Someone's yanked HT's chain and now I'm paying the consequences. Actually, it's a whole big dramafest involving HT encountering the wonder that is my old co teacher (who I dearly miss) for the first time, in conflict. The ultimate battle of 눈치 있는 vs. 눈치 없는.
I'll tell you about it later. I'm too busy nodding right now.
11.25.2011
11.24.2011
HT and the stuffing.
HT had a Thanksgiving dinner with some of the foreigners at her church this past weekend. Thank you, whoever you are, because now she's fucking obsessed with stuffing and won't leave me alone about it.
11.22.2011
Work culture in Korea: The young ones.
I have a little bit of free time this morning, so I just wanted to fire of a slightly off topic post about a conversation I had with Busan a couple of weeks ago, which I was reminded of by this post on The Grand Narrative about young Koreans' struggle in finding acceptable jobs. It's a subject I, being a foreigner, don't know a whole lot about. So I mostly just listened, throwing in Devil's Advocate type arguments here and there, to try to get a feel for what might be going on.
Busan himself has just changed companies, and has come to Seoul in the first place because there was little work in his field back in his hometown. His friends, all around his age, are currently going through the same struggles -- looking for jobs, interviewing, finding unsatisfactory jobs, wanting more.
In Busan's opinion, it comes down to an unwillingness to work their way up. He said (paraphrased), "The job I accepted at first was nowhere near my ideal job. But it was a job at a company and I had to support myself. There's nothing wrong with that. When I have the means to support myself, and I start to gain skills, I can start to look around to find better and better positions and slowly move up. That's normal. But young people these days don't want to take a position that's lower than their ideal to begin with. They want to aim too high above their station to start. I was just out there -- there are plenty of jobs. They're just not the top jobs. Young people don't want to accept less than they think they deserve, not even to start. So they complain."
Busan's from a poor family, and echoing a lot of things I also said at the time when I was graduating university and hearing everyone around me complain and turn their noses up at perfectly good jobs which didn't provide them the status or the bragging rights they had imagined having. Some unemployed people who were relying on their parents' support would even cringe when I revealed, a few months after graduation, that I was still working at the university from which we had graduated.
The expenses of living in a major city are not a joke, and nobody wants to be hand-to-mouth forever. But Busan has kind of shifted my thinking about this issue in Korea a little. I started out in the conversation talking about competition and the grueling work schedules and rising cost of living and not being able to build a decent life. All of which I still think holds some truth everywhere, and in Seoul in particular -- right now, Busan's working until past 10 pm every night because he decided to take a step up in his career, which is something I'm just having to sit back and watch, a little agape, somehow knowing that it may never get better. But part of me is also now seeing some of what the older generation is bristling at, which is a certain arrogance on the part of the youth in this country, and their expectations for what they should have in life, in contrast to what their parents and their parents' parents may have had (and had to do to get it).
Almost every Korean I've spoken to on the subject, including Busan, agrees that it's time for Korea to stop focusing so much on economic progress and working on quality of life. Shorter working hours, essentially, is what that tends to mean. But for Busan, that means a move away from the focus on status. When young Koreans start turning their noses up at jobs with bigger salaries, weightier company names and longer working hours, and turning instead to more average jobs that allow them more free time to focus on their own lives and their families, then that's when the ship will start to turn around. In his mind (and mine as well), realistically, you can't have both.
That doesn't mean he's not still having a personal struggle about which direction to go in. It's easy enough to talk about it, but accepting a financially less stable position in order to make it happen, and not being able to see what the future holds, is not an easy choice to make. Most nights, these days, as he calls me while he's slipping off his shoes and finally stepping back into his small officetel at night, while I'm already curled up in bed, fed and washed, it usually just comes out as, "Korea is not poor anymore. Why do we have to work like we are?"
As for my part, I'm happy enough to sit down on the outside and watch how this all will play out. There are so many complicating factors -- gender and age in the workplace, the family structure and how women's roles (and expected roles) are going to play a part. I'm not building a family in Korea, right now, but I'm starting to have to be more and more serious in my thoughts about how it might feel to have a husband who doesn't get home until 11 pm every night, or to not have enough money to educate my children to the level that will send them off into the world on equal footing with their peers. It's not a pleasant issue to ponder. I have the ability to opt out of that, if I choose. Busan's not so lucky. There's a lot of weight on his shoulders right now. And that, I think, is what young Koreans are feeling more than anything else.
Busan himself has just changed companies, and has come to Seoul in the first place because there was little work in his field back in his hometown. His friends, all around his age, are currently going through the same struggles -- looking for jobs, interviewing, finding unsatisfactory jobs, wanting more.
In Busan's opinion, it comes down to an unwillingness to work their way up. He said (paraphrased), "The job I accepted at first was nowhere near my ideal job. But it was a job at a company and I had to support myself. There's nothing wrong with that. When I have the means to support myself, and I start to gain skills, I can start to look around to find better and better positions and slowly move up. That's normal. But young people these days don't want to take a position that's lower than their ideal to begin with. They want to aim too high above their station to start. I was just out there -- there are plenty of jobs. They're just not the top jobs. Young people don't want to accept less than they think they deserve, not even to start. So they complain."
Busan's from a poor family, and echoing a lot of things I also said at the time when I was graduating university and hearing everyone around me complain and turn their noses up at perfectly good jobs which didn't provide them the status or the bragging rights they had imagined having. Some unemployed people who were relying on their parents' support would even cringe when I revealed, a few months after graduation, that I was still working at the university from which we had graduated.
