"Lorrelbrade"

Hi again! It has been far too long since my last post! I do apologize for that, but since I am now entering my fifth month here, there is not much that is really that new or exciting happening in my daily life and I rather not bore you with my everyday routine, so instead i am saving some interesting/humorous stories to blog about.

I know I mentioned in my last post that I was planning on going to a cherry blossom festival... but that didn't exactly turn out as planned. It hasn't been nearly as warm here as it has for those of you in Toronto (even Ottawa so I hear) which lead to a lot of festivals being cancelled due to poor weather conditions (some of the cherry blossoms have yet to bloom...!) What would the point of going to a Cherry Blossom festival be when half of the trees haven't even blossomed?! So that, as well as our lack of planning, was the basis for our absence at the festival. Oh well, there are plenty of beautiful (half-blossomed) cherry trees around my apartment that I can look at... for free :)

Today was the first HOT day we have had since the beginning of spring! It was so gorgeous today I walked to work in a t-shirt and capris...only to arrive at my desk with a black over sized HEATER blowing behind my chair. Not only is that the biggest waste of energy EVER but why the hell was there a heater on full blast on practically the nicest day of the year?!!? Last week when it randomly snowed (crazy, I know) there was noooo heater in sight! It's just hard to understand their logic I suppose. Even during the winter season, they would keep the windows wide open in the hallway so I would clench my attendance folders and notebooks close to my chest and run from classroom to classroom! Now, when it's starting to warm up the windows are shut and the heaters are blowing. Doesn't make any sense to me?!

I'm sure I have said before that Koreans are very hard working individuals. I mean, other than the fact that these kids are in school 24 hours a day, construction sites are pretty much built overnight! The other day I walked into work and noticed 2 men moving around some of the furniture in the lobby just in front of where we (foreign teachers and secretaries) sit. The bell rang and I was off to teach my morning class. When I returned a mere 45 minutes later, no joke, there was a 20 ft tall brown wooden book shelf built into the wall and not only that, it was already FILLED with books!! I was only gone for 45 MINUTES!! How in the world......? Oh Korea!

Anyways, since I felt bad about not making it to the Cherry Blossom festival, some friends and I decided to go on a mission Friday night after work. We all met at the bus terminal at 930pm with the clothes on our backs and got tickets for the first bus out of Gwangju. At 945pm we were on a bus headed to a town south of Gwangju called Mokpo. Nothing really special in Mokpo, but we thought we would check it out and since it was only an hour away, we didn't even need to spend the night. Mokpo is right on the coast, however it was dark when we arrived so we didn't actually get to see the water. It is even smaller than Gwangju, so of course we stood out like sore thumbs but all of us new enough (minimal) Korean to request the cab driver drop us off at a bar downtown! We went straight to the downtown area, had a couple drinks, met some cool people and then headed back to Gwangju at 7am! Thankfully no one had any expectations because I'm sure we would have been disappointed... but all in all we had a pretty enjoyable time!

Actually a friend of mine who moved to Gwangju a month or 2 ago, was previously living in a very small town about 3 hours away where there were only 5 other foriegners!! Just to put it into perspective for you, Gwangju has just under 100 foreign teachers (I believe) and Seoul, probably over one thousand! Her Principal asked if they could take some photos of her and without questioning it, she agreed (assuming it had to do with her alien card and registration). About a week later as she headed out to the grocery store, she noticed huge billboards of her face on a bus and on the sides of buildings! They used her face as propaganda to win over more students by proving they hire foreign teachers even in such quaint locations! I'm not sure if that conversation with her Principal was none existent or just lost in translation. Either way she was mortified and long story short, she is now living in Gwangju, in hopes of escaping her unwanted and highly undesirable fame!

