Christmas

I had a very low key Christmas, which is probably for the best. I remember a line in Apocalypse Now when the Air Cavalry was having a BBQ and Captain Willard commented about how the more they tried to make things feel like home, the more they missed it.

This Christmas I had no tree or gifts that arrived on time (my fault). I think this was better in the end since I wasn't reenacting Christmases of the past but without all the key players. It was mostly just a normal day though I did make a nice breakfast fajita with chicken, bacon, egg, cheese and grilled onions. For dinner I went out with a friend for some Outback and beer.

All-in-all a good day.

On the bus the other day the driver decorated his bus with Christmas lights and he was wearing a full-on Santa suit (bag of gifts and beard included!) You can sort of see him in the picture above, but I decided to make a bad picture worse for "arts" sake.

Caulk

The principal must have been inspired by Obama's "Cash for Caulkers" plan. All week men have been hanging from the roof caulking all the windows in sight. This would seem like a good plan for keeping the school warm, but there is one fatal flaw. Look at the picture closely, what do you see? Open windows.

I know central air/heat is somewhat new to Korea, but this is something they really need to get a grip on. Many times I will walk into my classroom to see the thermostat set at 30˚C (86˚F) and the windows open. I will close the windows but students complain that it is hot. Of course they are wearing a scarf and 2 coats that they never thought to take off. It's the same on the buses. It is full out heat or nothing.

Today school is freezing. All the doors are wide open and wind is blowing through the halls freezing everyone to the bone. I go and close the doors (including those that lead into the teaching office) but see them opened and left open not more than 5 minutes later.

Finally

The iPhone has finally made it's way to Korea. I have fallen in love with it's not so great camera and all of the applications for making it better.

A dialog that my students had to learn:

W: Did you hear the news about the terrorist?
M: Oh, yes. I think he should be sentenced to death.
W: I'm against the death penalty.
M: Sorry to disagree with you, but in order to reduce the crime rate, I think the crime rate is necessary.
W: I understand what you're saying. But I don't think it reduces the crime rate.

I had to give the students a speaking test this week. 3 weeks ago we gave them a list of 10 questions and told them that I would ask 3-5 of those questions for their test. They all wrote out answers and memorized them to some extent but most couldn't answer any secondary questions, for example-

Me: What will you do for winter vacation? (primary question)
Them: I go Jeju iceland. Jeju Iceland very beautiful. (some say "iceland" for island somewhat understandably)
Me: Who will you go with? (secondary question)
Them: Durrr.... skip skip (no, their friend's name is not "skip")

Some did quite well but there were enough with little to no clue what was going on. With that in mind I am wondering how the dialog I wrote at the beginning of the post will in any way help them. Also, 90% of the students were shocked to learn that there was a death penalty in Korea.

I do like my students though...well, mostly.

Thanksgiving and the whatnot of November

I celebrated my birthday quietly with 2 Korean friends who were kind enough to buy me a cake from Costco. I hadn't had a proper Costco cake since I lived in Alaska in the early 90s. I forgot how big they were and having to eat the entire thing by myself added a bit of bulk to my frame.


The following week we had a mandatory "teacher PE day". It consisted of us leaving school after lunch and choosing to hike up a mountain or take a walk along the coast. I chose the coast as it was easier and closer to the bars that we would inevitably end up at anyway. After an hour we were done and our leader, the vice principal, jumped in a car and vanished. We all quickly came to the consensus that we needed booze (it was 1:30pm after all) and looked for a good place to swig some makali (rice wine). There was a big buffet dinner planned for 5:30, so we had to waste time until then and we did it in style. There was some hole in the wall place that welcomed us and the drinks flowed freely and at one point one teacher (a man) told me that I look "quite fetching in the sunlight".

I hate asking others to take my picture, they can never do it right.

After too many bottles of the white stuff we made it to the buffet which provided loads more beer. I really like these types of get-togethers as a lot of teachers relax around me and a surprising number of them can speak English quite well.


After some time I tried to sneak out with a couple of the younger female interns for a few more beers in a much quieter setting. Unfortunately we were caught and forced to join the old men teachers in a seedy bar with a live lounge band (first time I have seen one of those here) that reminded me of the band in Swingers. Much more beer and lots of excessive touching of my upper thigh by all the male teachers was had.

The next day it snowed.



There was supposed to be a big meteor shower one evening so I woke up at 3am to try and photograph some of it. I tried a few shots and thought I caught one on film but it turned out to be an airplane. Damn cold out.