The expenses of living in a major city are not a joke, and nobody wants to be hand-to-mouth forever. But Busan has kind of shifted my thinking about this issue in Korea a little. I started out in the conversation talking about competition and the grueling work schedules and rising cost of living and not being able to build a decent life. All of which I still think holds some truth everywhere, and in Seoul in particular -- right now, Busan's working until past 10 pm every night because he decided to take a step up in his career, which is something I'm just having to sit back and watch, a little agape, somehow knowing that it may never get better. But part of me is also now seeing some of what the older generation is bristling at, which is a certain arrogance on the part of the youth in this country, and their expectations for what they should have in life, in contrast to what their parents and their parents' parents may have had (and had to do to get it).
Almost every Korean I've spoken to on the subject, including Busan, agrees that it's time for Korea to stop focusing so much on economic progress and working on quality of life. Shorter working hours, essentially, is what that tends to mean. But for Busan, that means a move away from the focus on status. When young Koreans start turning their noses up at jobs with bigger salaries, weightier company names and longer working hours, and turning instead to more average jobs that allow them more free time to focus on their own lives and their families, then that's when the ship will start to turn around. In his mind (and mine as well), realistically, you can't have both.
That doesn't mean he's not still having a personal struggle about which direction to go in. It's easy enough to talk about it, but accepting a financially less stable position in order to make it happen, and not being able to see what the future holds, is not an easy choice to make. Most nights, these days, as he calls me while he's slipping off his shoes and finally stepping back into his small officetel at night, while I'm already curled up in bed, fed and washed, it usually just comes out as, "Korea is not poor anymore. Why do we have to work like we are?"
As for my part, I'm happy enough to sit down on the outside and watch how this all will play out. There are so many complicating factors -- gender and age in the workplace, the family structure and how women's roles (and expected roles) are going to play a part. I'm not building a family in Korea, right now, but I'm starting to have to be more and more serious in my thoughts about how it might feel to have a husband who doesn't get home until 11 pm every night, or to not have enough money to educate my children to the level that will send them off into the world on equal footing with their peers. It's not a pleasant issue to ponder. I have the ability to opt out of that, if I choose. Busan's not so lucky. There's a lot of weight on his shoulders right now. And that, I think, is what young Koreans are feeling more than anything else.
11.16.2011
The Lunch Time Crew.
So last week I went into some random rant about religious conversion types in subway stations and promised I would connect it back to something a bit later. It is now 'a bit later' I guess.
Do you remember this story? Well, if you don't, there's a link right there. Click it.
The one thing I should point out from the jump is that, unlike I usually do, due to the content of that post, I actually changed the students' names. Maybe pointless, but you never know, and I didn't really feel comfortable posting something like that while using their actual names. I wouldn't want it done to me. I'm going to stick with those same names from now on (or try to... they're not their actual names, so if I fuck it up at some point, that's why).
Seongmin's school duty is to clean our English office. Everyday at lunch he comes in to refill the kettle, and everyday he's there during the cleaning period after school. Seongmin and I have done a lot of talking this year, as a result. He only gets smarter and more mature as the days go by, and one day when we were alone in the office, as he was sitting at the table working on some small task HT had given him, he suddenly said, "Teacher?"
He asked me whether I had wanted to be a teacher when I was younger, how I came to be a teacher, if I liked it.... and then he asked me if he thought he would make a good one. I said (of course), of course. I said, in fact, that I couldn't think of a single other student at our school who would make a better teacher. That he was kind, patient, a hard worker, good at talking to people and very, very smart. In my opinion, those are the qualities that make you. I went on to tell him that if every student was like him, everybody would want to be a teacher, and the job would barely have to pay. Maybe an exaggeration, but if you knew Seongmin, you might argue that it wasn't.
Originally, Seongmin was the student I was closest to, but as time went on, Byeongchan, Kwonwook and Changhyeon, his very close friends, started coming by the office during lunch to find him, or after school to wait to walk home together.
Byeongchan is one of the two who I referred to in the previous post -- the two who were, earlier this year, repeatedly molested by a group of older men in Jongno. The other student who was molested used to always be seen by Byeongchan's side, but shortly after it happened, they split off from one another. I don't know the specifics of why, but I have some idea. As I'm sure you do as well. Byeongchan and Changhyeon are hard to discuss separately, because they are always together, and they've been always together since they were in the first grade. Kwonwook completes their traveling trifecta. Seongmin is a little separated out, simply because he is an A ban student, and they are B ban, in all subjects. He naturally runs with a different crowd, because his class time is spent with other students.
Byeongchan is gay. I would bet my life that Changhyeon is also gay, but I've never heard anything to confirm this. But I feel it in the same way that I felt that Byeongchan and Seongmin were gay from the very first day that I met them. I don't believe that Kwonwook is, but I have no way of knowing.
Have you got all that? I feel like a Russian novelist. I'm sorry.
At any rate, as these students were hanging around the office waiting on Seongmin, they began to peck around in what little English they had between them, with Seongmin filling in a lot of the gaps as he wandered about sweeping, to speak with me. The real bonding moment came when they started flipping through my Korean book, which I'd left out on my desk and realized what level I was at. After that, all language shackles were shrugged off. We were BFF.
It might be important to note that this happened after the end of the first semester, which means that I am no longer teaching these boys and will not ever teach them again. After that happens, I allow a lot of lines to be crossed that remain very firm while I am still dealing with students in a classroom setting. Hence the speaking in Korean.
