Hope you are all enjoying the holiday cheer!
I have uploaded some more recent pictures to my flickr photo stream. Sorry if you want more. As you probably know, I'm terrible about remembering to take pictures, unskilled when I do so, and selective on what pictures I deem worthy of sharing.
In the upcoming months I will have a very relaxed time. One week Christmas / New Years vacation, followed by two weeks of winter camp which is a half load of teaching hours for me, plus the class is only top students (by far the easiest and most fun to teach), followed by three weeks of vacation (some travel - details still undetermined), followed by one week of normal school which officially finishes the current school year, finally another two week vacation before the next school year starts with March.
It is a good time for a quarterly report, as Christmas day was precisely 3 months into my year contract.
1. The work- A few pleasant developments for the new year: Both schools are building new "English designated classrooms." I'm not sure of the details, but this will be a slightly larger classroom with seats that are easier to manipulate for group work, as well as having a richer variety of multimedia options for my lessons to exploit. More importantly, in the boys high school I get my wish of classes differentiated by proficiency.
As I've mentioned, I used the first couple months to feel out the skills and needs of the students and to try a variety of different lessons to try to learn how to teach English. I often feel like I've pulled a slick one on this country as they are paying a totally unqualified person an unreasonable amount of money to do something he has no training or experience in doing. Indeed to make up for this I will be using some of my free time in the weeks to come to take an online TESL (teaching English as a second language) course. This should give me some better ideas for class, and also will pay for itself with a salary bump if I stay for a second year (incidentally, it is likely that I will).
So, you may be curious what actually happens in class. Here's a sample of some classroom activities I've used:
1. To commemorate our lame duck in chief I collected some of his grammatically erroneous quotations from over the years and had the students correct them. Generally if it was something simple like a tense or singular vs plural conflict they were able to find and fix it, but anything more complicated was too hard.
2. One fun class was when I removed the captions from a bunch of Calvin and Hobbes. They had to make their own captions, then, given the text separately, match the words to the correct comic.
3. Listening comprehension: First I described a map of a town to see if they could draw it and give me directions from one building to another .. this was too hard.
4. Pronounciation: This is quite difficult for Koreans since their language lacks many of the common connsonant sounds of English. Therefore, tounge twister challenge! I memorized a Korean tounge twister too .. it was hard.
Well, let me know if you want to hear about more lessons we've had. Next year I hope to have more of a comprehensive game plan for the year.
2. Learning Korean. I'm up to a good 500+ word vocabulary at this point, but I still have to search my brain for a second for most words, so I can write, read and speak only very slowly. The best is when a Korean person has English level about equal to my Korean level. In this case we both speak in the foreign tounge with atrocious grammar and just barely understand each other. The accent, coupled with the plentitude of suffixes for every part of speach and a limited vocabulary make listening comprehension still next to impossible for me. One particular troulbe is that the region I live in has a very strong accent. Imagine you are from Japan, studied Oxford English for a few months by yourself, then found yourself in the middle of Alabama .. Nevertheless, I am encouraged by the progress I've made in the first 3 months, and maintain hope that I will be conversational by the year's end.
3. Social. Well, I'm having still having a good time for the most part, but I won't deny that I've been pretty homesick at times as well. Of course I miss all you, but from leaving my hometown to go to college, to moving to a city where I didn't know anyone for grad school, I've the experiance to cope with it.
But, in the words of Dick Proenecke, "This was to be a more thourough, and lasting examination." For example, going to badminton club is probably my favorite thing to do. Of course I have fun with the sport and interacting with the horde friendly and diverse club members, but I sometimes find myself sitting in the bar afterwards, nursing my soju and listening to a conversation that I understand 2 words/sentence of, and wondering what the hell I am doing here. And when I am successfully conversing it is more draining than you might realize to have to chose your words and sentences so carefully to be understood, as well as to have to focus so hard to piece together meaning from the mispronounced, ungrammatical English I have to deal with.
I have plenty of friendly acquaintances, but what I lack is a truly close friendship. Someone with whom I can have a truly free-flowing conversation (that occasionally touches on mature subjects). Well, in town there are only about 4 fluent speakers of English, but one is a recluse, one is a tool, one is nice enough, but older and married with toddler, and the other .. is me.