So in terms of the teaching part (you know, the whole reason why I even came to Korea) is going very well. I have noticed a change in myself in that I really don't care what these children think of me. At first, I was a little self conscious standing in front of a classroom teaching these kids something I just read myself about 25 minutes ago, but now I can say that Iam pretty confident in my teaching abilities however I am also not as much of a push over as I previously was. I end up making at least 2-3 students do push-ups every class (for either speaking when I'm speaking, using their cell phones or forgetting their books) and I am not at all afraid to send them to the office! On one side, I do sympathize with these kids in that all they do is study, however that does not give them the right to be shit disturbers in class. What I think annoys me the most is that they are extremely respectful to the Korean teachers yet they treat the foreign teachers like crap! However, being more stern with them has greatly helped and I think they are starting to realize that even though I'm a foreigner in THEIR country (they remind me of this everyday), I still have more power than they do! I actually made a boy cry the other day when I took 10 stickers from him for speaking Korean in class (that is a big no no)! It was soo hard not to give him the stickers back because, lets be real, I couldn't care less about collecting animal stickers! But of course I had to stand by my word. I do get those smart asses once in a while that do make a good point, but is still against the rules at my academy. For example, "Johnny, don't speak Korean in class!!!!" "But teacha, I AM KOREAN!" My standard answer is, "Not in my class your not!" haha no just joking. I typically explain that it is English class so we try to only speak English.

The language barrier hasn't really been THAT bad with teaching and all, but in certain situations it can be a huge inconvenience! Just before I began teaching my last grade 5 class of the day, I had 2 male students walk in and start physically throwing punches at each other, yelling and screaming in Korean! I quickly ran towards them and separated the boys but one was already crying and the other was acting like a tough guy giving the crying student dirty looks. I took them both into the hallway and tried to get them to explain what had happened. Well...that was a pretty big waste of time. They both couldn't form a proper sentence in English so basically what I got out of that confrontation was, "Carlton blew me over face pencil case my loose on ground". ?????????????
It can be very frustrating for me, as I'm sure it is for them too!

On a more humorous note, I have explained in past entries that Koreans have a very hard time distinguishing between the letter R and L. They interchange them all the time and it is VERY difficult to understand the initial word they are trying to pronounce. Especially a word like 'Rollerblade', some students pronounce as 'Lorrelbrade'... over time I have come to understand which word is being horribly mispronounced, but it is still somewhat difficult to unravel. When I was marking my students tests a couple weeks ago, my one class whom I assigned middle names too, wrote both their first and middle names on each test paper. My one student Mark (middle name, Ricky) wrote, "Mark Licky". haha! It was so cute and so hilarious! Today, I was using the computer in class which is attached to a huge projector so the kids can see exactly what I am typing, etc (the same class which asked if the woman on google with huge breasts that showed up after I typed in "CN Tower", was my sister). Anyways, something went wrong with the Internet and a message box popped up (written all in Korean of course) with 2 options to press. Either "L" or "R". Since I can't read Korean (yet) I asked my class which button I need to click on to get me back to the Internet page and literally half the class said "R" and half the class said "L"!! At first I was getting angry because I thought they were trying to mess me up on purpose and waste time so I didn't have to teach them anything for the time being (at least that's what I would do if I had a foreign teacher), but then I realized that they are actually trying to tell me which letter...but cant get it right! haha it was so funny and I couldn't stop myself from laughing out loud. After that, we spent the rest of the class pronouncing different words that begin with L and R! I made them repeat the word "ROLLERBLADE" 35 times.

Well that's about all I have for now. I recently booked my flight to Tokyo which I am super excited about! I am meeting my friend Sarah there and she is flying back to Korea with me and staying in my apartment for a week or so! I can't wait! I've only heard amazing things about Japan and Tokyo (the food being one of them)! I don't leave until May 21st so I'm sure I will have another blog post before then!

Miss you all and write more soon!

Signing off,

Gillian teacha xx

Cherry Blossom Season

A Gwangju sunset (2 minute walk from my apartment)

Koi fish- the fish of Asia (they can live up to 70 years old)

The start of Cherry Blossom Season

Working hard or hardly working?

