Jan 21, 2012 – Where Seoul Meets Body (part one)

So it’s been awhile since I’ve really sat down and written much of anything resembling anything. I don’t think I’ve even talked about Christmas or New Years, and I definitely haven’t mentioned my trip to Seoul.

I think my plague has been briefly addressed, and it has severely cut into my writing time, due to me just being utterly ass-up exhausted.

As I’m on a four day weekend, on a writing kick, and currently avoiding my place like the black death (for reasons I’ll get to eventually), I guess now is a good time to start getting caught up. Let’s do this chronologically!

…Or as near to it as I can manage.

First, Seoul.

I hadn’t been there since my first day, and even then I really only saw bits of Incheon, where the airport is, so it was definitely an adventure!

Korean trains are utterly brilliant. The ride in was only an hour long, and it was this smooth, warm, quiet trip—very different from GO Transit. And cheaper! The round trip came to just over 8000W (8$), which is about the same amount as a one way ticket from Oshawa to Toronto.

I don’t much care for the ticket system here though. You buy a ticket and pay extra if you’d like to sit down during the trip, and there are only so many tickets available. You can still buy a standing room ticket, which is a bit cheaper, but it can get pretty crowded and uncomfortable.

Anyway, Seoul.

So. Damn. BIG. (That’s what she said.)

Fact: Seoul, Korea’s capital city, has over 10 million people who reside there. That is almost a third of the entire population of Canada. Now, think about the differences in land mass between the two countries. True, much of Canada is better suited to polar bears and arctic seals, but still, small wonder an old lady shoved me out of her way at the train station. I assume it was an old lady. I have heard some of them can be relentless in their rudeness here, especially towards foreigners. Ironically, I was shoved as I was stepping aside to let someone else pass me, and instead I nearly knocked that person over. Fortunately I know the Korean phrase for “I am so sorry!” (choe song hamnida!—pronounced like ‘cho-eh’), but I still received a ‘pabo waegukin’ (idiot foreigner) look before the woman went on her way.

Our first destination was Yongsan (yong = dragon, san = mountain—best city name ever). In Yongsan, there is an electronics mall. Not a store, a MALL. I had need of a new camera since the one I brought from home is nearing ten years in age, which is positively ancient by technological standards. Surely I could find something in this veritable Mecca of devices.

The place had four floors. Cameras, TVs, DVD players, Blu Rays, computers, laptops, accessories, phones, video game systems, games—and for like half the cost of what you’d pay in Canada.

D & T had been to this place a few months before I came to Korea, and they remembered a guy who had given them a really good deal on a camera, so we went looking for him and we actually managed to find him! He initially showed me a camera that was so fancy, I honestly felt kind of afraid to touch it—but then the price was waaay higher than I had wanted to pay, so I didn’t have to. We showed him D’s camera, explaining that I wanted something a bit cheaper and a lot simpler, and he pulled out a nearly identical model, with a much lower price tag. Also, because this guy was so awesome, he threw in a free case, the memory card, and a device that converts the memory card into a flash drive—and he also gave one of the memory card flash drives to T & D to say thank you for bringing me to his shop. Brilliant.

From there we went on a lunch quest and ended up at Lotteria, which is Korea’s answer to McDonald’s (although they do have McD’s here). Their stuff is pretty tasty, but I always have to doctor my burger before I can eat it, as they always have mustard and raw onions on them. Also, while ketchup does exist in Korea, they do not give nearly enough packets for French fry consumption. I definitely miss the cups and pumps from home. Ketchup chips too, for that matter. But there’s kimchi everywhere to make up for it. It’s almost like the country somehow knew I would have an almost obscene addiction to the stuff... mm.

While eating though, it felt as though we were being constantly watched. Even in Seoul, where we do not play the Waegukin Game* due to such a high number of foreigners there, we were still getting the OMG FOREIGNER stare from a lot of people. It’s fun when little kids are staring though, because they just smile and smile and love it when you wave to them.

*(Spot the Foreigner—whoever has the highest count wins!)

After food, we wandered around. We were meeting up with some fellow Pyeongtaekers later in the evening for dinner, so we had some time to kill. That was when we found THE ARCADE.

T & D are really into video games, so whenever we find an arcade, we always check it out. There were jet fighter games with seats that moved when you would steer the plane, DDR, good ol’ fashioned shooter games, arcade classics... and there was this one game that D and I tried out that involved playing Japanese Taiko drums and hitting the right beat. It was a lot of fun (way easier than the Rock Band drums—madre de dios, but I hate those things), and we had a small audience by the time we finally lost. We tried our hands at the claw machines (they’re everywhere here), made lots of Toy Story jokes as we did (“The claw—it moves!”), and established that in this particular arcade, the damn things were rigged.

Eventually we said goodbye to the fabulous arcade and headed down to the subway to try and get to Itaewon where we would meet our fellow foreigners.

to be continued!

