South Korea 2007 - A tale of a Hoju and her first taste of Soju.
Anyonghaseyo,
At the moment I'm with my host mum and aunty and we are at a Christian community Library. Aunty who I call Imu is correcting work - I think she tutors and Mum (Omma) is helping students read. I'm in the study room taking advantage of this free wireless.
I haven't had a chance to roam the town as yet but hopefully today in the afternoon I can. Pretty hard because everyone seem to not understand me when I speak English to them.
I arrived in Korea last night and sat on a bus for 4 hours to reach 'Iksan' - there's a lot of high rise apartments, everyone drives on the right hand side of the road and owns a GPS.
The family I'm staying with are really friendly and nice. Theres young aunty, mum and her two daughters. The oldest is 16 and her name is Soora she is my student at Iksan Girls Middle School. The younger daughter is 14 and her name is Yoora. There is Yun Sup he is a little munchkin, his about 3-4 and he likes to rummage through his toys and say 'here you go!'.
I had my first shower last night after 48 hours - a hot tub of warm water and a bucket just like Indonesia and Vietnam. Their toilet was quite interesting too; theres a flush button and a button they press to wash your behind. Sorry guys I didn't use the later.
My supervisor is James Jung and his a pretty laid back guy, speaks like an American but learnt his English while he was living in UK. I haven't taught any classes yet, we're having an opening ceremony on Monday with the others students from Monash and I'll probably start mid week. Next weekend there's an English festival. Not sure what this is about yet.
Any hoo nothing exciting has happened yet. Will keep everyone posted regularly because I have free wireless at my homestay - woohoo!
Settling in but missing home
Yesterday morning I ventured out and explored the city of Iksan. It was a quiet and lonely morning, and I was definately lost in translation. I did manage to find a main street which is known for their shopping malls and nice restaurants. I didn't buy anything because the banks were closed and I couldnt exchange any money.
In the evening my supervisor took me out for some late tea, I was suprised by the 'night life' of Iksan that I thought didn't existed. The pretty lights reminded me tokyo Japan.
Today I was introduced to NamSung girls middle school, theres about 1000 students. It's a massive school and there's an English cafe - a place for students to play boardgames, read books and talk to native speakers in the school. I'll try and take pictures tomorrow.
We had our opening ceremony at the education office in Cheonju, I met up with the other 12 monash students. Everyone shared the culture shock weekend experiences. I felt a bit sain again. For lunch James, Tyran and his supervisor Embi went to eat a restro famous for their fried fishes. You should have seen how many dishes came out...there was a lot of wastage.
In the arvo James introduced me to another foreign teacher, Thomas from America. The three of us and two other Korean English teachers went to visit Sungnimsa Buddhist Temple.
I'm back in my apartment now with my host family, and I was looking through some books of Melbourne. I got a little homesick. I miss having control and speaking English 'very quickly' lol - I feel that my English has depreciated because I simplify my words all the time.
Nehooz, the girls are still studying hard for their exams tomorow, so I better end this blog quickly. Before I go I'll share some korean culture with you guys:
1. Plastic surgery is very common - the two girls are already planning to fix their nose and face when they reach 26
2. the bathroom = the shower. You are literally standing in the shower when you walk in the bathroom. You splash water everywhere. My host family thought i was really weird when i asked them for a towel to clean the tiles.
3. Korean toilets have a button to wash your behind
4. When you eat meals you never pick up your bowls, oh and the chopsticks are made out of metal (as you know)
5. The rice is called Pup- and guess what? It's purple.
I'll end the blog here - anyonnghi kesehyo! (bye)
Princess Fiona where is your Shrek?
Yesterday was quite a boring day. I spent three hours in the school's English cafe researching on co-teaching. For lunch my supervisor took me to a restaurant that was known for their roast duck. Was nice. I met all the 3rd grade home room teachers. (Year 9)
After lunch I moved my books to the staffroom. It turned into a zoo, all these male teachers started coming over and asking me questions. "Where is your shrek?" "I am not a alcoholic" "I am still young" "I want to meet you!" they are quite a funny bunch. I am officially known as 'Princess Fiona from Australia' and all the male teachers want to be my Shrek. They'e quite jealous that James is my supervisor. A teacher said that my time in Iksan is quite liminted and suggested that we go the art exhibition. I politely turned the offer down explaining that I had to ask James. The teacher then said, "NOOO we all your supervisor....but okay.....James is your shrek."
