Koreans Say the Darndest Things---About My Hairstyles Pt.1

Any female teacher in Korea can tell you about Koreans' amazement with foreigners changing their hairstyles.  I have long hair and can do a few different things with it, so I quite often am amused by the comments I receive from students and other teachers about my change-ed hair.  I also have a particularly large collection of bows, headbands and hats that give everyone that much more joy when they see me at school in the morning.  Because most Koreans naturally have straight, dark hair, my long, curly hair makes me an anomaly.  Apparently Koreans rarely change their hairstyle, so when someone does everyone notices and it is a huge deal.  "Teacher!  Your hair change-ed!!  So beautiful!!"  I hear multiple times a day.  My students love to touch and play with my hair.  I'll be sitting in my desk on Facebook having an inappropriate-while-at-work conversation with someone when I feel something tugging on my long locks.  I'll turn my head around 180 degrees and look down to find a little twerp squatting in that oh so familiar stance, looking up at me grinning with her hand caught in the unintentionally grown dreads in the back of my hair.  I'll oblige her and allow her to continue for a while longer until i feel my hair/head being threatened, then I'll start pulling her hair so she sees how it feels.  She usually thinks it's funny and keeps going.

Anyways, this series of posts is going to be a documentation of the funny/awkward comments I receive by various people on my hairstyles.  They will feature a photo of the hairstyle and a list of the comments with a little explanation, or whatever I want to do.  I don't want to hear your negative comments about my hairstyles, so keep your mouths shut.

My neighbor and the first person I saw this morning: "Your hair looks different today!  It looks like you just got out of bed and put your hair up!"
        Me: "Thanks." Unamused.

My coteacher as she walks in the classroom and sees me: "Wow!  Your hair is sooo beautiful!  Your headband is so big and beautiful!"

A 5th grade student before class:  "Teacher!  Your head looks like pineapple!"

A 4th grade student in the lunch line:  Leans over to my coteacher and says something in Korean.  Coteacher laughs and says, "She says your hair makes you look like Princess Cinderella!"
          
Later that day the same student:  "You are Princess Cinderella!"

Today my coteachers and I left school early to go to the salon so I could get my haircut.  I had initially considered perming my hair but then kind of freaked out when I thought about putting chemicals in my hair and the fact that many Korean stylists have probably never worked with my hair type before.  Because of this I decided I would just get a cut.  This caused a problem because apparently my coteacher had already told the principal that I was going to get a perm and that we needed to leave really early since perms take a long time.  While in the teachers' room today I was 'talking' with the head teacher and principal and they were really excited to see my 'even more beautiful' hair after it was permed.  Since I had decided I just wanted a cut, and my coteachers still wanted to leave really early from school, we have to make up some elaborate story about why my hair isn't as beautiful as they had expected.  I told them I could crazy curl it on Monday before school so they would think I got a perm but they said this wasn't necessary, as the principal is old and probably would forget or not notice anyways.

The stylist took a few inches off and layered it.  We'll see what the students and principal (if he remembers) say on Monday.

Open Class Illusions

This post is for all the teachers in my family back home.

In Korean public school systems exists a phenomenon called 'open class.'  It is well known to all native Korean teachers and foreign teachers alike, as everyone must participate throughout the school year.  Open class is basically when people are invited to come observe a teacher 'teach' a class.  Sometimes the visitors are the vice principal, principal and coworkers from the teacher's own school.  Other times they are parents of the students in the class or teachers from other schools.  But on occasion the people that come to watch the class are people in high-up positions at the Office of Education.

Open class is basically a Korean teacher's worst fear.  The nerves that build up over weeks of preparation are enough to break a person down.  When a Korean teacher finds out the date and time of her open class she will spend weeks planning and preparing.  Unlike in the U.S. this is not a time when the principal comes in, sits in the corner unnoticed by students and takes a few quick notes on what the teacher is doing.  It is far from that.  Instead, the teacher creates an extremely elaborate illusion of what their class would look like in a perfect world where the teacher has an infinite number of hours to plan and prepare for their classes.  And this is what it is expected to be.  It is no secret.

Let me give you an example.  Three days ago one of my fourth grade classes was cancelled due to the fact that our head teacher, who is a P.E. teacher, was going to have an open class the next day.  The head teacher and his class needed to 'practice' the lesson the day before so they would be prepared for when the important people from the Office of Education would come the next day to observe.  Yes, they actually practiced the exact class that they would be having the next day and held their students out of my class to do it.  The next day I walk up to school having completely forgot about the head teacher's open class, but am quickly reminded of it the second I step foot on school grounds.  Groups of students are scurrying around with little brooms and dustpans sweeping up all the fallen leaves and dirt off the driveway.  The dirt field in front of the school, which is used for P.E. classes and sports, is completely covered in sports equipment.  Let me just tell you that I have NEVER seen anything on this field besides the two permanent soccer nets that it houses and elementary schoolers playing various sports.  On this day the students would have the greatest P.E. class of their lives.  They would get to participate in an cornucopia of sports ranging from badminton to bowling to balance beaming.  On the field were various types and sizes of nets, mats, stools, big, wood things that looked like a bean bag toss without a hole in the middle and special equipment at each station.  Someone had even gotten out chalk they use on baseball fields to designate each area. I too had to sacrifice for this class.  My coteacher and I were asked to haul our oversized dry-erase board down three flights of stairs out to the field.  Who uses a dry-erase board in the middle of a dirt field?  When the decorating was finished all I could really do was laugh at the ridiculousness of the whole affair.  But I was the only one laughing.

