Boys Will Be Boys

So, we have a problem in my Kindergarten homeroom class. The boys. There are only three of them, down from five when I just started. Which would seem like it would make things easier. But, the two that left were the good ones (in terms of behavior), so now it’s me versus the three muskateers: Eddie, Sonic, and Daniel. First off, they can’t stay in their seats. Second, they won’t listen. Third, they won’t stop FIGHTING.

Let me explain the fighting part…At first, it was just confusing. They were always telling me that one of the others were doing something bad, then the other would deny it. I didn’t know who to believe, especially when I was just starting out and didn’t know who I could trust (if any of them). Also, as I mentioned before, they speak very little English. They aren’t supposed to speak Korean in class, but this is nearly impossible for them, since it would mean a room of five-year-olds sitting in silence (I wish).

So, the boys kept getting in these fights in Korean, and I wouldn’t know what the heck they were talking about. Supposedly it all started when they were playing together at Sonic’s house and Daniel got upset that Sonic and Eddie didn’t let him take more turns on the Wii game, or something. Now they are constantly arguing. Sometimes it even gets physical, and when they try to explain to me what happened (or what they claimed happened), it usually goes something like this…

Daniel: “Austinnn Teachhaaaa…Sonic is…me…this (hitting motion).” (Translation: “Sonic hit me”)

Me: “Sonic, did you HIT (insert hitting motion) Daniel?”

Sonic: (wide-eyed) “NO!”

Daniel: (equally wide-eyes) “YES!”

Sonic: “NO!!!”

Daniel: “YES!!!”

Me: “Sonic, Daniel, SIT DOWN! Both of you, BAD POINTS…stop fighting!” (as I dramatically walk over to the board and put red tallies by their names) “Three bad points is NO PLAY!” (at lunch time)

            My Korean co-teacher, Ellen, has been trying very hard to get these boys to behave themselves and to get along. When she discovered that I majored in Psychology she suggested that I use my Psych skills to figure out why they’re always fighting. I have absolutely no clue. She holds them after class every day, so they can talk to her in Korean about whatever happened between the three of them that morning. We also tried a strategy where we didn’t let them play during play-time for a week, and instead made them read quietly. Of course, “reading quietly” basically means me putting them in three corners of the room, facing the wall (with a book in hand), and yelling at them every minute or so when they start arguing again.

            On the plus-side (not really), I have gotten a new Korean word out of all of this…it sounds like ”il-i-ko”, and (Ellen explained to me) means something like “I will tell.” It is not a nice word. Daniel is not allowed to say it anymore. Daniel seems slightly sociopathic. He keeps lying. To me, to Ellen, to his mom. He can be very convincing, much too convincing for a five year-old. Anyway, needless to say, I find all of this fighting a little distressing. Am I not giving these boys enough attention, love, what is it?? WHY CAN’T YOU ALL JUST GET ALONG, SALMON CLASS??? I mean, the girls are PERFECT. They try very hard and do whatever I tell them, for the most part. They even spontaneously started massaging my back today; they called it “massage-ee.” But, I guess, boys will be boys.

Pepero Day

          11/11 is Pepero Day in Korea. A Pepero is basically a chocolate-covered biscuit stick. Photo:

Pepero sticks

          So, two Peperos make an 11, get it? This year was 11/11/11, so it was an extra-special Pepero Day. I, of course, was oblivious to this day until the night before, when Jackie informed me that it was like Korean Valentine’s Day. Apparently it was created by the cookie company that makes them. So, Hallmark is to Valentines Day as Lotte Confectionary is to Pepero Day.

          A bunch of the kids at school brought Pepero for their classmates and teachers. After about an hour I was overwhelmed by the quantity of Pepero in my teacher’s basket, so I started opening up boxes and feeding it to the kids. They LOVE it. I mean, what’s not to like about a chocolate-covered biscuit stick?

          The rest of the day continued in this manner, receiving and giving Pepero. I also ate quite a few and at the end of the day felt like I’d had enough Pepero to last me a lifetime. I still ended up leaving work with a bag of it (it kept appearing on my desk…Pepero fairy?). It’s good with coffee, and I might bring a bunch of it back to school in a few days to bribe the kids with. Or, does anyone want me to send them some? ^ ^ (asian :))

Halloween

A couple of weeks ago, we celebrated Halloween at EOS with a “Halloween Festival.” Halloween isn’t usually celebrated in Korea, but the hagwans seem to like to incorporate various aspects of Western culture into the teaching. The Kindergarten festival included a “fashion show” and a song and dance competition. Each class learned the words and choreographed danced moves to a Halloween song. The “fashion show” consisted of the teachers dancing in their costumes on stage.

