Hanoi

Paul and I are hanging out in the Hanoi airport, waiting for our flight to Hue in about an hour. Paul is concerned about Canada's loss to Sweden, and I'm wondering when naptime is.

Yesterday, we visited the tomb of Ho Chi Minh - you can actually see his body guarded by soldiers. We had to walk quickly through the room (no cameras allowed); there were large red strips in the marble walls behind with the golden sickle on one red strip, and a star on the other. We visited his houses, which are right beside the mausoleum. Apparently, he lived rather luxuriously, but for the last ten years of his life, he lived in a more traditional Vietnamese house in order to not be 'above' the people. Both houses were beautiful in their own way.

Last night, we went to a Water Puppet performance. Though the pictures make it look hokey, it's actually a really entertaining art form. Musicians play traditional music while puppets dance and sing. Even my description makes it sound hokey. But it's not. We bought a turtle water puppet for our own water puppet show when we return to North America. The turtle is important in Hanoi because it caught the sword of a king coming back from battle. Now, there's a golden turtle in Hanoi who swallowed a sword - like Excalibur.

Today, we walked around the city. I really wanted to see the Opera House - one of the most important buildings in the city under French rule, and the place where they declared the August Revolution in... well, I can't remember. However, since it's New Year's Eve, they were getting ready to have some sort of event in front of the building.

Of course, I didn't even know it was New Year's Eve until we got to the Opera House.

Paul took lots of pictures of everything - I'm sure you're all shocked. We'll post when we get back to Korea.

Happy New Year. Make sure the ball still drops.

And We're Off...

On Saturday we head off on the first leg of our trip around Southeast Asia. We start by flying into the capital of Vietnam, Hanoi. I didn't know much about Hanoi prior to about a month ago, but I'm looking forward to seeing the sites there. We're only there for a couple of days before we head down the coast to Hue and Hoi An, but I think it will be a good starting point.

Hue and Hoi An are the places I think both Meg and I are looking forward to the most in Vietnam. They are around the middle of the country (Hue is fairly close to the where the Vietnamese DMZ was) and known for being beautiful and relaxing. Hue was the briefly the capital and they brought in Chinese architects to build an imitation of Beijing's Forbidden City for their government offices (on a smaller scale). Unfortunately, parts of it were heavily damaged by American bombs during the war. Though from the photos I've seen I think it will be a pretty impressive site to see still. I actually think the damage adds a bit of character that would be lacking if it was simply a small scale replica of the Forbidden City.

Hoi An was an important trading port for a number of centuries and today the ancient city has been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I think we'll spend our days there just wandering around trying to take in the atmosphere. From Ho An we'll likely make a day trip (on my 30th birthday) to My Son. My Son is an ancient Hindu Temple complex constructed by the Champas likely around the 4th to 6th century. Like Hue, it came under heavy bombing by the Americans and apparently you can see numerous bullet holes in the walls of the ruins. It's been compared to a smaller scale Angkor Wat (which seems a little generous to me - we'll see what I think we I get there). It is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

We're only in Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) for a day. I'm a little sad we don't have more time to spend there. Though after looking at all the options we had and the places we wanted to visit, Ho Chi Minh just didn't stack up. We probably would have cut it off our itinerary entirely if it wasn't the best (and cheapest) place to fly to Siem Reap (Angkor Wat) from. I'm not sure if we'll spend the day in the city centre or try and visit the popular tunnels left over from the Vietnam war in the surrounding country. While the tunnels look fascinating, I think I'd be tempted to crawl through them and from what I've read this is not a pleasant experience (they are incredibly tiny and dark). I also suspect we might have had our fill of war sites by this time. We'll see.

On the 5th of January we'll arrive in Siem Reap and after a good night's sleep we'll spend 4 full days touring the Angkor Wat complex. As you might be able to tell from the length of time we've devoted to seeing it, Angkor is what this trip has been built around. It is easily the place I'm most interested in seeing in all of Asia (and probably the world). I've been trying to read as much about it as I can in preparation, but it is simply too massive to get my head around. I'm not even sure 4 days will be enough to see it all. I won't say much more about it here since I'll probably post about it in length (with photos) when we get back. Meg's excited that we'll be staying in the hotel that runs the Red Piano Restaurant and our stay comes with free breakfasts there every day. The Red Piano is the restaurant that Angelina Jolie frequented while filming Tomb Raider 2 (which was filmed in parts of Angkor Wat). Apparently there's even an Angelina Jolie cocktail on the menu.

From Angkor we'll make our way (on the ground) to Thailand and into Bangkok. I suspect we'll be pretty tired after the 8-10 hour bus/taxi trip, but having only a couple of days before we fly back to Korea will likely inspire us to rush in as many of the sites of Bangkok as we can. Luckily, I've spent a number of days there already and remember a decent amount of the city. I also remember that most of the places (the Grand Palace, the Temple of the Dawn & the world's largest reclining Buddha) are all within walking distance of one another.

And so that's our trip (in not much of a nutshell). If we have time we'll try and post some photos and thoughts as we progress. We hope you all have a Happy New Year.

Merry Christmas from Korea!

We spent the day feasting with our Canadian and American friends. We had 7 people over for dinner and all had a great time. Unfortunately, we're back at work tomorrow. Though we do leave for Vietnam/Cambodia on Saturday. We thought you might enjoy a glimpse of our enormous Christmas tree.

Merry Christmas!

Love,
Paul & Meg

Kings and Rulers

Happy (slightly belated) Birthday, Queen Elizabeth. On Friday, Queen Elizabeth became Britain’s oldest-ever ruling monarch. And, while there’s still a year left before the American Presidential campaign ends, here in Korea, they’ve just elected a new President.

If you read Paul’s last blog, you might have watched the YouTube video of the Korean Parliament, where fist fights broke out last week. The current President (from the liberal party) has accused the President-elect (from the conservative party) of embezzlement, fraud, and stock manipulation. Though they’ve been campaigning for months, President Roh felt that these charges should be brought out less than a week before the election.

I brought this up with my coworker on our way to the end-of-the-year-dinner last night. “Lee has been accused of stealing money and bad business practices,” I said. “Yes,” she replied rather nonchalantly. “Americans are very concerned with morality. Koreans… not.”

I didn’t really know what to say, but before I was able to speak, she went on, explaining that since most Koreans favored the conservative party for this election, President Roh’s accusations were shameful. She explained that Lee Myung-bak had been elected on his economic platform, that he was in favor of English education, and that he was pro-American rather than pro-North Korea. She said that Koreans were upset with the aid that the liberals had given to the North Koreans.

Sometimes, you reach your destination a little too soon. Our conversation ended abruptly, and I didn’t want to resume it again over dinner. So, the rest of what I’ve learned I got from the Toronto Star and New York Times.

Lee was elected on a “747” economic promise. The first 7 is the promise of a 7% economic growth a year. The 4 stands for $40,000. The average Korean makes about $20,000 a year; Lee has promised to double the average income. The second 7 is the promise that Korea will become part of the world’s top seven economies.

Those are some pretty big promises to fulfill. Especially since Korean Presidents are limited to one five-year term in office. I don’t know much about economics, but I have a hunch that pledging to give all Koreans a unicorn might be more realistic….