Anyway, the situation developed to where they were no longer coming to the office to find Seongmin. Now, they finish their lunch in a hurry every day and spend the remaining forty minutes in my office annoying me. Peeking over my shoulder at my computer monitor, digging through my materials for their 후배 that week, analyzing and tsking over my Korean homework, asking me nosy personal questions and eating anything edible that I have. In fact, their feelings got very hurt earlier this week when I was editing an exam during lunch time. They were fooling around by my desk occasionally interrupting me to ask some inane thing, until HT told them that I was working, that they were noisy and that they needed to get out. That was on Monday. Tuesday, they didn't come. Yesterday, only Kwonwook had the guts to show his face, and even then he spent the first ten minutes wandering in tentative circles around the office muttering about where Seongmin was, although we both knew full well he was down in their classroom.
Kwonwook is by far the loudest, although Byeongchan is not far behind. Kwonwook wants to be a pet shop owner, and Byeongchan wants to be a fashion designer. He wants to make clothes like the ones that Lady Gaga, his favorite singer, wears. Changhyeon is very quiet and not sure what he wants to be.
During all of this, a load of other students are in and out of the office, either performing tasks for other teachers or just stopping in to hang out for a bit. The other boys tease these guys a lot. It's mostly friendly, but sometimes it crosses lines, as it has a way of doing with kids. The whole group is known the school over for being a little effeminate, although this doesn't really seem to bother anyone in a serious way. What they do constantly scoff at is the boys speaking to me in Korean. It's always the A ban boys who get their feathers ruffled about it, commenting that if they can't speak English, they shouldn't be harassing the foreign teacher in the first place. But Kwonwook just shouts back at them that, of course I can understand them and I speak Korean very well and they don't know anything about it anyway, so mind your own business. Then does a superior kind of eye roll, and turns back to our conversation. The other two just kind of ignore it.
For the school festival which, sadly, I missed, Byeongchan and Changhyeon performed "Sunny", complete with the hip bobbing, finger pointing choreographed dance moves. Some of the other students teased the two ruthlessly about this, but they really couldn't have given less of a fuck. They practiced for months, taking videos to correct their mistakes. It was one of the most brilliant things I've ever seen (they showed me the video after I returned from the US). The boys obviously do a lot of "feminine" routines for these kinds of events, but usually they're done as a bit of a joke. Byeongchan and Changhyeon were not joking. This was their performance, and they were going to do it in their way, and they didn't give a fuck what anyone else had to say about it.
Byeongchan has always been a bright and sunny student. When he was a first grader, he was one of the first ones I remember noticing as standing out from his peers, because, although he couldn't say much, he constantly shouted out, "Teacher!" and then rattled on at me in Korean I mostly couldn't understand, and beamed. At some point during his second grade year, however, he changed. He started wearing a hoody, which he pulled over his head during class, when he would either try to sleep or just lay on the desk staring into space. He was grumpy and unresponsive when I tried to talk to him. I thought it was just a part of what most of the students go through during the second grade, when a lot of them become argumentative and contrary. But, looking back on it and knowing what I now know, I don't think it was just ordinary.
These days, he's back to his old self. Seongmin, Kwonwook, Byeongchan and Changhyeon have all started attending to the same church. It's just past the coffee shop where I study Korean and, while I worried about what attending a church may do to their already confused sexual identity, the change in Byeongchan since he started has been remarkable, and that's the most important thing for now. If it gives him a place of community and something that makes him smile and chirp again, that's good enough for me.
Do you see where this is going yet? I'm sure you do, in part. But there was something else that happened last week that I was in no way prepared for, which was that the boys specifically brought up being gay and asked me what I thought of it. Murky waters. I'll talk about that later.
Do you remember this story? Well, if you don't, there's a link right there. Click it.
The one thing I should point out from the jump is that, unlike I usually do, due to the content of that post, I actually changed the students' names. Maybe pointless, but you never know, and I didn't really feel comfortable posting something like that while using their actual names. I wouldn't want it done to me. I'm going to stick with those same names from now on (or try to... they're not their actual names, so if I fuck it up at some point, that's why).
Seongmin's school duty is to clean our English office. Everyday at lunch he comes in to refill the kettle, and everyday he's there during the cleaning period after school. Seongmin and I have done a lot of talking this year, as a result. He only gets smarter and more mature as the days go by, and one day when we were alone in the office, as he was sitting at the table working on some small task HT had given him, he suddenly said, "Teacher?"
He asked me whether I had wanted to be a teacher when I was younger, how I came to be a teacher, if I liked it.... and then he asked me if he thought he would make a good one. I said (of course), of course. I said, in fact, that I couldn't think of a single other student at our school who would make a better teacher. That he was kind, patient, a hard worker, good at talking to people and very, very smart. In my opinion, those are the qualities that make you. I went on to tell him that if every student was like him, everybody would want to be a teacher, and the job would barely have to pay. Maybe an exaggeration, but if you knew Seongmin, you might argue that it wasn't.
Originally, Seongmin was the student I was closest to, but as time went on, Byeongchan, Kwonwook and Changhyeon, his very close friends, started coming by the office during lunch to find him, or after school to wait to walk home together.
Byeongchan is one of the two who I referred to in the previous post -- the two who were, earlier this year, repeatedly molested by a group of older men in Jongno. The other student who was molested used to always be seen by Byeongchan's side, but shortly after it happened, they split off from one another. I don't know the specifics of why, but I have some idea. As I'm sure you do as well. Byeongchan and Changhyeon are hard to discuss separately, because they are always together, and they've been always together since they were in the first grade. Kwonwook completes their traveling trifecta. Seongmin is a little separated out, simply because he is an A ban student, and they are B ban, in all subjects. He naturally runs with a different crowd, because his class time is spent with other students.