We were originally told that we were going to each have to dance for two minutes alone. Even though the majority of the audience was going to be under the age of seven, I was quite frankly terrified. But it didn’t turn out to be bad at all. We actually only danced alone for about fifteen seconds and then the rest of the time we were dancing with other each other. I actually won third place (and a 20,000 won, or about $20, cash prize) for my grape costume (I safety-pinned purple balloons to a purple sweater, attached a green felt leaf, and wore a green beanie and green yoga pants). First prize (50,000 won) went to Anna Teacher, who dressed up as a cowgirl, riding a blow-up horse.

The kids got up on stage and performed the routine that they had been practicing to a Halloween song. My class’s song was called The Haunted House and went something like “The haunted house has black cats creeping round, the haunted house has bats that fly a-round…” Anyway, needless to say, the whole day was pretty hilarious, and pretty fun. Also, the kids looked ADORABLE in their costumes. Most of the Kindergarten girls were princesses, naturally. Here are some photos:

The Girls

The Boys

Chris

Daniel

Salmon Class + Austin Teacher

Never Never Land

          Brief update: The time has come at EOS for us to begin preparing for the Kindergarten musicals. I believe that the actual performances will be in February. But, there is A LOT to be done, so we are starting now. Each Kindergarten class pairs up with another to put on a performance. The teachers are in it too, of course. We are given the largest roles since we are obviously much more capable of memorizing lines in English. Many of my kids can't form gramatically-correct English sentences yet.

          My class (Salmon), is paired up with Jessica Teacher's class (Stingray). We will have thirteen students in total. And then there's us. Initially we were going to do Little Red Riding Hood, and Jessica and I were going to share the part of the Big Bad Wolf. We have scripts from previous years to work from. But, I wrote a new scene (requested by my Korean co-teacher, Ellen) between the birds, the flowers, the trees, and Little Red Riding Hood, because we needed more characters. I thought it was pretty good, personally :). I included the wise Oak Tree giving Red Riding Hood advice about not trusting people (or wolves) she just met. We also needed a song for the forrest critters to sing, so I was going to suggest Colors of the Wind (Pocahontas) :). Note: We have a lot of freedom in certain aspects of the job, since the parents of the kids and the owners of the school don't speak much English.

          Anyway, we are no longer doing Little Red Riding Hood. Something about problems locating the music for it. So, we are going to do Peter Pan. At the moment, I am transcribing part of the script (for some reason the school only had the hard copy, not the electronic), while editing it. I must say, out of all the plays that we could be doing, I'm pretty excited to be doing Peter Pan. I will be Captain Hook. So I'm ready to be really piratey for the next couple of months. Note: In some ways I feel like I'm already living in Never Land (lots of kids and clowning around), so this play is not much of a stretch. Okay, back to work...

Fall Field Day

           As you may have noticed. I haven’t been blogging as consistently lately. A lot of my time is taken up by work (typically from 9am-7pm, sometimes with an hour-long break in the middle). I’ve also been busier lately outside of work, which is a good thing. I meet up with both Moon and Jackie most weekends, and have been spending time with some of the other teachers from my school.

Last week all of the “Native teachers” went over to one of the Korean-teachers houses, Sabina, and we made dinner. I have also been frequenting Now Bar (the sign says “Now!! Bar”), the expat bar in Yeongtong, which I mentioned before. It’s a great way to meet other foreigners and English-speaking Koreans who live nearby. I’ve been going most Friday nights.

            Anyway, on to the point of this blog post…Fall Field Day. This was an event that we had at school with the kindergarteners a couple of weeks ago. The teachers all showed up at 8:30 in the designated uniform of an EOS shirt, jeans, and a backpack (Amanda and I did some last-minute backpack shopping the night before since neither of us had one here. I found one I like at Suwon station for only 10,000 won).

