Halloween at my hagwon

They're late, but here are a few photos of my adorable kids from Halloween... taken with my own camera!  I'll write about the purchasing experience eventually (it's a story for sure), but I will quickly announce that I am a happy owner of a Canon 1100D!  Now to figure out how to use it well!

Halloween is not traditionally a Korean holiday.  Many of the students got to see a Jack-o-lantern for the first time.  The wonder in these kids' voices and eyes was a beautiful thing.
"There's fire inside!"

Actually, it was Jinny's and my first time making a Jack-o-lantern, too!

Jinny, that brilliant girl, brought in face paint for the kids.  This is Ruby with a dragonfly.

Eva and hearts and Jinny with paint

Here's my whole beautiful class.  All the girls were princesses (we had two Cinderellas), one Power Ranger, and one wizard.  Aren't they adorable?  I'm trying to convince at least one of them to come home with me to America.

Go figure, I'm human!

After 3.5 months of being in love with Seoul, Korea's gave me my first dose of culture shock!  And!  It's reminded me that I'm human and susceptible to human things.  (Hooray for humbling experiences!)  Honestly, I thought I was untouchable in this area.  I've traveled abroad a lot, I love cultures, I love people, and I love Seoul.  How could I possibly get negative vibes from this place?  Well, surprise, I still go through certain emotions just like everyone else.  Lindsay, you're loved, but you're not the best thing ever.

("Thanks, God.  I needed that.")

God beating down my pride is always a good thing, but the culture shock can be a little upsetting. All of a sudden I realized that people see me as a foreigner here.  Back home, I used to enjoy being a certain kind of different.  Here, though, it's just because of the shape of my nose and eyes.   It's just automatic when the people here make when they just see my face.  There's no need to look into my personality or my heart, they know that I am "other."  I've stopped looking people in the eyes on the street and the subway because I don't want to catch them looking at me. 

I'm doing fine, don't worry.  I've talked to many good friends who care about me about it, and they've been able to offer excellent insight and compassion, both of which have been necessary and extremely helpful for moving on.  With counsel, I've been able to identify this as culture shock and, this is so cool, now that it's been labeled, it's not an enemy anymore.  It's normal, I'm not freaking out, and I'm not going to stay in this phase.  Awesome!

The coolest part: I'm not alone.

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For more thoughts on living in a foreign country, check out my Open Letter to Expats.

Stay away from evil... right?

Warning: This is a conceptual post in which I essentially think out loud.  This is something I'd talk about with my close friends, and, most of them are back in the States right now, but I still want to talk about these things.  I would love for you guys to add to the discussion in the comments.

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Stay away from evil.

...Right?

Well, okay, okay.

Stay away from evil, yes, but away from evil people?  No.

Is that better?

Not good enough?

How about we just stay away from the appearance of evil then.

We can hang out with whomever we want (or whomever we think needs Jesus), but we can't look like we're actually doing what they're doing.   How's that?

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Here I tell you about the first principle of mine that's been challenged while living here in Korea.

When I came to Korea, I was prepared for the culture shock that was sure to come.  I have never lived in Asia before, I have never even lived in a city before, and I have never been a teacher before.  But I was ready.  Strangely enough, I've had hardly any adjustment, it's as if I've slipped right into a location I was made for.  Yeah, I wish I knew the language so I could communicate well, but there's hand motions and dictionaries for that.  (And I've started Korean lessons!)

I would boldly say that Korea hasn't given me any culture shock.  No, it's actually come from the foreigners at work.

I grew up in a very sheltered, nurturing Christian environment.  I've been enrolled in a Christian school for all but three years of my sixteen years of education.  I've worked with some unbelievers at a pizza shop and at an office supplies store, but that was only up to eight hours a day, and most of my time was spent with customers or pizza dough, anywhere.

Then I moved here.

The 16 of us foreign teachers live in the same neighborhood.  We hang out with each other all the time.  We live together, two by two.  Daniel and I will have been in the same apartment for two months this weekend.  We eat together, we drink together, we go to norebong together, and we have out-of-town adventures together.  I'm with these people almost as much as I was with my college friends back in the dorm days.

These people are different than the folks I've been around before.  They do, say, believe, and laugh at very different things.

I love them.  In fact, I like them.  I enjoy their company.  They enjoy mine (from what I gather).  We hang out at the bars.  We talk about whatever.  We discuss where life comes from.

