Friday, June 27, 2008

Eat the Dog - A Few English Mishaps

Much to what I can only imagine will be my grandmother’s horror, this week my textbooks taught both, “Sora is taller than me,” and “Do you get it? Yes, I got it.” It also gave a picture of a killer whale with the name ‘dolphin’ underneath. On top of that, my co-teacher attempted to teach the students such gems as, “Let’s go reading, Let’s go studying,” and “I’ll be second that.” Needless to say, I’ve been feeling a bit frustrated.

As a native speaker, my job is supposed to be to point out these problems, but sometimes that simply doesn’t work. I attempted to teach what “I’ll second that” means; but since my coworker had never heard of our meeting process before, she decided that it meant “I’ll be second to do that,” or “I’ll be second that.” Everyone was uncomfortable that I thought it had something to do with a process, that I thought ‘second’ was being used as a verb. Dumb foreigner. And to correct a book’s mistake about a dolphin or comparative statements is uncomfortable, too. I could tell them it was a killer whale, but I’m afraid I didn’t try going against “I got it,” or “Sora is taller than me.”

And there are other things I really shouldn’t try teaching. Like science or certain Western ‘beliefs’. Last week in our textbooks, there was a conversation between Tony and Sudong. Sudong had been in California, and he had grown a lot in the year that he had been away from Korea. Tony comments on this, and Sudong replies, “I did a lot of exercise.” Since the question for this section was in Korean, and my Korean teacher was out of the room (the crazy one), I did my best to talk to the students about the discrepancy between Tony’s observation and Sudong’s reply.

“Does exercise make you taller?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Come on, now, we all know exercise doesn’t make you taller.”
“Basketball.”
“Basketball doesn’t make you taller.”
“Swimming.”
“No, swimming won’t make you taller, either.”
“Korean people, Canada people – different.”
“No, all humans are the same.”

About this time, my co-teacher came back to the room. One of the students explained the problem to her in Korean. She replied, in Korean, “American’s don’t believe exercise will make you taller,” then, had them translate to me, “Koreans believe that exercise will make you taller.” Everyone in the room was amazed at how dumb the foreign teacher was.

I think, though, that Paul had one of the best misunderstandings with his co-teacher recently, and not in a classroom. We were taking care of our friends’ dog; at lunchtime one day, Paul told his co-teacher that he had to go home at lunchtime to feed the dog, to which his co-teacher replied, “You’re going home to eat the dog?”

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

A New Gow and a New Problem

We got a message from my oldest nephew, Ben, Sunday night on the Wii. He said they were going to the hospital that day. I called my mom and she told me that Sarah was having contractions and they were all getting ready to go to the hospital. I woke up early Monday morning to call again, and by that time (about five Sunday night), Sarah had already had the baby and a fairly easy time, from what they could tell (my mom had seen the baby, but hadn’t seen Sarah yet). He’s 7lbs 5oz and Evan Patrick Farrell Gow (I’m not sure if his last name is hyphenated or not). Brad was elated that the baby came on Father’s Day.

In other news, my coteacher came to me on Friday. She asked when I was taking my vacation this summer, so that they could schedule the dates of my summer camp. That’s when I found out the dates for summer vacation. I mentioned that if I re-signed my contract with the school, I would get two weeks to go home during summer vacation. She said she would look at my contract and talk to the principals.

On Monday, she came to me with a copy of my contract with the part underlined that we had talked about. She brought it to my attention that only if I renew would I be able to have a two week holiday home. I said I was aware, that that was what I was talking about. She seemed a bit confused, but said she would talk to the principal. She returned an hour later to tell me that the principal did not want to renew my contract.

I can’t tell you how strange this is. Most schools will keep any foreign teacher they can, since we’re in high demand over here. Since our conversation yesterday, she has asked a few times if Paul was staying, if I understood what she was saying, and if I was planning on staying in Korea. I think one of three things happened:

1. My co-teacher and I have a rocky relationship. She can’t co-teach with me in class because her English is not good enough. At least once every class I have to correct something she says. Also, I have not hidden my anger over ‘mistakes’ such as the school holiday last week; so, she has recommended to the principals that they find a new foreign teacher.

2. This spring, my school asked me to teach more extra classes than allowed for in my contract. I refused because it was too much, especially when they have refused to provide me with materials (though they have a budget for it). Saying ‘no’ to a superior is unheard of in Korea.