Thanksgiving was spent with 2 teachers. We ate chicken since the Turkey I wanted was $70 and I wasn't even sure if it would fit in my little oven. I had mashed potatoes (the delicious powdered kind) horrible shrink wrapped corn on the cob and what I thought was a brown sauce that turned out to be meatballs sized for Spaghetti-O's.

I only teach 1 class today.

Korean customer service

Many times when I walk into a store here I am greeted with wide-eyed fear. The Korean sees me and thinks that I am going to ask them many confusing questions in English (a subject that they have/had studied for almost 10 years in school) or maybe do something strange. The two or three sales assistants argue over who has the better English and more often than not the youngest female gets pushed my way. After determining who will mind me they just stick to my heels and following me all over the shop until I tell them "eye shopping-uh" (just looking) or I leave.

When I do have a question or request they do try their best to get me what I want. I needed a water bottle so I went to a North Face store and said to the girl "mul bottle" (mul=water). She scrunched up her face then ran off only to return a minute later with a little cup filled with water. I dutifully drank the water but then found the water bottles myself and showed her "mul bottle" and she replied with an "ah-ha!" look and pointed upstairs. I started to walk upstairs when she grabbed my arm and said "no" while pointing upstairs. I guess the water bottles are up there but I wasn't allowed to get one and she didn't feel like getting me one.

I lost my ATM card the other week. It was quite easy for me to get another one since 1 Korean bank has generously opened an "Expat account" option. Everything is in English and they have very helpful English speaking staff. When I received my new card it wouldn't work so I had to call customer support. Once we figured out the problem the operator called twice to make sure everything was ok and to see if I needed anything else. This made my day. Doesn't take much these days.

Special service

Oh, I cannot forget all the "service " I get at restaurants as well. Often I will be out and the owner will walk up and place a beer or some other food on the table and quietly mutter "service-uh" (service = on the house.)

Yesterday's dialog with a student.


Student: Scott-uh teacha.
Me.:Yes?
Student: I sorry po you.
Me: Really? Why?
Student:Oprah is gone.
Me:Thank you for your condolences.

If he was disappointed about Oprah being taken off the air (which isn't even shown here) what is he going to do when they cancel Tyra (which is shown here as well as "America's Top Model" on a 24 hour loop)?

Today's contest!!!

We have a winner!!! (go to the bottom of the post)

For a pair of Korean socks... can you tell me why these three men have been mentioned in the same sentence as me by a Korean?





My brother Kevin was correct with "You all look alike...". That's 2 pairs of socks for him now (it may help that he used to live in Korea).

I was told this week that I look like Gerald Ford. I didn't mind the Beckham and Denzel references, but Ford? What the hell?

Exactly

Other than the guy being English, this is exactly what it was like to teach in Japan.

The Test-Updated

This Thursday is is the most important day for all Korean high school seniors. They have been training and studying for this their entire lives. Many have been attending regular classes from 8am-10pm then go immediately to cram schools till 1 or 2 in the morning for years just for this one day. Air traffic will be rerouted and flights canceled. Businesses will not open until late morning to ensure the students can catch taxis and ride the buses in comfort. Police will be patrolling the streets looking for latecomers and give them express rides to their campus. For breakfast they won't eat seaweed soup so they don't slip up (or something like that) and have caramel candies so the answers stick in their brains.

What is all of this for? Thursday is SAT day. The test is only held once a year and its score basically tells you your lot in life. Korea is very cliquey. You must go to the right school to get the right job. Nearly every judge in Korea went to the same university. Practically every college professor went to that same school. Same with many politicians. If you get into a bad school, you will have a hard time getting anywhere because only those in the cliques seem to move up.

If you do poorly you have to wait till next year to try it again. My school is quite laid back, but I have seen some of the seniors crying because of the stress of studying. Many of Korea's students may end their lives if they don't get the score they wanted or one that was expected of them.

I was told for the past 2 weeks that I would have this day off. Like every other little holiday I was supposed to have, it was canceled. Now I get to sit in an empty school (no students, just a skeleton staff of teachers) for 8 hours doing nothing... well, not nothing. I just finished downloading the second season of Arrested Development.

UPDATE- Unfortunately it looks like the suicides had started before the test even began.

changing plans

I was supposed to have this week off while my students went to Jeju Island. That was canceled last week due to fears of swine flu. To make up for it the students were going to have a picnic on Tuesday, which would give me the day off. It was canceled today becuse of fears of swine flu. Not really sure how that works since they all live in a dormitory and them spending the day together would have no more risk than keeping them all in school.

On the plus side I found a temple right behind my apartment.