The female teachers are lovely, they are like my aunties. They all say how young I look and how I still look 16.
After school James took me to the art exhibition. One of the school's art teacher was exhibiting some of his sculptures. Pretty impressive art teacher I have to say.
After i got dropped off to my apartment my host sisters took me a large park at around 9pm...you won't believe how many people were exercising....I showed off some of my primary school monkey bar tricks - and the girls were so amazed...
We got home from the park at around 10.30 and my host mum wanted to throw a party for my arrival to Korea. We ordered 'crispy chicken' because I told them chicken was my favorite dish.It wasn't a very big party. It was just all the women in the living room circling around a box of fried chicken.
I web cam back home to a few people, dd and buddy included. The girls were really excited to speak to foreigners.
I'll leave you with some more culture mini shocks.
1. Almost everyone in Korea carries a toothbrush around.
2. A tick in Korea means something is wrong.
3. In restaurants you'll often find a gargle dispenser - cups and alll
4. The cars in korea have foam pads on their doors to prevent their cars from scratching others.
First time for everything - eating raw food
As you know this weekend is the English festival, all the English teachers from the province of Jeollobukdo are getting together to promote their English program within their school. I spent half the day yesterday making posters about the English cafe.
I had lunch in the school cafeteria for the first time, it reminds me of the American cafeterias I see on tele, food mass produced. Mrs Mun (another English teacher) kept me company for the whole of lunch. I had another male teacher who was a strong devout Christian try to convert me to Christianity after he found out I was a Buddhist. Mrs Mun was the mediator translating back and forth.
For dinner i ate a Japanese restaurant with the third grade homeroom teachers again. Talk about fine dining. I had to eat RAW food, and if you know me I like my food COOKED. Raw tuna, fish wrapped and dipped in sea weed. The food just kept on coming. After dinner some teachers went home and James said that we were going to do some 'bar hopping' - "Oh....OK"
We bar hopped to another restaurant with nice sofas, and what was interesting was that they had stuffed toys everywhere. James and two of his colleagues (Chemistry teacher and Economics teacher) were getting typsy and they started to complain about another co-worker at the school.
"He is always complaining"
"He is so stubborn"
"Do you know for the school picnic his taking his class somewhere else?"
"His so anti-social"
"He never admits his wrong"
"His slack"
So yes inside goss, the male teachers don't like Mr.X.
So that was my day. I came home around 10 and felt quite bad because I told the girls I'll come home around 9 so that we can go to the park again to do more exercise.
Cultural 101:
1. In Korea when you are drinking alcohol with a group of friends, you never pour your own glass. You let others pour you and vice versa. - Pouring each other's glass shows you are caring for your friend.
What time is our break Sangsenim?
The life of an adolescent in Korea is just school school school. They wake up at 7am and go to school at 8.20am till 4.30pm. But it doesn't end there, students attend tuition after school and study till 11pm.
Last night I left school at about 6.30pm to have dinner with the Home ec teacher, she invited me over to her beautiful apartment and made me stir fry chicken. I have to say I have never seen such a beatiful and well decorated apartment as nice as hers.
Mrs Jade told me her life story over dinner and how she sacrificed everything for the man of her dreams. Her parents disapproved of Mrs Jade's boyfriend at the time because he had no goals and graduated from an average university, while she graduated from a prestigious uni. It all worked out in the end, her husband is now a famous professor in Korea and she is living in a top notch apartment. She has two children who are all grown up now, one is in the army and her daughter is in her final year of college.
After dinner instead of going home i went back straigt to school, to meet up with my supervisor to work on our lesson plans. We finished at 11pm. *yawnz. As we locked up the middle school building i looked over to the other side of campus and there were still students studying. Talk about dedication.
I came home to my host family and they all looked really sad.
Aunty's bag was stolen and her car was broken into
Yoora's money was stolen at school
and Soora was upset because she did really bad on her Economics exam.
Soora and Yoora said they missed my company while I was at work.
I feel they are my two adopted sisters.
Culture Shock:
1. Students go to school from 8.20am till 11pm at night
2. Students still get hit by rulers
The English Festival
I had the best time in Korea on Friday, after school Ty and I got driven to Cheonju to meet with the other monash students. We had cofee, then dinner then asked two korean school students to show us to a good kareoke bar. We sang for 2 hours it was fantastic. After kareoke we headed to another bar for cofee and talked about the crazy week.
