Broken English

At the beginning of our teaching jobs, we found that a regular sentence spoken to a class full of Korean kids just wasn't getting the point across. So we had to adjust our speaking style. And we found ourselves using fewer and fewer words in our sentences. It's not the best way to teach English, but sometimes you have to make changes to get your point across. It's getting better now and we can have some semblance of conversation with some of the students, but we still have our old standby phrases and words that have stuck as the basic set of instructions. If we were to have conversations like this with English speakers it would be considered juvenile at best and inexplicable at worst, but a class of Koreans would acknowledge us without question. This is what you may hear if you were to walk in our classrooms.

1. Hello.
2. Main books.
3. Time.
4. Chair. (Probably the word used most in any given class.)
5. Page 14 Three Stickers.
6. Bye bye time.

Translations provided below for those not used to these types of abbreviated sentences.

1. Hello.
2. Please take out your main textbooks so we can begin our lesson for today.
3. I have to leave the classroom right now, so please wait patiently and quietly and I will be back shortly.
4. Get your ass back in that chair!! I've said it five times already and God knows I'll be saying it ten more times to you before class is over, but please listen to me this one time and, for the love of God, sit down!!
5. I can see that you aren't getting any of your written assignments done, so now I will bribe you with 3 Wonderland stickers if you finish the work on page 14.
6. Pack up your bags as frantically as possible because the bell will be ringing in 30 seconds, at which time all ten of you can stampede toward the door and try to push your way out through the opening as ten more students try to push their way in . Good luck with that, and bye bye for now.

War & Peace

We are teachers first and travellers second; teachers because it's our job and travellers because we love it. This weekend we did the most touristic thing yet. We went on a tour, with an actual tour guide. It's the only way to see this part of Korea, you are not allowed to go there alone, and even with a tour guide you must enter at your own risk. I'm talking about the DMZ, the De-militarized Zone that marks the most fortified border in the world between North and South Korea. And here it is, that's North Korea in the fog behind us. Lovely, isn't it? We could see it a bit better in person, but not much. It wasn't the best day to be looking at a 4-km stretch of land (i.e. from where we were standing, there was 2 kms of no-man's land from South Korea to the actual border and 2 more kms between the border and North Korea). Even with the telescopes, the view wasn't much better. So that's the closest we'll ever get to North Korea although we were able to get a North Korean stamp in our passports even though we didn't enter the country itself. We also went into a long, damp, rocky tunnel that is called an infiltration tunnel that the North Koreans dug as a way to invade South Korea. It was never used for any attacks because it was discovered before it was completed, and now South Korea has turned it into a tourist attraction. It is odd to be in this part of Korea, because there is this whole aura about having to protect South Korea from what the communists to the north will do; there are soldiers everywhere on alert, and yet there are tourists all around. It's wierd. There are photography restrictions in this part of Korea and we couldn't get any pictures of the tunnel. You aren't supposed to take pictures of military personnel either, but I guess this soldier got the short end of the duties today because he was standing around for tourists to use him as a model. There are also many memorials in this part of Korea. This is one of the most colourful. To balance out the theme of war on Saturday, we went to a more peaceful setting on Sunday to get some yin to correspond with our yang. We went to Jogye-sa Temple, which is the only temple in the heart of Seoul and the ancient wooden buildings are surrounded by glass highrises. There seems to be a lot of renovation going on in Korea these days and this temple was no exception. The main building was covered in scaffolding, so it wasn't much to look at, but here is a picture of me infront of the really big door watching the old ladies inside praying to Buddha. A few other things we came across this weekend on our travels in Seoul are the tallest building in South Korea called DLI 63 (the number representing the number of stories). No it wasn't built by Donald Trump, but a much shorter one just down the road was.We also came across the Olympic Torch quite by accident. It isn't in Olympic Park, as we expected, but rather in the middle of the business district surrounded by these highrises.

Did I Dream It??