Movies in Korea

I went to watch Inglorious Basterds yesterday. I knew before hand that there was a lot of dialog in languages that I don't speak, so I tried my best to find out if there were English subtitles. I didn't expect there to be since I am in Korea and have been to other movies where the English subtitles were not present (one of the Bond films didn't have them at some points). I asked a theater worker and I was told "no" but then thought to ask someone else who said "yes". I decided to gamble and found out they were both right. Most of it was subtitled but other parts weren't.

The lack of subtitles didn't bother me as much as the idiot piece of shit who brought their dog with a noisy collar that jingled and jangled throughout the entire movie or the other moron who left their phone on "ring" mode, had it ring 3 separate times, not answering for 10 seconds or so each time, then having the audacity to actually answer and have a conversation while sitting in the theater.

I know how to say "shut up" in Korean (dok-cha) but had no idea how to say "get your fucking dog out of the theater or at least have brains enough to take off its collar!!!".

Other movie mishaps I have had in Korea were at Black and Apopolito or whatever that Mel Gibson movie is called. Black was advertised as an English movie, yet 95% was in Hindi. The Mel Gibson movie was in some other language with 0% English, so that was a complete wash. Interesting thing is that it was on TV last night and had both English and Korean subtitles.

The movie (IG) was interesting.

Interview day

Today is the day when hopeful middle school boys come here for their interview. The lucky few will be selected to attend my wonderful school for the next 3 years.

Ten years ago the school was known as one of the worst to teach at since it was seen more as a boarding school for troublesome boys than a real school. Now there are lines to get in and strict rules to follow. If these rules are broken (smoking, getting arrested) you have a good chance of being kicked out.

One student last week was asked to leave after being arrested for an off campus fight. He was a second year student (high school is only 3 years) and was only 1.5 months away from completing his second year. Unfortunately for him, due to the specialty of our curriculum, he will have to start over at 1st year when/if he returns to a regular high school. I could not imagine having to repeat 2 years and I am pretty sure he'll just drop out.

Swine flu is sweeping though our and many other schools now. My students were supposed to go to Jeju Island (Korea's Hawaii!!!!...much like Put-in-Bay is Ohio's Manhattan) for all of next wek giving me a nice little vacation. This has been canceled now, so I actually have to do the job I am being paid for.

UPDATE: looks like I may get a two week vacation instead!!

Coming into school today, I was given many surprised looks. Nobody told me that I didn't have to be here. All the teachers are in suits and ties, I am in jeans and a button down... Actually, looking around I see the other English teachers (Koreans) are wearing jeans also. I guess we are just a laid back (with my mind on...sorry) group. As I walked by the desks I saw that there was a fresh surgical mask on everyone's desk but mine (another clue that I wasn't expected). These are here to protect us from the dirty middle school kids.

So here I sit to play on the internet till lunch. I am staying because I do not want to make the other teachers angry and think the foreigner is lazy or skipping school. They are already upset that I don't have to come to class on Saturdays, but then I don't get the monetary bonuses they get. Last month they all got around $1000 for a holiday bonus, I got a $50 gift certificate.

I bought school sandles to wear in class with the money.

To celebrate sitting in an office alone I bought some chocolate milk. The box says "Our Chocolate flavored milk drink is hasty way to freshen up your day." You done good chyoko oo-yoo!!!

Korean wedding

I went to a friend's wedding this weekend to have my first real Korean wedding experience. I attended a wedding a few years ago, but it was in a church with people wandering around and chatting on their cell phones the entire time.


This wedding was different because it was at a wedding hall. This particular hall had 4 floors, each with a wedding going on. There is a small room to the side of the chapel (can't think of a better word for it) where the bride to be sits and people hop in to take her picture. When I went to visit the bride there seemed to be 50 women in the back snapping away with their camera phones. The bride looked beautiful!


Outside of the chapel is a large portrait that all Koreans have displayed at a wedding. The couples photo was really nice. One thing I do not understand is why they (and by they I mean all Koreans) leave the protective cardboard on the corners of the frame. I went to home of one teacher who had been married for 20 years and they still had the cardboard on the frame, which was proudly displayed on the livingroom wall. I will talk more about Koreans refusal to remove protective coverings from things in a later post.


The chapel itself was small but intimate and looked very nice. As the wedding started a couple girls in drum major outfits came out with swords. I was hoping that this was some holdover from the bachelor party and things were going to get interesting, but alas, they didn't fight or strip. It turns out that the girl sitting next to me used to be a wedding drum major for weddings as a summer job.


I thought that the man talking for 90% of the wedding was a chaplain, but it was actually just a friend of the groom's father, which is tradition. It can also be a former professor or other such role model. I have no idea what was being said, but I am sure it was good.

not the actual wedding, but you get the idea (watch it till at least the 3 minute mark, gets interesting!)