I'm not saying it's impossible for me to form a close relationship with a Korean, but it will take more time.
End rant. Things aren't as bad as the last two paragraphs make it seem, but as this blog is a rare outlet for me to vent, you have to suffer for it.
As I mentioned above, if I had to say right now, I would say it is more likely that I will stay here another year. One reason is I think by then end of one year I will still be learning how to teach English, and hopefully good enough at Korean to not feel as isolated. Finally, with all the adjusting I've done I haven't found enough time yet to figure out exactly what I will do next, but at my current income - cost of living at about $20,000/year I can afford to wait another year as long as I am still having a good time over here.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
It's the little things that make the difference
Some of the little things that are by now commonplace to me, but may seem interesting to an outside observer.
In Korea we don't have V8 vegetable juice drink. We have V19!
You don't pay a monthly fee for trash collection. You pay by the bag, having to buy special orange trash bags at the store. From the perspective of economic theory this type of use based taxation is more efficient and leads to less excess household waste disposal costs.
The literal translation of the formal greeting and goodbye in Korean is "Are you at peace?" and "Remain peaceful" respectively.
The home heating comes through hot pipes beneath the floor rather than a radiator. This decentralized heating makes the room seem cozier, and nicer for the obligatory shoeless foot.
On a related note, it makes the traditional eating posture of sitting crosslegged on the floor more comfortable. Actually this practice seems to be paying off - before when cold I could just barely touch my toes, and when warmed up get a knuckle or two on the ground. After just a few months here I can almost touch my palms to the floor.
TV - USA wins this battle overall, but I do have about 50 channels of cable including CNN, and a channel that shows some English movies as well as CSI. The sports channels show a lot of soccer, golf, and baseball. They show Korean league basketball, but very little NBA which is too bad because the Korean league is about 1/2 step beneath college ball. Some sports that don't get much press time in America but are common to see over here include billiards (we're talking no pockets, 3 balls), indoors volleyball, table tennis, and baduk - there is actually a dedicated baduk (go) channel. The other channels of regular Korean programming are hard for me to watch, but I will have to try when Korean progresses to the point that I can understand a little of it. They have two kinds of shows - crappy reality / game show, and drama which might not be bad but I don't know enough yet to judge.
Intercity transportation is cheap. A 1 hr train ride to the local city Jinju is about $2. A Taxi can get you anywhere in the city for less than $4. All the way to Seoul, at the opposite corner of the country, is about $30 (and 5 hrs) by train.
More to come ..
In Korea we don't have V8 vegetable juice drink. We have V19!
You don't pay a monthly fee for trash collection. You pay by the bag, having to buy special orange trash bags at the store. From the perspective of economic theory this type of use based taxation is more efficient and leads to less excess household waste disposal costs.
The literal translation of the formal greeting and goodbye in Korean is "Are you at peace?" and "Remain peaceful" respectively.
The home heating comes through hot pipes beneath the floor rather than a radiator. This decentralized heating makes the room seem cozier, and nicer for the obligatory shoeless foot.
On a related note, it makes the traditional eating posture of sitting crosslegged on the floor more comfortable. Actually this practice seems to be paying off - before when cold I could just barely touch my toes, and when warmed up get a knuckle or two on the ground. After just a few months here I can almost touch my palms to the floor.
TV - USA wins this battle overall, but I do have about 50 channels of cable including CNN, and a channel that shows some English movies as well as CSI. The sports channels show a lot of soccer, golf, and baseball. They show Korean league basketball, but very little NBA which is too bad because the Korean league is about 1/2 step beneath college ball. Some sports that don't get much press time in America but are common to see over here include billiards (we're talking no pockets, 3 balls), indoors volleyball, table tennis, and baduk - there is actually a dedicated baduk (go) channel. The other channels of regular Korean programming are hard for me to watch, but I will have to try when Korean progresses to the point that I can understand a little of it. They have two kinds of shows - crappy reality / game show, and drama which might not be bad but I don't know enough yet to judge.