As for his business practices, Lee has admitted to using fake addresses in order to enroll his children in better schools and registering his children as employees of his company in order to evade taxes. It seems like even though the Koreans will recognize these things as wrong, they’re willing to overlook them in the name of economic growth. From the Star:

Many Koreans, inured to a history of corruption among their business and political leaders, seemed ready to overlook Lee's problems.

"Politicians are all thieves," said Chung Jun-muk, 64, a retiree who supported Lee. "At least Lee Myung-bak is smart. He may have gone into the den of thieves, but he won, both in business and politics."

After Yu Mi’s dismissal of Lee’s corruption, I was a bit shocked. She is, after all, a Christian. How on earth could a Christian be willing to turn her head in the face of such apparent immorality? But, of course, that question can only lead to wondering about all of the evils in our countries that we ignore because of pragmatism. After all, one of Yu Mi’s questions at the beginning of our conversation was, “Is your President moral?”

This Week in Korea

So we’ve had an easy week this week. On Tuesday all foreign teacher’s were sent to Everland (a theme park) for a day long training session. We were lucky because it’s only about 15 minutes from where we live. Many of the teachers had to travel from a couple of hours away. It was an interesting day. After starting about 30 minutes late we had the same lecture that had been given at the training I attended in September given again for about an hour. I’d estimate that at least 60% of the 1,000 teachers there had head the lecture before. Since Meg hadn’t been to training she enjoyed it more than most people. We then had an hour and a half for lunch. So we ate our lunch, took a few photos with Santa Claus and the Korean version of Minnie Mouse and shopped in the little stores before heading back in for hour two of “training”.

Hour two wasn’t bad. It was given by a woman who runs an English academy and her theme was culture differences. She gave us wonderful tips like “if you’re going to drink alcohol make sure to take a Korean with you so that they can sense if a fight is going to break out and warn you ahead of time.” She also mixed in remarks from her life, such as: “Once I open a bottle of wine I just have to finish it. My husband calls me an alcoholic!”

I think my favourite story that she us told took place about twenty years ago. A high ranking woman U.S. army official was giving a debriefing for some Korean reporters. After she finished she asked if there were any questions. The first one was “Are you a virgin?” The woman just stood there in shock for a couple of minutes and then walked off the stage. The Korean reporters couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong. Apparently they were curious as to how a woman could get so high in power (remember this was 20 years ago in Korea) and were wondering if she had sacrificed her personal life in order to accomplish this. Unfortunately, the Korean word for being unmarried at can also be translated as “virgin”. So what they probably mean to ask was if she was married (which probably would still be a strange question to ask a Westerner at a press conference).

Once this lecture ended we had a 30 minute Tae Kwon Do performance which was pretty cool and then a Q & A time. Our Q & A time opened with some opening remarks and then they took the first question. After they answered it they decided that it wasn’t going to work well and so they told people with questions to come up to the stage to ask them one on one and everyone else was allowed to have free time. So we went out and rode some roller coasters for about an hour and then went home. It was a pretty good day. Though it makes me a little sad about how much money the province spent for us all to come in for 2 lectures (one most of us had already heard) and a 10 minute Q & A session.

In other news, it’s been an interesting week in Korea politics. We had the day off yesterday because it was the Korean election. If you haven’t heard about what transpired in the Korean Parliament last week (less than a week before the election) here’s a link to a Youtube video of it. It’s definitely worth watching:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOWtQR13FtY

The election was held on Wednesday December 19^th. The parties have been campaigning for about a month and there were originally 12 candidates in the race. Out of these only 4 had more than 1% of the vote (two dropped out about a week into the campaign). With about a week left polling showed that the current party in power only had about 19% of the vote, while their main opposition had nearly 50% . It seemed quite certain that they were going to lose and by a lot. So they did the only honourable thing they could think of...they launched a criminal investigation into the leader of the opposition (Lee Myung-bak). 2 days before the election.

From the Korean Herald:

Under a bill passed by the National Assembly, an independent counsel will launch a second investigation into Lee Myung-bak's alleged financial wrongdoings, which range from conspiring to manipulate stock prices to lying about his wealth.

While interpretations vary, legal experts say it is possible under the current law for Lee to be indicted and stand trial. To be tried, however, he would have to be convicted before taking office. They also said Lee's election could be declared invalid if he receives a court sentence.

The end result of this fiasco is we now have a President-elect who has to wait to see if he’s going to be President in a few months or whether he’s going to jail. Of course judging from the video above, he might be safer in jail than in the parliament.

Rule & Regulations

As we wind down our first term here we’ve been mapping out our options for the next year or so. It’s hard to know exactly what we should do at the end of our contract since neither of us is entirely sure of what we’d like to do upon our return to the Western hemisphere.

When we decided to work in Korea we were both pretty sure it’d be a two year adventure. After our first month, I think both of us were just hoping to make it through the first year without going crazy. Recently, we’ve been leaning more towards the idea of a year and a half. In a way it’s almost a waste of time to think that far ahead in regards to our plans here as our thoughts can change so much from week to week. I think that comes with living in a completely foreign culture. I remember having similar feelings while living in Japan and I really loved my time there. There are days where the culture just drives you crazy to the point where you’re ready to take the first plane back home. And then there are other days where you think how nice everything is now that you’ve settled into things.

Those of you reading our posts on a regular basis will know that we (Meg in particular) had some troubles verifying our documentation after we’d been working here for awhile. Unfortunately, it seems like the Korean government has decided to put together some more strict rules regarding visa requirements. One would think that we’d be exempt from most of these new regulations as we’ve already got our visas and have been teaching for 4 months. While this is true to a certain extent, it seems quite possible that these new rules might make our decision for us on how long we actually stay.

According to these new rules, if we choose to renew our visas in September we’ll have to travel to the Korean consulates in our home countries to get our new visas. Which might not sound so bad, but for us it’ll cost us about $3,000 in plane tickets, use up a good chunk of our summer vacation time (though we will get to see our families which would be nice) and it’ll mean us going to separate countries. Luckily I can get mine done in Toronto. Meg will have to visit either Boston, Atlanta, or Washington to get hers.

While we’re back home we’ll have to get our criminal records checked again. This time Meg will need to get an FBI check done rather than the routine police station check. I’m not sure what I’ll have to do since apparently Canada hasn’t joined some verification agency on international criminal checks meaning that technically as of March it will be impossible for Canadians to work as English Teachers in Korea (currently Canadians make up about 30% of all Foreign teachers in Korea).

Finally, we’ll both have to have an HIV test and a standard drug test. While I’m not worried in the slightest about the results of either of these tests, it does irritate me that I might need to have them done, especially after I will have already been teaching here for a year.

From the Korean Herald:

As to the items listed in the medical report, there has been some confusion because most hospitals here do not conduct any drug-related tests.

The ministry says they are aware of the problem.

"We contacted several hospitals to see if they conduct such tests. They said they don't without a sufficient demand for such tests. We found, after some research, that the Health Ministry-affiliated Seoul Medical Science Institute does the tests," said a ministry official.