The ceremony lasted 18 minutes. After that people posed for pictures with the happy couple and the bouquet toss was held. My "date" caught it, though she was the only one allowed in the bouquet catching zone. Maybe they felt bad for her because she is getting old (29) and needs to marry soon (yes, she reads this).

blurred for artistic purposes, not due to shoddy photographer

Following the ceremony a few of us traveled upstairs to the buffet room. This is a shared room where all guests of all the weddings go and chow down. It was quiet a battle to get food with old women pushing and shoving everywhere. I stuffed myself with sushi and calamari.

If this is how old Korean women are at the wedding, you can only imagine how hardcore they are for bits of pineapple and chopped hotdogs

Everyone insisted I be shorter than the bride for this pic [the girl in the back, who goes by the name drama, is staring at my butt.

After the wedding festivities I went out with some Koreans to a nice little cafe that didn't seem at all like Korea and then to the apartment of some friends. It is always nice to see how the natives live in their home environment. This apartment was very modern and very nice. They even had TWO(!!!!!!) kimchi refrigerators!

kimchi refrigerator

the little things

This past week was PIFF, Pusan International Film Festival. When I saw that it was billed as the "Hub of Asian Cinema", I knew I had to go to a show.

I had a half day on Wednesday so I hopped down to the theater district and see what was showing. I first went to "Zero", a Polish film about something or other... made me miss Brno. Right after that I went and saw "Accident" which was a Hong Kong movie about assassins who kill people by setting up elaborate "accidents" to kill their victims. After a donut break I made it to the film I really wanted to see, "City of Life and Death". It is about the Nanjing massacre during World War II. It was the Chinese Shindler's List. I highly recommend seeing this.

I have been exploring a bit more and finally tried this outdoor eating area. It is basically old women sitting on little chairs cooking noodles and offering kimbap. There are about 20 of these women sitting in a row all selling the same thing.

Yum!! And all for only 2000won ($1.50)

I bought an oven that does rotisserie chicken in 20 minutes!!!!!

I was waiting for the bus at a place I normally don't catch it. I was standing by the sign for some time along with a Korean man. We both stood waiting and watching loads of other buses pass us by, but none for our stop. After some time I noticed him read some very small not stuck to the bus stop. He then walked up to me, started to speak English, then stopped and asked in Korean if I spoke Korean. This made my day.

Most people here just assume that you can't understand anything in Korea (which they are mostly right in my case) and it gets annoying. I know numbers, so when I am buying something, just tell me the price. But 95% of the time, the shop keeper will just punch the numbers into a calculator and hold it up for me to read, which I then repeat to them in Korean but they don't even pay attention.

Another guy (this time a foreigner) came up to me last night and the first thing he did was ask "Do you speak English?" Thanks for asking!

Another thing is the Koreans pointing and shouting "MIGOOK-IN!!!" which means Beautiful country person, or American. They say this just because I am white. Though they are correct, it is annoying. I have also heard Koreans talking bad about a certain foreigner doing something stupid, like being loud and drunk in a bar (not that a Korean would ever get drunk in public, just be sure to step over all those piles of vomit and passes out Koreans all over the sidewalks every monring), and call them Americans even though it is obvious (to me) that they are Russian or Canadian.

My apartment

the new neighborhood

This is my 6th apartment since I left the USA in 2004. My first apartment was in Brno and it was a decent size but basically had a kitchen, a huge hallway and a bedroom/livingroom. It also had all the possessions of a recently departed old woman everywhere, so it never felt like my one.


After that I moved into a smaller but nicer apartment on the other side of town, unfortunately it caught fire and blackened everything I owned.


This was followed by my shoebox in Korea. It was a studio with nothing to sit on but my bed and the floor.

Then it was off to Japan where I had the noisy lady upstairs and another tiny one room apartment with the only window beinga a patio door and the patio being the parking lot making it possible for anyone to just walk right into my apartment while I was sleeping.


Which led me to a much nicer place with an upstairs and a downstairs (2 rooms!!!)


Now I am back in Korea and in the biggest place of all. In the video below you may be able to notice the horses on the bottom right when I look outside for the first time. It's nice hearing them whinny (sp?) in the morning. I also hear the ships that are anchored nearby blowing their horns at 7pm. It is a really relaxing sound from this distance.

It takes about 15 minutes to walk to school, but unfortunately I have to go over a large hill. I guess it will build up my legs a bit and maybe help me shed a few pounds that I gained while gorging myself in the US.