3. My coteacher did not understand me when I said I’d like to re-sign the contract. Re-sign and resign are very, very similar words; and though she should have understood from the other things I said (‘I’d like to stay” and “I get two weeks at home”), she may not have. Again, as part of Korean culture, she cannot admit a mistake like that to me or to the principals.

This leaves Paul and me with three options:

1. He will stay at his school; I will find another school nearby. This is a fairly easy process since there’s a shortage of teachers, and his school will help me find a job (we also have friends who will help).

2. We find jobs in Japan and stay there for six months.

3. We come home for good.

While we figure out what exactly is going on, this is what I can tell you: Since my school will not renew my contract, I will not be permitted to return home this summer.

I have to say, I'm not sad to have only a few weeks remaining with my co-teacher that I do not like. She's been more than a thorn in my flesh these last nine months, and the prospect of leaving her makes me rather happy. However, it does leave Paul and me with some rather difficult decisions. We'll keep you posted as we know more.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Cloud Nine?

Nine months. That’s how long we’ve been here for now. While it seems like ages in some regards at the same time it feels like the time has flown by.

Last week I taught with a substitute teacher for the week while my normal coteacher was away. It wasn’t the best of weeks. The kids had very little interest in anything she had to say. Of course this didn’t stop her from talking. In a lot of ways they teach more lecture style in schools here. So the substitute teacher just stood at the front talking and most of the kids turned away and began conversations with themselves. This would happen in each and every class. Thankfully, when it was my turn to teach they’d tune into me. Most likely because I teach them for five minutes and then we spend the rest of class practicing what I taught through various games and if they don’t pay attention to my spiel they know they’re done for when game time starts.

The substitute’s English pronunciation was horrid. It was driving me up the wall all week. She kept adding the Korean ending to everything (They add a –eu or –ee sound to way too many words to count). She would say Breakfast-eu, Lunch-ee (to be fair it was more like Runchee), English-ee, etc… The Japanese would do the same thing, but at least in that situation I could correct them since they were my students and they were small classes. Here I’ve tried and I continue to try, but it’s too hard when your co-teacher can’t get the pronunciation right and the class size is 40+. Her grammar was also awful. At one point she tried asking them if they knew how to spell the word Breakfast (at least I think that’s what she was trying to as) and it came out “Do you remember the spell?”. I’m pretty sure none of my kids or witches or warlocks, although at times I’m not so sure…

This week we were teaching the future tense in class. The main question was “What will you do this summer?” The kids would respond with one of seven possible answers to this question (I will…ride my bike, watch TV, play computer games, read books, play baseball, play soccer, visit my uncle). As a side note, I found it interest that in all my classes the children all knew what “uncle” meant but only one or two kids a class knew the word “aunt”. After the kids watch the movie and I read the dialogue with them my coworker translates it into Korean and explains the meanings and how we use it. In this particular case he talked for a bit and then said “What will you do…tomorrow” the kids answered, then he asked “What will you do on Saturday”, the kids answered and the he asked “What will you do yesterday?” and the kids answered what they did yesterday using the future tense. I just sat at the back of the room contemplating banging my head against the wall.

In other news, I got an email this morning telling me that Meg’s sister Sarah’s water had broken, but that it was a false alarm and the baby likely wouldn’t come for a few more days. Meg had to explain to me that in the real world (and not tv and movie land) that the water breaking doesn’t always mean the baby is mere seconds away from arrival. We’re both a little sad that we can’t be there to meet the newest entry into the Farrell/Gow family, but hopefully it won’t be too long until we find our way to Philadelphia.

The dog we’ve been caring for this week goes back home tomorrow night. I’ll be sad to see him go on one level and extremely happy on another. He’s been a bit of a handful. 5 month-old puppies (bigger than the size of a rat) were not meant to be raised in Korea. Our apartment is fairly large by most standards over here and yet no where near large enough for him. Also, the lack of a backyard is really a pain. Oh and the fact that there’s garbage everywhere. There’s a little field beside out apartment I take him to when he needs to pee and every day I have to pull trash out of his mouth at least a few times per walk. Although it’s an empty grass and rock field people just throw their garbage there. It’s very strange. I’ve actually watched people do it while I’ve been with the dog. They walk out of their apartments and dump a bag or box of trash onto the field. There is a pile of broken plates that I need to keep Brody away from every time we go into the field.