We just had a lovely night out with a few of our friends. A late dinner (as is always the case with us) and a few harmless drinks. Glad to report there was no scary No Ray Bang this evening but loads of reminicing and plans of more to come. There was nothing out of the ordinary until we got in the cab for the short ride home. Usually the cabbies are watching TV or have some Korean easy listening playing in the background. This one, however, was rocking out to none other than New Kids On The Block singing Step By Step. It was great! And yes, I still know every word.

We are off to the DMZ where we will literally sign our lives aways to catch a glimps of world history. After which (providing we make it through alive) we will park ourselves at a hotel which is sure to have a television with English channels and await Sunday for either a tour of a palace or a temple (still undecided). I'm sure I can squeeze in a little shopping, too!

Mom, I was really just kidding about that "making it out alive" part - we are told, and I quote, "You needn't worry too much, there has never been an incident involoving visitors to the area." See, we're fine.

Beauty and the Beast

Before you jump to any conclusions about the title, let me tell you anything you are already thinking is wrong. I am not refering to Darin and I (although it is pretty obvious who is who in that context with all the hair on that man's body). I am not referring to the Disney cartoon (although it is a good one and my kindergartens would love it). I am referring to toilets. Now I am not one to usually talk about this subject, but in this case, having seen what I have seen, I feel it is necessary. So here's the warning: THIS IS A POTTY POST

The lines in the womens washrooms here are among the strangest I have been in. You do not wait in a single line as I am accustomed to; you choose a stall and stand 2 inches from it to prevent someone from cutting ahead of you and that is the stall you use. You have no idea what is behind that door and sometimes it is this:
Yes, that is a urinal in the floor and you are expected to do whatever business you need to into that 5 inch wide hole. I was warned about this before we came here but the experience was in Japan, this is Korea, I convinced myself that things would be different here. I was wrong, but when you have to go, you have to go...

On the complete opposite side of the spectrum of toilets I found this one at a restaurant in Seoul: This thing is like a go-go-gadget-toilet! It has a heated seat (it's so hot you can feel the heat radiating off it, I was taught to hover in public toilets) and it has an assortment of buttons on the side that one can only imagine what they are for (the writing was in Korean so I couldn't tell.) I did discover the use of one of the buttons, quite by accident while I was trying to flush the thing. A nice little lever came from the inside of the toilet and proceeded to spray water everywhere. I imagine that something (ahem) is supposed to be in the way of that water flow to prevent it from going all over your pants, shirt and hair but I was standing, fully clothed, trapped in a little space getting soaked. You try going back to the table to explain to your husband a bidet came out of nowhere and proceeded to attack you. It was pretty funny.

I can't believe I took pictures of a toilet! Twice!!

Tight Spaces

With 48 million people in South Korea, it is the world's 26th most populous country. And one fifth of this total population lives in Seoul. That's 10 million people in one city. The chances of getting lost in the crowd are very high. But it hasn't been a problem for us yet. When we are crammed on a side walk or in a subway station with wall to wall people, all we have to do is look up and see this:
It's not hard to lose each other with our long red hair. I even think our hair is becoming trendy at our school. The kids call it "gold" hair, but I suppose compared to the black hair they are used to seeing, ours really does look like it glows. Is it a coincidence that students are turning up at school with new red highlights since we've been there? There is everything from cherry red streaks to strawberry blonde highlights. There are even two teachers that have shown up with red dye jobs. Maybe we are influencing them with more than our English.