During my break time (I have only 2 classes today) I was making an ipod stand so I can have a proper clock at home. A student was standing behind me watching me work so diligently. After I completed my masterpiece he took a little thing off of his Samsung cell phone and gave it to me. It is a tiny Samsung stand that will now become my ipod stand. Thanks student (I think his English name is "Monster")!!

If someone hands you a phone and it's on, the first thing you shouldn't do is hit the hang-up button. I only wish I had thought to teach that little lesson to the nearby English teacher when I handed her the phone with an unknown Korean speaker on it. And I don't have caller i.d.

Church

this is a church

Korea is an interesting country when it comes to religion. There are Buddhist temples everywhere, but they are surrounded by buildings topped with a steeple and a red neon cross. You can see these crosses on any building, some look like churches, some look like office buildings. Some are regular "christian" while others worship an old Korean woman who is the second coming of Christ...or Mary, I forget. Also, if you answer yes to the question "are you Christian?", then you must not be Catholic. Here Catholic and Christian are not the same.


Fundamental Christianity has made its way here with some zeal. Many of these churches want Korea to become the number 1 exporter of missionaries, which is fine by me, since it will get them away from knocking on my door, or coming up to me on the train, or when I am walking along the beach, or shopping for some tinfoil, or walking home from work...

at the train station

All non-Catholic churches have a red cross on them, it is a bit scary.

I just found out one of our students stabbed another student with a pencil sharpener. Here they use box cutters to sharpen their pencils, so it did a bit of damage. His girl went off with this other boy it seems. The other students said she looks like a monster and that she is "garbagee".

Also, two other students have swin...er....H1N1 flu. They all live in a dormitory together, so this may not end well!

The answer

Nobody got it right.

A day at work

I taught 2 classes today, watched USA beat Trinidad & Tobago and watched District 9

Contest time!!

OK, I will try to hold more contests in a weak attempt to gain readers and so I don't think I am wasting my doing this site in such a half-assed manner.

Sorry Koreans, you can't participate in this one!

This is an advertisement I saw last week, can you tell me what product is advertising?


Your prize is a pair of wonderful Obama socks. Don't worry, you will receive an unworn pair!



To enter you need to post in the comments section what the answer is. You also need to leave your name!

baseball, Japan, more baseball and the area

Since my school can't get anything right at the moment, I had all of last week off. I was supposed to start on Tuesday, but instead will start tomorrow (Monday).

On Tuesday I went to another baseball game, this time sitting in the "exciting zone!!!" It is just the bottom few rows along the 1st and 3rd base lines, but it was nice to be so close. The right fielder is from Mexico and after a foul ball ricocheted off the wall near me he tossed me the ball. As per custom here, one is supposed to give the ball to a kid or else the entire stadium will chant "give it to a baby", though they do it in Korean. Since I was sitting in the "exciting zone" there were no kids around (too dangerous) so I had to throw it over a 20ft net to an eager looking kid. Unfortunately my throwing are isn't what it used to be and my toss hit the net and the ball bounced into the bull pen. The crowd wasn't too pleased with my attempt, but after a few others tried and failed to get it over the net, I didn't feel so bad (and the kid did get the ball in the end).


On Wednesday night I got a call from school saying that I had to go to Japan the next morning to get my work visa and then return to Busan that afternoon. I was to take the hydrofoil "Beetle" which takes about 6 hours round trip.

Last time I did the visa run in 2006 it took 2 days to get the visa completed. I told this to my school but they assured me that it would all be done in the afternoon with plenty of time left for me to catch the 3:30 Beetle back to Busan.

As soon as I got to the Embassy in Fukuoka I saw a sign saying that all visas will be ready the following day. I was livid. I am not sure why the school refuses to listen to me (I also told them to hurry up with the visa processing as it takes at least a week, and other very important information that they just ignored) but it is beginning to piss me off.

Now I am in Fukuoka with no hotel, not much money (Korean banks don't give international ATM cards to most foreigners) and only the clothes on my back. I was finally able to find a hotel after wondering around the city sweating and making my clothes stink. After taking a much needed shower I remembered that I didn't bring any deodorant, something that isn't always easy to find in Japan. Now I get to be the stinky foreigner.


Lucky me, with little money in my pocket but needing to get out, I found that the local baseball team was having a discount ticket night that evening. I went and saw the Softbank Hawks play some other team at the Yahoo Dome. Yahoo is much more popular than Google in Japan. The game and fans were great.

everyone had these plastic things to whack together to make annoying sounds

Fukuoka Baseball from Scott Smith on Vimeo.

Oh, and Japan, everyone already thinks you're a bit perverted, handing these (picture below) out to the fans when they entered the stadium doesn't help.