There are 17,000 Foreign English teachers in Korea. . .and possibly only one hospital that will do the test needed to renew our visas. It’s quite brilliant. I’m glad they’re making new regulations prior to checking whether things are actually possible.

Cop-py

The first day I had lunch at my school, I was handed a tray with five round indents, two chopsticks, and a spoon. The indents held: rice, soup, kimchi, and two side dishes. I thought it strange that there were no drinks served, and wondered if I should have brought my own. None of the Koreans had drinks with them. It made eating difficult – not only is Korean food rather spicy, but I am also not used to eating without drinking.

After two weeks of dreading lunchtime (not simply because of the no-drink policy), I decided that I should bring my lunch to work. I still had never seen anyone with a drink at lunch yet, and neither had Paul. I pulled out my peanut butter sandwich and fruit, and my coworker looked at my lunch, frowning. “You don’t have a drink,” she said.

“But, you never have a drink,” I answered.

“Koreans always drink their soup,” was the reply. As I puzzled over this idea, my coworker spoke again.

“In Korea, we always peel the apples.”

I decided not to worry about the apples. If they thought I was eating dirty or inedible things, I wasn’t going to care. They eat dried squid, cow kneecaps, and dog.

A few days later, I decided to have some Korean coffee at work. Korean coffee is instant coffee. It comes in individual, marker-sized pouches; each pouch contains a mixture of coffee, cream, and sugar. Usually, Korean coffee is made in Dixie cups; they shake the dry mixture in, then pour boiling water to the 3-quarter mark – it makes drinking coffee feel like doing shots. On this particular day, however, I wanted a warm mug of coffee, so I used two packets and filled my glass mug. My coworkers began commenting immediately, pointing at my mug and talking. I could see some of their eyes widen. Drinking a full cup of coffee is apparently as strange as eating an unpeeled apple.

Just a Little Bit Bigger Than St. James

On Sunday morning I got up and headed into Seoul with our friends Kevin and Brenda (Meg wasn’t feeling well so she stayed at home) to attend Yoido Full Gospel Church, the largest church in the world. The church claims over 830,000 members. The services are held in a monstrous building and the church seems to own a couple of city blocks around it. (I’m pretty sure the Sunday school classes had an office tower to themselves).

We arrived a little late for the eleven o’clock service. I think we got there around 11:20 – so right on time for me (though we did leave at 9:30 from Yongin). Since we look lost and the church excels at welcoming newcomers, we were greeted and taken inside within about a minute of our arrival. The usher spoke English pretty well and asked us many questions as he guided us up the walkway. Instead of stairs the church has ramps than reminded me a lot of Skydome (though not as wide). We were taken to the foreigner area. Which sounds funny, but is actually practical since in this area they give foreigners headsets that translate the service into numerous languages (English, Japanese, Spanish, etc..). Here we were handed over to the Foreigner Guide who recommended that we wait for the one o’clock service since the worship had already started. We told him we couldn’t stay that long and so we were taken in given our headsets and seated on a back staircase. I couldn’t see the altar area ( I think Brenda could see a flatscreen TV showing the service) and so the service for me basically entailed listening to the translated sermon and looking around at the crowd and ushers. It was impressive to see so many people gather in one place for a service. On our way out I asked how many people were there for the service and I was told the building held 10,000 to 12,000 people and the majority of people these days participate in the service at satellite locations (where the sermon is shown on TV).

After the service we went to a “Foreigner Briefing” which we were told would be about 10 to 15 minutes. It took about that long to get to the building where it was held. Then once inside we were met by a man who told us that the story he was going to tell us about the founding of the church would normally take 3 hours, but he’d squish it into one for us. I don’t think any of us were overly impressed. The story was interesting however, and it made me happy that we had attended a service where the founder of the church, David Yonggi Cho, delivered the sermon. It sounds like he only does a couple of the services each week.

While the church founder definitely is a remarkable man (growing a church from 0 to 800,000 in fifty years) his theology isn’t exactly in line with mine. He spoke of his trip to Hell a couple of times through the sermon, which I assumed to be some kind of metaphor even though he didn’t really use it in that way. At our briefing, our leader spoke about the founder’s trips to Heaven and Hell quite openly. He also talked about a woman he’d met who’d been to Heaven 17 times and Hell 3 times (He made sure to mention that on one of her visits to Hell she met her mother who was a devout Buddhist and lived a very good life). It made me feel a little uncomfortable.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the briefing was a 10 minute video that quoted some of the astounding numbers of the church. The video was a little outdated (and looked like it had been made in the ‘70s, though it probably was actually made about 5-10 years ago). It bragged about their congregation size of 700,000 people and the over 500 full-time pastors that the church employs. They also have around 85,000 deacons (62,000 women/23,000 men) and 1,319 elders (all men). It’s all pretty unreal. I couldn’t imagine belonging to a “congregation” of that size.

While it was an interesting briefing in most regards, we couldn’t help but feeling a little bit suckered by the length. So we told them we had to leave in a couple of minutes (I was glad Kevin was there – he’s pretty forceful). Before we could fully get out, we were given (well the entire room – there were about 8 of us) a quick speech on a book that had changed the elder’s life. It was written by the woman who had been to Heaven 17 times and was conveniently on sale there. I actually suspect if we had stayed longer there would have been more of a push to buy something. There was also a table of books written by the church’s founder with price tags on them.

Overall it was quite the experience. Enough so that I think it’s worth a trip back so Meg can experience it. Of course this time I won’t let them sucker me into the foreigner briefing...and I’ll make sure to get there early enough to get a seat where I can see something.
The church’s story is pretty amazing and definitely worth checking out if you’re interested:
http://english.fgtv.com/

Pure Race

In my textbook, in every chapter, there is a cartoon about a dog. The dog – named Sujae - learns English by context. Sujae writes a letter and mails it to his friend’s web address; he gets confused when all the other dogs play hide-and-seek; he shows up to a potluck dinner expecting a pot of gold. (He’s a bit dim.) In the current chapter we’re studying, he’s walking through a park and meets another dog wearing a funny hat. “Oh, he’s from Nigeria,” says Sujae. This bubble is followed by another that is filled with “!#@$#%$@^%#^,” which, to me, looks like he’s swearing at the other dog. But, the other dog speaks, saying, “What did you say? Do you speak English?” Sujae is surprised that the other dog speaks English better than he does, even though the other dog is from Nigeria.

So, what do the kids learn from this comic strip? My coworker faithfully explains it every time, “people in Africa speak English better than people in Korea.” Interesting. Then, she goes on to explain that people in South East Asia (Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam) speak English better than people in East Asia (China, Korea, Japan). When we returned to the office after class, she proudly told me that Korean people speak English better than the Japanese – and then she emphasized that it was an American reporter who said so. (I’ll let Paul discuss that one.)

Last week, in my teacher’s class (both Paul and I teach classes to our coworkers as well as our students), we read a piece on foreigners in Korea. For a long time, the only foreigners living in Korea were the American soldiers; but in recent years, in the midst of Korea’s economic boom, more foreigners have come – not just native English teachers, but Thais and other internationals who come to work in factories for low wages and poor working conditions. My coworker explained to me that though many foreigners come here and marry Koreans, none of our students had a foreign parent. “How do you know?” I asked. I wondered if it was a question on their admissions application.

