Are you crazy?

Perhaps that question is a good reflection of my teaching methods. With my Middle School classes, I usually warm them up with the Conversation Cup-a paper cup filled with different questions from the sensible to the crazy (Did your parents ever have children? Would you rather kiss a crocodile or a bear? The bear always wins.). Today, they wrote the questions, hence “Are you crazy?” We also had “Do you like Jack?” a question that was picked out of the cup by Jack (the same Jack that declared “I am toilet!”). Hours of fun to be had by all!

Then they had to write down an answer to a “Do you want……..?” question. There were some surprising results.
Do you want to be more beautiful?
Steven: No I like not beautiful. Beautiful isn’t beautiful.

Do you want to be more intelligent?
Angela: Yes. Because I think I’m not intelligent. So I want to be more intelligent.

Do you want to be rich?
Brenden: Yes I want to be rich. Because I will buy many foods like chocolate cookies.

In the same lesson I discovered that they think England (for some reason they are taught England rather than Britain) is big…..so there is still a lot of work to be done.

Random Observations of Korea (ROK)

2 months into my adventure and I have barely scratched the surface of Korea, though I have made few little observations that I would like to share.

I learnt when I was in America that you will always find aspects of a foreign culture to focus on and compare in a negative light to what you are used to. It’s a way of self-identification and self preservation, and as long as you don’t take the country over and destroy its very foundations perhaps there’s nothing inherently wrong with it. I think it is important to try and understand any cultural differences and accept them for what they are, and of course embrace the good stuff! You can remind me of this when I am feeling homesick and decide to have a bitch about anything and everything.

Observation one. Celebrity status.
This is a mixed one, it definitely has it ups and downs! Not being a Korean makes you a celebrity, especially in a smaller city. Cars slow down so their occupants can get a closer look, pedestrians will stare at you and some Koreans will approach you to try out their English (sometimes just “Hello, nice to meet you,” other times asking for private lessons and occasionally to insult you and give you safety pins as compensation!) If you are a non Korean bloke you can expect to enjoy choruses of “Handsome, handsome” from giggling secondary school girls as you go about your daily business. It’s not so great when you just want to have a little anonymous stroll around town, but it’s understandable in a country that overwhelmingly ethnically Korean. I have found that when I am in a large city, Seoul and Busan so far, I tend to stare at the Westerners too. So I can’t really complain too much about having my every movement catalogued and queried!

Observation two. High heels and matching t-shirts. The foundations of Korean fashion.
Korean women love high heels. Yes it’s a generalisation, but walking round Seoul Grand Park in May I lost count of the amount of women tittering around on 4 inch heels….At a zoo!? Admittedly, I am vertically challenged-but even I could see into the enclosures without standing on my tiptoes. I guess for someone who can barely stand let alone walk in high heels, it’s mind boggling when I see women walking round a big zoo in them.
It seems that young couples in South Korea declare their togetherness by wearing matching t-shirts. Sometimes entire outfits are his and hers and if the shop windows are to be believed that extends down to the underwear. Sure it’s a lot cheap than jewellery, but there’s no doubt that dressing like a brother and sister on a family holiday is just plain wrong! Although I do find the middle aged couple that power walk by the river near my apartment in matching white tracksuits strangely adorable.

Observation three. The amazing properties of Gimbap!
Gimbap, one of my favourite Korean foods, you can climb a mountain on one roll of the stuff. Gim is dried seaweed and bap is cooked rice. Essentially, rice wrapped in seaweed, with long thin strips of vegetables, egg, and ham running through the middle. My local supermarket has a counter where they serve Gimbap at 1000W a roll (50p!) and the women who work there are lovely, putting up with my crappy attempts at Korean. To begin with Korean food was a shock to the senses, and I can’t see myself greatly missing Kimchi (spicy fermented vegetables-that are served with every meal) when I go home, but seeing as the choice is Korean food or nothing, I am trying as much as I can and enjoy the fact I eat rice everyday!

This weekend I am off to Daegu, Korea’s fourth largest city. I will let you know what I think.

Jo Teacher Finishee!

I arrived in Korea on my 23rd birthday, extremely knackered and wondering whether or not I could jump on the next flight home. Throwing myself into the deep end of a new country, even one where English isn’t the first language wasn’t my biggest fear. It was more to do with coming to the other side of the world on my own when I have perfectly good friends and family at home in the UK who I know I will (and do) miss tremendously. It’s irrational and selfish, but coming away from everyone, I expect everything else to remain the same for when I get back, and a small part of me does worry about where I will fit when I come home next April.

My co-ordinator and his wife met me at the airport and got me and my luggage out to their car before breaking it to me that my apartment wasn’t ready and that I would be spending my first night in a hotel. That was a nice birthday present. As was experiencing Korean driving for the first time, it certainly explains why Korean road safety isn’t a global phenomenon. Essentially, anything goes, there is no fast lane so you can just weave through traffic while sending an email, talking on the phone and watching a DVD. Oh, and if you are in the outside lane and your turning is coming up, just cut across three lanes of traffic without indicating, or checking the mirror! I later learnt that scooters will use the pavements even when the roads are quiet, it certainly keeps me on my toes.

When I arrived in Hongseong all my senses were overwhelmed, the smell, the sights, the sounds, (ok you know the rest!) were all so foreign. The skyline was dotted with neon signs in every direction, even the crosses on the churches light up the sky in a sort of Vegasesque scene. New York may not sleep, but Korea does a pretty good job of staying awake too, with shops open until ten, and that’s just in Hongseong.

Nearly two months into my adventure and I am still discovering new things about my new home. I was broken into the whole teaching side of things gently, spending the first month shadowing the other two English teachers at my school. They work in the kindergarten, so I essentially had a month of watching very cute kids learning English, and playing football in the lunch break. Plus I had the freedom to learn how to use Korean chopsticks (they’re metal and flat) in front of children who can barely use them themselves, so no laughing at Jo Teacher as she drops half her lunch on the floor.

Now though I am teaching Elementary and Middle School level children (aged from 8-14), and the first task is trying to remove the bad “Englishee” they have previously been taught. A favourite of mine is finish-ee (it ends in a h, just add a whole bunch of eeeee’s at the end!) There is an advert on television for Rush Cash-which becomes Rushee Cashee…..even orange-becomes orange-ee. Watched becomes watch-ed….the list is never ending. When a Korean teacher teaches English 90% of the lesson is in Korean, when a TEFL teacher teaches English this generally isn’t possible which has both positives and negatives to the lesson. The Korean mentality seems to be learn as many words and their spelling as possible, these children know words like associate, preserve, band shell (aka stage to you and me!) but don’t know how to put them in a sentence. That’s where I come in, and it’s no end of fun. It sounds cheesy but it’s really satisfying to see one of the kids proud that they could express themselves in a foreign language.

There is so much more to tell, adventures in Seoul (from safety pin lady to malfunctioning toilets) and Busan (from a stalker taxi driver to a mountain top temple), my thoughts on Korean food, television, and culture, but that will have to wait for now because I need to get some sleep.

I finally made it.......

Annyong haseyo!

Apologies that I haven’t updated my blog sooner. I have been in South Korea for 50 days now and was only connected to the internet at the end of my first month here. Unfortunately my first impressions will now be tempered by the fact I have become more settled and have started to develop an understanding of Korean culture with all its quirks and differences to my life in the UK. Nevertheless, I am only a month and a half into this adventure and I am sure my opinions will change and adapt while I am here, particularly as I not planning on staying cooped up in my one room apartment plotting of ways to kill the rooster that lives outside my apartment block and has no concept of morning.

Essential Details:
Location: Hongseong, Chuncheongnam-do (Province), Republic of Korea-about two and half hours outside of Seoul on the train.

School name: Seoul Hagwon/ Academy. (No, I am not commuting, the Director either likes the name or is in need of some geography lessons!) A hagwon is a private academy which students attend after they have had a full day at government school. Some of the High School students get taught until about midnight, and then start up at government school between 8am and 9am. There is no rest for them either, as they have to do homework for practically every subject, and go to school on Saturdays too. This is all with the purpose of getting into a top university. All in preparation for a country where the work ethic is work, work and more work. Workers maybe contracted to work a nine til five day, but in reality they can’t go home until the boss goes home, and if he’s holed up in his office watching Heroes through sidereel that a good four hours spent staring at the walls.

Contract: 12 months, airfare returned (in stages over the year), rent free apartment, very good wage for the hours I work and in relation to the cost of living, in return for me providing English lessons to what is currently 5 classes a day, five days a week.

Number of times I have been asked if I am Canadian: One.

As many of you will know, my RAF brat bastardised accent causes confusion at the best of times, usually along the lines of “What? You’re from Oxford(shire!)? You sound like you’re a Northerner/Brummie/Canadian/Aussie?” So how it will translate here in South Korea should be interesting, especially if any of the unfortunate souls I teach mimic my accent. Though, hopefully by the end of the year my speech will have slowed down to an acceptable speed for all involved, making me sound less like an express train going through a tunnel, and more like a normal person.

Ok, with the preamble out the way, I can share some of my first impressions and experiences from South Korea and hopefully raise a few smiles along the way.