So, I haven't perhaps been as diligent about his blog as I might have liked but this definitely seemed worth posting. Last week all the Taebaek English Teachers (including myself) were required to attend a Korean Contest. Since most of us speak very little Korean, we were understandably somewhat hesitant about the whole thing turned out to be very casual (and pretty easy). We gave a couple pre-written speeches and filled out some multiple-choice quizzes. Unbeknownst the the Korean organizers of the event though, I and some of the other English teachers got together and practiced a little performance, which you can see in all it's off-tempo glory here:
Obviously we're not going to be getting any gigs with our dance and Korean-singing skills, but apparently someone was impressed:
http://www.tjinews.co.kr/ArticleView.asp?intNum=4222&ASection=001001
Look who's front and center! Man. Now when things are bad at least I can say "I'm famous in Korea."
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
What a shame!
Although this "informational" cartoon originates in China the sentiments expressed are pretty close to what you'll find here in Korea. Enjoy!
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
If your happy and you know it BEAT THEIR HEADS IN!!!!
Hey guys, I guess it's been awhile. I wish I could give a better excuse for my long absence for this blog but I guess a couple of months of being in Korean has turned it from a raucous adventure into a kind of, well, routine that seems mundane and not worthy of record. I occasionally get some perspective on my days and realize that strange things happen to me all the time, like receiving a brick-sized block of rice "cake" in a gold bag because one of my co-workers babies had their special 100th-day celebration, but they don't occur to me that way anymore.
Last weekend though I had a very special Korean experience that I thought I should share with all of you. Some other Taebaek teachers and I visited Seoul, where we hoped to exchange the bitter mountain cold for a slightly less face-biting chilliness. On Saturday I had the opportunity to go with a college friend to a national soccer game. FC Seoul vs. The Yellowz (srsly).
Now, I have not been to a ton of professional sporting events in my life but from what I remember, they did not usually involve EVERY SINGLE PERSON in the stadium wearing their team colors. Or waving giant flags with Conan the Barbarian on them. Or performing co-ordinated dances. OR FIREWORKS. The last part was truly startling because they fired them off from the bottom of the stands at the kick-off and scared the living crap out of me. I might have screamed, I'm not sure. The shock has clearly damaged my memory. Anyway, they then proceeded to do the same thing for every goal scored by FC Seoul, which thankfully for my life-expectancy (if not for FC Seoul fans) was only one.
While most American sports games like to rev up their audience with splashes of rock music, marching band snippets or ritualized chants Korean sports fans warm their motors with tunes like "If Your Happy and You Know It" and "When The Saints Come Marching In" rewritten with Korean lyrics. Such songs, which never really ended but only seemed to flow smoothly into other, equally cheerful numbers, were generally accompanied by rhythmic handclapping, jumping up and down (like 20,000 teenage girls at a Backstreet Boys concert) and tooting little hand-held horns.
The game itself wasn't really up to the level of the fandom, but there were some exciting moments. Unfortunately FC Seoul lost in a final shoot-out to the Yellowz, which reduced the stands to an echoing silence, aside from some unoteworthy signs of celebration from the tiny Yellowz cheering section.
All-in-all, an excellent experience. I will have to say though, as a final aside, that I don't think fried fish skin and rice cake in spicy broth will ever replace the special place foot-long hot dogs and cotton candy holds in my heart.
Last weekend though I had a very special Korean experience that I thought I should share with all of you. Some other Taebaek teachers and I visited Seoul, where we hoped to exchange the bitter mountain cold for a slightly less face-biting chilliness. On Saturday I had the opportunity to go with a college friend to a national soccer game. FC Seoul vs. The Yellowz (srsly).
Now, I have not been to a ton of professional sporting events in my life but from what I remember, they did not usually involve EVERY SINGLE PERSON in the stadium wearing their team colors. Or waving giant flags with Conan the Barbarian on them. Or performing co-ordinated dances. OR FIREWORKS. The last part was truly startling because they fired them off from the bottom of the stands at the kick-off and scared the living crap out of me. I might have screamed, I'm not sure. The shock has clearly damaged my memory. Anyway, they then proceeded to do the same thing for every goal scored by FC Seoul, which thankfully for my life-expectancy (if not for FC Seoul fans) was only one.
While most American sports games like to rev up their audience with splashes of rock music, marching band snippets or ritualized chants Korean sports fans warm their motors with tunes like "If Your Happy and You Know It" and "When The Saints Come Marching In" rewritten with Korean lyrics. Such songs, which never really ended but only seemed to flow smoothly into other, equally cheerful numbers, were generally accompanied by rhythmic handclapping, jumping up and down (like 20,000 teenage girls at a Backstreet Boys concert) and tooting little hand-held horns.