To make matters even more extreme, the school apparently bought over 20 two-foot potted flowers.  As we were lugging the dry-erase board outside the vice principal would stop every 10-feet to indicate where the students should place each pot.  It was someone's genius idea to place these directly in the middle of the hallway, as if it was totally natural to have barriers in the middle of the hallway of an elementary school where students are constantly running, jumping, sliding, hitting, kicking and participating in outrageous activities I've never even seen before.  There is no way that on a normal day these flowers would have lasted 10 minutes without getting knocked over and destroyed.  At the end of the line of flowers there was a table set up with various books, binders and student creations all on the subject of P.E.  The Office of Educationites could explore the wealth of knowledge belonging to our beautiful, perfect school, students and staff.

And the next day the beautiful illusion ceased to exist.  (How'd you like that one sentence paragraph, Jay?)

 The school's field on a normal day. 

Unfortunately I didn't have my camera on open class day but you can imagine.

Now I'll briefly tell you about my own open class, which I have yet to do.  Well, originally I was supposed to do it on the 6th of October.  Then it changed to the 13th, then the 12th of November and now it is scheduled for November 19th.  Since it was originally supposed to be the 6th of October my coteacher and I will naturally be teaching the lesson that we would have taught would it have been that day, 4th grade Chapter 11 Part 2.  Instead, when we actually teach our class, our students will be on Chapter 14 Part 1.  Oh, and did I mention that November 19th is a Friday and I don't even teach 4th graders on Friday?  Yes, we will be having a class that day that doesn't actually exist.  We will be teaching a lesson that the students learned a month and a half before and that we already practiced with them.  I'm sure we will practice it for a second time the day before.  For this class my coteacher spent hours creating the lesson and laminating and cutting out paper and I pretty much did nothing.  This is not because I am lazy or don't care.  It is because Korean teachers take this so damn seriously and get so stressed out over it that they won't let their coteachers do anything because they could screw it up.  If they screwed it up then what would happen?  Probably nothing.

I just have to mention again the fact that EVERYBODY knows that this happens and it is expected.  If a teacher's open class lesson didn't look so overtly outrageous the people at the Office of Education, and everyone else, would have a fit.  I'm sure the whole school would learn about it as soon as it happened (or before) and everyone would be talking about it.  Maybe my criticism is too harsh because I come from a different culture and am used to things a different way, but I really have thought long and hard about this trying to think of the reasoning and I just don't believe it is the best way to evaluate a teacher's ability and success as an educator.  It also causes so much stress on the teacher and takes time away from the students' learning, as they have to practice the same lesson multiple times in an unnatural fashion.

On the plus-side, students will be so well behaved there will be no corporal punishment in the classroom the entire period.

The next day the flowers (this is only half) had been moved to a more practical location.

Maybe I'll get to take one home with me.

House Warming Korean Style

My coteachers and I have a really awesome relationship.  Every Wednesday and Friday when we are all at the school we sit in the English classroom and talk about hilarious topics while drinking coffee and eating yummy treats.  One of such topics was the ritual of gift-giving when a couple moves into a new house.  In the Western world we call these gifts 'house warming gifts.'  This topic came up because I informed my coteachers about a dinner that I had been invited to by my neighbor lady.  I wondered what would be an appropriate gift to bring to thank her for inviting me for dinner.  I told her I was thinking about bringing a bottle of wine because this would be an appropriate gift in the U.S.  She said this would be fine and then we somehow moved from this to gifts you give when someone invites you to their house warming party.

Apparently in Korea the most common house warming gifts that are given are two things: toilet paper and laundry detergent.  The first time I heard this I laughed out loud for a long time.  My coteachers must have thought that something was wrong with me because I was just imagining what people in the U.S. would think if they received toilet paper or laundry detergent as a gift.  If this happened to me I would probably be thinking, "Oh, no.  Did Mrs. Johnson notice the skid marks in my underwear that were on the floor the last time she was here and figured I was out of tp?"  Or, "Harriet must have seen the huge pile of dirty clothes in the laundry room and thought I was out of detergent."  If someone gave a big package of toilet paper as a gift they would definitely be begging for their house to get toilet papered.  Here in Korea there is actually a brand of toilet paper that, when translated, literally means 'house warming.'

When asked the significance behind the gifts my coteachers informed me of the common interpretation.  When one gives TP as a gift they do not necessarily need to worry about the number of rolls in the pack (apparently 6-8 is a good amount).  What is more important is the length of paper on each roll.  This is because the act of pulling the paper off the roll is a metaphor for acquiring wealth.  The more paper you pull off the roll, the more money you are receiving.  This is the same with laundry detergent except the bubbles the soap makes are a symbol of wealth.  The more bubbles, the more money.  Don't ask me how you know which detergent makes the most bubbles.

So here goes my not-so-insightful interpretation.  The two obvious factors in giving toilet paper and laundry detergent as gifts are hygiene and money.  Hygiene because it is literally what these two products are used for and money because of, I already explained why, dammit.  My guess is that this custom stems from the Korean War when money was scarce and people could hardly afford even the basic necessities of life.  When the Koreans began to rebuild their country and economy and people started to earn money, toilet paper and laundry detergent were luxuries that some people could begin to afford.  They were really practical gifts that the receiver could use and it was a way for the giver to share his/her wealth with the receiver.  In many cases the receivers were probably young couples who had just moved into their first house together and did not have much money to purchase non-essential items.  I'm going to keep analyzing this and interrogating my coteachers and see what else I can come up with.

 It's not a stretch to say that Koreans are obsessed with money.  In one of my teacher-classes I had asked my coworkers to discuss dating rituals in Korea.  Two out of three of the women in the class said that they had rejected men because they were 'poor farm boys.'  They described their homeless type garb and that they just couldn't date someone like that.  One woman even admitted that after 'communication,' 'money' is the most important aspect of a relationship.  Koreans are obsessed with having the latest gadgets and many dress to a T at all times.  Designer clothing and accessories are a must if you are to give a good impression, and a good impression is everything.  Does this obsession with money stem from the rebuilding of Korea after the Korean War?