Santa Claus is Coming to Yeoju

He arrived on Friday. In the mail. In a box. We felt real bad about leaving him in a box until December 25th, so we deliberated whether it would be okay to open it early. We decided it was fine for a few reasons: (1) I didn't want to wait. (2) Jenn didn't want to wait. (3) The package was from Mom & Dad Cook who already gave us a Christmas gift before we left (our winter coats) so we thought it might be something we would need to go along with the coats. (4) My mom mentioned she might send brownies through the mail. I wasn't sure if she was serious or not, but I wasn't about to risk having brownies go stale if they were inside. (5) Santa Claus was inside the box and he was advising us that it would be best if we let him out for some air. For all these reasons, we had a little Christmas celebration on November 18th. We made hot chocolate, put on our pajamas, and opened our gift. Yes, it's far too early for Christmas, but we're glad we did it for a few more reasons: (1) Santa can breath again. (2) There was something in the package to go with Jenn's new coat. It was a scarf that my mom knit and she needs to wear it on these cold Korean days. (3) There were several decorations in the box and they wouldn't be any good only on Christmas Day; we are getting maximum use of the gift by using them to decorate the apartment in the 5 weeks leading up to Christmas. (4) There was a nice selection of chocolate and candy canes; we need something to fill our snack bowl since the Halloween candy is gone. (5) It goes along with the way we do things. Remember how our wedding celebration lasted from May 13th to July 6th? This is our way of extending Christmas as well.

Sorry Mom & Dad if we were supposed to wait, but since we didn't, we now have a festive apartment that will get us in the Christmas spirit. The stockings are hung by the iPod with care. The iPod has become our tree and is decorated with tinsel. There are jingle bells on the door and a blinking Rudolph nose hanging on the wall. Santa has permanently parked himself on our sofa. There was also a Christmas meal in the package and this we will save until December 25th. Our wine is chilling in the fridge and Jenn is looking for recipes to delilciously prepare canned turkey.
Thank you very much for all the stuff. As you can see from above, we joined in the reindeer games with the toys you sent. We also had to wear our winter coats with all the accessories for the first time this week, so it was appropriate that Jenn could add the scarf to her ensemble. The cold weather we had previously was nothing compared to the frost that came last week.

No Ray Bang

Last night we went out on the town and had a bit a fun. Let me rephrase that, we had very much fun. Our group of English friends is growing and five of us went to a No Ray Bang. These are the karaoke rooms that can be rented by the hour. Anyone who saw Lost in Translation may remember Bill Murray doing this with his Japanese friends. His rendition of Peace, Love, and Understanding is a classic. And we made a few classics of our own last night.
Jenn will not let me forget that she missed the U2 concert back home (And I quote: "Quite possibly the last U2 concert ever!!! I can't believe I'm missing it!!!"). I chose Vertigo as my first song to help out in her dissapointment. I don't think it worked. This is our new friend Brad, a teacher in Yeoju who hails from Dallas. He liked to sing songs by The Beatles and Elton John.
This isn't like karaoke at home where you wait for hours for your name to be announced so you can get on stage in front of hundreds of strangers. This is a private room for you and your friends. There are two big screens at either end of the room with the song words. There are couches to relax on. There are disco lights on the ceiling. You can get drinks delivered to your room. They also provide tambourines for added excitement.
There were also several duets. This is Malachy and I continuing on with the U2 theme by serenading our respective ladies with a romantic rendition of With or Without You.
It took a lot of persuading, but Jenn finally got her hands on the microphone and chose to sing Piano Man by Billy Joel. This is a long song so after a while, I jumped in to help her out.
At the end of two hours we chose November Rain by Guns'N'Roses to be our finale with everyone joining in.

Intense Social Pressure

The following is an excerpt from a local newspaper:

An overly competitive attitude in Korean society and the stigma attached to those with poor academic records goes a long way toward explaining why students risked so much to cheat on a College Scholastic Ability Test. "Nobody wants to be your friend unless you get A's," said one high school student. Another mentioned that he did not want to "dissapoint his parents by bringing home poor test results." Educators said students are keenly aware of the importance accorded to academic rankings in Korean society. Students know that once they lose in a game, there is no second chance; they know that mockery awaits those who fail. Students end up persuading themselves that they have to win, even if it requires cheating. "A twisted social understanding that only the gullible follow the rules has spread widely among the young." A 25 year old student attending Seoul National University said that the walls and desks are covered with scribbled notes students use to crib on tests. "I don't think that some are aware that cheating is wrong." he added. Police said that students found cheating were upset simply because they were caught doing something that everyone does, they don't realize the gravity of their situation. The punnishemt of the students is, as yet, undecided.