The game itself wasn't really up to the level of the fandom, but there were some exciting moments. Unfortunately FC Seoul lost in a final shoot-out to the Yellowz, which reduced the stands to an echoing silence, aside from some unoteworthy signs of celebration from the tiny Yellowz cheering section.
All-in-all, an excellent experience. I will have to say though, as a final aside, that I don't think fried fish skin and rice cake in spicy broth will ever replace the special place foot-long hot dogs and cotton candy holds in my heart.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
English Textbooks Provide Further Enlightenment.
Here are another couple charming cultural tips from my 5th Grade English Texbook. I'm glad the Korean government has mandated that an entire generation should learn about English-speaking culture from these valuable resources:
...I think we've all learned something today.
Language expression of "Excuse me" and "Whoops"
When we bump into a stranger, we usually pass by without any apology. Whereas Western people apologize habitually saing "Excuse me", and when they make a little mistake, they often say "Whoops(Oops!". It means "Dear me!" "Goodness". "Thank you" is the most popular expression in their lives. They appreciate even a little kindness and they say "No, thank you" and try not to offend other people when they reject someone's proposal.
Wrong vocabularies
There are many misused or incorrect vocabularies used in any foreign
language. Meanings have usually been distorted or changed in the way it is applied. Here are the examples of the phenomenon.
*rotary--> roundabout, traffic circle
*mixer--> blender
*bargain sale--> bargain or sale
*vinyl bag--> plastic bag, carrier bag
*sign--> autograph
*super--> supermarket
*Y-shirt--> shirt
*one piece--> dress
*two piece--> suit
*pama--> perm, permanent wave
*handphone-->cellular phone, mobile phone
*cunning--> cheating
*scarp--> clipping
...I think we've all learned something today.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Some brief observations.
I've been inspired by one of my fellow EPIKers recent facebook posts to make a list of things I've noticed about Korea so far that while they aren't weighty enough for an entire post, merit mentioning.
1. Koreans are terrible drivers. I've ridden with several and without exception they all veer into oncoming traffic lanes, speed, cluster up at intersections and are terrible parkers. It's terrifying.
2. Korean squat toilets are everywhere. My main school only has one western toilet stall in every bathroom and my secondary school is all squat toilets. I'm not a fan.
3. Irony doesn't exist in Korea. There is no such thing as kitsch. If something is cliche it is never ironically cliche. People are terribly and embarrassingly sincere. If you want a demonstration of this I recommend watching any Korean movie.
4. Chinese food in Korea is completely vile. Maybe it's that it's only been served to me by the school cafeteria, but invariably it's been black gunky paste over rice or noodles. It looks like something you would dare someone to eat.
5. I have a lower spice tolerance then most Korean kindergartners.
6. The chopsticks are metal.
7. Korean beer is awful, and it's the only beer available. Soju, the national liquor, is like rubbing alcohol. Rice wine and bamboo wine are pretty yummy though.
8. Cars only seem to come in two colors: black and white.
9. Highschool uniforms are adorable. I would steal both the girls' AND the boys' uniforms if given the chance.
10. Boys are shy until you get them drunk. Then they are way too friendly.
11. On a related note, Koreans use the English phrase "I love you" pretty indiscriminately.
12. Everything is accessorized. Your phone, your car, your computer, your accessories... there is nothing so big or serious that you can't hang a little bobbly from it.
13. Korean pastries and bread are pretty sub-par, as one might expect from a rice-based culture. Native deserts are much less sweet then Western deserts. On the other hand, mixed drinks are 90% sugar.
14. Everyone throws up a peace sign when you take a picture. Even my 60+ year-old principal.
15. The most lowly dive bar in Korea is ten times better then a dive bar in the US. And the nice bars are outstanding.
16. Everyone is extremely generous and nice. My fellow teachers will go out of their way to help me and my co-teacher gave me the morning off this past Monday because I was in a funk. She told me to go take a nap in the nurse's office.
17. Drinking is very central to the office life and culture.
I'm running out of steam here. There are other things I can mention but I think I'll save them for a brief observations, part deux. Have a good week, everyone.
1. Koreans are terrible drivers. I've ridden with several and without exception they all veer into oncoming traffic lanes, speed, cluster up at intersections and are terrible parkers. It's terrifying.
2. Korean squat toilets are everywhere. My main school only has one western toilet stall in every bathroom and my secondary school is all squat toilets. I'm not a fan.
3. Irony doesn't exist in Korea. There is no such thing as kitsch. If something is cliche it is never ironically cliche. People are terribly and embarrassingly sincere. If you want a demonstration of this I recommend watching any Korean movie.