The teachers were driven to a park in one of the EOS busses, were we met the kids (also bussed). Most of them were dressed in their cute little PE uniforms (black sweat-suits with a Burberry-like pattern on the sides). The day consisted of game-playing and picnic-ing, all while many pictures were taken (as always are on event days), so that the school could show the students’ parents and prospective parents how much fun the kids were having with their native English-speaking teachers.

            There was a foot race, a race where the kids and teachers pushed a huge ball, tug-of-war, etc. On one of the rounds of tug-of-war, just the teachers played (ouch my hands). Here is a picture that Amanda took of the Salmon girls and I:

Me, Julia, Lucy, and Chris

Afterwards we sat on a mat with the kids and ate snacks. The school provided kimbap (kind of like a sushi-roll with cooked fish), and each of the kids brought something to share. I brought rice-crispy treats, which I thought the kids would like, but they didn’t seem to, “teacher no”. We were also provided with a fair amount of coffee throughout the day. Which was very necessary.

            Here are some pictures I took on my phone of the picnic:

 Julia

 Sophia

Sonic 

Daniel 

 Kimbap, etc.

            All in all the day was pretty fun, even though we had to be pretty on-it to keep the kids under control. Much of it just seemed pretty hilarious/silly to me, as usual. Like the warm-up dance that they had all the kids do while singing a song that sounds like “choo-choo-cha-cha-choo-choo-cha-cha.” It was a nice day and great to be outside, playing games and eating snacks. Fall is the nicest time of year in Korea, with cool, clear air and red and yellow leaves.

I’m experiencing real seasons for the first time in my life. A little different than Santa Barbara, where the temperature simply drops a few degrees and sometimes it gets foggy. I am getting pretty nervous for winter, though. It’s supposed to be a particularly cold one. There will be snow and Siberian winds (literally).

            Side-note: I have a Korean phone now. It’s an LG smart-phone that I got for free with a yearlong contract (I pay monthly). It’s awesome, puts the iphone to shame. I love it. Has great apps, is easy to use, and takes really good pictures for a phone. As they say, “LG is about making life good.”

A Very Bizarre Birthday

I turned 22 (Korean 23) a couple weeks ago, and my birthday was, like most of my life lately, quite an adventure. It was fun, exhausting, and at some points just plain bizarre. You’ll see what I mean…

The evening before my actual birthday I met up with my good friend Moon, who came to Korea a couple weeks after me and is living in the same city, about 20 minutes away by bus. Part of what drew me to the school I am currently teaching at was the fact that Moon and I would be located in the same city, albeit a large one. Being both quite new to the life-in-Korea thing, and me without a phone, we decided that I would take the bus to her area of Suwon at the same time she was getting off of work and we would meet at the bus stop (something that we’d done before), get dinner, and take it from there.

            After meeting up, Moon and I decided that we might as well stop at The Big Chill (the expat bar in her part of town) before dinner, because it was Ladies Night (every Friday) and, being ladies, we could get free drinks. We had a few of those (hard to say no to free drinks, especially non-soju free drinks), and talked to some of the characters at the bar.
          One of them was dressed in chainmail. Our conversation began something like this: “What brings you to Korea?” “Uncle Sam.” “Why are you dressed in chainmail?” “Why not? I like dressing up.” “Um, yeah, dressing up is fun...” The Korean bartender was nice, though. His English name is Skyler, but is moving to Canada soon and is thinking of changing it to Jun, pronounced June, a somewhat common Korean-English name. We told him that we liked Skyler better, as June is a female name is the US, but he should of course choose a name that he feels reflects him.

Note: the people that I’ve met at expat bars in Suwon have all fallen into one of four categories: 1) native English teacher (from Ireland, England, South Africa, et.), 2) Korean interested in meeting foreigners, 3) American in the US army, or 4) Samsung employee. Some are here because they wanted to travel, some are here for the money, some are super into Asians and/or Asian culture. So, all in all, it is a very interesting crowd. Another note: people here seem both intrigued and confused by the Moon and Austin name combo, some have even said that we sound like a country band.

Anyway, a little later on, Moon presented me with a “choco-pie” (kind of like a ding-dong, very tasty), then she and a few of the characters sang me happy birthday and I blew out a lighter. After the free drinks were over, we made our way to a Korean BBQ restaurant and discussed life (Moon and I do this a lot) over soju and lettuce-wrapped charred beef (I LOVE Korean BBQ, by the way). After a while (not really sure how long), we were the only people left in the restaurant and the Koreans hinted that we needed to leave, so we did. I took a cab home. Conveniently for us, the 20-minute cab ride in-between our areas of Suwon is only about $10.