This is something we see every day at Wonderland. The students are placed in the classes not according to ability, but age. There are about 6 different levels of ability in each class, so half of the kids really can't keep up. As it has been explained to us, the students cheat to "save face." You can explain things until you are blue in the face, but they still may never get it and really don't want to try. We have to keep reminding ourselves that they are not acting this way because they hate us, they have already been at school for 6 - 8 hours and they have more studying to do after we are finished with them. This is a really hard, long day for 8 -13 year old kids. (The day is even longer for the middle school kids)

One of the funniest instances of cheating I have encountered so far was in kindergarten (yes, it starts at such a young age). I watched a girl cheat off another for the entire lesson. She saw nothing wrong with this and was quite proud when she finished and couldn't wait to show me her work. When a third girl was cheating off the one who already cheated there was great offense taken by the first cheater and she promplty covered her paper so the cheating would stop. I guess it is OK for some, but not for others.

I am glad to say that not all kids are like this. Some take great pride in their work. These are usually the kids that "get it" and it doesn't take too much effort for them to finish the assignments. This class is doing a word search puzzle - no cheaters here!

Don't Try This At Home

With recent discussions about child safety on TooManyCooks (i.e. babies eating poinsettias and trolling around in out-dated walkers), we decided to throw in our observations about babies from the perspective of a Korean, or rather the perspective of two Canadians who raise their eyebrows when they see some of the Korean child-rearing methods. There are some strollers here, but most babies are carried around this way:
It's basically a baby wrapped in a blanket and then tied to the mother's back with a housecoat belt. Stick him in the walker if you must, but think again before trying this with Liam. We see it everywhere and haven't seen any mishaps yet (if a dropped baby can be classified as a mishap rather than a tragedy) but we are having a hard time convincing ourselves that it's a safe way to carry a baby. Don't even ask if they have baby car seats over here.

I Said It Before, I'll Say It Again

I love it when he plays air guitar...


You can be sure there is a Peacemaker song playing on that ipod.

Seoul Searching for Christmas Gifts

We went to Seoul this weekend for a bit of shopping. Insadong is a section of Seoul that has many traditional aspects of Korean culture on display on a daily basis. It's a living museum of shops, restaurants, artists, and street performers. Even the Starbucks in Insadong is not so recognizable because the sign is in Korean letters, something we haven't seen at any other Starbucks. This section of town is trying to stay as Korean as possible, but of course, there is a lot of English spoken to cater to tourists. There are many ESL students wandering the streets, because they know Insadong is swarming with English speakers; they are told to come here to practice English and often have assignments to complete. The most popular assignment: Talk to an English person and get his impressions of Korea (and make sure he says all nice things). This is me being interrogated by a group of ESL students.
Insadong is not your typical souvenir haven, although there are plenty of souvenirs to be had. The shop owners are not as pushy or annoying as say Mexican peddlers, but they do tend to lurk over your shoulder in a way that makes you think, and almost say, "Leave me alone, I'm just looking, if you stop breathing down my neck, I might even buy something."
There is also many forms of traditional Korean foods here, some we'd rather not see or smell. I've mentioned bondegi before, which is the silkworm larvae cooked in boiling water. Here is a nice pot of it boiling on the side of the road. Be thankful that smells do not transmit over the internet, as this stuff has the most repulsive stench we have ever experienced, like a tomb of rotten corpses. One whiff and we were gagging, but we see people on the street happily munching away on paper cups full of bondegi. The french fry looking things in front of the pot are one of Jenn's favourite snacks. They are sweet potato fries, but they are served cold and crunchy. We didn't buy any from this vendor, for fear that some of the bondegi juice spilled over from the pot.
After shopping for several hours, I tend to get quite grumpy and Jenn found it easier to talk to this statue than to get a straight answer from me. This worked to her benefit as if gave her the freedom to buy more souvenirs than I would normally agree to.
This artist is painting our name on silk parchment. A little bigger than the grains of rice we are used to seeing our names printed on. It is the most beautiful souvenir we bought so far, even though my grumpiness was setting in by this point and we would not have ended up getting it if Jenn hadn't been persistent.