4. Chinese food in Korea is completely vile. Maybe it's that it's only been served to me by the school cafeteria, but invariably it's been black gunky paste over rice or noodles. It looks like something you would dare someone to eat.
5. I have a lower spice tolerance then most Korean kindergartners.
6. The chopsticks are metal.
7. Korean beer is awful, and it's the only beer available. Soju, the national liquor, is like rubbing alcohol. Rice wine and bamboo wine are pretty yummy though.
8. Cars only seem to come in two colors: black and white.
9. Highschool uniforms are adorable. I would steal both the girls' AND the boys' uniforms if given the chance.
10. Boys are shy until you get them drunk. Then they are way too friendly.
11. On a related note, Koreans use the English phrase "I love you" pretty indiscriminately.
12. Everything is accessorized. Your phone, your car, your computer, your accessories... there is nothing so big or serious that you can't hang a little bobbly from it.
13. Korean pastries and bread are pretty sub-par, as one might expect from a rice-based culture. Native deserts are much less sweet then Western deserts. On the other hand, mixed drinks are 90% sugar.
14. Everyone throws up a peace sign when you take a picture. Even my 60+ year-old principal.
15. The most lowly dive bar in Korea is ten times better then a dive bar in the US. And the nice bars are outstanding.
16. Everyone is extremely generous and nice. My fellow teachers will go out of their way to help me and my co-teacher gave me the morning off this past Monday because I was in a funk. She told me to go take a nap in the nurse's office.
17. Drinking is very central to the office life and culture.
I'm running out of steam here. There are other things I can mention but I think I'll save them for a brief observations, part deux. Have a good week, everyone.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
It goes without saying that losing your passport sucks, but having actually experienced it, I now have a real appreciation for what a massive pain in the ass dealing with the government can be- particularly when you need something done quickly. "Quickly" does not seem to be one of the words the State Department likes to apply to it's efforts; I can only imagine some dry board meeting where it was decided that the phrase would be banned from Federal offices, the practice of expediting controlled as tightly as discrimination or thrift. A passport order is expected to take six weeks at the least. I was pretty distraught to realize it would take that long, until I noticed there was an option- surprise!- to expedite your passport application. My joy was short lived; in addition to costing four times as much, an "expedited" passport still takes three weeks to arrive.
So, I went to my old friend Google, the modern-day oracle to which we all owe so much. And believe it or not, there are roughly a quibillion private organizations willing to take large chunks of your money to arrange for a passport on even shorter notice! I was extremely dubious at first (and still am, as my passport has not actually arrived yet) but as soon as I'd put my application in (accompanied, it need not be said, by a significant cash advance) I recieved a call from a very helpful-sounding guy from Washington just exploding with enthusiasm for getting my passport processed and delivered in less than a week. I've hit more than a few snags, what with losing my driver's license as well, but it's moving along quite nicely. The stack of information you need to get an expedited passport is pretty absurd, though- you need five alternate forms of identification which can include some pretty weird stuff:
1. A photocopy of a page in a high school yearbook depicting you
2. Any newspaper article or publicity about you
3. Your report card, as far back as ninth grade
4. Military medals. If only I hadn't misplaced that Legion of Honor...
In any case, this last weekend has been a crazy adventure as I struggle to get all these disparate forms of identification, while applying for a new driver's license. Oddly enough, the New Jersey DMV was fast, effective, friendly, and cheap. I had a new license in, like, half an hour. Who'd have thought?
In more pleasant news, I spent a bunch of time roaming around the cities of Jersey and Union, and took a bunch of pictures which are now on the blog photostream. Union City has this combination of often lovely old brick apartments and absolutely hideous plastic-sided tenements, along with a great number of old, repurposed factories. I've noticed that bizzarely, the older a building is in Union City the better it looks. Even the old Yardley Soap Factory down the road has a certain grandeur that new construction does not match. In Jersey City I saw a bunch of pretty amazing all-brick churches and cathedrals which are the closest I've seen to a local architectural style. I'll endeavour to truck on down to Journal Square with my camera and show some of them off.
Anyways, the information for my passport has all been sent off via FedEx. All that remains is the horrible waiting, to see if the passport arrives as rapidly as promied.