Today was the English Festival. It was freezing cold and i was in the 'catch the flea' tent. Basically theres about 20 tents and every student teacher/supervisor was paired up with someone in the program to help run an english activity. My tent was a 'who am i' game, they had to guess from the clues and draw a flea. - don't ask why. My throat is sore from speaking loudly and slowly.
After the english festival all the supervisors, student teachers and other foreigners went to a korean bbq. Some of us headed for another coffee session. Was a good night. A lot of the students think that James my supervisor is 'Bom chicka wah wah' and wish they had him as their supervisor.
We were walking down a red district (Tyran, Denise, Jess, Eloise and me) and we were talking about the scary thought of teaching next year or about finding a job. Tyran says how lucky i was to have been offered a position.
Culture shock:
1. Just when you thought a butt washer toilet was weird, it just got weirder - since it's getting colder now these toilets HEAT up!
Tandem Bike Riding anyone?
Today I went to church and watched a Korean mass for 2hours. I can't believe I didn't fall asleep, because I had no idea what they were saying. I have to say it was a Korean version of african american mass. People started crying towards the end, people came up on stage and were sobbing and crying and this guy went to each person and I assume he was saying 'Jesus loves you jesus loves you' - stares blankly at everyone......
After church my host family took me to a jewellery museum, Iksan is famous for their jewellery. I aslo went to a fossil museum.
The highlight of the day was riding a two seated bike around Iksan lake and watching the sunset. A funny story happened from my bike trip with my host mum. We only booked the bike for half an hour and we were heading back towards the bike junction when host mum stop, I thought our time was up so i went off the bike. Stood there for a good three minutes taking photos then i turnd around and realised my host mum rode off into the distance. She didn't realise I had gotten off the bike.
I stood and waited then Yoora and Soora rode pass, "Where is mum?" - "I don't know she kept riding down that way."
After a while we saw host mum in the distance, she came back and was laughing. The girls explained that mum had rode off and was wondering why I wasn't talking, she asked "cold fiona? cold fiona?" and there was no answer. She put her hand behind to feel the seat and realised i wasnt there and was in panic mode "mum thought you fall off bike."
I'm back at the apartment now, was supposed to go to school to pick up my books and laptop so i could do some lesson planning, supervisor rang and said we can plan tomorrow morning and we wont be able to go to school to pick up my things tonight. STRESS. I can't teach a good lesson with only 1hr preparation. wish me luck......
Culture shock
1. When you mix english and korean it's called Konglish.
Athletics Day
Today was sports day. Now when I was back at killester college, our sports day were relay races, high jump, shot puts, long jumps etc.
Do you know what they do for sports day in Korea?
1. Hoola hoop competitions
2. Tug of war
3. Four legged race
4. Dodgeball
5. Track and filed - IN SOCKS!!
After school finished I had another - yes another school meeting. I forgot to tell you what these school meetings are for. Basically my school is middle school years 7-9, and about this time in the month other high schools 10-12 want to promote their school so they invite all the 3rd grade teachers (yr9) to dinner. Soooo yeahhh at the meeting i ate SPICY fish and i mean SPICY. All these people were sweating and drinking heaps of water...
After dinner my supervisor talked about his familiy and goals in life. He wants to learn about gardening, furniture making and thinks very poorly of the Korean education systems - wants to change it. He likes to work and doesn't like narrow minded people who can't understand differences in cultures/religions.
Korean 101:
1.Chuckerur = you're too noisey - shut up
Namwondong
I just came home from a culture tour. i got lots of stories but i'm too tired to write it down so i'll just give you a summary. I left friday morning to cheonjuu to meet all the other monash students and supervisors and we headed off on a 'korean culture tour'.
Program:
1. Namwon - the city of love (parks and gardens)
2. Korean dress up
3. Drumming lessons
4. Korean "sovereign hill"
5. Dances
6. More kareoke!
It was a two day tour so we all stayed in a condo overnight, in my room there was jess, bev, sarah, belinda and angela. we didn't have any beds (there was one but bev shot gunned it) so we sleep on dooners on the floor.
Following morning the program continued with
7. mountain climbing
8. clown acts
9. parade festival (we were on tv!!)
Korean phrases i've learnt:
1. Kenchana-yo - it's okay
2. Kuh-reh? - really?
3. boye-yo? - what's up?
4. (name) oddisso? - where is (name)?
Another Festival?