“Thais have dark skin, large eyes, are short, and speak English very well,” she explained. “Koreans have light skin and smaller eyes, and big noses,” (I think she meant flat noses). “But some of our students have dark skin,” I said, quickly clarifying that they had darker skin than she. “Yes, but Thais are very dark,” she said.

We continued our conversation, and while I was intrigued, I also felt like I was walking on eggshells. I asked about some of the problems Koreans face regarding foreigners. “They come to Korea, and marry Korean men.” Korean women then have a problem finding husbands. But intermarriage points to a much larger problem in a Korean’s mind.

Koreans believe that they – along with the Jews – are the only pure race in the world. How this fits with the fact that the Chinese and Japanese have raped women in Korea – and occupied the country - throughout history, I’m not really sure. But the Koreans are sure, and I suppose that’s what’s important. Intermarrying with other races will put an end to their racial purity. When our married friends Kevin and Brenda explain that not all of their parents were born in Germany, the students proclaim, “mixed blood!!”

Pure race. Mixed blood. Just the words are enough to make us feel uneasy, and yet, they’re so proud…

Fan Death

For the past several weeks, Paul and I have been shocked at how dreadfully cold our schools have been. In late October, while fall was changing into winter, we didn’t yet have the heat on in our apartment. Our coworkers would ask us both regularly if we had turned the heat on, how it was working, etc. and we would both have to answer that we hadn’t yet felt it to be cold enough to turn the heat on. And though the heat was not on at school, the windows were closed.

So, when the first few days of real cold came, we were both surprised to find the windows at our schools wide open. I began to wear more and more layers; I brought a large wrap to school to wear over my shoulders or on my legs to keep me warm. I wore my scarf to class. I was confused. The people who wanted me to turn on the heat a few weeks ago were now trying to freeze me out. I caught a cold, and was quite miserable. I tried to explain that perhaps I was sick because of the cold air. My coworker laughed.

Last week, Paul walked to work in -8C/17F. When he arrived at work, all of the windows in his school were open. A half-hour later, they turned the heat on. Fortunately, Paul’s coworker opened all the windows in the classroom so that the students wouldn’t feel too warm. Paul, the Canadian, spent his day teaching in a winter coat.

At my school, things were a bit better. My office was a warm 24C/75F. The windows were open in the rest of the school. I began to wonder if it was a way to conserve electricity or gas, so I decided to ask the teachers I teach. “The outdoor air is very good for you. The indoor air is very bad. If you don’t change the air in a room – open the windows every two hours – you will get a very bad cough.” I explained that where I come from, we don’t usually open the windows when it’s cold outside. My student was very concerned. “You need to make sure you open the windows in your apartment. You can get very, very sick.”

I was very polite, and I’ve even opened the door to our enclosed porch-thing once; but I haven’t opened our windows - even for ten minutes. Our windows are not insulated, and the doors leading to the porch where our windows are, are also not well-insulated. So, we usually have some flow of air from the outside coming into our house. But I can still hear some of you saying, “maybe he’s not crazy; maybe the Koreans know what’s best for you.” To that statement, I have some arguments.

First of all, our apartment – which is on the first floor – looks out on a parking lot. The exhaust fumes are disgusting in this country. There are no regulations on the junk your car or truck can put in the air. And everyone drives. In our first three weeks here, I had four asthma attacks – more than I would have during a whole summer in smoggy Toronto.

Second, nothing can induce me to believe that it is beneficial to children or to adults to have all the windows open in the winter – or to have them open in the hallways while the classrooms are heated. There is a ten-degree (Celsius) difference between my office and the bathroom. I know this isn’t good.

And, most importantly, I can’t really believe the Koreans on this one because they believe in fan death. If I told the Koreans that Paul and I sleep with a fan on every night – with the doors and windows closed – they would gasp at the mortal danger we put ourselves in. When we first came, we wanted to buy a few more fans for our apartment, but they were all at least $40. We couldn’t figure out why they were so expensive. But now we know: every fan in Korea has a timer, so that you can make sure that it doesn’t run all night; it’s a safety feature to prevent fan death.

Koreans aren’t quite sure how the fan kills you. It might be suffocation (the fan creates a vortex sucking the air from the room), poisoning (the fan creates high levels of carbon dioxide), or hypothermia (the fan lowers your body temperature so much that you die). Whatever it is, I think I’ll continue to take my chances with closed windows to preserve heat and a fan for noise. I think I’m in more danger crossing the street.

(If you’d like to read more about fan death, visit www.fandeath.net, or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death.)

What Do You Call Turkey Day If There's No Turkey?

Since my wife has decided to abandon our blog after only a couple of months I suppose it is up to me to give you a reason to keep visiting.

As I write this I am looking out the window wishing I had brought my camera to school today. We’ve had snow the last couple of days and although the students at my school have done their best to dispose of the snow on the ground by throwing it at one another (and pretending to throw it at me) there is still a decent amount on our playground. And by playground I mean a huge square dirt field.

Every day after school our school baseball team practices outside in this dirt playground. They practice hitting and fielding. Sometimes I stop to watch for a couple of minutes on my way home. They of course play all their games elsewhere (on a real baseball diamond I hope) and I’m pretty sure the season ended a month or so ago, but they are just determined to be ready for the new season in March or April. Anyways, I digress. Since it is impossible to practice at all effectively on a frozen pile of dirt they drive a truck around the playground with a large metal rake attached to the back. This usually does the job. I’m assuming the snow that has been trampled down by the students until it is a sheet of ice mixed into the dirt has made smoothing out the field much more difficult. As a result the truck is now driving around the yard with about 5 or 6 baseball players crouched on top of the rake trailing behind it. I can only imagine this is done to add more weight to the rake so it can dig into the ground better. Of course to my eye it just looks like an accident waiting to happen. I can tell from the mud down the backs of some of their pants and jackets that a few have fallen off a couple of times. My words do little justice in describing the situation. I’ll have to remember to bring my camera to school the next time it snows.

I’m back after an hour of teaching class and it looks like the baseball team has given up. The van is doing laps around the playground area still, but the players appear to have gone home. There's a good chance the field is in worse shape now than when they started.

Today is Thanksgiving for those who living in the land of the free. For everyone else in the world it's just another Thursday. We're trying to make it special by having dinner with the other foreign teachers we know. There will be 4 Yankees, 3 Canucks and a Kiwi at dinner tonight. Since none of us have an oven to fit anything larger than a pie pan we're going to have chicken instead of turkey. Our friends have however made a pumpkin pie and an apple pie. Meg's made stuffing and cornbread and I've heard rumours of gravy. It should be a fun gathering. I'm hoping it will help me put back on the weight that I've lost since coming here. Winter is coming and it is always good to have some extra insulation. Especially in the frigid temperatures I have to work in.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Posts

It's been a week since we've written anything so I figured I should try to at least put something up. I decided that maybe people have forgotten what we look like over these past couple of months so here are some recent photos. I'm the taller one...with the brown hair.


The fall leaves were more impressive than I though they'd be.



