A long time comming vol. 1

It has been a while, my first goal was one post a month and as I have made new friends and gotten busier at work and finding time to write these or even emails has gotten very difficult. Well, getting motivated to write has gotten harder. This is a general theme post and I feel my initial pains and culture shock have left. I still chicken out pretty often, but that is because I don’t like too much attention and never have so I’m not sure that will change too much. I have got ordering food down though. My everyday life is getting better and better. I finally got a bank account and a phone. I will send an email with that information (phone number not bank account). The best part about my phone is that I got to pick my last four numbers. My number is 010-####-SETH. Korean phones are really nice and way nicer than my phone back home, which was pretty nice.

I have a lot to write and some very funny stories to tell. Most of them involve being mean to little kids. Just know that most of these things… actually all of these thing made me laugh at the time and some things like our Halloween party, or a kindergarten teacher getting mad at a kid and telling him that his birthday is cancelled still pop into my mind and make me laugh now. This is not intended to sound too mean or irreverent about teaching little kids.

The only real professional experience I have had with kids under the age of 14 is with kids with autism. Kids with autism were very fun and just completely a different experience than “typical” kids. I have learned a lot about little kids in general here. First they are wild and sweaty. I walk into class after break and the boys all have hair like they have been playing in the sprinkler. I used to wonder what the hell they were doing; now I know they are just sweaty little kids. Also they cannot be reasoned with. I tried so hard to do the good teacher thing and relate to the students and explain why I needed them to stop licking their neighbor’s hand or something weird. Now I just say “Lets talk about the class rules again.” Or… I learned they are easy to trick. I have mentioned to some of you my reward system. I kind of got this idea from Trevor’s mom. Her class earns paper clips and they eventually earn enough to have a party. When my kids are good they earn seconds. I laugh writing this. They earn seconds. They build them up all week and they can use them on Friday as free-time. Just so you have an idea, I have one class that has been saving them for two weeks has saved 140 seconds for tomorrow, God bless them. I have been doing this for SIX WEEKS! It works, I cannot believe it but it works. They will go through their minute of free time or whatever and say, “Ahhh, teacher, very short.” But come Monday they want those seconds again. I had one girl catch on and I told her she did not have to have free time with the rest of the class if she did not want it and she fell back into the trap.

Little girls are so much easier than boys. Classes with more boys than girls are way harder. All the girls are drawing puppies and color-coding their stickers and hearts. They all have one thing that they love that is a little weird like cows or squirrels. They love princesses and never fight with each other. I know from being around teenagers that changes. Oh dose that change. Little boys are so funny and unstoppable. They make you crazy and make you laugh hard. No one punctuates this more than Eric Choi the first grader. He is actually kind of quiet but he is like a hilarious little Bond villain. Other teachers ask me to stop Eric from talking to their kids. He has got my whole class calling the librarian bad guy. The librarian will walk past my door and even if like three kids see him, they all yell and point “Bad guy!” and Eric holds up one finger and in his husky voice, quietly says “In the world.” Your right, it makes no since. But the kids love it. Now other classes call each other “Bad guy in the world.” English teachers try to correct them, “No, it’s worst guy in the world.” Some how Eric has more pull than we do. We do plays and Eric will have one line. He needs to say, “thank you Jacob,” but I know beforehand when it is his turn he will say, “no thank you bad guy.” He addresses and signs his letters “Dear bad guy” and “Love, bad guy.” I love the fact that he uses the term Love at the end. He misses all the questions on his quizzes on purpose and the class will see his score and shout, “Eric Choi!” then he grabs his chin and does a really funny evil laugh, heh, heh, heh, heh His parents don’t care and I love him so he never gets in real trouble. Obviously this wouldn’t fly in an American school but I am at a private school and I am not even allowed to send kids out of class during class time because their parents are paying customers. (I should clarify that we don't give formal grades, so it is amazing that anything gets done. There are different level classes that are determind by test scores and reading level. The higher the scores the higher level of class. For example, we have 8 first grade classes all determind by the level of the students. We test every month and level kids up and down every six months, we don't actually level down, just threaten). Usually there is so much pressure from parents that the kids are afraid to mess up at all so it is a relief to see a boy like Eric who knows how to be a boy.

