Why the kids have difficulties learning English

Every lesson, my coteacher and I play at least one video from our CD-Rom (we usually play three). The first is generally an animated video and the second and third are live action videos. The same characters appear in both the animations and the live action movies. The animated movie is a bit longer, while the live actions are usually only twenty or thirty seconds long. Most of the time I have a difficult time trying to determine what exactly the target of the lesson is, as the videos aren't the greatest. However, I always enjoy the awkward conversations (but not really).

I've uploaded a bunch of my videos onto Youtube and I've linked a few of my favourites to give an idea of what I have to teach every day.

In the first video, Kevin points at Ann's face and makes everyone involved uncomfortable. I believe it's his way of telling her that she has ice cream on her nose, but maybe he's just a jerk. I'm not really sure...




In the second video, Kevin seems to taunt Ann's violin ability. Kevin also seems to have difficulties with concepts such as dates and time. Whenever Ann mentions them it seems to take the poor kid an awfully long time to comprehend.



In final video, Cindy gets a little forward with Jinho. After learning his name, her second question is "Where is his room?". Meg also likes that although Cindy is from Australia, she has no accent whatsoever.



These are just the first three videos of many, many more. If people enjoy them I'll post more in the future.

Remembering Angkor

As the year progresses we seem to post less and less. I've been thinking on over in my head and I've even started to upload some movies to youtube for my next big post. Until I actually get to writing it though, I've decided to post a few more photos from our trip to Angkor Wat. I've finally started to sort through the massive amounts of photos I took.

Meg under one of the coolest trees we've ever seen at Ta Som Temple. Over the years it has become entangled in the gate. Around the Angkor complex there were numerous trees growing through walls or with their roots twisting over and around bricks. We really enjoyed seeing the power of nature. Many of the temples would crumble into pieces if the trees or roots were removed.

Some carvings at Ta Som Temple

More carvings, this time at Preah Khan Temple. The carvings around the Angkor Wat complex were quite spectacular and there seemed to be an endless amount. Each temple seemed covered in elaborate carvings. Some told stories, while others just appeared to be decorative.

Our visit to Neak Pean Temple was fairly quick. It was extremely hot and unlike many of the other temples buried in the trees, Neak Pean had no covering whatsoever. We pulled out our guide book, read about what we were looking at, wandered around, took some photos and headed back for our air conditioned van. Although, it isn't one of the most visually impressive temples, I do remember that it was one of the more important ones. I wish I could remember why. I'll probably have to read through our Angkor Wat guide books again. We saw so many massive temples in our 4 days there that we've forgotten some of the details.

This photo is from our trek up to Kbal Spean. Kbal Spean is a temple located about an hour northeast of the main Angkor complex. Once you get there it's another 40 minute hike up to the temple itself. Though calling it a temple is a bit generous. It's actually a number of rock carvings found alongside a stream. We both enjoyed it immensely. We also enjoyed the hike a lot more than we anticipated as the jungle we trekked through had some fairly impressive trees and vines. This was one of my favourites and so I got Meg to snap a photo (or twenty) of me with it. The jungle was full of trees just like this one.

Into the North

Perhaps the coolest thing we did while my parents were in Korea was our trip to the DMZ. I might write more about it later, but I'm still fighting off a cold so I thought I'd just post a few photos to complement Meg's post below. These three are from our trip into the Demilitarized Zone (and even North Korea itself).


We're virtually on the boarder of North Korea here. Basically everything behind us is North Korea. To the left of the photo you can see a blue station and a bridge. The Bridge is known as the "Bridge of No Return" because after the war when they were returning POW and displaced people some were allowed to choose what country they wanted the live in. However, once they crossed the bridge (on either side) they could never go back to the other side.


This is basically the same view as the photo above. However this time you can make out a tower shape between my parents. This is actually a flag pole with the North Korean flag on it.

During the 1980s, the South Korean government built a 98.4 metre (328 ft) tall flagpole on their side of the boarder. The North Korean government responded by building a taller one — the tallest in the world at 160 metres (525 ft). It's actually hard to see the flag because it is so large that it requires quiet a heavy wind to move it and make it clearly visible.


Inside the DMZ, is a place called Panmunjeom, home of the Joint Security Area (JSA); it is the only place where North and South connect.