Byeongchan is gay. I would bet my life that Changhyeon is also gay, but I've never heard anything to confirm this. But I feel it in the same way that I felt that Byeongchan and Seongmin were gay from the very first day that I met them. I don't believe that Kwonwook is, but I have no way of knowing.
Have you got all that? I feel like a Russian novelist. I'm sorry.
At any rate, as these students were hanging around the office waiting on Seongmin, they began to peck around in what little English they had between them, with Seongmin filling in a lot of the gaps as he wandered about sweeping, to speak with me. The real bonding moment came when they started flipping through my Korean book, which I'd left out on my desk and realized what level I was at. After that, all language shackles were shrugged off. We were BFF.
It might be important to note that this happened after the end of the first semester, which means that I am no longer teaching these boys and will not ever teach them again. After that happens, I allow a lot of lines to be crossed that remain very firm while I am still dealing with students in a classroom setting. Hence the speaking in Korean.
Anyway, the situation developed to where they were no longer coming to the office to find Seongmin. Now, they finish their lunch in a hurry every day and spend the remaining forty minutes in my office annoying me. Peeking over my shoulder at my computer monitor, digging through my materials for their 후배 that week, analyzing and tsking over my Korean homework, asking me nosy personal questions and eating anything edible that I have. In fact, their feelings got very hurt earlier this week when I was editing an exam during lunch time. They were fooling around by my desk occasionally interrupting me to ask some inane thing, until HT told them that I was working, that they were noisy and that they needed to get out. That was on Monday. Tuesday, they didn't come. Yesterday, only Kwonwook had the guts to show his face, and even then he spent the first ten minutes wandering in tentative circles around the office muttering about where Seongmin was, although we both knew full well he was down in their classroom.
Kwonwook is by far the loudest, although Byeongchan is not far behind. Kwonwook wants to be a pet shop owner, and Byeongchan wants to be a fashion designer. He wants to make clothes like the ones that Lady Gaga, his favorite singer, wears. Changhyeon is very quiet and not sure what he wants to be.
During all of this, a load of other students are in and out of the office, either performing tasks for other teachers or just stopping in to hang out for a bit. The other boys tease these guys a lot. It's mostly friendly, but sometimes it crosses lines, as it has a way of doing with kids. The whole group is known the school over for being a little effeminate, although this doesn't really seem to bother anyone in a serious way. What they do constantly scoff at is the boys speaking to me in Korean. It's always the A ban boys who get their feathers ruffled about it, commenting that if they can't speak English, they shouldn't be harassing the foreign teacher in the first place. But Kwonwook just shouts back at them that, of course I can understand them and I speak Korean very well and they don't know anything about it anyway, so mind your own business. Then does a superior kind of eye roll, and turns back to our conversation. The other two just kind of ignore it.
For the school festival which, sadly, I missed, Byeongchan and Changhyeon performed "Sunny", complete with the hip bobbing, finger pointing choreographed dance moves. Some of the other students teased the two ruthlessly about this, but they really couldn't have given less of a fuck. They practiced for months, taking videos to correct their mistakes. It was one of the most brilliant things I've ever seen (they showed me the video after I returned from the US). The boys obviously do a lot of "feminine" routines for these kinds of events, but usually they're done as a bit of a joke. Byeongchan and Changhyeon were not joking. This was their performance, and they were going to do it in their way, and they didn't give a fuck what anyone else had to say about it.
Byeongchan has always been a bright and sunny student. When he was a first grader, he was one of the first ones I remember noticing as standing out from his peers, because, although he couldn't say much, he constantly shouted out, "Teacher!" and then rattled on at me in Korean I mostly couldn't understand, and beamed. At some point during his second grade year, however, he changed. He started wearing a hoody, which he pulled over his head during class, when he would either try to sleep or just lay on the desk staring into space. He was grumpy and unresponsive when I tried to talk to him. I thought it was just a part of what most of the students go through during the second grade, when a lot of them become argumentative and contrary. But, looking back on it and knowing what I now know, I don't think it was just ordinary.
These days, he's back to his old self. Seongmin, Kwonwook, Byeongchan and Changhyeon have all started attending to the same church. It's just past the coffee shop where I study Korean and, while I worried about what attending a church may do to their already confused sexual identity, the change in Byeongchan since he started has been remarkable, and that's the most important thing for now. If it gives him a place of community and something that makes him smile and chirp again, that's good enough for me.
Do you see where this is going yet? I'm sure you do, in part. But there was something else that happened last week that I was in no way prepared for, which was that the boys specifically brought up being gay and asked me what I thought of it. Murky waters. I'll talk about that later.
All take and no give.
I did it again, didn't I? I apologize. But I wasn't kidding when I said that things for me here are really veering off in another direction.
One big thing that's going on right now is that I'm beginning to try to educate myself about Korean literature in general, and Korean poetry in particular. Do you know how unbelievably stupid it is trying to get your hands on Korean poetry books in English in Korea? Really unbelievably stupid.
General kinds of anthologies or the really basic big names are easy enough. But. When you're ready to dig into American poetry, you don't want to just read Leaves of Grass, do you? Leaves of Grass is fucking incredible and American and epitomizing and complicated and all that junk. But I can't just read Leaves of Grass and know American poetry. You can't even just read Leaves of Grass and know Whitman.
The issue, I think, is that I generally learn about poets based on their oeuvre. When I start reading a new poet, it consumes two or three months of my focus. I don't just read one book. I read every fucking book. I want to see the whole story, from beginning to end. I want to read the biography. I want to read the philosophy. I want to read the essays and the personal letters. I want to see who their contemporaries were, and read their shit. I want to see who their mentors and their proteges were, and read that shit. I've been trained to think of poetry as occurring in schools. I have this obsessive compulsive need to look at the entire school, before I can say I understand the poet.