I say that because there is a big difference between Korean boys and American. I hate to say it but Korean boys are sissy. They cry way too much and tattletale and whine like crazy. Boys and girls both do this. It is unbelievable; I know they talk to their parents like this because I hear them out about doing it. I can only imagine what my dad would have done if he saw me going, Mooo-ooooo-oooom! and stomping my feet. They really seem to be spoiled from a western standpoint. However it really is cultural. It is much more important to be good at school than cool here. Which is better, I guess. So telling on your friend every chance you get makes since. Being called a Tattletale (usually by me) does not carry nearly the same weight as back home. To us the language in general sounds whinny and to be honest whining isn’t as bad here. So many kids whine. Kids hear are pretty chubby and restless, think some of that goes with the fact I teach at an elementary school until 8:30 p.m. Kids hear aren’t out playing like back home. In English alone kids are expected in general to have about four pages of homework a night, 1st to 5th grade. Eric turned in 2 assignments last month. But usually kids turn in most their homework. They do most of it on the weekends I guess. I teach about 4-8 different subjects a day depending on the class and have to assign all homework a week in advance. It is a lot to keep track of, but I have a system and my lessons are planned for me for the most part.

I am allowed to be much more physical with the kids here. Back home I would just high five and the occasional hug coaching. Here I grab a kid and pick him up and run off down the hall with them during a break and all the other kids will chase me screaming. Walking from class to class teachers usually have three or four kids hanging off them. One teacher sits right by the door in the office and will open it up, jump out and grab a kid, pull them into the office and shut the door. It is really fun.

This kind of atmosphere that is at our school allowed us to have the kind of haunted house that we had on Halloween. Halloween was a fun day. The kids all dressed up. The girls were all in homemade Disney princesses or witch costumes and super cute. The boys were super heroes or Harry Potter, but a little off. There were wizards with guns shooting spider man who was blocking the bullets with his sword and shield. They gathered in the library to watch a movie and face painting. Then we would send about 10 kids at a time to the haunted house up stairs… they had to walk down a long dark hallway to the door. We had scary sounds playing and some Korean teachers where in the back of the haunted house banging their shoes on a table and screaming and when the kids got close to the door I would start banging it open and closed. They would crawl into the haunted house and it was totally back and they had a maze to crawl through. The maze was mostly made up of little cubical dividers covered in black sheets. There were cobwebs with a few dim floor lamps. There were teachers with scary masks and face panted strategically placed to jump out and scare the kids. An example was one teacher was playing dead and laid very still. When a student would come close she still wouldn’t move. She would let kids almost touch her before she would open her eyes and grab them. The worst/ best part was what we started to call the gauntlet. We had one part of the maze where the kids were crawling under a table in a pitch-black tunnel. There was a teacher lying on top of the table with his shoulders and chest hanging over the tip of the table. So he would allow the kids to crawl right underneath him before he would turn on his flashlight, and start screaming. His face was painted to look like he was bleeding out of his eyes and mouth. To get a way the kids would have to go under another table positioned right next to it with another teacher who was in the same position except he was facing the students and they had to crawl underneath him to get away. What would usually happen is they would freak out in between the two and just scream and hug each other in little princess wizard balls. So the teachers were yelling the students are yelling, shoes are banging I’m slamming the door and kids in the hallway start to not want to come in. Then a teacher dressed like a ghost in all back with a white mask and her long black hair hanging over the mask would run out into the hallway grab kids and drag them in. Our librarian, the “Bad Guy in the World,” lived up to his reputation and brought a big super soaker style water gun and was shooting kids in the face as they were going through. It was a crying, screaming, wet mess. I am guessing we scared over half the kids stiff and they sat and screamed until we pushed them through and we made roughly thirty kids cry. The “bad guy” was sure to take pictures of all the crying kids too. The real kicker that makes me look back in amazement is one girl was in between the two monsters frozen and screaming. She got so scared that she threw up. It was the saddest thing. We all deal with things differently and I can’t help to laugh. It is like dumb and dumber when Jeff Daniels pelts that girl in the face with a snowball. You are like “Oh my gosh,” but you are laughing. Our parents complain all the time, if a kid does not win a game of hangman moms call and complain (not really). I cannot believe they do this every year.