This is me in front of Namdaemun gate. The gate was built at the end of the fourteenth century and apparently helped to protect the city from tigers (if you can trust wikipedia). Now it serves as a gateway to Namdaemun market. The market is pretty cool actually. I'll try and post some photos from there in the near future.

Also, apparently this gate was the basis for Darnassus in the World of Warcraft (I know at least one of our readers will find that interesting).


Meg in Olympic Park. See if you can spot the American flag in the background. I'm pretty sure Meg's standing on the exact spot where they took away Ben Johnson's gold medal (give or take a few miles).



This is Meg on the stairs at Wa Woo Jeung Sa (A Buddhist Temple). The same place that I posted images from last week.


Finally, Meg laughs at me while I fiddle with my camera. I'm pretty sure I said something really funny and it had nothing to do with my wife thinking I'm a camera nerd. Our friend Brenda took this photo. I think she really captured a moment.

Well that's all for now. I have the day off on Thursday because all the final year high school students are writing the most important exam they'll ever write (the Korean equivalent of the SATS). The school beside mine is hosting one of the test sites and my school is closed for the day so "we don't make any noise that might distract the students writing the test". My friend Kevin's co-worker told him that they even cancel all air traffic over Korea for a couple of hours while the test takes place (we're not sure if this is actually true). I'm just happy to have the day off (unfortunately Meg has to work). I'll be heading into Seoul to try and get Vietnamese visas for our trip next month. Once our schools shut down we're heading off to Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand for a couple of weeks. We're getting excited already. Angkor Wat has been the places I've wanted to see the most for the past four or five years. We just booked our plane tickets on Monday and are ironing out the details now.

Hope all is well back in the West.

Cheater, Cheater, Pumpkin-Eater

One of the things that has been confusing Paul and me is the appearance of cheating in our schools. When my coworker is teaching, the kids write answers to questions in their workbooks (which are also their textbooks). Usually, she gives them a few minutes to do each exercise. Some of the students are finished right away, some struggle through, but most just sit there, staring at their pens, waiting for the teacher to give them the answer. Sometimes, if they’re feeling ambitious, this last group of students will find the ‘smart’ person near them, and copy their work. And, in a few cases, they don’t have to write anything at all, because they have the ‘remedial’ textbook: the one that comes with all of the exercises done.

You could argue that calling this ‘cheating’ is a bit too much. They’re going to get the correct answers in class anyhow – either through the teacher or other students. They’re not cheating on their work, but simply cheating themselves out of an education. You could also argue that it’s simply the result of the Asian ‘group mentality’: the students are doing their work as a group rather than as individuals. I sometimes encounter this when I divide my classes into teams and have them play games. Often, only the students who are the best in English play, while the others sit back and watch. They don’t take turns unless forced, because they’re playing ‘as a group.’

Group mentality, however, does not apply to tests. Koreans take testing very seriously – it’s what determines high school and college entry, as well as entry into certain job markets. Certification is key. When my students took midterms, each classroom had a teacher proctoring the exam, as well as one of the mothers looking on.

It seems like they take education rather seriously. Each of the teachers has a long stick to beat the students with (and it happens regularly). Students regularly have to stand at the back of the classroom – sometimes holding their hands above their heads – as a punishment for not finishing their homework or not bringing their pen or book to class. Almost every day, I watch as a student or two is brought into the teacher’s office to be lectured and yelled at. One day, all of the students who had shoulder-length hair or too-tight uniforms had to run laps outside.

But it doesn’t stop there. If a teacher catches a student smoking outside school hours or outside school grounds (on a Friday night, say, in downtown Yongin), the teacher calls the parents, and the student is punished by both her parents and the school.

This week, my coworker has been giving our students a vocabulary quiz. The students are given five-minutes notice, and five or ten minutes to take the quiz. While they’re studying, we wander through the class and answer questions. Imagine my surprise the first time I caught a girl writing all the words on her desk and hiding it so that I wouldn’t see. My coworker looked briefly, and the girl erased the words. The same thing happened in the next class. No punishment was given other than having to erase the words. The next class, I watched and waited. I caught a girl in the act. I thought for sure my coworker would be upset. I was wrong. No punishment; just having to erase the words so she couldn’t cheat.

Is it possible that forgetting a pen or talking through class is worse than cheating on a quiz?

Addendum

Apparently I can't add photos to blogs that Meg has written...so here are some photos from our weekend. You can read her note below.

Waa Woo Temple. This is the largest temple in the Yong-in area. It's about 8km from our house, but the bus that passes it seems to run hourly. This obviously makes it a bit of a pain to get to. They temple started work on making a huge Buddha statue, but never finished it (not sure why, probably financial reasons) and so they just put the head on a mound of rocks.

The temple extends up onto the mountains. This is one of the guardians at the top of the staircase.

A Buddha Statue against the fall leaves.

Recognition

You may not have visited our blog in a while. We haven’t visited it for a week. We can post things, but we can't see our posts. In Korea, Blogger is down due to posts regarding the upcoming election. I don’t even know whether I should be posting this…

I’m freezing cold at the moment. Koreans believe in sauna-like temperatures for their houses, but they also believe in ‘fresh air.’ In summer, my school had the air conditioning on and the windows open; in winter, we have the heat on with the windows open. In both cases, they were wasting electricity. I haven’t been this cold at school since I was at Beaver Local.

I spent Saturday sick in bed. Paul, on the other hand, had an adventure in Seoul. He returned with a Costco card, cheese and oatmeal, a Brita filter, and a much better understanding of the bus and subway system. Sunday afternoon, we ventured up the mountain to wander around a Buddhist shrine. It’s kind of a neat idea: they’ve placed statues, ponds, and walkways up the side of a mountain; people are free to roam about as they wish – worshipping or not worshipping as they like. Paul, of course, had out his camera to catch some of the last of the fall colors. It was a beautiful day. I spent some time wondering about what it would look like if more churches would put together worship-park like-things…

And, as I was thinking, I heard something like what my students call me, but not quite: “weggy.” It’s the short, cutesy form of the Korean word for ‘foreigner’. They were pointing at me and calling me ‘foreigner.’ They were not the only ones to give us funny looks… Of course, people often stare at us, whether we’re at a shrine or at the grocery store.

I came in to work this morning to find the contents of my class folder on my desk. When I opened the folder, I found a new class list inside. A few hours later, one of the other teachers came to my desk and started rifling through the folder, without acknowledging me at all. You would think there would be a happy medium between being over-recognized and under-recognized.

Recent Adventures

It’s been a long time since we’ve written. We’re sort of settling into life here – getting our teaching and planning routines. Two weekends ago, we both had a cold, so we stayed near the house. I read my book, went to the store, cleaned the house. Paul took a bus to see where it went (to a beautiful temple up in the mountains).

This past week, however, has been rather full. My school had “Athlete Day” on Thursday, which began with a Halloween-like costume parade. After the parade, all of the students changed into their gym clothes; they played soccer, dodgeball, hackey-sac, and a variety of silly games. At one point, the mothers of classes 1-3 played kickball against the mothers of classes 4-6. I had to jump rope with the other teachers (which, by the way, is more difficult than I remember), and play tug-of-war. The next day, we had a school field trip – half the school went to the Korean folk village, and the other half went to a nearby palace. I went to the folk village. The students were let loose the whole day to ‘learn’ on their own (I believe they did most of their learning in the amusement park section), while the teachers enjoyed a nice day without classes to teach. I had a few students who led me around all day and explained things to me, which I really enjoyed.