After much analysis I came to this conclusion:  Koreans need lots of toilet paper and laundry detergent for one reason and one reason only.  Because Korean women buy underwear and bras to match their man's underwear, they need to be able to wipe their asses really well and wash their undergarments often so they don't stain them.  If one party ends up staining his/her underwear both parties will have to buy a whole new set of undergarments so they can still match (this is very important).  If they continuously had to buy whole new sets of matching underwear (which are not cheap may I add) then they would not have as much money to buy things that other people will be able to see, like designer clothes and electronics, that will positively influence their status in society. 

Wow, my brilliance amazes me a little more each day.

Just Pretend You're Having Fun

This past Saturday Lara and I were shopping downtown and we noticed that a B-Boy (break dancing) contest was taking place in a few hours.  We had both been wanting to see it so we decided to stay and watch.  We got there at three o'clock and the show didn't start until five but we didn't want to lose our seats so we ended up sitting there for two hours before the show started.  The break dancers were amazing and Lara and I screamed and squealed the whole time and were so impressed by the things these dudes (and one girl) could do.  But this post isn't about the B-Boy contest.

The show had been going on for literally one minute when I notice the only other foreigner in the crowd pulling a chair up next to me into the aisle.  I thought this was a little bit weird but just gave him a smile and kept watching the contest.  After about a minute of him sitting next to me a young Korean woman comes up to me and screaming over the bumpin bass tells me that a camera is going to be pointed at us and that I need to pretend like I'm talking to the dude on my right and smile.  I am so confused for about 30 seconds as I am 'talking' to this guy with a camera hovering over the crowd filming us.  I ask the guy what's going on through a big, fake smile.  He also keeps a smile on his face as he tells me that he had been hired by this Korean English news company essentially to go to different events in Daegu and pretend like he is having lots of fun.  The company was actually paying him to do this!  After we had been 'talking' for awhile the lady stands up in front of the crowd, looks at us and does a clapping motion, obviously wanting us to clap to the beat for the camera.  We start clapping.  I can't even explain how I felt once I realized that I had been picked out of a crowd by a Korean news company and told to act like I was having a really good time so that they could document 'foreigners having fun in Korea.'  I kind of felt like a robot mimicking the actions of the Korean lady.  I also felt kind of taken advantage of since I really had no choice in the matter.  They didn't ask me if I would be willing to do this but it was thrown upon me.  After the opening act which lasted about 4 minutes the Korean lady told the dude that he was done.  She said 'thank you' to Lara and I and the guy apologized to me because during our 'really fun conversation' all I could really say was how awkward I felt and that I didn't know what was going on.  He also looked pretty awkward and didn't seem like that outgoing of a guy.  I asked him how much they were paying him and he said, 'not enough.'  After all of this happened I just tried to imagine what this news program would be like.  I can imagine the title being something like, "Foreigners in Daegu have much fun at cultural events," or something to that extent.

This event just brought up something that I've noticed multiple times in my interactions with Koreans.  They always want to make sure you are having a good time.  My last post, "This is Fun, Right," was entitled this because Wechool kept saying this at dinner over and over.  I had dinner with a neighbor lady the other night and she too kept saying the same thing.  Why do Koreans care so much if we are having a good time?  Do they genuinely care that we are always entertained?  Do they merely want us to have a good impression of their country?  I really do appreciate their concern but this was taking it to a whole other level.  Please, Korea, do not make me pretend I am having fun in your country and feel like a robot.  I am having fun and I will make it known in my own style.

This is fun, right?

Alright people.  So I've begun to do exactly what I didn't want to do when I first started writing my blog, that being not writing for long periods of time.  I think this is because 1.  I'm busy and 2. they take so damn long because my posts are so long.  My solution to this is to try and start writing shorter posts which should hopefully encourage me to write more frequently.  I'm just going to pick one event and write about it.  Here it goes:

Two weekends ago my friend Lara and I decided we wanted to go hiking before it gets too cold so Lara looked through her 'Frommer's South Korea' travel guide and found a national park close by Daegu.  The park is called 가야산 (ka-ya-san) national park and is located about an hour by bus from Daegu.  After waking up a little late on Saturday afternoon we hopped a bus headed for the mountian.  Here there is a really famous Buddhist temple (해인사) that we were also planning on visiting.  When we arrived we headed towards the temple.  The temple looks pretty similar to all the other Buddhist temples i've seen so far in Korea.  They are very beautiful but it seems that once you've seen one, you've seen most.  This temple though has one characteristics that differs it from all the others:  It holds the world's biggest collection of Buddhist scriptures.  These scriptures are carved into squares of wood and functioned as a printing press to be able to easily copy the scriptures for dispersion.  These 81,340 squares of scripture are kept in locked rooms and protected from people, weather, animals or anything that could possibly hurt them.

From this view each one of the squares looks like a book binding but when you remove it it looks like this:

These blocks were carved about 1,000 years ago by monks that lived in the temple.  We were told that if one person were to carve all of the tablets by herself, carving for 24 hours a day, it would take her around 60 years to complete all of them.  Of course, that is not how this happened but think about how tedious that would have been!

