Differences

There have been a few things that I have noticed while living outside of the US that are quite different and that I really enjoy. Much of it would be ridiculed or vilified in America, but out here it's just normal.

First Czech. It is a much more open country than the US. On one tram there is an advertisement for a cartoon and right next to that an advert for some bathtub with a woman's nipple visible. I can just imagine the outcry of rage from some if that were to be seen in my native country. They sell nude calendars in normal markets where anybody can see them and children are not standing around gawking at them because it is so normal and nobody cares. Going to the beach is the same, naked people everywhere! No one is going on a rape rampage or fiddling little kids (who are naked as well). I do have to admit I felt uncomfortable when one of my students showed me pictures of his family’s' trip to the beach. There were quite a few pictures of his kids, age 6 and 8, running around nekkid.

In Korea on the other hand, when I went to the beach here everyone was completely covered except for the fat Canadians. If girls wear miniskirts then they are prostitutes. Girls have curfews of midnight even if they are 27 years old. They have the "love motels" to get around this, even the teachers were telling me the rates for motels for a couple hours use (about $20) and they thought nothing of it. What I am wondering is why they know this; they have all been married for quite some time. Hmmmmm...

During some lacrosse tournaments in Czech they would have a sort of halftime show in between some of the matches (yes, I know that is not halftime). There would be the ugly baton twirlers (the players still gave cat calls and what not just to make the girls feel good) but there were also teenage boys doing some dance stuff while wearing very flamboyant outfits. Everybody, even the testosterone filled American teams cheered them on. I can just imaging if this happened in the US, lots of booing and gay comments. Even during the sports day last week a group of students performed a traditional dance and played some pretty interesting music during intermission and the students cheered wildly.

I am not trying to say America is no good, I am just pointing out some of the good things about other cultures, and public nudity of Eastern European girls (women) is definitely a plus!!

I went to a pro soccer game yesterday. The stadium was maybe 5% full. I was told that Busan fans are crazy but after this and the nearly empty baseball game I am not impressed. I did somehow manage to sit in the players’ family section and was offered lots of free coffee. I love hate coffee.

Slow motion

This week has been relatively easy what with the picnic and sports day. We were supposed to wear "athletic clothing" for sports day, so I showed up in shorts and a t-shirt. Seems "athletic clothing" means slacks and a polo shirt.

Anyway, the day started out with group stretching and then an 80 meter sprint. I raced once with another teacher and some students but in the middle of the race I came across a dilemma. I was getting farther ahead and I didn't want to embarrass the other teacher (he is young and athletic) but I didn't want to look like I was slow either (damn you pride!). I decided to kind of slow down like maybe I was tired or something, you know how we Americans are all fat and out of shape. Well, my acting wasn't so good since I had a couple of teachers after ask me why I slowed down. My question is why was I winning when I hadn't run in 4 months and when I did it at 75% I was still beating kids who ran everyday? Well, didn't matter, I won and was given a nice pair of gray socks.

After there were a couple over games (tug-o-war, human bridge) then we had the big event, teachers vs. students soccer match!!! It was fun because every time I touched the ball the students cheered and I didn't make too many mistakes. We won 5-2.

The field trip the next day was pretty boring but we got to ride in a tiny speed boat. While the students where out getting soaked, we teachers played some strange card game that I won. If only Kim Jung Il could have seen the American dominance then maybe he'd think twice about all this stuff. I need some Amerigasm Toby Keith style!

Picnic time

I thought this was going to be an easy week. Tuesday picnic, Thursday sport's day, and Friday field trip. The picnic was a bit more than I thought.

First I had to get up an hour earlier than normal than ride in a car with other teachers for an hour or so until we got to what I thought was the picnic spot. It was there that I found out we had to hike across a mountain ridge (only 600-700 meters high) for quite awhile until we were at the picnic spot. It was pretty hard going a lot of the time and was jammed with people. It was really just like walking down some crowded street that had lots of giant boulders in the middle of it. It was not peaceful in the slightest. I didn't expect much with 200 odd high school students, but all the others (maybe 200-300 more) just made it too much.

What was good was that a lot of the kids wanted to speak (something they usually don't do in class) so it kept me busy and entertained. The food was pretty good kimbop which is my favorite Korean dish. It is like a seaweed burrito with rice and other stuff.

We finally arrived at out destination 4 hours after we began and I realized that it was at the one and only temple that I have already seen. Come on people! I have done so little in the way of travel here and you take me to the same place I've been?! I was hoping that we were all going home after that but the teachers had other ideas.

We went to some restaurant nearby and had what I think was duck (but they may have been saying dog) and I tried my hardest to not look bored as they all spoke in Korean for the next 2 hours. Finally everyone got up and was so ready to just go home and shower and take a nap. We walk down the rest of the mountain into town and everybody quickly walks into a building. Shit. It is a karaoke bar. They have these rooms (see my pictures) that you rent and sing till your hearts content. The teachers' musical taste is nothing to be desired. They picked some real crap English songs (most of which I had never even heard before) and expected me to sing along. I finally got the courage and sang a horrible rendition of "Born in the USA". All was going well until I got to the line about "killing the yellow man"...after that the wind blew out of the song. After a couple beers and countless crap Korean songs I made it up for one more song and impressed everyone with a jaw dropping "Sweet Caroline" that ended our session on a good note.

Finally we all went home and after eating some pizza I passed out in my own not so comfortable bed.

Oh, I almost forgot! Went to Gwangju to see some friends and stay in a grotty hotel that one friend successfully made even grottier. Good times were had by all! I posted a few more pictures, so have a look and click "PICTURES" on the right!

Also, here is something to make you happy!

Moving on!

I have decided to make this my new Internet home. I think it will work better and everyone can comment on it if they feel like it. I'm going to play around with it and see if I can make it more user friendly than the other site.

I've brought over all the old posts so you can reread everything if you want to!