I stay very busy at work. We do report cards every month, and grading all the work the kids do. I was able to set up pin-pals for our students with some students in the states and I think my workload is fixing to grow as those come. Some times it is confining teaching because my lessons are all pretty much planned I’ve always liked that part of teaching. Now, it would be real easy to just show up give work and not invest my self at all. Especially since I feel guilty every time I tell a 9 year old who has been sits in a desk 8 hours of the day to go back to his seat. But to be honest I do not know the system real well and I don’t know what the other schools and academies are like, I don’t know what their family life is like and a lot is lost in translation. I do know that Korea has the largest teen suicide rate in the world and giving out all the work I do makes me uneasy. I had a 3rd grader terrified to take a vocab test a few weeks ago and I eventually heard that her mom was going to hit her if she missed one question. Hit may mean anything but she was nervous to say the least. There is no social services here or anything to document something like that. We make the tests hard and everyone misses a few. I did my best to give her all the answers through clues and hints. The society here in general puts a lot of pressure on everyone from the adults to the children. Trevor and I talked about it and he has a great goal that I have adopted. First, I can be as effective as I can be teaching English as that is my job but the kids need to learn it is okay to make a mistake, especially here, where everyone is expected to be the superior person. I had a class today that was not answering any questions from the book because they openly said they did not want to get it wrong. I finally had started answering all the questions myself, except I was answering them all wrong. Just to show it was okay, finally I had a kid raise his hand and say "I'll give one a try." That ranks up there as one of my favorite teaching moments. I was finally thinking I am doing a good job over here. I have a lot more to tell that is not so self-righteous, but this is probably getting a bit more of a commitment to read than you expected so I will give a volume II soon.

JinJu

Check out how awesome I am.

This week I feel exceptionally more comfortable. I am getting different circles of friends, which gives a few new options on the weekends. I am finally saying ne instead of si. I use please and thank you regularly. They seem to use two number systems, I can use one pretty quickly, and the other up to three off the top of my head * the later is the used, not exclusively, for ordering, and I tend not to order more than two or three things at a time (unless it is beer, Hey-O! just kidding). Aniyo is no. But, I have heard that it is kind of rude to use for everything that I would normally use it for. So instead of shaking their heads here they make an X with their arms and I just use that for everything. I can’t help but to think of Wonder Woman blocking bullets with her golden bracelets when I do it, or a living skull and cross bones, so that makes it funny. I am getting better and better at the written language, but I still need a little help with the tougher symbols.This last weekend I met up with Trevor and some of the teachers from his school and we took a four-hour bus ride to southern Korea to a city called Jinju. It was a great change of pace from Seoul. Seoul has pretty bad pollution, I keep thinking I have allergies or a cough with an itchy throat but I have realized it is just the pollution. It is also pretty hazy here all the time. Getting out and seeing the county was a great change. I saw a nice blue sky and fresh air. It reminded me of leaving Denver, driving to Lake City, then rolling my windows down when I get close and letting in all the fresh air and the smell of the mountains.

JinJu was beautiful. It is the beginning of autumn here so the leafs are just starting to change. The trees here are so cool. They grow in all directions, they will grow in one direction and change at a sharp angle and quickly turn in the other direction or the trunk may split off and start twisting around itself. They often remind me of a giant banzai tree. "Duh, that is what a Banzai tree is, a miniture big tree." Whatever, I can't help it, that is what it reminds me of. The leaves are very big and it makes for a very lush looking forests. I am going to do my best to get seeds or buds back to the states (don’t try and talk me out of it).

An example of an autumn tree. Imanage that in your front lawn!