Intercity transportation is cheap. A 1 hr train ride to the local city Jinju is about $2. A Taxi can get you anywhere in the city for less than $4. All the way to Seoul, at the opposite corner of the country, is about $30 (and 5 hrs) by train.
More to come ..
a quick update
Just to wish you all a belated Happy Thanksgiving, and an unusually early Happy Chanukah. It doesn't start until Dec. 21st this year!
Not too many adventures or new experiances to share with you this time. Last weekend was the first snow of the season, just a dusting. I went with a friend to a cozy little green tea shop in a small town about 10 min from here. To our surprise we were joined by a group of about 8 Buddhist monks who came down from a local temple. They were a lively group: cracking jokes and ripping some of the loudest farts. but the tea was delicious. Did you know this region of Korea is famous nationwide for its green tea. There is a big festival for it in the Spring that should be a lot of fun.
I am sitting at work, but bored today because it is exam week for the students, so I don't have much to do. I didn't even have to help write the exams or anything, although I volunteered my typing services since it was painfull to watch how slowly my co-teacher's english typing is (I practice typing in the Korean alphabet sometimes so I can certainly empathize.) The Korean is progressing, still slowly, but perceptibly.
The other purpose of this post is to solicit ideas. I have a vacation coming up and would like to do a little traveling. If anyone has done so in this part of the world and has an idea for something you think I would really love, let me know please!
Not too many adventures or new experiances to share with you this time. Last weekend was the first snow of the season, just a dusting. I went with a friend to a cozy little green tea shop in a small town about 10 min from here. To our surprise we were joined by a group of about 8 Buddhist monks who came down from a local temple. They were a lively group: cracking jokes and ripping some of the loudest farts. but the tea was delicious. Did you know this region of Korea is famous nationwide for its green tea. There is a big festival for it in the Spring that should be a lot of fun.
I am sitting at work, but bored today because it is exam week for the students, so I don't have much to do. I didn't even have to help write the exams or anything, although I volunteered my typing services since it was painfull to watch how slowly my co-teacher's english typing is (I practice typing in the Korean alphabet sometimes so I can certainly empathize.) The Korean is progressing, still slowly, but perceptibly.
The other purpose of this post is to solicit ideas. I have a vacation coming up and would like to do a little traveling. If anyone has done so in this part of the world and has an idea for something you think I would really love, let me know please!
Friday, November 21, 2008
What do you do after work?
One of the teachers asked me this. She was worried that I am lonely living in a small town where I don't speak the language. Well, luckily there is something to do every day where I can use my love of the international language of games to get by without deep conversation. I have discovered the baduk (go), taku (table tennis), and badminton (badminton) clubs in town, and I can go to whichever one I want almost any evening I choose. There are some seriously high quality players at all three, not that I like to generalize by race, but the Koreans do seem to take their hobbies quite seriously, and are surprised by how various my interests are (I had to teach them the phrase Jack of all trades, because I didn't want them to call me "know it all"), but there are also some people I can evenly compete with, and some beginner as well. I guess there is not much to say about it, but suffice to say that I don't worry too much about having free time. Indeed, it is a great place to live for me if only I could fluently communicate, have a job that I was sure had the potential for long term satisfaction, and was closer to my friends and family. Uh yeah, so maybe it is only a great place to live for a year or two, but my point stands.
Ultimate in Korea
I took a trip to play an ultimate tournament a few weekends ago. It was a lot of fun. Nice fields, good quality games that left me walking stiffly early the next week. It was great to get the chance to play, and also nice to meet some more young native English speakers. It is a drawback to living in a remote smaller town that I cannot do either more often, but I knew what I getting into, and don't consider that something to regret .. yet.
After the games on Saturday there was a party at a bar downtown. Being the day after Halloween it was a costume party. I should have taken more pictures because there were a lot of really good costumes. Perhaps the best was a couple who came as Obama and Palin. The costumes were very realistic; this girl makes as good as Palin as Tina Fey ever could, and never have I seen a more tastefully done blackface. Anyway, what put them over the top was a little skit where Palin offered Obama a little "Alaskan hospitality." So she blindfolded him and then stripped off his pants. With a flourish she tore off his shirt and an Arab gown unfurled as the blindfold turned into a turban and the outer layer of his "Yes we can!" campaign sign was stripped away to reveal the socialist truth behind this secret muslim. Good luck America, I'll be over here until we get Sarah to pull us out of this mess in four years.