There are several buildings on both the north and the south side of the MDL (The Military Demarcation Line), and a few which are built right on top of the MDL. The Joint Security Area is the location where all negotiations since 1953 have been held.

The MDL goes through the conference rooms and down the middle of the conference tables where the North Koreans and the United Nations Command meet face to face.

In this photo we're inside that building where the meetings take place. My parents are actually standing in North Korea in this photo. The guard is a South Korean guard and he is standing on the official boarder between the two countries.

The Patterson Visit - A Summary

Paul is suffering from a bad cold and expects to die from it at any moment. While he is busy making outlandish requests for his burial, it falls to me to write a summary of his parent’s visit.

The Pattersons have been visiting for about two and a half weeks. They arrived on March 27^th, spent a quiet weekend with us in Yongin, and left on the 31^st for a week in China. After trekking up the Great Wall and wandering through the Terra Cotta Warriors, they returned to Seoul on the 4^th. We met them in town that night, and spent the weekend there as the rest of the World Vision-ites gathered. That Saturday we toured Gyeongbukgung, one of the main palaces of Korea’s Golden Age. Though most Koreans favor Gyeongbukgung because of its place in Korea’s history, the current palace is a reconstruction of the original, which was destroyed in 1592 and again in 1910, both times by the Japanese. I think we all preferred Changdeokgung, the best-preserved palace of Seoul, which we visited the next day. There’s something far more magical about a place when it feels old. Changdeokgung is known for its garden, which was only a few days away from full bloom.

After Gyeongbukgung, we went to Korea’s War Museum, which tells the history of all wars in Korea. This was a helpful visit for two reasons; first, it was beginning to feel rather warm outside, and we were all grateful to get out of the sun, and second, we were able to ‘refresh’ our knowledge of the Korean War. This came in handy the following Saturday on our visit to the Demilitarized Zone.

Sunday night (the 6^th), we put the Pattersons on the subway out to their World Vision meetings, and we returned to Yongin, until Wednesday, when they joined us. The following Friday (the 11th), we returned to Seoul yet again to spend the night before our big trip to the DMZ early Saturday morning. There, we went down one of the tunnels built by the North Koreans in the 1970s, took pictures of “Propaganda Village” - a fake, movie-set-like village built by the North Koreans to intimidate their brothers in the South (the buildings are empty, though they do bus people there to look busy during the day) - and we got to stand on the border between the two warring countries in the room where many of the ‘talks’ take place.

Other highlights of the trip include many, many meals at Western restaurants (a big treat for Paul and me), and many games of ‘Blackout’ (and one of ‘Hearts’) to pass the time in lonely Yongin. All in all, a good trip for everyone involved. I’m sure Paul will post pictures later this week - that is, if he lives, if not, I'll be looking for someone to hike with me up Mount Kilimanjaro.

Time Flies...

It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost two weeks since Easter weekend. I spent that weekend almost entirely in Seoul – on Saturday, I got my hair cut and picked up some groceries (a 7 hour day), and Sunday we went in to church early in the morning. When we returned around 12:30, Paul went to bed with a cold, and I spent the afternoon cooking Easter dinner. I burnt the ham in the toaster oven, but everything else came out okay.

Paul’s parents arrived the following Thursday night. Their flight came in early, and they beat us to the bus station. We had planned to take them to a few of the local sights on the weekend; unfortunately, it was a rather rainy weekend, so I’m afraid that the only sight of Korea they saw was our movie theater. They also walked around our town for a bit; I think they were a bit thrown off by the uneven sidewalks. Both Paul and I are eager for them to notice how dirty our little town is, but that might be something that only comes with time. It sort of grows on you – like a small headache that doesn’t leave for days on end. You think it’s not that bad at first, but after a while, it becomes a real pain.

And now, we’ve magically moved through yet another week teaching. It seems like every Thursday, we’re amazed that the week is almost over. We’ve been here seven months, next Saturday. It certainly doesn’t seem that long. For all that we don’t like about Korea, our time here is passing quickly. And I’ve never watched so much television in my life.