The Main reason we went to JinJu was to see the Lantern Festival. It commemorates the Imjin war, another case in which the Japanese invaded Korea.
In 1592 Japan invaded Jinju. With just 3800 soldiers Korean General Chung-Mu Gong killed 20,000 Japanese invaders defending Jinju. . Lanterns were used by the Koreans to signal inside and out side the fortresses between families and soldiers to see who was safe. Lanterns were also sent floating down river and raised high on poles to signal and warn troops inside and outside the fortress. General Chung-Mu Gong was killed in the battle.

The following year the Japanese returned with a much bigger army and killed 70,000 Korean soldiers and civilians. The Lantern Festival commemorates these battles by sending lanterns down the river to remember the 70,000 killed and the brave Korean soldiers.

The Lantern Festival took place next the fortress, where the battles took place and it was beautiful. One thing I've noticed about Korea in general is that there are not as many "ancient" temples and building here as I was expecting. One reason is many of the cultural significant stuff was burnt down. It seems that much of Korea's history involves not being absorbed by China or conquered by Japan. One interesting thing they do do with the old temples and fortresses is keep them up with fresh paint and such. It makes for beautiful surreal scenery when you do get to see the sights. The fortress in Jinju, I think, is my favorite place I've visited to since moving here.

The fortress wall and a look inside, it was surprisingly wide open inside.

I really enjoyed myself at the fortress. It had so many stories that I seemed very real when standing at the place where they happened. Looking out over the river and seeing the fortress on the shore it was amazing to think of the Japanese invaders fighting with the Koreans. I imagined it all happening right in front of me. One story I learned was the the story of a women named Non-Gae. When the Japanese occupied an area of Korea they would employ Korean women, called ginyeo, to “entertain” them. After the second invasion a ginyeo named Non-Gae seduced the Japanese General, who lead the invasion and massacre, to a ledge of the fortress. When they embraced she jumped off into the river taking him with her, drowning them both and avenging the deaths of the 70,000.

This is a nice view of part of the fortress from the other side of the river and it is also the spot where Non-Gae martyred herself.

I will take this time to say that for the most part, Koreans hate the Japanese. And I mean HATE. I have read journals from my students praising the atom bomb. One teacher I work with saw a family wearing shirts saying "Thanks for dropping the A-Bomb." One day in class, my fifth graders ask me if my grandparents are veterans. I said they both were. They were so impressed, "Oh, US veteran, US veteran, second war!" When I explained that one had fought the Japanese and lived, "YEAH, kill Japanese!" and they all started jumping up and down shooting fake guns in the air cheering "He Kill Japanese, Kill Japanese!" It was a weird thing to see and kind of funny but I am a little uncomfortable writing this for some reason, but hey, that is what happened.

Anyway, after the fortress we had a nice meal and it was dark and we checked out the Lantern Festival.

Here are a few more pictures of inside the fortress and that night.

They also had silk worms you could eat here. I talked about before how I wanted to try everything. Not so much. I went in saying "yeah, I'll try it..." (smug)... "I've liked everything so far..." (more smug)... when I walked past it unknowingly I got wiff. It was bad. I quietly asked someone what the smell was, silk worm? oops. I was just hoping no one would hold me to it, but I think everyone was thinking the same thing.

They are also famous for Bemibop which a rice meat and veggie bowl. It is hard to explain, but it is very different from a veggie bowl or something that they have at Chinese places back home. It is a very hearty meal some how, sometimes they will fry and egg and put it on top. It is not made with Brocoli or other veggies you would expect, I actually don't know any of the veggies in it, they are leafy and meat is like a shredded/ground beef, that was great. I ate blood sausage too and that was good, Trevor loved it. They also brought us liver, but I like liver anyways so that was good too.