After we left the temple it was getting dark and was too late to go on a hike.  We decided we should look for a hotel and go hiking the next day.  Then we went to look for dinner and ended up in a little Korean restaurant we thought would be good judging by the amount of people already there.  The second we walk in a man sitting at a table in the back says hi to us and motions for us to come sit down.  We really don't know what to think but, like I said in a previous post, I was told never to turn down an offer by a Korean!  This has probably been one of the best pieces of advice that I've been given since I've been here since it's lead to some fun/hilarious experiences.  This one was no exception.  We go over and sit down at the man's table where he is sitting with another man and a woman.  The man begins to talk to us and he speaks almost perfect English.  He tells us that he lived in New York for 11 years where he worked in some job relating to computers.  He looks around 60 years old and is very open and sweet.  We look at the menu and tell him that we want beef and he orders something for us and tells us that we will like it.  We are goin' with the flow so we decide to go for it.  The man tells us his name is 'Wechool' and that all three of them live in Busan but went to high school in Kayasan and are back in town for a high school reunion.  Apparently the other man that was there is a famous Korean poet that specializes in writing Haikus.  The woman is a politician running for some position in Busan with the opposition party.  These two Koreans don't speak much English but Wechool does a good job translating.  It also helped that they wouldn't stop feeding us beer and a purple drink that they said was a home-made cranberry liquor.  The famous poet knew the owners of the restaurant and so we definitely got the special treatment.  This cranberry moonshine apparently wasn't on the menu and they were only sharing it with us because of this friendship.  Wechool keeps looking at Lara's beer and then at mine and pretty much tells me that I need to step up my game.  Apparently Lara was being a better cultural ambassador than I and downing her beer at a quicker pace.  So what did I have to do?  Step it up.  It is Korean tradition that when someone wants to drink they pour you more alcohol so that you pour some for them afterwards.  It is rude to pour your own drink and rude to not pour someone's drink when they are running low.  Well, these men wanted to drink so they kept pouring us drinks so we would return the favor.  I think you probably can guess what happened from here.  The food came!  It turned out to be one of the most amazingly tasty dishes that I've ever eaten.  It was a spicy soup dish loaded with beef, mushrooms, 잡채(japchae) and other sweet goodness.  Like most Korean restaurants you are overloaded with yummy side dishes too.  We continue eating, drinking, talking, drinking and drinking for a few hours.  Then Wechool answers a phone call and tells us that a man he knows is going to come meet us.  The man is apparently one of the most famous Korean-Chinese calligraphers.  When the dude comes into the restaurant he looks pretty wasted.  He is an old man, probably around 80 years old, and he doesn't say anything to Lara and I or even make eye-contact with us.  The first thing he says when he sits down at the table in a low voice is 'where's my drink' with a serious look on his face (Wechool translated).  He seems like a very traditional guy to say the least.  Anyways, we continue drinking and after a few hours Wechool gets a call and has to leave but tells us to stay as long as we want and that he would pick up the bill.  It's traditional the older person to pay for the younger people in Korea.  The bill wasn't cheap so we were very thankful.

Ok, here is the good part.  Brace yourself, father.  Because the communication between the two parties has significantly dropped with the departure of Wechool Lara and I begin to try and plan our withdrawal.  Before we know it the poet comes over and sits down beside me.  Lara is across the table.  The second I say hi the poet puts his arm around my shoulder.  His next words are unforgettable.  "You sing song," he says.  My heart starts to race as I remember that section in my Korean culture book about being asked to sing solos on the spot in front of guests at a dinner party.  I start to freak out because I was caught so off guard I can't think of any song that I know all the lyrics to.  My mind has gone blank and I don't know what to do.  I know that it would be rude to not sing so I look at Lara desperately for help.  She can't think of anything either.  Finally, after about a minute or so of negotiating songs in my head, the poet belts out, "Edelweiss, Edelweiss..." and I instinctively catch on, "every morning you greet me..."  All I can say is thank God i've watched the Sound of Music at least 20 times and I know every damn song from it.  As I loudly and drunkenly kill the song I look at the poet and notice that he doesn't know the words but he sings how he thinks it sounds.  He's pretty close on most words!  At the end of the epic duet we receive an applause from the people at our table, the restaurant owners and two other people eating across the restaurant.  I think the greatest moment of it all is when I look across the table to Lara and tears are streaming down her face.  I'm sure the cause of the emotion was the mixture of pure hilarity, a touching, beautiful performance by yours truly and too much booze.  I would say that i definitly bonded with this man on the fact that we both love to sing and we both know the 'words' to Edelweiss.  After the song finishes and we make fun of Lara the poet says, "you go home now," and walks us to our hotel.

Pic of the singing coming soon...

The next day we get up 'early' and find the trail for our hike.  The hike 8k hike was actually pretty awesome.  Unlike the hike up Seoraksan, there were far fewer people.  There were some pretty rocky/steep inclines but we made it to the top and the view was definitely worth it.  Koreans hike in large groups and don't hike without packing what seems like a full meal and lots of soju, beer and makgeolli.  We converse about the fact that in the states it would be totally taboo to be downing liquor while hiking on a Sunday in a national park but we think its pretty awesome.  As we are hiking down we start saying "anyeonghaseo" to everyone we see.  Our hike down, which should have taken about an hour and a half, ends up taking about 2.5 hours because we get invited to so many people's gatherings on the side of the trail.  During these gatherings we are force-fed raw beef, songpyeon (rice cake), and shots of liquor and given a whole bag of home-made songpyeon for the journey home.  If I had to describe Koreans in one word based on this adventure it would be 'generous.'

 If you can believe it this is far fewer people than at Seoraksan

Lara almost threw up eating the raw beef

The main lesson that I took out of all of these shenanigans was that I should definitely start traveling with only one or two other people instead of large groups.  None of this would have happened if we would have been in a bigger group.  We got to experience real Korean culture and meet and hang out with Koreans because it was just Lara and I.  It's definitely fun to travel with lots of friends but it needs to be balanced with traveling with fewer.  Meeting the awesome Koreans, eating and drinking and being in the mountains definitely made this one of the best weekends so far in Korea.

Oh, by the way, can you tell that I've learned to read and write the Korean alphabet, 한글 (Hangul)?  It's definitely a really awesome thing to know.  I usually don't know what the words say but sometimes they are English words written in the Korean alphabet.  It's really fun when you are reading a sign and sounding out the letters and then you find out that it is actually an English word.  Koreans and foreigners here call this 'Konglish'.  It's a pretty great phenomenon.