So, I went to my old friend Google, the modern-day oracle to which we all owe so much. And believe it or not, there are roughly a quibillion private organizations willing to take large chunks of your money to arrange for a passport on even shorter notice! I was extremely dubious at first (and still am, as my passport has not actually arrived yet) but as soon as I'd put my application in (accompanied, it need not be said, by a significant cash advance) I recieved a call from a very helpful-sounding guy from Washington just exploding with enthusiasm for getting my passport processed and delivered in less than a week. I've hit more than a few snags, what with losing my driver's license as well, but it's moving along quite nicely. The stack of information you need to get an expedited passport is pretty absurd, though- you need five alternate forms of identification which can include some pretty weird stuff:
1. A photocopy of a page in a high school yearbook depicting you
2. Any newspaper article or publicity about you
3. Your report card, as far back as ninth grade
4. Military medals. If only I hadn't misplaced that Legion of Honor...
In any case, this last weekend has been a crazy adventure as I struggle to get all these disparate forms of identification, while applying for a new driver's license. Oddly enough, the New Jersey DMV was fast, effective, friendly, and cheap. I had a new license in, like, half an hour. Who'd have thought?
In more pleasant news, I spent a bunch of time roaming around the cities of Jersey and Union, and took a bunch of pictures which are now on the blog photostream. Union City has this combination of often lovely old brick apartments and absolutely hideous plastic-sided tenements, along with a great number of old, repurposed factories. I've noticed that bizzarely, the older a building is in Union City the better it looks. Even the old Yardley Soap Factory down the road has a certain grandeur that new construction does not match. In Jersey City I saw a bunch of pretty amazing all-brick churches and cathedrals which are the closest I've seen to a local architectural style. I'll endeavour to truck on down to Journal Square with my camera and show some of them off.
Anyways, the information for my passport has all been sent off via FedEx. All that remains is the horrible waiting, to see if the passport arrives as rapidly as promied.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Recovery
I don't think a public blog is really the place to get into it, but I had a really rough week. The last thing I wanted to be doing, at the end of it all, was hosting an English Camp for kids at my school but that die was cast awhile back and so Saturday morning found me teaching four straight classes how to "Walk Like a Monster" and "Hop Like a Werewolf" (little known fact: werewolfs hop).
The camp was from 9am to 1pm Saturday and Sunday and for it I had to make two lesson plans on a Halloween theme (I chose the theme... my school, my theme). For the first lesson I had the kids play "Mother May I" with the aforementioned thematic twists and on the second day I taught the kids Michael Jackson's "Thriller" dance. Which, for those of you keeping score, meant I had to learn it too. There is a special pathos to learning the Thriller dance from a youtube video in your furnitureless living room while you feel like shit. Everyone should get to experience that at least once in their lives.
The part of teaching that makes it so hard, and so great, is the total focus you need in the classroom. Maybe for those teachers out there that have been in the field longer it's different, but when I'm teaching there's no room in my head for anything else. Keeping the attention of a roomful of kids, getting them to stop hitting each other, and trying to rustle up some enthusiasm for the English language requires all of my resources. One teacher I know said that he knew his students not individually but by their class's personality. Some classes are good, some are bad. That's just how it is.
I think I'd take that one step further. Teaching a class is kind of like being in a relationship. When they're happy you're happy, and when they're sad you're sad. I'm not going to dwell too extensively on the metaphorical connections between romantic relationships and a roomful of children but I think that connection really saved me this weekend. Making a bunch of 5th grade boys twirl like princesses and leading 3rd graders through the Thriller dance drained me but I felt better after. As stressful as it's been I feel grateful to have found work I can lose myself in.
Funny though, I still don't want to go to work tomorrow. I guess some things never change.
The camp was from 9am to 1pm Saturday and Sunday and for it I had to make two lesson plans on a Halloween theme (I chose the theme... my school, my theme). For the first lesson I had the kids play "Mother May I" with the aforementioned thematic twists and on the second day I taught the kids Michael Jackson's "Thriller" dance. Which, for those of you keeping score, meant I had to learn it too. There is a special pathos to learning the Thriller dance from a youtube video in your furnitureless living room while you feel like shit. Everyone should get to experience that at least once in their lives.
The part of teaching that makes it so hard, and so great, is the total focus you need in the classroom. Maybe for those teachers out there that have been in the field longer it's different, but when I'm teaching there's no room in my head for anything else. Keeping the attention of a roomful of kids, getting them to stop hitting each other, and trying to rustle up some enthusiasm for the English language requires all of my resources. One teacher I know said that he knew his students not individually but by their class's personality. Some classes are good, some are bad. That's just how it is.
I think I'd take that one step further. Teaching a class is kind of like being in a relationship. When they're happy you're happy, and when they're sad you're sad. I'm not going to dwell too extensively on the metaphorical connections between romantic relationships and a roomful of children but I think that connection really saved me this weekend. Making a bunch of 5th grade boys twirl like princesses and leading 3rd graders through the Thriller dance drained me but I felt better after. As stressful as it's been I feel grateful to have found work I can lose myself in.
Funny though, I still don't want to go to work tomorrow. I guess some things never change.
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