            The next morning (my birthday) I woke up feeling exhausted and hung-over. It had been a long workweek. Yet, I decided that I needed to rally and do something fun since it was my birthday and everything. Jackie and I had talked about spending the day on the Korean wine-train (link: Wine Train). It takes you from Seoul to S. Korean wine-country while you sip wine, eat snacks, and are entertained by musicians. You stop in the wine-country for lunch, soap making, and foot soaking. I still really want to do this, but it also leaves from Seoul at 9am on Saturday, and is a bit pricey, so we decided to do it another time. We had also talked about going to Everland, the 4^th ranked theme park in the world (link: Everland), conveniently accessible via public transportation.

            In addition, there happened to be the annual expat soccer game happening in Seoul, at the World Cup Stadium. All the foreigners we knew seemed to be going and there was a beer and hot-dog included with the ticket purchase. When I woke up on Saturday that was exactly what I was in the mood for. So, I met up with Moon again, and we trekked it to the soccer game where we met up with Jackie, her boyfriend William, some friends of his from his soccer team (Seoul Storm), and two girls that one of the guys works with. I had talked to some of the other teachers from my school about meeting up at the game as well, but it ended up being too difficult with all the people and various cell-phone issues.

            The game was a lot of fun. There were two different Korean teams playing each other, and there was a lot of other entertainment incorporated besides the actual soccer (fireworks, ball-juggling shows, games where random people from the crowd could win things). It seemed they were trying to make it Western, since the game was for foreigners, but exaggeratedly so. The stadium is HUGE, and there were sooo many white people, which actually felt pretty strange, in a familiar/comforting sort of way. I honestly wasn’t paying a lot of attention to the game, more just looking around the stadium, chatting (being able to talk to a bunch of native English speakers has become a bit of a treat), and enjoying my beer and hot-dog.

            Moon, Jackie, William, etc. and I left a little before it was over to avoid the crowd all massing to the subway and went to a Korean BBQ restaurant in another part of Seoul. Have I mentioned that I LOVE KOREAN BBQ?! You cut up the meat with scissors and grill it in the middle of the table and then wrap it in lettuce with bean sprouts, red-pepper-sauce, etc., sooo good! We also drank a lot of soju and beer, which is custom with Korean BBQ.  I was very glad to be eating and drinking with two of my best friends. Also, at one point I looked around me and thought “it’s my birthday, I’m cutting meat with scissors and taking soju shots, and I just met most of these people today,” again, BIZARRE. Gotta love the adventure. But wait, there’s more…

            So we all went to a bar that one of the guys knew that he said played good music. This transitioned into a club, which was pretty packed and a ton of fun. We danced, at one point on an elevated platform in the middle of the room. Met a few Koreans who, odds are, I will never see again in my life, and whose names I can’t remember anyway. Jackie and William went home, and Moon and I left to meet up with her friend Scott, who she met through a friend at Wesleyan, and is also a new teacher in Korea.
          We all got some street-food (it’s everywhere, and for the most part delicious, although some of it is very strange, like the dried octopus), and met up with some of Scott’s friends at another club. At this point it was very late and I was very tired. Scott had already paid for a bed at a hostel (called The Yellow Submarine) and so he, Moon, and I went back there. I got the bed, and Scott and Moon slept on a couch for a few hours.

We left The Yellow Submarine at about 7am so that Scott could have his bed back, and took a Hellish series of fluorescent-light filled subway-rides back to Suwon. The past 48 hours had consisted of a lot of soju, very little sleep, and we got lost, of course. There were people coming in from a long night in Seoul, looking as bedraggled as we felt. At one point Moon thought she was going to vomit, so I found a shopping-bag in a bathroom that I carried with us for the rest of the journey.

All in all, a fair bit different from past years, or maybe not so different. Loved-ones, food, music, dancing, and the next-day daze in which I realize, “oh, yeah, I’m older now.” Different or not, I am 22 (or 23), and, almost two months after arriving, life in Korea continues.