My first month

So I've already been in Korea for over a month now.  Every year it seems like time flies by a little faster than the previous.  Why can't time slow down when you're having fun and speed up when you're not?  In the past few weeks I have been settling down and getting accustomed to my daily life.  It has been good to start getting comfortable with my apartment and the area in which I live.  I have been going on short hikes to get in a little work out on the mountain that I live by.  There are so many mosquitoes on this mountain so I have to walk fast or run so I don't get bit.  I think it helps my work out in the end!

I'm sorry I haven't written in a while but I've been really busy and so much has happened since then!  I'll start with Busan.  Busan is the second most populated city in Korea and it is on the south eastern coast.  On the high speed train from Daegu it takes only about 45 minutes to get there.  They say that on a clear day you can see Japan from Busan!  I went to Busan with 5 other friends to visit our friend Kevin who we became good friends with in orientation.  We boarded the train on Friday night and thought we would start off a good weekend with some beer and a few bottles of soju.  We had heard that it's totally legit to drink on the train.  Apparently it wasn't.  We were asked to quiet down multiple times and I'm pretty sure everyone on the train hated us.  I later learned that people take the KTX because it's supposed to be quiet and people want to sleep.  Sorry, people!  We lost a few more friends when we arrived to Busan and hopped on the subway with beers in hand.  Apparently just because it's legal doesn't mean that it's kosher to drink on the subway.  One Korean lady was particularly angry and yelled at us for a while in Korean.  It's actually a lot funnier when you have no idea what the person is saying.  Now we had upwards of negative 40 friends in Busan.  The plan was that we would all stay at Kevin's apartment on his floor but that meant that there would be 8 people in a studio apartment because Kevin's girlfriend, Ruth, was visiting from Seoul.  We decided it would probably be a good idea to get a 'love motel' instead.  Because Korean children usually live with their parents until they get married 'love motels' are really popular.  They are small motel rooms that you can rent by the hour or the night and usually cost around $40 a night.  Don't ask me what they cost by the hour haha.  I've heard that many love motels are actually pretty nice for the price but some can also be pretty bad.  I think it's kind of a hit-or-miss type of deal.  Well, I think that we missed on ours.  The first thing we noticed when we walked in was the bright yellow cement floor and the cockroach on the ceiling.  The wallpaper was stained with who-knows-what and apparently smelled really bad.  We ended up having to sneak the boys in because we told the hotel lady that there were only three of us when in actuality there were six.  Do you remember what Korean showers are like from my previous blog?  Well the water drains into the floor.  When six people are showering and using one bathroom it gets pretty disgusting after about ten seconds.  Whatever.  We didn't care that much.  We were in Busan on the beach!  It was probably around 80 degrees and we were really excited to see Kevin and the other friends that we had made in orientation who were living in Busan.  We spent the weekend partying, eating and lounging on the beach.  I don't think I've laughed so much in 2 days than I did on that trip.  On the Sunday that we had to leave we decided to go to the most famous beach in Busan called Hyundae (like the car).  We were all taking a nice nap in the heat when I hear a man trying to talk to my friend Lara.  I suddenly sit up to see what's going on and this old Korean man is squatting in front of Lara with a small paper cup and two toothpics in his hands.  He is trying to give Lara something and she is shaking her head in protest.  I finally figure out that the man has a cup of boiled bug larvae and is offering her some.  He notices that I sit up and he begins to walk over to me.  My instinctual reaction is to open my mouth.  Please don't ask me why.  Apparently opening of the mouth universally means "feed me."  Needless to say he pops a few boiled bug larvae in my mouth and I begin chewing.  Before this I like to think that I can at least tolerate everything that I have eaten in my life.  Not anymore.  Everytime I even smell the cooking of these larvae I begin to gag and have to run away.  I really hope that no one tries to feed me these ever again.  Besides this one event Busan was really incredible and we've already made plans to visit again within the next few weeks.  Apparently Busan has the biggest fireworks show in the world (?) and it takes place in October so we will hopefully be going for that.

 We hung out in a giant bowl on the beach

 Our dinner one night which consisted of lots of squid! Yummm

 The crew (minus Shaun who is taking the pic) in front of the 'love motel'.


Two weekends ago was one of my coteacher's last day as she is going on maternity leave until after winter vacation.  My two coteachers and I decided to go out to dinner since we wouldn't see her for a while and just to hang out.  Emily and I had been talking about going out for makchang for a while.  Makchang is pig intestines that the restaurant gives you raw and you grill it up yourself.  Each table has its own little grill in the center, and like much Korean food, the servers bring it to you and you cook it.  I had eaten tripe in Ecuador and really liked the flavor but I always had trouble swallowing it because it is so chewy and I could never break it down enough to swallow it.  I would chew it for a while to get the flavor and then spit it out.  I hoped that the makchang would be easier to swallow because I didn't think it would be as appropriate to spit it out in front of my coteachers at a sit-down restaurant (in Ecuador we ate it off the street).  We ordered spicy and regular intestines and, like normal, we got tons of different Korean side dishes.  This is one of the greatest things about Korean food.  You get the meal and included in the meal are many side dishes with various types of food.  Always included is kimchi, which I love.  with the inestines came tree leaves that you were supposed to make a little wrap out of with the different side dishes and sauces.  Apparently the leaf is very high in iron.  Lots of barbequed meat is served with these leaves.  The intestines and all the side dishes turned out to be delicious and I was even able to swallow it with a little extra chewing.  I think these were of higher quality than the ones I often ate in Ecuador and this is why I was able to successfully complete the eating process.

 My coteachers, Emily and Ju Young.