Dec 30, 2011 & Jan 12, 2012

The secret to calming down a rowdy class has at last been revealed to me!
Don’t yell, don’t glare, don’t stare silently and wait for quiet, or lose your shit on them.
Cry.
Just walk out of the room and cry.
The shock of learning that the silly foreign teacher is a human being sends them into a stunned silence that could rival a fucking graveyard.
On the downside, you feel rather stupid afterwards for making a weepy ass of yourself, and next week’s class should prove to be rather interesting… but, hey, they did their work, and I think some of them actually felt kinda bad about it since they were super-nice to me for the rest of class.
Still. I used to enjoy Fridays. Of course Saturday also used to be a day off.

Jan 12, 2012
I made a random friend tonight. It was kind of awesome and unexpected.
[edit: found out later that she wanted me to become a Jehovah’s Witness. But she introduced me to ddak galbi which is amaaaazing!]

Dec 22/11 - Or, alternate title: 'I fucking love this kid.'

Today one of my writing students and I talked about cannibalism. It was possibly the most priceless conversation ever—as well as the grossest, judging by how Mom reacted to the conversation when I told her.

The conversation came as a result of the writing topic for the week: “What foods are popular in your culture?” and it got really hilarious, really fast…

Me: “Liz, can you tell me what kind of food is popular to eat in Korea?” (I’m expecting her to say like, kimchi, ddokbokki, or dak galbi, maybe, but…)
Liz: Hmm… human meat. Very popular in Korea.
Me (somewhat taken aback—can’t IMAGINE why): “Oh! Uh, really? Human meat? So you’ve eaten it before?”
Liz: “Yes, teacher. It is very delicious.”
Me: “So what does it taste like?”
Liz: “Hm?”
Me: “Is it like beef? Or does it taste like chicken or pork?”
Liz: “Oh! Is like beef.”
Me: (by this point she knows I know she’s messing with me, and we’ve both started to giggle) “I see, I see. So how is the human meat served then?”
Liz: “Hm?”
Me: “You see beef at restaurants—sometimes it is a little bit pink inside, sometimes all brown, sometimes it is very red—”
Liz: “Serve raw, teacher! Bloody. All over face.”
Me: (we are pretty much helpless with laughter now) So—so, heh, um, what do you have with your raw human meat, Liz?
Liz: “Hm?”
Me: “Burgers, you have with fries… ”
Liz: “Oh! Have with rice. Is a Korean rule!”
Me: (both of us are dying now) “And for a drink?”
Liz: “Um…Coca Cola.”She added afterwards that French fries are an acceptable side dish for a platter of raw human meat as well.his kid is thirteen years old and she is now my hero.

Re: The List – Naming one of my students Princess Gigglepants

That’s pretty much how things went down, I’ll be honest. The kid just does not stop giggling for even a second. I thought giving him the name of ‘Princess’ would end it.
Nope. HE JUST GIGGLED HARDER.
____
Sooo, because this list went and got crazy long without my consent, pretty much everything I wrote down happened, oh, months ago. And I’ve pretty much accumulated a whole new list, containing items like the joys of the changing semester, brand new textbooks, and the fact that my immune system, so strong and reliable in Canada, is absolute and utter shit here in Korea.
Furthermore, I know more K-Pop than I thought, thanks to car commercials back home.
…but I have no idea if they were Hyundai cars.
By the way, Canada, you’re saying it wrong.

Re: The List – Making friends with the shy, quiet co-worker and getting unexpected Adventures!

Because I move slower than the second coming, the following events took place in like… November. Sometimes I like to sleep.
Anyway.
Not long after starting at my school, I noticed that one of my coworkers arrived later than the rest of us and departed before us. I knew her only as “The Assistant”.
She was very quiet, clearly a hard worker—and not knowing her name was driving me batshit insane. This was of course after I had settled in and had the energy to obsess over such things. So, one particular day, I decided to remedy the issue.
One minute I was sitting at my desk, and the next minute I got up and walked over to explain my plight:
“Hi. It’s bothering me that I don’t know your name. I’m Megan.”
Then I stuck my hand out for her to shake.
There was a second of silence, wherein she just blinked in surprise at me, and then shook my hand, smiled, and told me her name.
And that was that. Or so I thought.
Work resumed, and for at least a week or two, there were no words between us, other than an occasional hello or a wave.
Then this one night I was, dunno, marking essays or putting together some handouts, when I felt a tap on my shoulder.
There was H sitting in the chair next to mine, and she said she wanted to ask me a favour: she has a younger sister (S-H) who is studying English and Literature, and would I mind meeting up with her and her sister on the weekend to give some outside the classroom speaking practice?
I think I agreed to it before H had even finished the sentence. Weekend adventures and the chance to make friends? ABSOLUTELY OF COURSE YES.
We met up at AK Plaza for lunch (I was kinda nervous about the meetup and could hardly eat as a result) and spent the day just talking, wandering around, and asking each other all kinds of questions about life in Korea, life in Canada, and I think they had fun showing me around Pyeongtaek as well. We also decided afterwards that it should definitely happen again sometime! (edit: and it has! A couple of times!)
The lesson, boys and girls, is say hi! It can lead to incredible amounts of awesome! These women have since become two of my best friends here, and I already know I am going to miss them heaps and heaps when I go back to Canada. I’ve already said they should come visit me. And they’ve already said I should come back again.
I hope so.