Sunday no church-chi today =]
Instead i slept in - YAYYYYYY - i've been waking up at 7am every morning and today i woke up at 9.30 =]
Went to a flower festival about 10minutes away from our apartment. At the festival I made a face mask and wrote a hope message and tied it to the hope tree. I think that was my highlight for the day.
We were quite lucky because we got to dress up in 'servant' clothes and take pictures with the prince and princess characters. Two characters from an old love story in korea. forgot their names...haha
Headed home and the family taught me how to make korean sushi. NO egg! =] i think my sushi looked great, but langa (showed him a pic) said my sushi looked wonky...
About 8.00pm yora, sora and I went to watch a korean movie. Funny as...even though I didn't understand what they were saying (no subtitles), I understood the gist of the movie. It's about a staged hostage situation at a bank - a bit like cluedo...but citizens are forced to be in the 'practised hostage situation'.
I'm teaching two classes tomorow, its 10.45 and i have to start planning now. I'M SO TIRED. =[
In case you wanted to know:
1. Korean cinemas divide popcorn boxes in half so you can have buttered popcorn and honey popcorn.
2. When people bump into you in korea, they don't say sorry they keep on walking.
3. Koreans pronounce any words with 'ge' in the end as 'gi' e.g page = paig-gi, sausage - so-sig-gi
Meeting Wonhee and Sungoo
After school today after our big 'Demonstration' of peer teaching to twenty odd teachers Jaejoon took me to his house for the first time and I met his cute wife and baby. Wonhee is so sweet and lovely! and his baby is soooo active. He has buffy hair and huge eyes. Wonhee made me lasagne =] They plan to go to Thailand in January for their winter vacation.
Back at school now...i swear i have two homes in korea. Homestay and the Staffroom. It's 9.36pm and I think we're going out for drinks later... but by the rate my supervisor is going it iwll be midnight.
It's the hectic season of post-exam - all the third grade teachers have to consult all their students and talk to their parents about which high school they wanna go to. It's also report writing time and they have one complicated reporting system..... (Today nearly half of the 3rd grader classes were cancelled cos all the teachers were that busy)
FYI in case you wanted to know:
1. Samsung makes cars and it's a Korean brand
2. I think i'm going to steal the banner....
Goodbye Iskan hello Seoul!
I'M IN SEOUL!!! It's so happening here, lots of shopping and going broke. Before i tell you about my day in seoul i'll go back to Friday.
On friday was the last day of school, i taught 3 classes and the girls were great. So many students wrote me letters. After school Sora was waiting for me in the staff room, expecting me to come home to spend time with her and the family because it is our last day together. I saw her and i had a sad face on, then she started to cry. I had to go to a farewell dinner and i couldn't come home.
I started crying too, then all these teachers looked at me. I cleared my desk and some teachers who I've gotten really close to came and gave me goodbye gifts. I was really sad and teary. Splotchy face....
Nehooz after looking at the staffroom for the very last time and giving away koalas Jaejoon, me, Tyran and Eunmee headed to Jeonju for the farewell dinner. It was BORING. it was so so...i had to wait another half hour for my food cos they served pork cutlet...batter had egg. so yeah...
Mr Li Denise's supervisor gave everyone roses. I stole an extra one to give to Yoora and Sora ^_^
After dinner the four of us wanted to go have one last I-cha but Tyran's host familiy kidnapped him away from us and we couldn't save him. So Eunmee, Jaejoon and I just went back to Iksan to have late coffee. We discussed all the pro/cons of the program and Eunmee told me how sorry she was for the organisation of the program and wished it was better. She was really sweet and I'm going to miss her. She gave me a bell key chain thing for my car and said she'll come to Australia in three years. I have to look after her. ^_^
After I cha i went home and the girls were so happy to see me. We took family fotos and dressed up in Hambok, Sora showed me how to do traditional greetings. I'm going to miss them...
The girls laid in the living room watching tv while i packed my bags. They said they'll wait for me to finish, by the time I finsihed it was 3am and they had fallen asleep. So i just slept beside them on the floor.
Zzzz...
Morning comes and everyone is very gloomy, mum makes me breakfast one last time. I slowly got my luggage in the living room and Imu (aunty) mum the girls came into my room and saw a letter i wrote in Korean and they all started crying.
Any hooz Jaejoon came and the girls locked him out. Didn't want me to go. But I somehow managed to get into the car and wave goodbye.
Sora, "We are best friends forever.."
3 hours later I arrived in Seoul.
I shall end my stories here and leave you with pictures to fill in your curiosity.