 Cutting the makchang

 Leaf wrap

After we ate dinner we walked next door to the norae bang.  Norae bangs are the karaoke rooms that Koreans are so very obsessed with.  You can seriously find a norae bang on every street corner.  I was a little bit nervous because I have rarely sang karaoke in front of other people completely sober.  If I sing back home it is after having a few drinks and the entire group I'm with takes the mic and we perform a hilariously ridiculous ballad and it is completely a joke.  In Korea karaoke is not a joke.  My two coteachers and I paid for an hour in the norae bang and we opened up the song book and started choosing songs.  I was pretty relieved to find out that my coteachers were no Celine Dions like I imagined all Koreans to be.  My intimidation flew out the non-existant norae bang windows and I let loose.  My coteachers and I ended up having a really fun time dancing and singing.  I closed the hour with an epic performance of "Ode to my Family" by the Cranberries.

 Norae bang

This past week beginning on Tuesday was a mini-vacation for Chuseok.  Chuseok can be compared to Thanksgiving in the states.  People travel to be with their families and they cook and eat and do different things.  Because of this I didn't have to be at school from Tuesday through Friday.  All the EPIK teachers traveled to different places and I decided to go to Seoul and hiking with a group of five other people.  We signed up for a pre-planned trip through a travel company called Adventure Korea that caters to foreigners.  They plan trips all over Korea and lots of people really like the company.  This past Friday, Saturday and Sunday was a hiking trip to the Seoraksan mountains.  Seoraksan is the biggest mountain range in Korea and apparently is pretty well-known.  When i told my coworkers that I was going there they said, "Wow!  Seoraksan!  Good!" hah.  So we headed to Seoul on Wednesday morning where we would stay for two nights before the hiking trip.  Full of "Seoul" puns, the trip turned out to be a blast.  I couldn't believe how huge it is.  Seoul is one of the biggest cities in the world with over 12 million people and the 3rd largest subway system in the world which we dominated.  When I say 'we' I mean the other people in the group.  We took a trip to a palace which is located in the city at the base of a mountain built in the year 600 something!  The king of the dynasty during this period lived here and it was destructed when Japan took over but rebuilt later.  We also visited Seoul Tower which is on top of a mountain and overlooks the entire city.  We were not the only ones who had this same idea.  In fact I believe that about 98% of Seoul had the exact same idea.  My allotted 15 seconds of viewing time was pretty incredible as the sun was setting right when we were there.  Earlier that day we walked down the Han River and took a little rest in a park and that night we wandered around the city.  Seoul has amazing shopping and food and I would definitely like to spend about a week there.  I don't think I could live there though.  Everywhere you walked there were about a bazillion other people.  There would definitely be something to do all the time though.  While I was there I met a friend from Willamette, Brett, who has been living in Seoul as a teacher for the past month.  Before we graduated we both talked about meeting up.  It was really nice to see someone from home!

 Juxtaposition of the thousand and a half year old palace and the city.

 The girls

 Girls in traditional dress

 A clothing store called "Teenie Weenie".  The sign says "Fly to your dreams" and "All that bear."  Don't ask me...

 "Soft and deep tastes of flesh chicken."

 Once again cooking our meal.

 Seoul Tower

On Friday morning with an hour and a half of sleep we had to get up to go on the hike.  I was pretty much dying of exhaustion but thank God for the 3-hour bus ride.  I was able to take a little nap before we hiked the mountain.  We get to the mountain with our group of 75 (way too many people) but then i realize that the Korean idea of hiking is pretty different from my own.  Hiking this mountain, which means you literally climb the entire mountain, are thousands of other people doing the same thing.  From babies to 80 year olds, the mountain was drowning in people.  It got really really frustrating having to wait behind a long line of slow people or waiting for the people going the opposite direction to go past.  The hike to the top of the mountain proved to be pretty treacherous as it was super steep and there were so many people.  I was astonished at the way the really old people and young kids could climb this mountain.  Before the recent waves of Christian missionaries Koreans have been predominantly Buddhist because of the history of Chinese domination.  Now Korea is one of the most Christian countries in the world which is kind of sad to me.  Many younger people reject their Buddhist heritage for Christianity but the older people tend to stick to their traditions.  I would guess this is why there are so many older people that religiously hike the mountains.  I've noticed that when I go hiking on my mountain that the majority of the people hiking are probably around 50 or 60 years old.  Mountains are sacred in Buddhism and temples are usually built on or at the base of mountains. One of the most interesting things is that on so many mountains, and in public spaces in general, there is "work out equipment."  Apparently the government places workout equipment in the middle of a mountain where old men in suits can go to "work out."  Right when the get off work they must climb the mountain to work out without changing their clothes.  It's really strange but hilarious because we would view these machines as pretty ridiculous.  To me they seem like playgrounds for grown ups.  The machines don't really work you out to say the least and you will have a good laugh watching someone so seriously 'working out' on these machines in their professional dress.  Anyways hiking wasn't exactly as I imagined it but it was an experience.  On Saturday we went to the beach instead of doing the 11 hour hike and we lounged in the sun and rode mini electric motorcycles.  My favorite part of the 'hiking trip' was ironically the spa.  But this ain't just any ol' spa.  Spas in Korea are very popular and everyone is very naked.  First you go into the 'shower' where you undress and hang out naked in your choice of about 8-10 different tubs.  These tubs are more like mini pools and each is a different temperature.  They have cool and hot pools, saunas and an outdoor hot tub like pool.  The water they use is apparently mineral water that i believe is from a hot spring.  People also go to the shower to, you guessed it, take a shower!  They bring all of their bath stuff and sit in front of mirrors with shower heads and bathe each other.  Yes, they rub each other down from head to tow.  My friends and I were pretty comfortable after a few minutes but we never reached this level so we decided to bathe ourselves.  When you are done in the 'shower' you put on these really stylish shorts/tshirt uniforms and go to the 'spa' area that is integrated with the men.  Here there are about 10 different saunas at different temperatures and even a cold room that is totally iced over.  You can also hang out in the center and lay on the ground to watch TV.  We decided to pay an extra 1,000 won (85 cents) to do the massage chairs.  This was the most intense 10 minutes of massage that I've ever endured.  All in all the 'hiking trip' was fun although we did have a few complaints with Adventure Korea.  We may not be booking another trip through them.