Try doing that in English in Korea. If you can get your hands on two books in translation by the same poet, you should count yourself lucky. Finding a comprehensive biography written in English? A fucking unicorn.
I'm pissed off about it, but also excited. I'd be more excited if I were fluent in Korean. Or even conversational in Korean. Right now, excited is kind of looking more like frustrated. But big tasks are always frustrating in the beginning. That's what makes them exciting.
Yeah. I know you don't give a shit. I've avoided talking about poetry in this blog for three years because I know nobody gives a shit. But if you want an update, right now, this is what it's going to look like.
What are you expecting, right now? Some big claim about how I'm going to become fluent in Korean and then single-handedly bring Korean poetry to the English speaking world? Fuck off. You should know better than that. Just becoming fluent in Korean is enough of a decade-long task for me at the moment. But there's a lot of shit to be done in the area, isn't there?
This is the part where readers I didn't even know I had come out of the woodwork and solve all my problems for me by pointing out all the places where I can easily find books and biographies in English by/about Korean poets. That's the real point of making this post. Ready, set, go.
One big thing that's going on right now is that I'm beginning to try to educate myself about Korean literature in general, and Korean poetry in particular. Do you know how unbelievably stupid it is trying to get your hands on Korean poetry books in English in Korea? Really unbelievably stupid.
General kinds of anthologies or the really basic big names are easy enough. But. When you're ready to dig into American poetry, you don't want to just read Leaves of Grass, do you? Leaves of Grass is fucking incredible and American and epitomizing and complicated and all that junk. But I can't just read Leaves of Grass and know American poetry. You can't even just read Leaves of Grass and know Whitman.
The issue, I think, is that I generally learn about poets based on their oeuvre. When I start reading a new poet, it consumes two or three months of my focus. I don't just read one book. I read every fucking book. I want to see the whole story, from beginning to end. I want to read the biography. I want to read the philosophy. I want to read the essays and the personal letters. I want to see who their contemporaries were, and read their shit. I want to see who their mentors and their proteges were, and read that shit. I've been trained to think of poetry as occurring in schools. I have this obsessive compulsive need to look at the entire school, before I can say I understand the poet.
Try doing that in English in Korea. If you can get your hands on two books in translation by the same poet, you should count yourself lucky. Finding a comprehensive biography written in English? A fucking unicorn.
I'm pissed off about it, but also excited. I'd be more excited if I were fluent in Korean. Or even conversational in Korean. Right now, excited is kind of looking more like frustrated. But big tasks are always frustrating in the beginning. That's what makes them exciting.
Yeah. I know you don't give a shit. I've avoided talking about poetry in this blog for three years because I know nobody gives a shit. But if you want an update, right now, this is what it's going to look like.
What are you expecting, right now? Some big claim about how I'm going to become fluent in Korean and then single-handedly bring Korean poetry to the English speaking world? Fuck off. You should know better than that. Just becoming fluent in Korean is enough of a decade-long task for me at the moment. But there's a lot of shit to be done in the area, isn't there?
This is the part where readers I didn't even know I had come out of the woodwork and solve all my problems for me by pointing out all the places where I can easily find books and biographies in English by/about Korean poets. That's the real point of making this post. Ready, set, go.
11.09.2011
Thanksgiving stuff and feeling a bit blue.
Sigh. The early dark/return to quiet empty apartment in contrast with full family home combo is making me a little blah. Plus I only taught one class today, which always knocks me down in the dumps. It was a fucking cute ass class though. B ban second graders, so there were moments of feigned "anger" about them going off the rails into rambling, nonsensical Korean jokey joke territory, but basically I just got them onto the track of at least making nonsensical jokes in English and we were alright. It was the 태근 Express's class, and they always meander down the thin line between enthusiastic and fun vs. a little out of hand, but we were doing our Thanksgiving lesson, so I gave a little leeway today.
By the way, I was kind of stumped as to what to do with the second graders this year for Thanksgiving, given that I absolutely refuse to teach any of the mythical "Indians and pilgrims" fucking bullshit that surrounds the holiday, and I already covered the food and being "thankful for" things last year. I gave the internet a good once over, and found something for my A ban that would work -- putting them into groups, and having them imagine that they are turkeys. Then, they have to form an argument for why someone should eat their neighboring group for Thanksgiving instead of their own. My A ban are okay to do a short writing exercise like that, so long as they have a group to work with. But B ban? No way, no how. I mean, they could do it. If I had a month's worth of classes to prep them for it. But I don't.
So I mulled it over for a while and remembered that during last year's Thanksgiving ppt, they were pretty fucking fascinated with the concept of the wishbone. And making one sentence about something they wish for is well within their ability. So I had them make paper wishbones with a partner, writing each of their wishes on either side, and then we all did a big countdown before they pulled them apart to see whose wish would come true. It involved three of their favorite things: competition, noise and destructive behavior. They were fucking well into it.
Another good subject to cover is Black Friday. They could stare at photos of that nonsense for hours, and if you tell a story about how someone got killed in the mad rush to make good on pre-Christmas sales, you'll be the school legend for the day. You can teach a ton of vocabulary like "wait in line" and "overnight" and "before sunrise" and "doors open". My students were also really fascinated to see how mixed the crowds were, racially, and I realized that it may have been the first time they got a really accurate depiction of that aspect of American society.
Blah blah blah. The point is, I'm in an odd mood. But I reckon I'll survive. Day off tomorrow for national exams, but I've got to make a trip into Seoul in the morning for a photo shoot (what?) and then back all the way to the far end of Incheon for -- yeehaw! -- Immigration. Visa renewal. Good thing the red buses are still on strike, hey?