This weekend, we went shopping in downtown Seoul, at Namdaemun Market. Namdaemun (south gate) Market is over 600 years old, and it feels just as old, not because it’s slow or the goods are old-fashioned, but because there’s such a distinct mercantile feel to the place. A million people have set up shops and tables all through the market, selling all kinds of different things. There were stores selling international foods, scarves, wrapping paper, souvenirs, toys, and, of course, (fake) Gucci and Louis Vuitton everything. There were so many people and so many things and so many people selling so many things. It felt like a movie. While Paul took pictures, I bought a wrap and haggled for a scarf, and looked at teen idol coffee mugs and fish forks and jewelry boxes. Paul, of course, bought a bag of little oranges and ate them.

We decided to walk from there to Myeongdong shopping district. While Namdaemun is a traditional market, Myeongdong is anything but. Tiffany, Ralph Lauren, Levis, and many Korean-brand flagship stores line the streets. It’s more like an outside mall than a market. While Namdaemun was filled with people of all ages, this area was packed with 20-somethings; it had a distinct, club-like feel. Again, I browsed a few stores while Paul took pictures.

We went for dinner at a little Korean restaurant in Myeondong. Unfortunately, the waitress was rather rude, the food wasn’t so good, and the bill was twice what we had expected. ‘Tis the joy of traveling.

By the way, Paul went hiking with his coworkers last week and rode on a karaoke bus and ate dog….

Which is the Most Favorite Place?

As a Canadian, my visa only came with a single entry permit (Meg's came with multiple entries since she's an American) so I decided to register myself at the Government of Korea's immigration website and apply for multiple entry status. After filling out a couple of pages with personal data I was taken to a page that is probably familiar to most people. I needed to create my username, password and choose a password hint. Nothing special. Or at least I expected it to be nothing more than selecting from the typical "What city were you born in?, What's your mother's maiden name?", etc... I could help but laugh when I saw the translations on some of these timeless identity questions. And then I captured screenshots to prove that you can't make this stuff up. Click on the screen capture below. It's worth it. Trust me.



For those who are too lazy, some of my personal favourites include:

• Which is the most favorite place?
• What is the first priceless treasure?
• What date do you want to remember for a long time?
• What is the most impressive book's title?
• Which movie did you see impressively?
• Who is your respectful person?

And my personal favourite (which was really tough to choose from this list of winners): "What is the most favorite paragraph you have read?" At least I know now that if I ever need to call the Korean Immigration office it is unlikely I'll talk to someone who speaks a form of English I'll be able to understand.

To the Word through English

For the past month, Paul’s primary co-teacher has been very busy planning his school’s annual English festival. Since the middle school students were buried in exams last week, my school allowed me to attend the festival.

The school looked really impressive. The (second) big balloon was flying above the school (tied down, of course), and there were banners and smaller balloons everywhere. The walkway to the front door was lined with posterboard English presentations by each of the fifth and sixth grade classes.

Paul spent the festival emceeing the English performances in a large room inside the school while I wandered around, talking to students and taking pictures. A number of students had entered contests for speeches, storytelling, and singing. I watched a six year old give a speech introducing herself, a boy (dressed up as a turnip) tell a story about a turnip, and another boy sing that Paul Anka favourite, ‘Diana.’ Outside, the students played games like Simon Says, Whispering (like ‘telephone’), and Making Groups. The instructions were all in English. There were some mothers doing face painting (beautiful face painting), and, of course, ice cream for the kids to eat.

I was impressed by how many guests were there – teachers and principals and vice principals and officials from all sorts of places who were interested in the festival. Of course, it made Paul’s principal and vice-principal very happy – their school looked fantastic.

Even though it was a three-hour festival, it had both opening and closing ceremonies. All of the students gathered outside on the playground, facing a stage. Each of the classes stood in a line – boys in front, lined up from shortest to tallest – and girls in the back. The opening ceremony had speeches from the principal, vice principal, the head of the parent-teacher association, along with a few others – all in English. The closing ceremony included a mass-dance; all of the students wore red and blue gloves and waved their hands in the air. (This was performed to a remake of “Hey, Mickey.”) When the vice principal declared the beginning, ribbons shot out of the stage; when he declared the closing, a group of sixth-graders let balloons fly over the students. Paul, of course, was the emcee, and he read his script very slowly and very loudly.

The day before the festival, all of the school staff received shirts to wear that said, “Yukbuk Elementary School” on the front; on the back, they had the slogan for the festival, “To the World through English.” The shirts arrived at 2:30. At 4:00, they realized that the shirts actually said, “To the Word through English.” After a long deliberation, they decided to print pictures of a globe and tape them to each of the shirts to cover up the misprint. Of course, by the end of the festival, the globes had fallen from most shirts.


(If you want to see some pictures of the English festival, click on “Korean Photo Gallery” on the right side of the page.)

Countryside

My students had midterms this week. I remember seventh-grade midterms as being a kind of joke, but in Korea, the students must apply to get in to high schools; all of them will go to high school, it's just a matter of which one. And, of course, in order to get into a good university, you have to get into a good high school. For three days the students come to school, take three tests, and leave at lunchtime to study at home or at the library before they go to their private lessons. A stressful week for them, but far more relaxed for the teachers.

I told my co-teacher that I had never seen a rice field before; so, on Monday, after we had finished proctoring exams, she took me for a drive in the country. We drove on a number of back roads through little patches of rice fields and small family farms. Once outside of the cities and towns, Korea is a very green country.

She drove me to a fishing lake surrounded by large, soft, green hills. We could have been in Algonquin or somewhere in Vermont. There was a ‘café’ at the top of the pond; the sign was mostly in Korean, but it had a guitar, a cowboy, and ‘70s’ and ‘80s’ on it. Those things, at least, looked familiar. It was a beautiful fall day and a perfect day for a picnic. Since I have come to associate Korea with garbage on the streets and smoky fumes in the air, I was surprised at how pleasant the countryside seemed.

“In Canada, do you have fishing ponds like this?” I assured Yu Mi that in Canada -and in the US, many people fished on lakes and ponds. And then, I looked around. The pond was surrounded on all sides by a dock-like thing. On the dock – all around the lake -- sat chairs that resembled lazy-boys: comfortable-looking, reclinable chairs. Most of the chairs sat underneath a tent-like thing, others sat in small concrete buildings. Yu Mi pointed out that the buildings on the dock had satellite dishes. Apparently, those are the box-seats for the fishing pond.

On our drive back, we stopped for ice cream. Yu Mi explained that there are many large houses in the area and a very nice golf course. And then, “In this place, there are many dog restaurants. Do you eat dog in Canada?” “No, we keep them as pets,” I replied.

“I think dog meat is much leaner than pork.”