There’s a little company run by an American (I believe) who makes t-shirts for foreigners living and working in Korea. I just got my “I’d rather be in Japan” shirt in the mail last week. Now all I have to do is build up enough courage to wear it out in public here. It is a pretty cool shirt though. Meg wants one too now. Of course some days I suspect she'd probably be happy enough to wear an "I'd rather be in Iraq" shirt.

There have been protests here in Korea over the decision to import US beef for the last 40 days or so. Every night thousands of people attend candle-light vigils near the Blue House (their White house). It's gotten pretty violent on a number of occasions and it has been front page news almost every day. Most people think the protests are more anti-American driven than anti-beef and I suspect they're right. Of course I've been reading up on Korean protests and it seems like they'll protest anything. Apparently there's an average of 11,000 publiuc protests a year in Korea and the average riot police officer will have to deal with 85 a year. Definitely not a job I'd want to do.

There's an interesting article on Korean protests. It's worth a read if you have the time. Though it is mildly disturbing:

The Exciting World of Korean Protests

There's also an article on the crazy ice cream flavours of Japan. For example, Octopus flavoured, Horse flesh, shark fin, tomato, garlic, etc... I can verify that these are true flavours and not made up as I saw some of them with my own eyes and read about them in the Japanese paper when I lived there:

Japanese Ice Cream Flavours

Saturday, June 7, 2008

We're Still Here

It's been a few weeks since we've posted anything, but I assure you we're still in Korea. I can tell by the smell coming in my window. It's gotten warm here and some of the smells that went away in the winter seem to have come back. Of course we also have a dog staying with us for the week so maybe it's him.

For those of you scratching your heads and wondering how we could possibly have a dog, I'll give you the Colesnotes version: our friends decided that Korea would be a good place to raise a puppy and so they bought a 3 month old Pointer a couple of months ago. They're back in Buffalo for ten days to attend a wedding and we volunteered to take care of Brody for duration of their trip. He's very cute and very full of energy.

We got an air conditioner last weekend. The process is a little bit more complex than it is back home. It cost us $500 and took a workman two and a half hours to install. He drilled through two concrete walls and now we have a massive A/C unit in our bedroom that can cool the whole apartment if we crank it up. We haven't actually used it yet and are hoping to survive with just our fan until July, but we might not make it. The summers here are supposed to be miserably hot. Although I read it was 33 degrees in Toronto today, but it felt like 41 with the humidity, so maybe we're on the right side of the ocean this weekend.

Meg showed up for work on Thursday to find only two cars in the school parking lot. She was greeted with the news that there were no classes today when she went to inquire as to where everyone was. She then went to her office wondering why nobody had told her she didn't have class. An couple of hours later her coworker called to tell Meg she wasn't supposed to come in today. Apparently the Vice Principal (one of only 4 people in the school) had seen Meg and was curious as to why she was in and so she called Meg's co-teacher. Meg's co-teacher, Yu Mi, told Meg that it was on the schedule that it was the school's birthday and there was no school today. So Meg pulled out the schedule they'd given her and comment to Yu Mi that the schedule they had given her said no such thing. So then Yu Mi told Meg that she had called us three time to tell us. Since we have call display on our phone, and our phone had not rung the previous night or in the morning, Meg found that a little hard to believe as well. In the end Meg left school around 11:30 and went home. Having gotten up at 6am to walk the dog and spent almost half a day at work because nobody had bothered to tell her Thursday was a holiday for her school. Needless to say, it wasn't the best day "off".

I had a substitute teacher this week because my co-teacher was in New Zealand on a school trip. I'm very happy the week is over, as the kids could care less about anything that came out of the substitute teacher's mouth. Which is probably a good thing since she kept saying things like "Lunchee", "Breakfast-eu", and 'Englishee". She also asked the kids if they "remembered the spell?". I think she was asking if they knew how to spell something, not if they were little witches and wizards in training. I felt like my mere presence in the room somewhat validated her horrendous English and thought more than a few times about just leaving. It wasn't the best week.

About a month ago Meg and I went to Buddha's Birthday celebrations in Seoul. We made some lotus lanterns and watched a parade. It was one of our better days here. I just realized I never posted any photos, so here are a few. Meg won a prize for her lantern (you can see her holding it below):

Making our lanterns

Holding our completed lanterns

Some lanterns hanging at a nearby temple in Seoul

A Buddha float in the parade

Another float