However the weekend was not all fun and games. I had some struggles getting home. The games were done, and I was ready to head back from Deajeon to Hadong, at about 5:00. It is a two hour bus ride to Jinju, and another hour home for me, so I assumed I should get home at a reasonable hour. Unfortunately most everyone who came to the tournament traveled by train, so I could not split a taxi. Well, they are not too expensive, so it is no big deal. What was a big deal was my lack of knowledge of the city. It turns out there are two bus stations on opposite sides of town, and one of them only travels to Seoul (which is in the wrong direction for me). So even though I thought I explained to the taxi driver that I wanted to go to the bus station to go to Jinju, maybe he only heard "bus station" and couldn't understand the rest of my feeble Korean. At least the cashier at that station spoke English and could explain to me the problem, and what, exactly to tell the next cabbie.
Unfortunately, by now it is almost 6 o'clock, and I have to get across town during Sunday rush hour, yes such a thing apparently exists. After interminable idling, I told the taxi driver I had to get there by 7. He took an illegal u-turn, sped down some streets closed for construction, then weaved at high speed through some lighter traffic, and eventually I made it to the station just in time to catch the 7 o'clock bus.
But this was not enough. It arrived at Jinju at 9:03, just minutes after the last bus to Hadong has pulled away. Not sure what to do now I decide to check the train station; I thought the last train was also 9:00, but maybe it is 9:30. But two or three taxis outside the bus station play dumb and refuse me service. So I decide to use a public phone to call some co-workers to see what they suggest, maybe they even have a coach or guest room I can crash on. But I can't get the phones to work! they seem to be the same as one's I have successfully used in the past, maybe just broken. I'm starting to think I'm stuck here when I see a Westerner, a girl with blond hair, come out of the phone booth I tried using a short while ago. I explain to her my troubles, but she just looks at me with a blank face and says "Russian .. no talk English." My fate sealed, I find a cheap motel.
After the games on Saturday there was a party at a bar downtown. Being the day after Halloween it was a costume party. I should have taken more pictures because there were a lot of really good costumes. Perhaps the best was a couple who came as Obama and Palin. The costumes were very realistic; this girl makes as good as Palin as Tina Fey ever could, and never have I seen a more tastefully done blackface. Anyway, what put them over the top was a little skit where Palin offered Obama a little "Alaskan hospitality." So she blindfolded him and then stripped off his pants. With a flourish she tore off his shirt and an Arab gown unfurled as the blindfold turned into a turban and the outer layer of his "Yes we can!" campaign sign was stripped away to reveal the socialist truth behind this secret muslim. Good luck America, I'll be over here until we get Sarah to pull us out of this mess in four years.
However the weekend was not all fun and games. I had some struggles getting home. The games were done, and I was ready to head back from Deajeon to Hadong, at about 5:00. It is a two hour bus ride to Jinju, and another hour home for me, so I assumed I should get home at a reasonable hour. Unfortunately most everyone who came to the tournament traveled by train, so I could not split a taxi. Well, they are not too expensive, so it is no big deal. What was a big deal was my lack of knowledge of the city. It turns out there are two bus stations on opposite sides of town, and one of them only travels to Seoul (which is in the wrong direction for me). So even though I thought I explained to the taxi driver that I wanted to go to the bus station to go to Jinju, maybe he only heard "bus station" and couldn't understand the rest of my feeble Korean. At least the cashier at that station spoke English and could explain to me the problem, and what, exactly to tell the next cabbie.
Unfortunately, by now it is almost 6 o'clock, and I have to get across town during Sunday rush hour, yes such a thing apparently exists. After interminable idling, I told the taxi driver I had to get there by 7. He took an illegal u-turn, sped down some streets closed for construction, then weaved at high speed through some lighter traffic, and eventually I made it to the station just in time to catch the 7 o'clock bus.