Not much you can say to that.


post script.
The Lonely Planet dares Korean travellers to eat the following foods:
seasoned raw minced meat
fried grasshoppers
silkworm larvae
cow kneecaps soup
live baby octopus
and, of course, dog-meat soup

Balloon. Cut. Fly! GONE!

While most of my family celebrated Thanksgiving today I was half the world away practicing for Yukbuk’s 2nd English Festival. The practice took place outside and since today its 10 degrees (or 50 for you Americans) everybody was bundled up like winter had begun to descend. I of course was still wearing just a collared t-shirt. This seemed to stun everybody. I was asked repeatedly if I was cold and was met with astonishment when I told them not really. To be fair, it has been between 20 and 25 degrees each day since we arrived so today was a pretty big departure for the normal. I’m personally hoping the weather will stay like this for awhile. It finally feels like fall.

The big news at the school today when I arrived was…well let’s see if you can figure it out. Often times to for an event or opening, Koreans will have a big balloon float outside or over the place announcing it. Yesterday when I arrived at school there was a large balloon floating outside my window with a large pink banner hanging from it reading “2nd Yukbuk English Festival”. Today when I arrived I was greeted by many of the teachers with the words: “Balloon”, “cut”, “FLY!”, “Gone”. The order they said the words seemed to be pretty random. Slowly they asked the teachers and school workers who spoke English to help translate (even though I understood pretty quickly what had happened). With the aid of his coworkers, the Vice Principal finally came up to me and told me that the “edible balloon line was cut and the balloon go away”. Now, I’m going to go out on a limb and assume he meant “inflatable” balloon and that Koreans typically don’t eat the balloons after they are finished using them. The new crisis today is where to put the balloon so vandals can’t cut the line again. It sounds like it’ll be attached to the roof. This should put it high enough up in the air that nobody can read what it says. We’ll see.

One of the nicer things about working in Korea might be the way nobody really seems to take you seriously or believe you when you try and explain things to them that they don’t want to hear. Piracy is pretty rampant over here and apparently getting a fake degree, driver’s licence or passport is only slightly more difficult than renting a movie. In the past month it has come out that a couple of prominent Koreans in high places have gotten their jobs through forged documents. The response of our provincial board of education has been to require that all foreigners prove their degrees are authentic. The way it has been decided that we should prove our degrees are authentic is to take one of our co-teachers to our school’s website and to the area that lists all graduates for any given year. Then we are to print off the page (with the web address) and have it sent to head office. A glaring problem with this idea of course is that while it might be common in Korea to post graduate lists for all to see on the website, this isn’t so standard in North America. It’s great when they make policies for foreign teachers without actually talking to a single one of them. Anyways, Meg’s having trouble with her teacher about it. Today’s the deadline and I suspect she’s having a rough day. I tried to explain to my teacher that it was impossible to do what he asked. I did almost tell my co-teacher however that if he wanted I could have the Wycliffe site show me as a graduate with whatever grade point average he wanted. I’m kind of glad I didn’t. I probably would have made things more difficult for me in the end. Though it would have been fun to log-on to the Wycliffe site and create some bogus article just to prove I really graduated.

Luckily for me, as I could start to see my co-teacher’s eyes glazing over with disinterest I remembered that Wycliffe publishes a magazine that lists the graduates and that we post a copy to the website. So he was happy. Though he does want another transcript. This will be the 3rd one I’ll give to them in the past month. I’m glad Wycliffe doesn’t make me pay for them.

Unfortunately, my proving my degree’s authenticity through the website has only made things more difficult for Meg. Her school can’t figure out why she can’t do the same thing as me. I think she’s explained it to them every day for the past week. They don’t seem to be getting it. Meg told me earlier that she emailed the alumni association to ask for an email verification. It hasn’t arrived as of yet. Her teacher keeps asking her to check her e-mail even though Meg’s explained to her countless times that it is after 10pm in Philadelphia. This doesn’t appear to have had any affect on her. But who knows, maybe the offices at Eastern University are 24 hours.

The First Global Haircut

My hair has been bothering me for weeks. The last time I had it cut was in early August, and recently, it’s been really long, dry, and annoying. It’s been in a ponytail way more than usual.
Thursday was the final straw. My hair was so scraggly and gross that I made up my mind to get it cut. I had asked my friends here where to go, and had Paul print out some pictures. I was set.

I hate getting my hair cut to begin with. I don’t like making small talk with someone working on my head. I don’t like worrying about what I’ll look like after it’s over. But going under the scissors in Korea, I was worried because I couldn’t communicate with the person cutting my hair, and I was way more worried about how I would look in the end. After I gave the stylist the picture and sat down in a chair, I knew that there was nothing else I could do. So I waited.

I couldn’t really tell what was going on as the one lady cut and the other stylists looked on and laughed (whether at me or at the television, I’m not sure). I could kind of feel where the scissors were hitting in the back, and it seemed about right, but I wasn’t quite sure – I knew that that wasn’t a very good indication. After the one woman finished cutting, two women dried my hair simultaneously. That’s when I noticed all the hair on the floor – big, long chunks of hair. The second woman then took a straightener and spent what felt like hours painstakingly styling it. The heat from the striaghtener, combined with my growing suspicion of what had happened made me feel rather hot and sick.

It was over. Shaking, I ran my hand through my hair. And again. Two hands felt what was on the back of my head. My heart, which had been slowly sinking, anchored itself in my stomach.

I paid (they charged double for the fifteen minutes with the straightener, which annoyed me) and left. I walked home quickly, forgetting the other errands on my list for the night. At home, I went directly to the washroom and Paul quickly followed. We both looked in the mirror.

I’ve never had such a bad haircut. In addition to being three (three!!!) inches shorter than what I had requested, the shape was a sort of 80’s rock star combined with a bad version of ‘the Rachel.’ Most of my hair is chin length or just longer, while a thin layer sticks out underneath. It’s a big balloon of hair nestled in a messy array of spikiness. In the back, the thin underlayer is shaped into an extra long tip, reminiscent of a ‘rat tail’. The rat tail is the only piece that is at the just-below-shoulder-length that I had asked for. And before you tell me that short hair isn’t that bad, I should mention that because of mandatory hair lengths for middle school students, I now had the same hair as my students. In a really, really weird shape.

As I stood there in shock, expressing my frustration and disbelief, I remembered that I own a pair of hair scissors. I began chopping the weird long pieces in the hope that I could fix some of what had gone wrong. Paul stood by and held my hand mirror, and when I couldn’t reach the rat tail, he cut it. It was one of those special moments when you know you really trust someone. Or that your hair is just that bad.

In the end, I can get it into a ponytail, and that’s where it’ll probably stay for a while – at least if Paul has his camera out. He says it’s not that bad and that I’m still pretty. And that’s why I keep him around.

The Tiger or the Bear?

