apparently realizes that they are on the verge of crying, and briefly entertains thoughts of keeping composure, grinning and bearing it; and 3.) The collapse is complete, the student's instincts take over, they bury their head in their arms and sob.

Poor Ally didn't follow protocol. I head over toward her and find her cowering under her desk. I kneel down and try to get the scoop. She looks at me, and it is the most tragic look I've ever seen. Tears are streaming down her face, but she's completely silent and looks like her whole world just fell apart.

Comforting a child under these circumstances is never easy, even more so when they don't understand the language that you speak. So, what can I do? Well, I pat her back, and say her name as delicately as I can. Seeing that she is still in shambles, I figure it's time to get down to brass tacks and find out who the culprit is. I ask her several times, "Who?" in hopes of getting a name. But, she doesn't say a word-- I suspect there's been a class-wide stop-snitching campaign going on right under my nose.

In time, one of the Korean teachers takes over and is able to provide the reassuring words that a crying child needs.

After the next period ends (a class in which another young girl cried) I leave my classroom and see Ally, all smiles, bull rushing me with a big hug. I ask her if she's okay, she grins, says "yes," and all is right in the world.

Oh, and I eventually did find out who it was that made her cry. It was Randy. That kid has a shit-storm heading his way.

baseball

It was a nice spring day today, a perfect day to take in a baseball game. So that's what I did.

Teams here are sponsored by large companies, so the local team isn't called the Daejeon Eagles, they are the Hanwha Eagles. The opponent today was the Korean Baseball Organization powerhouse that is the SK Wyverns. Dictionary.com tells me that a wyvern is: a two-legged winged dragon having the hinder part of a serpent with a barbed tail. Aw, shit.

We got to the stadium about 30 minutes before the first pitch to make sure we could get a ticket. We got general admission tickets, which only cost 6,000 won. Upon entering the stadium (which holds about 10,000) we were treated to the pregame festivities, which consisted of a couple dozen kids doing a Tae Kwon Do routine.

After this we made our way to our seats. Having bought cheap general admission tickets I wasn't expecting much, but was pleasantly surprised to discover a 6 dollar ticket can get you a spot 8 rows back in left field.
The SK Wyverns jumped out early, and didn't look back. After a first inning double, single, a couple of walks and 3-run bomb that landed a few rows in front of me, SK had a 4-0 lead before Hanwha even saw a pitch. So it was pretty similar to every Phillies first inning so far this year.

After a couple of innings I was ready for some food. One thing I took note of that is a far cry from seeing an MLB game was the fact that people were allowed to bring their own food and beer into the game. Regretting not knowing this sooner, I was prepared to shell out a decent chunk of change for the standard accoutrements for a baseball game. Another pleasant surprise awaited me though; a hot dog, popcorn, and two beers cost me a grand total of 7 (!) bucks.

The atmosphere is also quite different from a game in the States. The fans are constantly cheering. They chant songs and clap those wondersticks or whatever the hell they are called that you'd normally see at a basketball game. At an MLB game the fans are more reactive, something good happens and then they cheer; here they are more active, they cheer wildly for something to happen, and when it does, even if it's just a simple basehit, they lose their shit. By the seventh inning SK had built an 8-0 lead while Hanwha had managed only 2 hits, yet a 1 out double with nobody on sent the crowd into hysterics. When a groundout a few batters later scored Hanwha's first (and only) run, the crowd once again went wild.

So for my first Hanwha Eagles game I was treated to a loss. We'll be back, though. Don't ever count out Hanwha.

food

I'm not a big fan of eating food. To me it's a tedious task that I have to do a couple times a day so that I don't die. But, even I have to admit Korea has some tasty ways for me to prevent starvation.

I've experienced a decent range of Korean foods, but for now I'll highlight my go-to dish. It's called dolsot bipbimbap.


It's a rice dish (if you can believe it), with egg and a bunch of vegetables like cucumbers, carrots, bean sprouts, lettuce, and dried seaweed. When you order it, as with any meal, you are brought a tray with a collection of side-dishes. One of the dishes, without fail, is kimchi. Kimchi is the food Korea is famous for; it's spicy cabbage which Koreans eat with every meal- morning, noon, and night. I've even heard that when the first Korean went to space they made sure he had some with him, and that when Koreans take photographs they say "kimchi!" like how English speakers say "cheese!" I didn't really like it at first, but now I find myself gobbling up all that is put in front of me.

Dolsot bipbimbap also comes with a seaweed soup which tastes like seawater would if you heated it up. I know that doesn't sound appetizing, but it actually is quite delicious.

So, that's dolsot bipbimbap and some side dishes that come with it. It only costs 4,000 won, so I find myself ordering it at least twice a week.

doogie

I teach a kid called Doogie. He just entered middle school. He's a funny kid.

He's in a writing class, wherein he learns how to write paragraphs and such. Today he handed in a paragraph about me. Here it is, in all its glory:


Introduction: Sim

Sim is my teacher. He is very kind. But very fierce. He is very small. He is 26(??) old years. He is very very very handsome. He is a good-looking man. He is great teacher. He is a popularity. Good-bye handsome teacher!


I want this on my tombstone.

kids

Today I did something I've been meaning to do for a while--I took my camera into work and snapped a few photos. My Tuesday/Thursday classes are all really great and pose me no problems; all the kids are really funny, sweet, and smart as hell. Couple this with the fact that I only have 3 classes on these days, and you can see how Tuesdays/Thursdays are a much needed respite from the long, draining Monday/Wednesday/Fridays.