But this was not enough. It arrived at Jinju at 9:03, just minutes after the last bus to Hadong has pulled away. Not sure what to do now I decide to check the train station; I thought the last train was also 9:00, but maybe it is 9:30. But two or three taxis outside the bus station play dumb and refuse me service. So I decide to use a public phone to call some co-workers to see what they suggest, maybe they even have a coach or guest room I can crash on. But I can't get the phones to work! they seem to be the same as one's I have successfully used in the past, maybe just broken. I'm starting to think I'm stuck here when I see a Westerner, a girl with blond hair, come out of the phone booth I tried using a short while ago. I explain to her my troubles, but she just looks at me with a blank face and says "Russian .. no talk English." My fate sealed, I find a cheap motel.
Hiking
I was hoping to go on a serious hiking trip up a local mountain, but my guide, a Japanese teacher with a lot of knowledge of the parks, had to cancel at the last minute because his father was sick. So, having nothing to do that Saturday I hopped on my bike and headed out with no plan in particular.
I followed the river north for about an hour then turned off towards the hills. Passed through a tiny town then chose a road that seemed to go straight up the mountain. 30 min, and maybe 5 km later (yes it was steep!) the road has changed from asphalt to concrete and I am getting passed by a little truck with two horned goats in the bed. The driver saw my red perspiring face and gave me a big grin and a thumbs up, so I guessed I was near the end of the road.
Indeed, a short while later there was a collection of a handful of houses, and just beyond them the path changed from concrete to dirt. This is where the picture "bambootrail" was taken. As I climbed the foliage and terrain changed, see "trekkingtrail." It was quite a nice hike, some rocks to climb in a nice steep trail with footing that definately made it a hike rather than a walk; some good views too. I had almost forgotten how much I like hiking. Even though there are options around LA, I rarely took advantage of them, and when I did never really appreciated the desert climate anyway.
So I will take that trip to the bigger mountains some time soon, I hope. Maybe once before it gets snowy at the top, and again afterwards.
I followed the river north for about an hour then turned off towards the hills. Passed through a tiny town then chose a road that seemed to go straight up the mountain. 30 min, and maybe 5 km later (yes it was steep!) the road has changed from asphalt to concrete and I am getting passed by a little truck with two horned goats in the bed. The driver saw my red perspiring face and gave me a big grin and a thumbs up, so I guessed I was near the end of the road.
Indeed, a short while later there was a collection of a handful of houses, and just beyond them the path changed from concrete to dirt. This is where the picture "bambootrail" was taken. As I climbed the foliage and terrain changed, see "trekkingtrail." It was quite a nice hike, some rocks to climb in a nice steep trail with footing that definately made it a hike rather than a walk; some good views too. I had almost forgotten how much I like hiking. Even though there are options around LA, I rarely took advantage of them, and when I did never really appreciated the desert climate anyway.
So I will take that trip to the bigger mountains some time soon, I hope. Maybe once before it gets snowy at the top, and again afterwards.
Traditional korea villages
The remaining pictures are from some trips I took to local traditional style villages. One interesting thing about Korea is the speed with which it has become a developed nation. So these villages are like a Colonial Williamsport in that they display a historic architecture and way of life, but they are preserved by the living memory of the older generation for whom this was simply the way of life. It was interesting to tour around, hopefully you can get a decent idea of what it was like from the pictures.
Since it didn't fit into any of my other posts, let me also use this one to tell you some bad news. My first attempt to make some beer ended in failure. It seemed all the Korean websites that sold brewers yeast were sold out, except for one. But when my order showed up this dehydrated yeast had an expiration date of Oct 2007. I didn't really have any other options, so I cooked up the hops and grains and hoped for the best .. turns out the expiration date is to be trusted in this case, so I wasted some time and some ingredients. More importantly, I don't know where I can get good yeast from now.
Since it didn't fit into any of my other posts, let me also use this one to tell you some bad news. My first attempt to make some beer ended in failure. It seemed all the Korean websites that sold brewers yeast were sold out, except for one. But when my order showed up this dehydrated yeast had an expiration date of Oct 2007. I didn't really have any other options, so I cooked up the hops and grains and hoped for the best .. turns out the expiration date is to be trusted in this case, so I wasted some time and some ingredients. More importantly, I don't know where I can get good yeast from now.
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