Annyeonghaseo! Or Hello, in Korean. Sorry for the delay in posts. I've actually been pretty busy the last couple of weeks at work, writing and marking tests, copying and pasting comments for my students evaluations (at least i'm honest), as well as trying to balance a social life! It's interesting because any previous part time job I've had, I had no emotional attachment too and honestly felt no remorse for taking a sick day when I was really just hungover or showing up minutes late because I "missed the bus". I remember once when I worked in my University Terrace at Mr. Sub, I carelessly wrapped a sandwich and tossed it on the burner. One of the loose ends started heating up and within 35 seconds the turkey sub was literally flaming! The fire alarm started to sound and everyone in the cafeteria was starring at me (wearing a hairnet, by the way) as well as a now 'smoked' turkey sub. Probably one of the most mortifying experiences ever and also solidified that I probably wasn't cut out for the fast food business! Anyways, my job as an English teacher is by far the most rewarding job I have had thus far and a job that I actually care about. What lead me to this conclusion, was when I was marking 140 of my students tests. I really wanted them to do well and felt even more motivated to inspire them. After 4.5 months I have witnessed many of my students excel and progress in English and it makes me feel like I'm really helping these kids! My first week of teaching, I had a grade 2 class that couldn't answer the question "How are you". Now, they can have English conversations with each other and even explain in detail (sometimes a little too much) of what they accomplished on the weekend. One of my students spent 10 minutes of a class giving me a play by play of how he first woke up, then put on his t-shirt, pants, socks, sweatshirt, etc, etc. It was cute though and the fact that they're speaking English is all that really matters.

I do have some students though, and even an entire class which I can barely tolerate and it's sad to say, but its those bratty children that reinforce my future career of entering the Public Relations industry... NOT teaching. The other day, 2 of my grade 6 students were passing notes in the back of the class and after about 5 minutes of pretending to ignore this obvious gesture, I asked them to give me the piece of paper, ensuring them that I can't read Korean, so it wouldn't matter what it said. For some reason, they still refused to give up the note and it wasn't until I threatened them with going to the office (and ultimately getting hit) they gave me the note. For the entire 45minutes of class, these 2 girls were.....drawing an elaborate picture of MY HAIR!! haha. I didn't want to laugh because they should have been listening to me teaching, but it was quite hilarious and the picture was actually a pretty accuarte drawing.

This past weekend I, along with 20 other people from Gwangju followed Feed the Boats (my co workers band) to Seoul as they played a show at a bar downtown. I guess you can say we were their "groupies" for the night and loved being able to say "we're with the band" haha... everyone had a blast! Ryan and I took a cab to the bus terminal early Saturday morning to head to Seoul and after the 15 minute ride, we figured out (in broken English) that the cab driver's son is Ryan's grade 6 student. It made us realize how small Gwangju really is...and also that we need to be more careful cabbing home at 5am! There was a big 80s themed party downtown 2 weeks ago so a bunch of us dressed up at characters from Saved by the Bell, Breakfast Club, etc and walked around downtown being starred at that much more! My friend Jessie's student mentioned to her on Monday that she saw us all downtown the night of the party... which would probably be THE WORST night to see us teachers out on the town. We looked absolutely ridiculous and I could only imagine how that must have looked to this students parents, "Hey mom... see those hookers over there, those are my English teachers!" haha.

Feed the Boats playing in Seoul

The Gwangju "groupies" showing their support

Getting dressed up for the 80s party

80s hookers

I mean, Koeans do sort of dress like they are from a different era too. I don't know what it is but shiny suits (like what a man would typically wear to the office) are VERY popular and I'm starting to think they are somewhat of a status symbol (the shinier the tye, the more money one makes?) Who knows. Also, "couple sets" are the norm here with Korean couples. It is basically a couple wearing the EXACT SAME THING, proving to the public that they are official. It is actually hilarious to witness a couple in a couple set and it has gotten so out of hand that we foriegners have made a game out of it. You know, 'punch buggie' (a friendly punch when you see a Volkswagen Beetle drive by?) Same idea.

I know I have mentioned countless times that us foreigners are basically a spectacle here in Korea. Well I never thought about it, but at my school, the 4 foreign teachers sit right at the front of the entrance to our school. We essentially share a desk with the secreteries and are the first thing people see when they walk through the front doors. Literally every other Korean teacher at the school has their own desk and computer in a back room behind us. It's kind of ridiculous but I suppose the parents want to see what they are paying for. The reason parents send their children to our Hogwon is solely because they hire "native English speaking Teachers". There is a clear trend here where apparently "image" defines ones integrity.

Well the weather is warming up which means it is almost cherry blossom season! Next weekend I'm planning to go to a Cherry Blossom festival just South of Gwangju! Should be a lot of fun and I've heard its the most beautiful time of the year. I'm excited to spend the summer touring around the rest of Korea and camping on Islands in the South! Still after 4 and a half months I wake up excited for what's to come.

Happy Pesach to those who are eating matzot and Happy Easter to you others! Miss you all and will update you again soon.

Signing off,

Gillian xx