Dooce-ay

Welcome to my latest addiction. The actual name is Dooce but the title is how Darin says it when he is poking fun at me. This blog came to my attention ages ago when Carrie put the link on her blog (I have no idea how she finds all this great stuff, but I'm sure glad she does!) and then Megan read it and couldn't stop talking about it. I stored it in my list of things to get around to since I was far too busy at the time to justify reading 4 years of blogging (just a little busy getting married and moving to another country - nothing major!). Well, I'm not so busy now and after close to 3 weeks I know way too much about this woman. To justify reading it now I tell myself it was no different than if it was on paper - and in our family, books are always allowed. It just took a little longer because the computer is not as portable as a paperback. (Also - it is amazing what you can get accomplished when you don't have a television!)

If you are at all curious here is the link (dooce). I know it should be in the sidebar under where it says links but I just can't get that figured out. Start at the beginning - it seems like a lot but you are not getting tested at the end so have fun and take your time. She is wickedly funny and has a very unique perspective on a lot of things. Now that I'm all caught up she is added to my daily blog reading.

If you can't get yourself to sit in front of a computer to read try Dave Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work Of Stagering Genious. This is Dave's memoir and it is an actual book. An award winning book. It's very good and along the same writing style of Dooce. Read it.

Pepero Day

Friday, November 11th was Pepero Day. Don't worry, we didn't know what it meant at first either. We knew what Pepero was, but why there was a day dedicated to it, didn't make much sense. Koreans are proud people and they have days to celebrate all aspects of their culture. Pepero Day isn't necessarily Korean culture at its finest, but it is uniquely Korean. Let me introduce you to a box of Pepero.
It is a slender cookie dipped in chocolate. There's not much to it at all, but the kids freak out over it. You'd think you were giving them a million dollars by handing them a stick of Pepero. This is Jack eating his pepero. He won the Pepero Day photo contest for cutest boy. And below is Annie who captured the cutest girl. What is really behind Pepero Day is marketing and branding. Lotte is one of the biggest corporations in Korea and pepero is a product they created. What the masterminds behind Lotte did was pick a day, called it Pepero Day, and waited for hordes of consumers to buy their product. And buy they do. The reason November 11 was chosen is because the numerical version of the date looks like four pepero sticks in a row: 11 11. Oh, the clever marketing tactics of conglomerates with deep pockets who can't wait to find ways to keep filling those pockets. All day long, students were coming to school with grocery bags full of pepero, both ones they bought to hand out and others given to them by friends. We snagged quite a bit as well. Our favourite was the pepero box in the shape of a bowtie. Here is Jenn doing her impression of Hello Kitty.

It's a CAMERA bag!!

I used to make fun of Cory Barr for carrying around a purse, or a man bag, or a murse, or whatever he called it to make it sound less feminine. He lived in Japan so now I know where he got the idea. It seems to be an Asian thing. My newest problem is that I have adopted this habit, like the Korean men, of sometimes walking around with a bag slung over my shoulder. Korean men have no problem carrying around a rucksack, or satchel, or a tote. But they carry them like purses and sometimes they look like purses. Only occasionally, I have taken to doing the same, but mine is called a camera bag.
Here I am on my way to downtown Yeoju. It's a good thing I'm comfortable with my masculinity. Yes, there is a camera in this bag. Along with my wife's wallet, lipstick, and compact. Jenn is especially excited about me carrying a camera bag, because she doesn't have to bring her purse as often ( hmmm ... maybe this is one way I can persuade her to stop buying so many purses). Sorry Cory, I know where you're coming from. You were a metrosexual pioneer ahead of your time and Chatham just wasn't ready for you.

What a Lovely Couple

This is what Jenn would look like as a Korean actress.