 There are lots of stairs involved in Korean hiking

 The climb was worth the view from the top

 Biggest Buddha i've ever seen

Complaint #1:  No beds in the hotel room.

OK I really must go.  I've started to get sick and I really need to go to bed.  I'll leave you with a few pictures that I took in my 4th grade special class.  I taught a lesson on clothing and took pieces of my own clothes in.  We played a game where they had to put on my clothes.  It was pretty funny.

Stay tuned.  Hugs and Kisses <3

Teacher, what's your blood type?

Well I survived my first week of school!  I arrived to Daegu last Thursday from Jeonju.  Orientation felt like college and when we boarded the buses to go to our different cities I felt a little bit sad.  I made tons of friends that would be with me in Daegu but I also met people who would spend the year in cities all over Korea.  It took us about three hours to get to Daegu and when we arrived our co-teachers were waiting to pick us up.  We were all pretty terrified when we pulled into the parking lot.  One of the most talked about subjects by the lecturers in orientation was 'how to get along with your co-teachers.'  We were pretty much told that if our co-teachers don't like us then it would be a excruciatingly long year in Korea.  The most important thing in an EPIK teacher's school life was to be friends with your co-teacher.  If they invite you somewhere always go.  If they don't want to do something in a lesson that you want to do, don't do it.  Always smile and never complain about Korea.  If you don't want everyone in the school to know something don't tell your co-teacher.  The lecturers made it seem like our co-teachers were going to be old, angry hags that don't speak any English and are so overworked because of us poor, helpless foreigners that can't do anything on our own.  I was pleasantly surprised to meet my co-teacher and an office assistant from my school who had come to pick me up.  My co-teacher is a tiny little woman whose 34 in Korean age, 33 in US age.  She's really cute and about 8 months pregnant.  She has a hard time speaking English and seems pretty embarrassed.  Every time she talks she says the sentence first in Korean and then tries to translate it into English.  We leave the Office of Education and my co-teacher, Ju Young, takes me to my apartment.  I am really excited when I walk in and realize that my apartment looks like a very new building and that no one has ever lived in my specific apartment ever before.  It is very clean and the teachers had decorated the bathroom with Winnie the Pooh decals. Haha.  Here are some pictures of my apartment:

As you can see in the picture of the bathroom, Korean bathrooms don't have bathtubs.  The shower head is connected to the wall of the bathroom and the whole bathroom is your tub.  There are drains in the floor of the bathroom.  I kinda like it because that means I won't have to ever clean my bathroom!  The downfall is that the bathroom floor is wet for a good hour or so after you shower.  I've shown my apartment to multiple people and they all say that my apartment is really clean and better than theirs.  I'm pretty happy about it!  I still need to buy some stuff and figure out the garbage system.  I just have a big pile of garbage and recycling that has been sitting on my floor for a week!

The other day I was sitting in the parking lot of my apartment building and the landlady walks over to me and starts trying to talk to me in Korean.  I don't know what she is trying to say but then she points and grabs my hand.  I pick up all of my banjo stuff thinking that she is kicking me out of the parking lot.  I follow her and we go into the building and pass the first floor (where I live) so i figure maybe she is taking me to her office to sign some papers or something.  We walk up four flights of stairs and then I realize that she is taking me to the roof.  We walk out the door and she leads me to a picnic table with benches and an umbrella.  She shows me that I can play my banjo up here and she shows me how to put up and down the umbrella.  The view from the roof is amazing.  Here is a video:

K. So now I'm going to talk about school.  After my co-teacher shows me my apartment she tells me that we are going to our school to meet the head-teacher, principal and vice principal.  I'm really nervous because I've heard that the principals are usually old, stern men that are very traditional and you need to make a good impression so that they like you and make your life easier.  We head over to the school and I realize that my house is about a 7 minute walk to the school, which is awesome.  I am led into the principals office where he, the vice principal, head teacher and my co-teacher are all sitting.  Throughout the whole meeting I make sure that I have a huge smile on my face and that I'm outgoing and try and make them laugh.  At orientation they told us that Koreans don't like awkward silences and that you should just keep talking all the time.  So that's what I did.  I think the principals really liked me because they were laughing and smiling and asking me questions.  One of my co-teachers told me that since I've been at the school the principals have been a lot nicer haha.  I ask my co-teacher about the school and she tells me that it is very small compared to other schools and that there are only about 320 students.  Many of my friends teach at elementary schools with one to two thousand students!  Because my school is so small I will teach 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th grade classes and I will see each class twice a week.  I will also have 4 special classes that will only have about 10 students and I have more freedom to teach whatever I want during these.  Since my contract says that I have to teach 22 forty minute classes I will also have to teach 2 teacher classes a week.  This means that the teachers and principals have to come to my class twice a week after school and I have to give them an English lesson!  This is the part I'm most nervous about!  I have two co-teachers.  One I work with everyday and the other also works at another school and only comes to ours on Wednesdays and Fridays.  My co-teachers tell me that we will each teach 20 minutes of every class and help the other during their 20 minutes if they need it.  With seeing each class twice a week, having special classes and teacher classes I will have to plan 16 lessons a week!  Most of my friends do 4-6 lessons a week and have to teach the same lesson like 6 times a week.  My school is also right at the base of Apsan Mountain and because of this there are Buddhist temples all around.  Here is a picture of my school, Namdok Elementary.