Busan's off down in Busan, as he's been between jobs the past two weeks and, after spending all of last week off work and alone, he couldn't bear to face another week of it. So he went home to see his family (his brother's moved back home now) and his best friend, who's been away in Singapore for a year. He's back up tonight to start his new job in the morning. Here's hoping there are no shitty attempts to get him to visit prostitutes at this one, and as little 야근 as possible, eh?
Ramble ramble. Is this what you were looking for?
By the way, I was kind of stumped as to what to do with the second graders this year for Thanksgiving, given that I absolutely refuse to teach any of the mythical "Indians and pilgrims" fucking bullshit that surrounds the holiday, and I already covered the food and being "thankful for" things last year. I gave the internet a good once over, and found something for my A ban that would work -- putting them into groups, and having them imagine that they are turkeys. Then, they have to form an argument for why someone should eat their neighboring group for Thanksgiving instead of their own. My A ban are okay to do a short writing exercise like that, so long as they have a group to work with. But B ban? No way, no how. I mean, they could do it. If I had a month's worth of classes to prep them for it. But I don't.
So I mulled it over for a while and remembered that during last year's Thanksgiving ppt, they were pretty fucking fascinated with the concept of the wishbone. And making one sentence about something they wish for is well within their ability. So I had them make paper wishbones with a partner, writing each of their wishes on either side, and then we all did a big countdown before they pulled them apart to see whose wish would come true. It involved three of their favorite things: competition, noise and destructive behavior. They were fucking well into it.
Another good subject to cover is Black Friday. They could stare at photos of that nonsense for hours, and if you tell a story about how someone got killed in the mad rush to make good on pre-Christmas sales, you'll be the school legend for the day. You can teach a ton of vocabulary like "wait in line" and "overnight" and "before sunrise" and "doors open". My students were also really fascinated to see how mixed the crowds were, racially, and I realized that it may have been the first time they got a really accurate depiction of that aspect of American society.
Blah blah blah. The point is, I'm in an odd mood. But I reckon I'll survive. Day off tomorrow for national exams, but I've got to make a trip into Seoul in the morning for a photo shoot (what?) and then back all the way to the far end of Incheon for -- yeehaw! -- Immigration. Visa renewal. Good thing the red buses are still on strike, hey?
Busan's off down in Busan, as he's been between jobs the past two weeks and, after spending all of last week off work and alone, he couldn't bear to face another week of it. So he went home to see his family (his brother's moved back home now) and his best friend, who's been away in Singapore for a year. He's back up tonight to start his new job in the morning. Here's hoping there are no shitty attempts to get him to visit prostitutes at this one, and as little 야근 as possible, eh?
Ramble ramble. Is this what you were looking for?
I've received a very helpful email this morning.
I’ve been reading imnopicasso.blogspot.com and have a story idea that might interest your followers:
Is charter travel really an option for the ordinary traveler? We are all familiar with the private jet charter services that important business executives use to jet across the country to a meeting, but did you know that chartering is a viable option for individuals and groups looking for high service, convenience or possibly even saving money on traveling? From airline to bus travel to limousines, I explore some of your chartering options.
Would you be interested in having me write a guest post for your site? Alternatively I could just supply you with some great trend information that you can use to write a post yourself.
Let me know if you’re interested – I think this topic will be of great interest to your readers.
Thanks for your time and best regards,
Margot M
So, how about it, you elite, posh readers of INP? Is this topic of great interest to you? I know most English teachers in Korea are getting bored of dealing with the tiresome details of first class travel, anyway. Don't be bogged down with the masses any longer. Margot has a way out for you.
Remember the days when the random companies contacting me to advertise on my site were toilet supplies retailers? I am fucking moving up, my friends. From shit bowls to private jets. I have arrived.
Is charter travel really an option for the ordinary traveler? We are all familiar with the private jet charter services that important business executives use to jet across the country to a meeting, but did you know that chartering is a viable option for individuals and groups looking for high service, convenience or possibly even saving money on traveling? From airline to bus travel to limousines, I explore some of your chartering options.
Would you be interested in having me write a guest post for your site? Alternatively I could just supply you with some great trend information that you can use to write a post yourself.
Let me know if you’re interested – I think this topic will be of great interest to your readers.
Thanks for your time and best regards,
Margot M
So, how about it, you elite, posh readers of INP? Is this topic of great interest to you? I know most English teachers in Korea are getting bored of dealing with the tiresome details of first class travel, anyway. Don't be bogged down with the masses any longer. Margot has a way out for you.
Remember the days when the random companies contacting me to advertise on my site were toilet supplies retailers? I am fucking moving up, my friends. From shit bowls to private jets. I have arrived.
11.08.2011
INP vs. the World Mission Society Church of God.
So the Thursday night before I head home for my vacation, I'm walking back from the coffee shop where I was studying Korean, through the subway station. A commotion starts across the way, as I begin to head up the stairs, and I pause, because I've learned that attempting to keep walking whenever something like this happens usually ends up being more embarrassing in the long run. There aren't many foreigners around here, and whenever someone gets a mind to talk to one, having to chase someone down the street shouting in order to do so rarely seems to be considered an insurmountable obstacle. Especially with the young folk. And these guys were young.
After a bit of pushing and shoving, the young men who were with the group basically just turned and walked away, so it was two muttering young women who eventually made their way over. They were cradling a pen and paper and a cell phone.