Shakespeare in Korean

We didn't do what we planned this weekend, but we had a whole lot of fun doing it. We weren't feeling up to our usual weekend getaways, whether it be hiking through the hallways of underground shopping malls or hiking through scenic landscapes. We were both feeling under the weather on Saturday so we made our way to Seoul and went to the movies for the first time. Most theatres in Seoul have a few English movies playing along with the Korean ones. We chose The Merchant of Venice. I don't know if this is a new release back home, but it's the one with a very old-looking Al Pacino playing a very hairy Shylock. Sometimes doing things here seems almost like at home, but there is always a few Korean twists thrown in; the movie theatre is no exception. First of all, the line-up for tickets looked like the lines you see for rides at Cedar Point or Disneyworld. It never ceases to amaze us how many people are in this city. It took about 20 minutes to get through the line and when we bought our tickets we were given assigned seats, as if we were going to a Broadway show or boarding a plane. The only showing we had time for was almost sold out, so our seats were 4 rows from the screen, but it didn't seem too close at all. Was this going to be a movie without buttery popcorn? No way. We got a popcorn/soda combo at the concession stand. But Koreans can't just give you the fluffy goodness of yellow-stained popcorn, they have to throw in a side order of fried squid with the combo, which we declined.

And then, of course, for the movie itself there were Korean subtitles across the screen. (Quick Korean lesson: the Korean alphabet is called hanguel and it has 10 vowels and 14 consonants. Unlike the Chinese language, where each character has a specific meaning, hanguel is a true alphabet, just like the Roman alphabet, and each letter has a sound. As long as you know the alphabet, you can sound out written words. In theory, at least, but white people have a difficult time being understood. Even though we think we're saying it exactly like it should be said, we're usually wrong.) I would love to meet the guy who's in charge of translating Shakespeare's diaolgue into hanguel. This is a job for one hell of a dedicated linguist. It's hard enough for English speakers to understand some of the words that are no longer used in modern English, so how in the world can they be translated into Korean? It boggles my mind, which was one reason I was surprised to see a full theatre of Koreans watching a Hollywood remake of a Shakespeare play, but they seemed to get it. At least they laughed at the same parts we laughed at, because even amongst the gory proposition of a pound of flesh and the serious theme of Jewish persecution, there were some comedic lines, as Bill is wont to do.

We enjoyed our first experience so much that we went back on Sunday. This time we saw Stay. This was a wacked-out movie with Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts. Too bizarre to even get into. After that it was only 3:30 and we didn't have plans for the afternoon, so we decided to stay and see another. Most people veg out infront of the TV on weekends, we were literally vegging out in the cinema. The next movie on the agenda was called Goal. This was a great inspirational sports story about Santiago Muncez, a Rocky Balboa for the soccer world who goes from the barrios of Mexico to England's professional soccer league. It was so touching at the end that Jenn cried. So we spent a good chunk of time at the cinema this weekend and had a blast; I know this is not the adventurous behaviour that Michelle likes to hear about from the globe-trotting Jennifer and her trusty sidekick, but hey, everyone needs down time. Maybe this is what we'll be seeing on our next trip to the cinema. Coming in December.

And So It Begins

"Uh-oh, you have your work cut out for you today."
"What do you mean?"
"The kids, they're ready for you."
I look around for 3 seconds.
"Darin, I can see them from here."
"At least they aren't hiding behind a backpack!"



And so starts my day with the kindergarten class. Every morning (and I mean every morning) the girls run past me screaming and proceed to hide in the most obvious places, thinking if they can't see me, I must not be able to see them.

Julie and Mimi even curled up on the floor and placed their kid-sized backpacks in front of their faces in all seriousness, believing I would never be able to find them. I play along, saying the likes of "Uh-oh, where is everyone!? I guess I'm all alone today! Nobody is here to play..." You get the idea. The only response I get is tons of little girl giggles before they pop up and run screaming to the next hiding place. This continues for at least 10 minutes before I can even attempt to say the words "Purple books out" (I think we have covered the fact that complete sentences are not used in this school. One kindergarten class uses a purple book, one uses an orange book, the other a blue book; all in the Sesame Street series.) And then I bribe them with colouring or drawing after they finish the lesson for the day. In the back of my mind, I am always comparing how I am teaching these children and how I will be when the time comes to teach my own. I hope it will be way different and I will not have to resort to bribery.