Easter in Seoul

Meg and I woke up around 6:30 on Sunday and made our way into Seoul for the Easter service at the Seoul Cathedral. We arrived just before 9:00 and Meg went off to the washroom before the service while I went to get us seats. I was greeted at the entrance by the ushers who informed me that they had run out of bulletins and hymnals. After two hours of travel, I was not impressed. Meg and I were fortunate because we both know the Anglican liturgy fairly well (though we're slightly off sometimes as they use the British and Episcopal versions rather than Canadian one) so we managed for the most part. The hymns were a little weak as the front half of the church sang along and the back half (without books) just stood there singing along to the parts they knew. There were probably about 120-140 people in attendance and only about 60-70 with the Order of Service. Meg and I sat around the middle and some of the people around us had books, but everyone behind us didn't. It made me a little sad. On a normal week the church probably gets about 50 people, meaning that about half the people there were visitors and the half with the books, for the most part, were the regulars. It made me think back to some of the courses I took at Wycliffe about growing congregations and the do's and don'ts. This service would have made my professor cry. If I was still taking courses at Wycliffe I could have written a paper on numerous mistakes made by this congregation. Instead, I just sit here thinking about all the people that will likely never return. Being the only Anglican church with English services within a few hundred kilometers this makes the situation even more depressing than if it had occurred in Toronto.

On a happier note, my parents arrive on Thursday. In lots of ways the past six months have flown by. It almost doesn't feel like we've been away long enough to have visitors, but we're both looking forward to their arrival (and not just for the long list of items I've asked them to bring over for us).

It should be an interesting visit. When they visited me in Japan I had a long list of places to take them and we traveled around a good deal of the country on the Bullet Train visiting three of Japan's ancient capitals (Kyoto, Nara, Kamakura), it's current capital (Tokyo), Hiroshima and the area where I lived. I had day trips planned for them to places nearby on the days I had to work with a train schedule and maps of the area. This time their visit will be split into three pieces. They arrive on Thursday and spend the weekend with us before departing for China on Monday. Then we'll meet them in Seoul the following weekend and on the Sunday they'll head off north of Seoul for their World Vision meeting for three days. After that they'll come back to Yongin for four more days.

While we're in Seoul we'll likely take them to a few of the palaces and the DMZ (demilitarized Zone - separating North and South Korea). As for the rest of their trip I'm not sure exactly where to take them. We might try and head down to Busan the last weekend they're here if they aren't too exhausted. Some how I doubt the sites of Korea will be able to compete with their week in China (Great Wall, Forbidden City, Terra Cotta Warriors, Temple of Heaven).

Springtime Blahs?

There’s vomit on the streets and yellow dust in the air. It’s springtime in Korea.

This is a whiny article. I’ll just warn you.

Both Paul and I have the privilege to walk by vomit puddles on a regular basis. Public drunkenness (and alcoholism) are both big problems in Korea that few people seem to talk about. We’ve passed groups of men fighting in the streets and men passed out in the streets – before 10pm. And then there’s the vomit puddles that never get cleaned up – they just fade away.

Springtime in Korea feels much more like a time for plodding than plotting and planning. Every spring, yellow dust from the Gobi desert in China blows down into Korea. The phenomenon has been recorded for several hundred years, but in the recent past the effects have been much worse: the sand brings more pollutants with it. Fortunately, in our neighborhood, people have taken to burning their fields, manure, and garbage piles, so that we can enjoy this experience even more.

We took a trip to Costco last Saturday. This may not seem like much of an event, but it’s a two-hour ride there, maneuvering through the store, and a two-hour trip home. (Usually, the bus ride is a little shorter, but the traffic was bad this weekend.) The process of shopping at Costco is unique: it feels like big-Asian-market-meets-American-wholesale-club. There are people and carts everywhere you turn. In Korea, there is a power of wills (or of age); no one moves carts or bodies out of the way, so the experience can be rather frustrating. If you do happen to be in the way, someone will push you to get by. This is done with no subtlety in a classic pushing move: put hand on other body and shove. I’ve taken to saying out loud how much I dislike Korea when this happens; though, on my first trip to Costco I sobbed uncontrollably in the middle of the store.

This particular trip was noteworthy because of our bus ride home. Because we were the last people on the bus, we stood for the drive home - in the front of the bus. I was right beside the driver, and watched as he checked his phone for messages, opened the window, closed the window, looked through his bags, opened a drink - all while driving a bus full of passengers at 125 km/hr. I spent the ride thinking of what to do in case of an accident. But I also spent the ride knowing that I would likely get home safe, with a story to tell. And really, that's how I feel about a lot of the things we experience here - from bus rides to vomit puddles. Every once in a while we look at each other and say, "our kids will never believe that we were this cool."