"Excuse me..... excuse me.... uh..... excuse me...." False start. You didn't really think this through, did you? The other girl glanced down and saw the intermediate level Korean book in my hand. Saved! After a bit of chit chat in Korean about whether or not I speak Korean, the first girl eventually felt comfortable enough to switch back to English: "We are doing an assignment for school. We want to ask you some questions."
It's not uncommon these days to be wandering around Seoul and to randomly be grabbed out of a crowd by university students who have been forced out into the world to inflict their English homework of having to interview a foreigner on the general foreign population. And I feel bad that they have been put in such a ridiculously awkward situation, so I always stop and try to be as polite as possible while helping them to finish their assignment. Now. If I'd not been so tired from work and studying and whatever else I'd already done that day, I would've had the mental capacity to work out the fact that the chances of university students even from an Incheon university choosing my subway station as a place to stake out for foreigners were not in their favor. And I would have realized. But I didn't.
When I asked what denomination they were, they simply informed me that they are not a denomination. That there are no denominations. That there is only the one true God and the one true church, and that's the one they were from. They informed me that the only way to get to Heaven is to take something called Passover (which bears absolutely zero resemblance to the Jewish Passover -- it's actually what we Baptists refer to as the Lord's Supper, what Catholics call the Eucharist) on January 14th of every year. They also believe in the Heavenly Mother and quoted some verse to me which I'm nearly 100% certain does not exist in the KJV. Or, if it does, it is one my church, holding the "values" that it does in regards to women, would have certainly gone out of its way to avoid, anyway.
It was at this point that I realized what I had on my hands: World Mission Society Church of God. Now. I'm not usually one to get into the murky waters of trying to define churches versus cults, since, for the most part, I think those who are frank with themselves will recognize that the only real difference is the level of mass acceptance involved. But I am generally more creeped out by churches who have living leaders who they consider to be actual gods. Why? I don't know. I just am.
At any rate, I really do try not to be an asshole to missionary types. Even though I really could, if I wanted to. I come from a fiercely religious background, and only worked my way out of it by doing a lot (a lot) of hardcore historical and philosophical research. I know my own home religion inside and out, from both an indoctrinated and a historically factual perspective. I can still quote reams and reams of scripture from memory. I can also rattle off a timeline of how the church and the scripture were invented, manipulated and transformed via various political agendas over time. I'm also not an atheist, and I don't believe or accept the idea that believing in a god is ridiculous. I find science to be rather arrogant, given its own history, and I find most hardcore atheists to be as obnoxious and delusional, if not more so, then the heavily indoctrinated religious types.
I am bothered by the idea that most of the people who approach me to explain life and God and religion to me often don't know a fraction of what I know about their own scripture, or the history of their religion. And it's tempting to get into a tit-for-tat with them over that, and at times, if they are being overly arrogant and obnoxious, I will. But as for the run-of-the-mill pamphleteer, I actually have a lot of patience. They honestly believe that what they are doing is the kindest thing that they can do, and most of the time their intentions are nothing but gentle and sincere. I'm not about to set out to be rude about it, or to try to cause some kind of ripple in their faith. I respect them for devoting time and effort to something they truly believe in, and for trying to help people in the way that they know how. And many of these churches step up and do feel personally responsible to do a lot of good, hard work in society that the average person doesn't think twice about not doing.
So. My usual routine is just to smile and listen patiently for a while, throwing in a few bits here and there to show that I do know a bit of what they're talking about, mention that my grandfather was a preacher, and thank them for what they are trying to do, but explain that I already have my own personal beliefs. And attempt to exit the conversation as gracefully as possible.
For the ones who let me go at that point, it usually ends well. But for the ones who try to hold on and insist, sometimes there's a tense exchange about being respectful of other people's beliefs, and what kind of behavior I personally find to be Christ-like. And what kind I don't.
These young women luckily fell into the former category. I didn't make it out completely unscathed, though. They did get my phone number. But only after we'd branched off into conversation about other things, especially how they are having to study English at university and how I am now studying Korean at about the same level.
The next day, I received two messages from one of the girls. Not saying anything too pushy, but wishing me a safe trip home and things of that type. But, in the meantime, I'd had time to reflect on the encounter and I'd realized that they had completely lied to my face in our initial conversation. And it annoyed me. I understand why they did it, but I couldn't get around being annoyed about the shamelessness of it. So, I didn't answer.
This week, something happened that's made me realize that just ignoring this is not going to make it go away. I'll explain why a little later.
After a bit of pushing and shoving, the young men who were with the group basically just turned and walked away, so it was two muttering young women who eventually made their way over. They were cradling a pen and paper and a cell phone.
"Excuse me..... excuse me.... uh..... excuse me...." False start. You didn't really think this through, did you? The other girl glanced down and saw the intermediate level Korean book in my hand. Saved! After a bit of chit chat in Korean about whether or not I speak Korean, the first girl eventually felt comfortable enough to switch back to English: "We are doing an assignment for school. We want to ask you some questions."
It's not uncommon these days to be wandering around Seoul and to randomly be grabbed out of a crowd by university students who have been forced out into the world to inflict their English homework of having to interview a foreigner on the general foreign population. And I feel bad that they have been put in such a ridiculously awkward situation, so I always stop and try to be as polite as possible while helping them to finish their assignment. Now. If I'd not been so tired from work and studying and whatever else I'd already done that day, I would've had the mental capacity to work out the fact that the chances of university students even from an Incheon university choosing my subway station as a place to stake out for foreigners were not in their favor. And I would have realized. But I didn't.