This first class is fresh out of kindergarten. Their abilities to read, speak, and understand English are better than some of the teenagers I teach.


I don't know how the girl giving the peace sign (Cara) is doing that with her feet, but I swear I didn't break her ankles.

This next class is only three students, and a bit older, in the 9-10 range.

Look at all the fun we have.

The boy on the left, Antony (not Anthony, Antony), might be the smartest kid I teach, and he's a baseball fan, so bonus points for him.

One of these days I'll take my camera in on a MWF. I'll get pictures of some of the kids I named after my friends, as well as some shots of my nightmare classes so that you can put a face to the vitriol I spew on here.

yellow dust

So here's something. Every spring, Korean experiences a minor disturbance called yellow dust. Sand and dust from the Gobi desert gets swept up and makes a several hundred mile journey to Korea.

I heard about this a few weeks back, and in my mind I envisioned clouds of dust, a pale yellow sky, and a barely visible sun. As it turns out, it's not quite so bad, not yet at least. The worst effect of it that I have seen so far has been that cars are pretty filthy, with a layer of the yellow dust caked onto them.

That, and there's been a slight increase in the amount of people I see on the streets with hygienic face masks which cover one's mouth and nose. A lot of people wear these masks regardless as a means of preventing illnesses, preventing spreading their illness to others, or as a means to mitigate the effects of living in a country which has as much air pollution as Korea.

a day in the life

I've sworn off alcohol.

Correction: I've sworn off going to bars and spending a ton of money on alcohol. On Friday I turned down several offers to go out drinking after work. I did this because I'm tired of my weekends being a two day journey of getting drunk, sleeping, getting drunk again, and then nursing myself back to full strength so as to be able to endure the next week of work.

So, last night I stayed in and did nothing. The benefits of this were two-fold. For one, I got to stay up late enough to watch some first round March Madness. Also, I was able to wake up refreshed the next morning and go to Dunkin Donuts to sit in the sun for an hour and fill out some report cards.

After completing a dozen or so of 'em, I headed to a cell phone store to put some minutes on my phone. From there I grabbed a chicken sandwich and some fries from Lotteria, my local fast food joint.

At about 4 or 5 I took a taxi with a couple of co-workers, one of which was the "new guy" who has been here for 2 weeks, to a more bustling part of town, where street markets abound, to find some warm-weather work clothes. We walked around for a bit, saw some meat markets with pig intestines for sale, and fish markets with the kind of horrid smell one might expect of a fish market.

While there, we stumbled across the Korean equivalent of thrift stores, pretty much people selling mounds of clothes on the side of the road. I spent 4,000 won on a couple of shirts, a purchase which immediately qualified the day as a good day.

At around 8 I was ready to leave. The three of us stopped by a little restaurant, I had the duk-mandu-guk, and then it was my intention to head home.

But! But the new guy wasn't quite ready to go home. After the other co-worker and I mentioned that we were gonna make our way back home, the new guy decided he wasn't too keen on the idea. I couldn't allow the guy to wander around in a foreign country all alone not knowing what the hell to do, so I decided to stay with him, and we went out for a few drinks. We ended up in a Western bar (Western bar=white people) where a handful of other people were. I met some nice people there, got challenged to a chess game and was ultimately humiliated in said game by a girl, a girl who later admitted to being a former child chess prodigy who was trained by a grandmaster in her youth.

After a few more drinks, while on that precipitous ledge where tipsy turns into full-blown drunk, I exercised self control and called it a night. I took a taxi home, and here I am.

That's what I did today.

report cards

It's been warm. It topped out at a shade over 70 degrees today. I've been looking forward to the warm weather. My Korean co-workers didn't even have the heat on today.

The part of my job that I loathe the most is, by far, report cards. They wouldn't be so bad if I only had to do them a couple times throughout the year, but that's not the case. Once a month I have to fill them out. Once a month I walk into work and am handed a stack of 120 of them, and I get a strong urge to tear my eyeballs out.

Completing one report card consists of awarding the student a grade from A (Excellent) to D (Needs Improvement) in categories that cover their English ability and their attitude. Then, on the reverse side is a comments section where the teacher writes a few sentences about the student's performance. It takes me maybe 2 minutes to fill one out, so it's an extra 4 hours or so of work spread out over a week-span.

Now, while in theory the range of grades a student can receive is from A to D, it's not so in practice. Since this school is also a business, they want the parents to think that their child is a gifted angel. This being the case, the lowest grade that I am supposed to give out is an A-. A few times I've gone as low as a B. In many cases this isn't really a problem because a lot of the kids really are quite brilliant and are great students. But, the way the system is set up, a student who turns in absolutely no homework for the entire month will get a report card that has their homework grade as an A-, just a shade under excellent. A student who pays no attention in class and is blatantly disrespectful to their teacher gets an Attention/Manner grade of A-, damn near perfect.

The comments section that I fill out is equally meaningless, mainly because I'm writing in English to parents who can't read or understand a word of it. Pretty much every one that I write reads like this: (Student's name) is a bright student with a strong willingness to learn. He/She has shown good improvement in the area of (pick a category at random). I would like to see him/her work on (pick a category at random). Great Job!

If the kid is a real pain in the ass and never does homework, maybe I'll stick something in along the lines of: At times, (student's name) struggles to focus in class, and needs to be more diligent toward homework.

So, report cards are pretty much a tedious and mind numbing task of kowtowing to the parents and reinforcing their belief, no matter how false, that their child is smart enough to perhaps someday cure cancer.

I can do about ten of these in a sitting before my brain starts to hurt.