Re: The List – Kimbap for Kids!

So during my first semester here, I had a class that was made up of two whole girls. On the first night we immediately became friends thanks to the magic of food.

A lot of these kids come right from their regular school to hagwon—or they go home and study—and miss dinner as a result. So these kids are often staaarving when they’re supposed to be attempting to learn a whole other language.

Anyway, remember how in my first week, the only thing I could seem to stomach were oranges and Pringles? It meant I had a can of chips and a bag of oranges on me pretty much at all times, and so when I entered the classroom and met these girls, and heard their heartfelt plea of “Teacher, I am very hungry!” I brought forth the snacks and told them to have at it. Such treatment ensured that these two were totally awesome students from day one, and I decided that when holding time approached, I would give them a treat. Most weeks I brought them chips or cookies—they really liked the jelly beans I forgot to eat on the plane (thanks, Ian!), but I thought the last night before holding merited some real food.

Have I mentioned kimbap yet? It is possibly the greatest thing ever. Sticky rice, ham, pickled radish, egg, and other vegetation, wrapped up in seaweed paper. It’s so easy to get here, and so very cheap! AND DELICIOUS.

As you probably guessed from this entry’s name already, kimbap is what I brought for the girls. They wrote me a giant thank you mural on the whiteboard and told me I was the best teacher ever. They might also have written out 사랑해요 (sarang hae yo), which means “I love you”. The students often say this to me when I give them sweets. And then, because these two aren’t awesome enough already, they shared the kimbap with me!

I am very happy about the fact that I teach both of them again this semester, albeit in different classes now.

Re: The List

Re: The List – New Classes

To be honest, there’s not much to say on this subject anymore since I’m so dang slow that the semester has completely changed and it’s been almost exactly a month since I first made this list…

I will say that some of the kids reacted with outright glee over the changes, rather than being horrified about getting stuck with me. That felt rather nice. I had visions of them fleeing in terror or swearing in Korean at me.

But then the semester wound down, most of the older kids went on holding to prep for their finals, and the whole semester was over. That’s a whole other set of entries—if I ever get around to writing them, lord.

Re: The List – Same Old Same Old

I think this item got added to the list due to my feelings of getting settled in and enjoying myself immensely at the office. Yup. It’s routine but it’s also not. The magic of teaching.

Re: The List – Some students would miss me if I left, some openly despise me

The thing about hagwons is that they tend to be populated by two kinds of kids: those who are hardworking and driven, with a love of learning that makes them an absolute joy to teach… and those who are spoiled brats who are only there because mommy and daddy have forced them to come.

Can you guess which ones like me and which ones would happily watch me die in a fire?

Anyway, there’re a couple of students who have made it clear that they are fond of me, which is kinda awesome. These two girls in particular, I had them for my last class on my first day, and they made me feel welcome instead of like I was utterly hopeless and what the hell was I thinking when I decided to come teach in Korea. On this one night, I was covering for their usual teacher—it was around Boss and Miss K’s wedding, so we switched things up to give the soon-to-be-weds the night off work—and the girls’ faces just lit up when I walked into the room, and they sounded so excited when I said I would be teaching them that night, that I’m pretty sure I was grinning like a buffoon. The one girl has been my pal ever since she came down with this massive giggle fit in the staff office between classes, and she was still in fits during class afterwards. She’d get silent for a minute, and I could see her, just nearly biting through her lip from trying to keep her laughter in, so I’d ask her if she needed a minute, and then she was gone again. It got to the point that ALL of us were nearly hysterical, and I still don’t know what the hell she had found so funny in the first place!

This girl is also the one who told me she would miss me if I left. There was some confusion during a discussion we’d had sometime in November as to how long I was staying in Korea for. She’d gotten October and December mixed up and got all upset when she thought I was leaving in one month instead of eleven, and was delighted when she learned I was sticking around.

Of course now that the semester has changed I don’t have this girl in any of my classes and that makes me sad. And apparently it makes her sad too because she came right up to me and told me as much:
“Why are you not my teacher anymore? For MA* class?”
“I do not know, Laura*—it is a new schedule. Maybe next semester I will be your teacher again.”
“I am sad. I miss you!”
At this point I just about melted and told her I missed her too.

Still, I’m pretty lucky this semester. I’ve got some pretty good groups of kids this time around, which I’ll go into some night when it’s not 130 am and my lungs aren’t trying to forcibly eject themselves out my throat.

…sleep was bordering on opseyo last night. Whee.

*One of the class level codes we use at the school
*also, because Korean names are hard (or we waegukin are inept), the kids also get English names