The following week at work was good and I feel comfortable and I get along with the staff. Being in a small town made me second guess living in a gigantic city though. The people were wonderful and bent over backwards to help us. I also learned that being in a small town also means that Koreans that speak English are few and far between, we were lucky enough to have a friend who is fluent who went with us. Even some foreigners came up to us thinking we were new to town and wanted to introduce themselves. They were very genuine and we talked with them for a bit. They said that they stayed around this weekend for the Lantern Festival. They burst our bubble a little, saying that when the festival is not going on, they keep the lanterns under the bridge and use the same ones over and over, but it was endearing just the same. Usually on weekends they take motorcycle trips around the country or explore the islands off the shore. I was pretty envious. I thought, "what if I just stayed out here and didn't go back to Seoul." The thought of staying and spending my weekends on secret islands or in mysterious Asian wilderness got my thoughts running of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon-esk adventures. But I know living in Seoul has its perks too. I would miss the the fun stuff in Seoul, like free concerts and clothes in my size. Seoul is so big and I have only seen a small protion of it. It is nice not having to go 4 hours oneway whenever I need the comforts of the city. Plus Korea is not a very big place and I can still do those things on the weekends, I will just have to look a little harder.

I have since learned that Jinju is having a bemibop festival in a few months, I look foward to going back.

3 Weeks In

Lets see, it has been 3 weeks. It is Sunday night, which means I would normally spend all day tomorrow crying because I missed football for the 4^th week. But it is okay; I am going to try and stay up late and listen to the Broncos on 850 KOA via the internet. The game starts at 2:00 a.m. for me but I don’t have to work until 12:00 and I am testing all day tomorrow so all I have to do is make sure the kids don’t cheat, so this is a good time to try that out.

The T-Express (Pictures)
Could you imagine trying to paint that thing, They couldn't either

I have been having fun. Getting to know some people better. Trevor and I and a few people I work with went to a place called Everland. It is like Disney Land but no theme rides just roller coasters and scary rides. One ride is the T-Express. It has the steepest drop of any wooden rollercoaster in the world and top ten in size and speed. It was so fast, when I saw the first drop in the beginning, I was thinking, “no way this is safe.” It was so fast. They have a crazy safari ride that is like Jurassic Park, with Grizzly bears and tigers and lions roaming free in the woods and along the trail. It was very cool, they supposedly have a Liger but I did not spot it, they did have white tigers and white lions though.



The Drop is the one on the far right

Everyday life stuff:
The first week here I did not wear deodorant (because I could not find any) and walked to school in Houston like humidity everyday. Surprisingly I never really smelled bad, despite how sweaty I got, and I took some of the best cold showers of my life. A follow up note, I don’t think Koreans wear much deodorant, I’m not sure they need it. Plus B.O. sometimes, to me, smells like weird food, like meat or something cooking. As tasty as Korean food is, it sometimes has a similar feeling to it. Like I’ll will smell it and think, “That smells really yummy, but on the other hand it reminds me a little of B.O.”
I still struggle trying to figure out basic things. I don’t have a phone yet and I don’t want people holding my hand every time I want to try something new. That being said I struggle because it gets old not knowing what you are doing, and it gets old looking or feeling clueless. Which is what is going to happen nearly every time I want to try something new. I have been trying new things, but other times I will just roam the streets looking for something easy, and something that I understand. The best example is food. Food here smells and tastes different than any food I have ever had. So new delicious smelling food is very exciting. Often I will walk past a place that smells so good, not like human sweat, but something that could blow my mind or be something crazy that I could brag about to people back home. It’s just sometimes I just don’t have the backbone. I don’t have the courage to go pull up a seat and try my best to order food and drinks when I don’t know the cost or name or what it is.

This is Meat Street, it is all Restaurants and bars. It is call Meat Street because every restaurant specializes in a different meat (Pork one place, Beef next door...)