 

(Temple on left, school on right)

As I said earlier, I have 2 co-teachers but so far I have only mentioned one.  My other co-teacher's English name is Emily.  She is also tiny (like the majority of Korean women) and super cute.  She's 38 years old and has 2 kids.  Did I mention that she is freakin awesome?  She speaks English really well and has worked with other foreign teachers before when she worked in a hagwon (private English academy) and she understands everything that we have to do because she has done it all before.  This is how awesome she is:  last Saturday she invited me to go with her family to Woobangland which is the biggest amusement park in Daegu.  Her husband bought us all wristbands so that we could go on any ride and we spent the whole afternoon there riding rollercoasters.  Well, her husband felt bad because no one besides me wanted to go on the rollercoasters so he went on one with me and was terrified and almost threw up!  I felt really bad after that and told him he didn't have to go on any more.  After Woobangland they took us all out to dinner to eat a really yummy fish dish.  The fish was pollock in an amazing spicy chili sauce.  Surrounding the fish was pieces of pig (?) intestines and very large fish eggs.  Sounds interesting right?  It was actually delicious!  I have loved almost every dish that I have eaten here so far.  Our school lunches are amazing!  The other day they served hard boiled quail eggs with pieces of pork in a yummy sauce.  I think I like quail eggs better than chicken eggs!  Anyway, this past week she invited me and a foreign English teacher that works at her other school to the Daegu International Jazz Festival.  It was a very classy evening and I think the tickets were pretty expensive.  I need to figure out a way to
repay her.  Emily is also an amazing teacher.  She is really good with kids and does fun activities to keep the kids interested.  Many of the teachers here strictly teach the textbook (which is not very good to say the least) but she supplements the book with better materials.  I think it will be really fun to teach with her.

Since downtown Daegu is only a 25 minute commute and it is in a very central location we use it as a meeting place.  Daegu has roughly 2.5 million people which is about the same size as Quito, Ecuador but Daegu's downtown is much bigger and way more bustling.  Cars try and stay out of downtown because there is constantly big masses of people walking down the streets.  There are so many restaurants and stores and Daegu is known as the fashion capital of Korea.  The girls here are dressed to the T all the time and all of them wear high heels.  I've heard that Korean women even wear high heels when they go hiking (I'm not even kidding)!  It's pretty hard to look semi appropriate when all the women look so stylish all of the time.  Not to mention they are all really thin and adorable!  To say the least it has been really fun going downtown on the weekends!

Yesterday I met some friends downtown at a local ex-pat restaurant/bar for Sunday brunch.  There aren't many places that serve authentic Western food so there are usually lots of foreigners at the Holy Grill.  It is run by Canadians and features a selection of burgers, Tex-Mex and eggs-and-bacon breakfasts.  After we ate brunch we walked around downtown and a girl we met the night before, Madeline, pointed out this cafe/spa that she had been to previously.  This cafe is particularly special because it has little bath-tubs in the floor filled with tiny minnows.  You pay \6,000 (around 5.50 USD) and you stick your feet in the tub and the little minnows attack your feet with their tiny mouths and eat off the dead skin from your feet.  I can't even explain to you the feeling of 50 minnows nibbling your feet.  It tickled so bad and was such a weird experience it took me about 5 minutes before I could even look in the water.  Lara (a friend) and I were laughing so hard we were crying and we were probably the butt of many Korean jokes since the whole coffee shop was filled with Koreans enjoying coffee and bread.  I'm sure we were being a little disruptive.  So we had to sit with our feet in this minnow infested water for 15 minutes.  To my embarrassment my feet must have had much more dry skin than anyone else because the fish were getting a feast of dead skin from my feet.  There were so many more minnows eating mine than anyone elses.  It was quite an experience!

When we were in orientation many people warned us about the personal questions that Koreans ask you right when they meet you.  They told us that we would definitely be asked our age, if we are married or have a boyfriend and many other questions to determine our status.  Older people have a higher status than younger people and there are different words for everything in Korean depending on if you are using formal language with an older person.  I was introducing myself to one of my classes and a student raises his hand and asks, "Teacher, what's your blood type?"  I laughed and thought this was a pretty funny question coming from a fourth-grader but i answered it anyways.  After the fact I learned that Koreans believe that one's blood type says a lot about their personality.  I don't know what O positives are like...  Anyways, I don't find these questions too personal and I take it as a sort of game where I try to one-up the Korean by asking them even more questions than they ask me.  So it just so happens that I have a very good looking co-worker who is 26 and took me on my first night here to get groceries and eat dinner.  I was pretty curious about his relationship status so about an hour after meeting him I ask him, "Are you married?"  He answers, "No."  "Do you have a girlfriend?"  "Yes."  "How long have you been together?"  "Five years."  "Are you going to get married?"  "Yes."  "How did you meet her?"  No answer.  Either he didn't hear me or I totally won the Korean question game.  So the next day I tell my co-teachers that I think my co-worker is really hot and that I wished he didn't have a girlfriend.  I was also warned in orientation that you should not tell your co-teachers anything that you don't want the whole school to know about because Koreans like to gossip.  I notice a week later that it seems like my hot co-worker is scared of me because he won't talk to me and doesn't look at me when I see him in the cafeteria.  I tell my co-teacher this and she giggles and looks at my other co-teacher.  I ask her what's so funny and I know what she's going to say.  She says, "You remember the first day when you told me you thought he was cute?"  I say yes.  "Well that day I was talking to our co-worker and I told him that you thought he was really cute and you were sad that he had a girlfriend."  I am so embarrassed that she told him that and now he's too scared to talk to me.  Hopefully it's not awkward next time I have to talk to him!


Next weekend me and a few friends are going to Busan, which is on the coast, to see some friends from orientation.  I guess you can see Japan from the beach on clear days.  It should be a lot of fun!

Oh and in many public buildings they use squatter toilets.  There are only squatter toilets in my school and they really scare me.  I don't know how to use them properly and I don't particularly like them at all.  Let's just say I have only gone to the bathroom once at school.

Either my co workers put this little note on the door of my apartment or someone is in love with me and creepily spies on me: