1st Birthday Celebration in Korea

I think that this is officially the longest I've ever gone without posting, barring my 3 month hiatus when I wasn't in Korea. Basically all of my friends are leaving Korea and in 2 weeks I will be alone. It's so strange to be the one left behind. My nights have been filled with last dinners and outings and the like. Not to mention having a job and being a bit lazy lately outside of work and social engagements. I could go on in this vein for awhile OR I could tell you about the amazing cross cultural experience I had 2 weeks ago. I thought so.

Lately, I've gotten friendly with the young music teacher who started this semester when the previous teacher left on maternity leave. There aren't many young teachers in school so those of us who are there bond together, despite language barriers.  Anyways, apparently the 1st birthday is a huge deal in Korea. It makes sense, before modern medicine if a baby made it to the year mark it was much more likely to survive.  I'd heard that they were a big deal but I'd never known anyone with an infant before (aside from my lovely nephew of course!). So Friday, my co-teacher, another youngin at the school and I got on the subway to head to the birthday party at Bexco. I'd only ever walked passed Bexco when there was an anime convention so I was a little surprised at the venue choice.

Not the likely site of a baby's birthday party right? Until of course I realized that Bexco was just a huge complex of event rooms of varying sizes to be rented out. On the 3rd floor there were three other 1st birthday parties happening at the same time.

The whole thing was ridiculously cute. There were photos of the baby and her family everywhere. It was actually one of the most tasteful events I've ever been to in Korea. The other young kids in attendance got a huge kick out of playing with the balloons (and they were allowed to bring them home at the end).

And oh god, the food. The food was AMAZING. Seriously. I was really jealous of my friend who tried all 8 cake desserts (and with the exception of a small bite from the chocolate cake that I stole, finished every bit of it). However, I was immensely pacified by the heaps of fresh fruit and rice cakes. I even got to try mangosteens, something I wanted to try in Cambodia but couldn't figure out how to buy since I didn't look at a picture of them before my trip (delicious). All of us walked away from the table in slight pain from over-eating. My co-teacher spoke longingly of the stomach medicine.

Aside from the good food, I got to spend my Friday night cooing over a baby. For anyone who has seen my devotion to my daily Jakob photos, you know how baby crazy I can be. Baby girl was adorable.  Her grandparents were immensely pleased by how much she liked me.

Also may I mention how incredibly hard it is to catch babies on camera even on the fastest setting? 3/4 of my pictures of her came out blurred as she or someone looking after her moved to take care of her.

Surprised moment: Being asked to give a speech. I looked startled, stood up, said happy birthday in English and then Korean. Everyone applauded and my co-teacher translated the comment made after my speech was that everyone was delighted that they could understand me.

Next up...who knows! I've got lots of ammunition from the past couple of weeks. Not the least of which being some fabulous Konglish sitings....

Spaz Update: I got 3 mosquito bites in my last class today. Through my thick wool trousers and knit sweater. I hate mosquitoes. No one else was bitten.

Sports Day in Korea

Sports day is a huge deal.  My students have been practicing outside everyday before school for a month. Most of it was pretty standard, running races, relays, etc. Some of it was wonderfully Korean though. For instance, the coordinated warm up workout/dance routine thingy. Apparently, my co-teacher got graded on her ability to do this as part of her education degree. These are the first graders...they are slightly less coordinated than the upper grades. Immensely cute though!

I have no idea why international flags were hung. I mean there wasn't anything particularly international about the day, unless you count the fact that I was there. Which...I don't though the first half hour was full of intensely uncomfortable stares from the parents.

Okay, so at this point some of my 5th graders are putting on cone caps. My first two reactions were...really bad KKK imitators or dunce caps. I had no idea what on earth they were doing. Until...

The 6th grade boys hoisted them onto their shoulders and started charging the red team.

The goal was to knock/grab the hat off of the other team. It was absolutely hilarious to watch and the boys participating were laughing pretty hard too.

Next up for completely and wonderfully Korean (or at least, I'd never seen it before Korea) was the Hanbok race. Two 4th grade girls ran, put on hanbok as quickly as they could and then were helped up (and supported) while they ran down the backs of every 6th grade girl.

My absolute favorite race though was the 6th grade partner race.  Basically, 5 kids would sprint a short distance and then pick up a paper. They had to then find the teacher or person (for instance, parent with a hat or sunglasses or whatever), grab their hand and dash to the finish. Since my co-teacher and I are the youngest teachers in school...our names came up a lot. It was really a lot of fun and there was much laughter all around.

Basically it was a pretty awesome day. Instead of teaching I helped call who was 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in races, stamped hands, gave out programs to parents, and ate lots of yummy snacks. The principal noticed my great love for the pumpkin jelly candy (he has yet to realize that I love any sweet without milk in it) and asked the PTA mom cleaning up the left overs to give me a giant thing of it. Which of course, I finished before dinner time. Rest assured though, I found out exactly what it was, how to spell it and where to buy it from my amazing co-teacher. Yesterday, I bought a gigantic bag of it.

Spaz attack: NONE! An entire day of being active without tripping over my own feet, crazy!

Spaz Attack!

This morning, I managed to leave my house relatively unscathed. That was the end of my good luck.  While walking up the stairs to my classroom I somehow managed to fall up the stairs and land on my face.  Luckily my travel coffee cup lid is amazing and did not spill coffee all over my nice white shirt. Ten minutes later I knocked over my coffee while the lid was open and spilled coffee on a gigantic stack of student papers.

On the plus side none of my students were there to witness my ridiculousness AND no new injuries were sustained....aside from the papers.

Tomorrow is Sports Day at school. I am supposed to wear a track suit or equally sport attire. The closest I have to that are my college sweats...not something I want the parents or students to see me in. I'm not a sporty person. This is quite obvious from my inability to walk without causing injury to myself. I think I shall compromise with a sporty polo shirt, jeans and sneakers.

Happily, I am not teaching but will probably be expected to stand around a bit and cheer.  That I can probably handle without hurting myself. Probably.

The English Club

Yesterday was the second after school English club meeting...for teachers. Here is the most awkward thing about teaching a class for co-workers in Korea--navigating the social hierarchy.  I am the youngest person at my school (except for my lovely co-teacher who is 9 days younger). Korean social rules dictate that certain titles/names be used in addressing each other, particularly with people who are older than you. It's really where a huge amount of foreigner faux pas are made. Now, if you are trying to have an English conversation club where you only speak English and these titles don't translate and even sound incredibly awkward or even rude in English. Not to mention that the over use of 'you' in English is also considered pretty rude in Korean. 

I spoke with my co-teacher about it before class for about 15 minutes before giving up and deciding to spend 5 minutes discussing the cultural differences and asking each teacher what they preferred to be called. A few of them had English names (perhaps from their hagwon days?) and another one decided that she wanted to be called Meg Ryan. I love it. 

Of course, I was super stressed before the first meeting but as usual, my stress was for naught. So far we have discussed our shopping habits and the current kimchi cabbage scandal. Next up: the Busan Film Festival. I think I'm going to try for a youtube clip of a movie (maybe just a couple of minutes) and then chat about it. 

Spaz update: NOT SPECIFICALLY MY FAULT! Though I definitely blame my inferior genetics...I appear to be allergic to every brand of band-aids in this country. The adhesive makes my skin get a lovely, itchy pink rash that apparently normal people don't get. So when I put band-aids on my mosquito bites in an effort to not pick and scratch at them, I am ultimately defeated. I give up. Mosquito bite scars, here we come! 

Dear Frost,

Please come early for a night or two and kill of the blood sucking fiends in my life. 

Love,

Alex

"Oh, shit!"

Lately there have been a plethora of students saying "oh, shit!" I have no idea where they are getting it from. There must be a video game or popular TV show or perhaps even a kpop song with the infamous "oh, shit." Usually, me telling the student once (very sternly) that it's a bad word in English and not to use it again is enough. 


You'd think they were saying 'aisht' which is the somewhat equivalent Korean (I think?). Oh, no, these are very clear 'oh, shit's and well enunciated. In fact, I would  be tempted to praise their accent if they weren't cursing. 


My revenge: 
Write: "I will not say bad words in class" 10 times...and have their mother (or available guardian) sign it. Everyday that goes by without a signature they have to do it again at lunch. I have yet to have a student have to write a paper more than 3 times before they realize that I mean business. (Why none of them think of forging their parents' signatures is beyond me. It's not like I could tell the difference, being hardly literate and all and completely unable to decipher Korean signatures.)


Sometimes I wish I was teaching university students (or private lessons) so I really could do a class on swearing and how to say inappropriate things. 


Life Spaz- 
Today's lunch at school was ddokbokki, normally one of my favorite Korean rice cake dishes. They took a perfectly good, traditional Korean recipe and added a bunch of stringy cheese. In 20 years, there will be cheese in every Korean dish and I will be allergic to it all. I tried to fill up on the rice, soup, acorn jelly, and kimchi but was nice and light headed by the time I left school. Of course, that could have been from the paint fumes of whatever they are renovating on the first and second floors....

Beppu! (The last of my Japan trip)

This past week has been pretty crazy, preparing materials for Lesson 11, making new boards for my classroom (based on Lesson 11), preparing for the teacher's English conversation club, and you know, life. Anyways, here are photos from the last city I visited in Japan, Beppu. Beppu started out as a domestic tourist site but has definitely made it internationally. The city is famed for it's 'onsen' or bathing houses that are supplied by the zillion natural hot springs in the area. Not to mention the hot spring pools that you can't bath in but are fabulous to look at. The onsen were interesting but I've got to say, I kind of prefer the more modern, pamper focussed jimjilbangs of Korea. However, I'd never been buried in hot sand before or taken a mud bath and I do love that sort of experience.

Right outside of the train station there is a little free hand bath. It's not really That hot but I had fun pretending that my hands were you know, getting boiled and such.

As opposed to this hell, where you really would get boiled alive. These hot springs are called the 'hells' for their hellish appearances and temperatures. Why am I making funny devil horns? Well...I am at a hell. This one is naturally red from the clay in the ground that is constantly being melted and such by the water. Very cool.

A group of ladies coming in to look at a hell. Very strange. No idea what they were preparing for or taking notes on. Possibly tour guides in training? Cute uniforms though.

One of the craziest (and best) things about wandering around Beppu were the clouds of steam coming up everywhere from the onsen and such. It was just very surreal looking.

This is where we went for the mud baths.  Sounds interesting, no? There was also some sort of natural mineral bath. The only downside was that there was no non mineral shower water. You couldn't use soap (I think it would pollute the ground water supply the way they had everything set up) so you came out of the baths with very soft skin but absolutely reeking of sulfur. Of course, being the wonderful spaz that I am I slipped getting into the first mud bath and cut my knee.  I gripped the hand rails religiously after that.

After mud we went for some ramen. These are the random gourds decorating the walls of the ramen restaurant. Freshly made Japanese has no resemblance to its distant cousin, those instant packs sold at the super market. It's absolutely incredible. I ate all of my bowl and a good deal of Cragon's (who couldn't take eating so much hot food after being submerged in a hot bath for an hour). The lady who ran the place was also super nice and didn't mind the fact that I dragged her outside to point to the plastic food models to order. I'm sure she gets that a lot from foreigners.

Doesn't that just look like it's made of delicious???

After lunch we went to a free foot steam bath thingy. It was super intense. And yes, at the end of the day I was absurdly clean. Aside from the slight sulfurous smell radiating from my skin.

What happened when I flipped on the telly at the hostel. Utter strangeness! It was actually highly amusing. I love seeing other cultures' entertainment even when I don't understand it. This was a kid's program for learning English. Even better than that....

SUMO WRESTLING! I actually watched this for a bit. It was all sorts of amazing.

Thus wraps up my trip to Japan! Overall, I had a blast. I might do one more post on food...since I took a picture of every single thing I ate.