Chuseok

          These past couple of days have been the Korean holiday called Chuseok, similar to American Thanksgiving. According to Wikipedia, Chuseok is: “a major harvest festival and three-day holiday in Korea celebrated on the 15^th day of the 8^th month of the lunar calendar…As a celebration of the good harvest, Koreans visit their ancestral hometowns and share a feast of Korean traditional food such as songpyeon and rice wines.”
          Songpyeon is a Korean rice-cake, different from the American version of rice-cake. The outside reminds me of the mochi ice-cream balls that are sold at Trader Joe’s. Again from Wikipedia, songpyeon “is a traditional Korean food made of glutinous rice…They have become a popular symbol of traditional Korean culture. Songpyeon are half-moon-shaped rice cakes that contain different kinds of sweet or semi-sweet fillings, such as sesame seeds and honey, sweet red bean paste, and chestnut paste steamed over a layer of pine needles, which gives them the fragrant smell of fresh pine trees. They were made into various shapes with the participation of family members and were often exchanged between neighbors.”

Songpyeon

          On the Thursday morning of the week beforehand, we had a special Chuseok-day with all of the kindergarteners. The Korean teachers and students all came dressed in hanboks (traditional Korean clothing), and EOS provided the native teachers with hanboks to wear as well. The female hanbok is a bit like a brightly colored tent, or at least the ones that we were given, and not the most flattering. The kiddies looked really cute in theirs though, and some of them had really nice ones that were intricately made and beautiful. Some of the little boys wore puffy pink pants that were tight around the ankles, which I thought was precious.

Native teachers in their hanboks (courtesy of Amanda Teacher)

Instead of teaching classes, each teacher was assigned a traditional Korean game to play with the children. The games written on the schedule were “tal mask dance” (led by Gym Teacher), “too-ho play” (you try to throw an arrow in a cup of sorts, led by Jessica Teacher), “hoop play” (you try to roll a metal hoop with a stick, led by Anna Teacher), “neolttwigi jaegichaga” (kind of like teeter-totter, led by Amanda Teacher), “targeting stones” (you put a bean-bag on your head or shoulder and walk across the room with it, then lean over so that it knocks over a block, led by Hillary Teacher), and Ttakji game (led by Austin Teacher).
In my opinion, my game was the least fun. You basically took a folded up piece of magazine paper and threw it on another folded up piece of magazine paper, trying to throw hard enough so the paper on the ground would flip over. As far as I saw, none of the children were able to do this, and neither was I. I offered a lot of encouraging “almost!” and “nice try!”s. At least I got to help out with targeting stones, which was much more exciting. Here I am teaching the kiddies the game, photo credit to Hillary Teacher:

"Take one, please"

The Angelfish girls were having a hard time with this game.

          We got Monday and Tuesday off of work, which was great since I had been feeling sick, my immune system must be adjusting to being around so many kids. On Monday, Amanda Teacher and I went to Namsangol Hanok Village. This is a folk village in Seoul, which contains five restored traditional Korean houses, a pavilion, a pond, and a time capsule. The time capsule was buried in 1994, to celebrate Seoul’s 600-year anniversary, and is scheduled to be reopened in 2394.

          The village was hosting a special celebration for Chuseok. There were a bunch of people, mostly Korean of course but there were also a fair amount of foreigners. There were traditional games being played, and I recognized some from the games we played at school. One could also partake in traditional craft making. There was fan painting, mask painting, songpyeon-making, etc. There was also a performance area. We saw some live music, acrobatics, and a tightrope walker. Here are some photos:

Traditional Korean house

Arrow game

Time capsul

Tight-rope walker

All in all, Chuseok was a nice introduction into traditional Korean culture. Koreans seem to be very in-touch with and proud of their roots. The have a very rich culture and history indeed. Here is a little background info from one of my guidebooks: The traditional religions are Shamanism, Buddhism, and Confucianism, all which have shaped Korea’s sociocultural development. Christianity has also developed a very large following. South Korea has faced invasions from both Japan and North Korea and, lived under colonial rule by the Japanese for 35 years.
Fun fact: The national flower of Korea is the mugunghwa, or the Rose of Sharon, which (according to my guidebook) “is remarkably tenacious and able to withstand both blight and insects. The flower’s symbolic significance stems from the Korean word mugung (immortality). This word accurately reflects the enduring nature of Korean culture along with the perseverance of the Korean people.”