If there was an opposite of a Korean I have to be close, I really want to speak Korean and blend in as best as I could and know exactly what to do and order, sometimes I’ll fake it. I will buy some food from a stand, not knowing how much it will cost or what exactly I am getting, but I will act like I do and he will say something in Korean and I will act like I know what he said. I will give him 10,000 won right on queue. Knowing that is too much, but it is one bill and I can pretend it is all I have. However, that is not always an option, and I have creep in the door in big, tall and white, not knowing how to speak anything important and be the center of attention. It is hard enough to go in, so deciding that I made a mistake and turning around and skulking out is out of the question. Plus I want to love everything I try; I don’t want them to bring out the stuff the mi-gooks like. I want the good stuff, I want the octopus, I want the chicken feet and pig face. So far, all three are delicious. For me to enjoy that stuff I have to put my self out there a little bit and that has never been easy for me. So very often, I slowly walk past, trying to catch a glimpse of what they are eating without looking like I am. All the while, tortured by the sweet smells or wondering what kinds of magical things they are doing to the pork. Poor me.
I have learned a few universal truths. The most important is that no matter what you do or where you are, onions are gross, and if you like fresh onions you are less of a person than someone who knows better. I stand by my belief that people eating onions was an accident or originally the last resort of a starving person.
I mentioned the term mi-gook so I can tell a funny coincidence. Mi-gook, means American, and Whay-gook means foreigner. It is not derogatory in anyway like gringo, which isn’t really that bad either. But if you happen to over hear the word gook, it means they are probably talking about you, not necessary anything bad, but it makes me laugh.
Oh and I made it to 2:00 and KOA does not stream to Asia… poor me.

Welcome to Korea Introduction

From Lake Park

This is a photo of Lake Park, it is a very nice park that is just a quick walk from my place. Click on this picture if you would like to see some other pictures.  It is the biggest man made lake in Asia, but it is only about 3-4 feet deep and around the size of Sloans Lake so maybe I was lied to.  Maybe they actually dug the hole, sealed it up and pumped in the water all with man power and that is what they meant.  Never the less it is a nice walk and very pretty.  At night it has fountains like the Bellagio.

I hope this a helpful way to keep intouch.  This is easier than answering the same question over and over, you guys don't have to get long drawn out mass emails, or you can get a quick look how things are here with out waiting to hear back from me.

I am writing this on Monday Sept. 15, I have been in Korea 2 weeks today.

I am starting to get settled into my new job and apartment.  I live in Ilsan, it's suburb of 2 million people on the North West boarder of Seoul.  Downtown Seoul is a 25 minute bus ride from my apartment.  I walk about 25 minutes to and from work, I am going to try and walk it everyday unless I get a bike.  It is an easy 5 minute 2 dollar cab ride.  

I live in a nice studio on the 5th floor of a tall apartment building.  It has a washer a stove top and lots of room.  I have yet to figure out how to take out the trash.  There are different bags for different types of trash, everyone is must recycle. But the only trash I have right now is some old milk cartons and a few empty boxes of cereal.

The food is really good and really cheap, total cost of a tab at a sit down restaurant is usually no more than four or five dollars a person, no tipping here (for anything).

The language is tough, it is not something you can just pick up, also I keep reverting to Spanish. I will bump into some one and say "Lo siento" Or I will just say "si" when asked a question.  I guess my brain is trained to think, "They don't speak English? Well, they must speak Spanish." But it doesn't matter, because they don't know what I am saying anyway.  They use english numbers pretty regularly here so there is a lot of pointing at pictures nodding when I am trying to communicate.  

The kids I teach are really funny, they are very normal and very comparable to American students.  Just their parents are much more involved and they are in school or classes from eight to nine in the morning until seven or eight at night.

It is very easy to live here, minus the language barrier. It is a very organized place and things are different, but the different things still make since.  I've been having fun making new friends and seeing different things.  Koreans are very quirky and nice.  The old women are especially quick to help if I look confused.  I will post more interesting posts and stories in the future.  This just gets all the formalities out of the way.  

If you would like to reach me, Stmattern@gmail.com is the best address to get me at.  I can be reached on Skype (which is very easy and free way to talk) by searching my user name, Stmattern.

My address is:

Jeongbal POLY Magnet
 5th Floor Myung Moon B/D 1145 Jeongbalsandong

Ilsandonggu Goyangsi Kyounggido South Korea 410-829

I am getting a phone next week and I will let everyone know the number when I know.

Here is a slide show of Lake Park.  I know it is redundant but when I tried to post pictures on here and they all came out super small and low quality.  But  a slide show had a little better quality and I could add nice music to go along.  Then I kind of figured out what I needed to do to get pictures on here that are big enough to see.  Anyway here is a low quality slide show of Lake Park, with music.