When I asked what denomination they were, they simply informed me that they are not a denomination. That there are no denominations. That there is only the one true God and the one true church, and that's the one they were from. They informed me that the only way to get to Heaven is to take something called Passover (which bears absolutely zero resemblance to the Jewish Passover -- it's actually what we Baptists refer to as the Lord's Supper, what Catholics call the Eucharist) on January 14th of every year. They also believe in the Heavenly Mother and quoted some verse to me which I'm nearly 100% certain does not exist in the KJV. Or, if it does, it is one my church, holding the "values" that it does in regards to women, would have certainly gone out of its way to avoid, anyway.
It was at this point that I realized what I had on my hands: World Mission Society Church of God. Now. I'm not usually one to get into the murky waters of trying to define churches versus cults, since, for the most part, I think those who are frank with themselves will recognize that the only real difference is the level of mass acceptance involved. But I am generally more creeped out by churches who have living leaders who they consider to be actual gods. Why? I don't know. I just am.
At any rate, I really do try not to be an asshole to missionary types. Even though I really could, if I wanted to. I come from a fiercely religious background, and only worked my way out of it by doing a lot (a lot) of hardcore historical and philosophical research. I know my own home religion inside and out, from both an indoctrinated and a historically factual perspective. I can still quote reams and reams of scripture from memory. I can also rattle off a timeline of how the church and the scripture were invented, manipulated and transformed via various political agendas over time. I'm also not an atheist, and I don't believe or accept the idea that believing in a god is ridiculous. I find science to be rather arrogant, given its own history, and I find most hardcore atheists to be as obnoxious and delusional, if not more so, then the heavily indoctrinated religious types.
I am bothered by the idea that most of the people who approach me to explain life and God and religion to me often don't know a fraction of what I know about their own scripture, or the history of their religion. And it's tempting to get into a tit-for-tat with them over that, and at times, if they are being overly arrogant and obnoxious, I will. But as for the run-of-the-mill pamphleteer, I actually have a lot of patience. They honestly believe that what they are doing is the kindest thing that they can do, and most of the time their intentions are nothing but gentle and sincere. I'm not about to set out to be rude about it, or to try to cause some kind of ripple in their faith. I respect them for devoting time and effort to something they truly believe in, and for trying to help people in the way that they know how. And many of these churches step up and do feel personally responsible to do a lot of good, hard work in society that the average person doesn't think twice about not doing.
So. My usual routine is just to smile and listen patiently for a while, throwing in a few bits here and there to show that I do know a bit of what they're talking about, mention that my grandfather was a preacher, and thank them for what they are trying to do, but explain that I already have my own personal beliefs. And attempt to exit the conversation as gracefully as possible.
For the ones who let me go at that point, it usually ends well. But for the ones who try to hold on and insist, sometimes there's a tense exchange about being respectful of other people's beliefs, and what kind of behavior I personally find to be Christ-like. And what kind I don't.
These young women luckily fell into the former category. I didn't make it out completely unscathed, though. They did get my phone number. But only after we'd branched off into conversation about other things, especially how they are having to study English at university and how I am now studying Korean at about the same level.
The next day, I received two messages from one of the girls. Not saying anything too pushy, but wishing me a safe trip home and things of that type. But, in the meantime, I'd had time to reflect on the encounter and I'd realized that they had completely lied to my face in our initial conversation. And it annoyed me. I understand why they did it, but I couldn't get around being annoyed about the shamelessness of it. So, I didn't answer.
This week, something happened that's made me realize that just ignoring this is not going to make it go away. I'll explain why a little later.
11.07.2011
Getting back on the ball.
So, you know the little pull down menu thing that pops up in your browser when you go to type in a web address? The one that shows all the websites you frequent? I'm a fucking pro at technology terms, obviously. But you know what I mean. Well. Mine doesn't even feature this blog anymore.
That's sad. I check other people's blogs more often than I log into my own these days. And I guess it's about time for that to change.
That having been said, I've got a mean case of jet lag which, like hang overs and conservative behavior, seems to only get worse with age. So. Today is not that day. But I'm hoping that tomorrow will be.
I'll start of with a long, meandering story about how something I wrote about a long time ago, my students, and some subway station religious freaks have all come together to form some kind of complicated saga I'm going to have to sort out sooner than I'd like to.
Life is odd. As per usual.
And you know how I said going home always jolts me into new realizations about how I'm feeling and thinking about my time here, and the future? This time was no different, but what got jolted was surprising. This time, it didn't have anything to do with career or location. It had everything to do with that guy who has been one of the main things taking my attention and focus away from this blog for.... good God almighty, going on a year now.
Nothing major, obviously. But just realizing how important he is. And coming to be at peace with that.
So. Tomorrow. Serious paragraphs and run-on sentences that go for miles. I promise.
Happy to be back.
That's sad. I check other people's blogs more often than I log into my own these days. And I guess it's about time for that to change.
That having been said, I've got a mean case of jet lag which, like hang overs and conservative behavior, seems to only get worse with age. So. Today is not that day. But I'm hoping that tomorrow will be.
I'll start of with a long, meandering story about how something I wrote about a long time ago, my students, and some subway station religious freaks have all come together to form some kind of complicated saga I'm going to have to sort out sooner than I'd like to.
Life is odd. As per usual.
And you know how I said going home always jolts me into new realizations about how I'm feeling and thinking about my time here, and the future? This time was no different, but what got jolted was surprising. This time, it didn't have anything to do with career or location. It had everything to do with that guy who has been one of the main things taking my attention and focus away from this blog for.... good God almighty, going on a year now.
Nothing major, obviously. But just realizing how important he is. And coming to be at peace with that.
So. Tomorrow. Serious paragraphs and run-on sentences that go for miles. I promise.
Happy to be back.
11.02.2011
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