Well Meg had her birthday yesterday. It was a little strange to celebrate it on October 3rd here since it was still October 2nd for most of the day back in North America. Her birthday was pretty much ending right around when it would have started if we were still back home. We were lucky that October 3rd is a national holiday in Korea. It celebrates Korea’s birthday (Foundation Day). It commemorates the mythical founding of the Korean nation in 2333 B.C. by the legendary god-king Tan-gun. It is an interesting myth which involves a bear and tiger striving to become human. If you are interested in finding out whether the Korean people are descendents of the Bear or the Tiger; you can read a short synopsis of the myth at: http://www.lifeinkorea.com/information/tangun.cfm

To celebrate Meg’s birthday we decided to head into an art gallery in Seoul. Meg had read good things about the Leeum Samsung gallery (that just opened a couple of years ago) and so we ventured off to spend the afternoon there. The gallery was quite beautiful and I really liked the design of the building, unfortunately only half the museum was open this week. Fortunately for us it was the Korean section that was open (we’ve probably seen enough ‘foreign’ art back home and on our honeymoon). One benefit of only half the museum being open was the price of admission was only $5 and it came with a free audio guide. The audio guides were very nice. There were little palm pilots with touch screens and a headset. When you walked up to an object it would automatically start playing what you were looking at (in theory). You could touch the screen to read the script or view different angles of the item. It was a very nice set-up. For some reason however, it only worked properly on two of the four floors. On the 2nd and 4th floors for some reason whenever you walked up to a ceramic or piece of art it wouldn’t register properly and it would talk about another piece of artwork. To make maters worse it would talk about something that wasn’t even on display. I suspect the gallery rotates some of its collections and doesn’t always update what is on display with the English audio guide. This is a shame because we really liked the gallery itself and would like to go back and see the other exhibits.

After a dinner of Dak Galbi (spicy chicken – currently Meg’s favourite Korean food) we went to the English bookstore and browsed around. We were hoping to get some textbooks or props for our classes, but nothing seemed quite right so we stopped by the local Dunkin’ Donuts, bought a small cake and headed back to Yongin. It was a pleasant day and the third country Meg has celebrated her birthday in.

Happy Chuseok

Happy Chuseok – a few days late. This past Tuesday was Chuseok, the Korean equivalent of Thanksgiving (American Thanksgiving, that is). It’s a harvest celebration with lots of food and a five-day weekend, without the sales. We were fortunate enough to be invited to celebrate Chuseok with Paul’s co-teacher and his family; so, on Tuesday morning, we were up and at the train station at 6:30 and arrived at Mr. Kim’s house an hour later. We were introduced to his family and ushered onto the couch, where we sat and watched the news (in Korean) with the men of the family (the women, of course, cook the meal, but there was no real way for me to ask to help. In fact, I think that might be considered rude here – I’m not sure.) By 8:30 the meal was ready and we sat down to large helpings of beef and onion stew, bulgogi (a beef dish), boiled chicken and fish. (The whole meal seemed rather full of meats.) For desert, we ate apples and pears and songpyeon, a sort of rice-cake that’s the ‘signature dish’ of the Chuseok meal.

After the meal, Mr. Kim and his brother took us to the nearby Korean Folk Village. The houses – except for the wealthy person’s house – all had thatched roofs and mud floors. Cooking was done in a fire-pit built into the kitchen floor. It was all the sort of thing that you might expect, until Mr. Kim said, “this is a traditional farmer’s house. This is the kind of house I grew up in.” Mr. Kim can’t be fifty, and yet, during his lifetime, Korea has made its way from a third-world, thatch-roof country, to a developed nation stuffed with sky-scraper apartment buildings.

There were some really neat shows at the Folk Village as well: a gymnastic see-saw performance, a tightrope walker (who had to be over fifty-five), and a traditional farmers dance which involved men with four different kind of drums and hats with long strings attached. The men who danced with the hats were really neat.

It seems as though going to the Folk Village on Chuseok is a rather popular thing to do. By the time we were leaving at 2:00, the park was getting quite full. Many of the children came dressed in hanbok, the traditional Korean costume.

The rest of our holiday was spent relaxing. We took two trips to Seoul: we were able to see Gyeongbokgung, one of the old royal palaces; we walked by the Blue House (the President’s residence), and wandered through Kyobo, one of the largest bookstores in Seoul. All in all, it was a good holiday, even if we couldn’t spend it traveling.

Our First Week in Photos

Apparently, we don't just like in Yongin. We live in "The First Global Yongin".














Here is the photo you've all been waiting for, our beloved toilet.




















And a closer look.

Smiling & Waving Prohibited

My wife is taking the day off and she asked me to write about my experiences so far. I think she has viewed this blog as more of a collaboration than a solo act. Only time will tell which one of us is mistaken.

It has definitely been an interesting experience so far, and much different than my time in Japan (for those interested, I’ll flush out the differences in more detail later). I really haven’t done much in class yet. I just sit off to the side and observe…occasionally adding in a comment or two. It hasn’t been the most exciting. I’m actually looking forward to teaching next week. I’ve introduced myself to each class and they’ve all gotten the opportunity to ask me some questions. Since their English is quite low, the number of questions I’ve received has been somewhat limited. Almost every class asks me: my age, birthday, if I speak Korean and whether I have any children. Most ask how tall I am, some have asked my weight, and one even asked what I thought of the kid sitting beside him (his neighbour got him back however, by asking me if I thought his friend was silly).

In my spare time between classes I’ve been researching where to travel within Korea. Korea is quite a bit smaller than I expected and therefore almost all points of interest are within reach. Even Busan (Pusan) is only a two and a half hour trip on their Bullet Train equivalent. I had thought of perhaps visiting the DMZ in the near future (though they needed our passports to get our alien cards, so we won’t be able to visit until we get them back). I’ve heard it is a very interesting tour. It sounds like it only costs around $35 each for the day trip. Not too bad for a trip into a potential war-zone… The website noted that there were some special rules for people partaking in the DMZ tour. My favourite of which was “No waving, talking, gesturing or smiling to the North Korean army”.

I’ve actually been enjoying the food. I think my digestive system had a much harder time adjusting to the fish diet I encountered in Japan that it has to the spicy food of Korea. We get served lunch at school ($2.50 a day is removed from our payment) and I’ve been enjoying it. To clarify, I’ve been enjoying the food. Not the lunches in general. At my school lunch consists of the specialty teachers (3 English, 2 Physical Education and 1 Science teacher) eating together in the administrative offices. The Administration makes themselves scarce for about 30 minutes while we eat (I have no idea where they go, or why we eat in their office – perhaps because it is fairly large?). It takes me about 10 minutes to eat, and then I sit listening to the other teachers speak in Korean to each other for about 15-20 minutes. None of them speak English overly well (not even the two English teachers). It seems like it is impolite to leave before the oldest teacher is ready to go, so we sit there until they stand up to leave. Then the younger teachers clean up and wheel the food kart away. It is an interesting process. Though probably better than eating in a cafeteria full of screaming kids (the kids actually eat in their homeroom class – not much of a break for the Homeroom teachers).

For the most part I’ve been eating more at lunch and having smaller dinners. That might change as we discover foods and restaurants that we like in the area. Also, once we get our kitchen sorted out I suspect we’ll be more inclined to have larger meals than what we’ve been eating so far.

For those of you awaiting some photos, Meg will most likely post some tomorrow. We’re hoping to venture into Seoul on the extended weekend (It’s a 5 day weekend for us – sadly, it’s come too early for us to make good use of it) and I’ll be sure to take numerous photos there. I’ll try and post them next week.