This is the opposite of what I used think I was supposed to do.

I knew we were supposed to evangelize to unbelievers, and I later found out we were supposed to develop relationships with them, but am I supposed to go to the bars with them?

In her conventionality shattering post "Grace Runs," Alece Ronzino details Jesus' experiences with the appearances of evil.

(Since that post was the inspiration for my own, I suggest/ask/implore you to read it.  It's excellent.)

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What do you think?

What the kiddos say

My second graders had a test on changes in states of matter.  Here's Danny's answer for the question "How can you change the size and shape of a solid?"

We can change solid. We can cut.

We can change solid.  We can fold.

We can change solid.  We can rip.

We can change solid.  We can throw into the volcano.

This kid is going places, just hopefully not to the ward for pyromania.

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Another one of my classes, my fourth grade National Geographic class, had a test on the Indonesian Rainforest. This was our second test over the material and, instead of the standard matching, multiple choice, or what have you, I decided to make this an essay test.  I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner.  What I get back on their test papers is blog post gold!

Question #4 asked them to describe a global problem and a solution.  A couple wrote about global warming, but most of them wrote about the conflict between North and South Korea.  I love talking with the students about this issue.  Everyone has an opinion, and everyone is passionate about it.  Here's what some of them said.

The problem was a 38° line.  The North Korea want to get a South Korea too.  And a North Korea person didn't have enough food for eat.  So South Korea and North Korea will be a friend, and we give a food for them.  Then we can will be a reunification.

-Sally

The North Korea and South Korea is in DMZ is problem, because the North Korea and South Korea were one country, if the family lived another country in North Korea and South Korea they can't meet every day so it is very sad thing.  We need to do not hate each other, have think about we are one country and talk with North Korea.  And we can reunification.

-Julie

Problem is North and South is cut two countrys.  We can kick out Kim-Jung-Il and made one country.  And we can destroyed a DMZ and reunification.

-Fire

I really love getting to know people's minds.  I never stopped to think how much I would get to do that as a teacher.  I have my own kind of adventure exploring the uncharted territory of my students' ideas,  passions, and interests.  I honestly find it quite fascinating, and I always jump on any opportunity to get away from the curriculum and into something they genuinely care about.

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Here's the last story for the day.

My science class has started learning about force e.g. pushing and pulling.  This picture was an example of one of those, and the students correctly answered "Pulling."  Then I said, "And who can me tell which flag this is?"

Without any hesitation whatsoever, Kelly boldly shouted, "New York!"

"No, honey, no.  But good try.  Very good try."

Pepero Day 2011

November 11 was Pepero Day in Korea.  The four "1's" in the date resemble the Pepero sticks, and this encouraged either brilliant marketers or a group of wishful girls in Busan to start the trend of buying these delicious cookie sticks by the hundreds and passing them out to people you like.   (One tradition goes that the Busan girls prized the cookies for their thinness.  I'm glad my role model isn't a food product.)

My first class of the day gave me a couple boxed of these tasty treats which I turned into gifts for the next class who also gave me boxes that I gave to the next class and so on.  I didn't have to buy any Pepero but had plenty for all of my students throughout the day and I had some left over for myself.

The best part of the day was realizing that this had actually been my best teaching day since starting.  I completely held the students' attention when I was using Pepero sticks as an incentive for class participation, the kids were already hyped up on sugar, and we all have a blast.

Even the coffee shop chain Paris Baguette got in on the party with their "peperoll" pastry."

Yep, this stash is going to last us a long time.

Peter was so pumped to get to eat Pepero in class.  Best day ever!

"Okay, kids!  Let's show kids in America what Pepero Day is like!"

"Teacher, how quickly can I finish my test without you suspecting me of rushing so I can eat cookies?"

It's probably not proper teacher etiquette to photograph the class while they're taking a test, but, we didn't cover that in my training, so I had at it.

Back in the teacher's room:
Behold the haul.

Here is my lovely Korean co-teacher and pseudo sister Jinny with peanut Pepero.

Happy Pepero Day!

Korea and me

As I write to you, I am sitting out on my balcony finishing off a small bowl of blueberry yogurt oatmeal mush.  I got the idea from this recipe, and just went to Costco this morning to find the proper ingredients, but the final product didn't turn out exactly like the inspiration.  Even still, it's quite delicious, and it's definitely going on my frequent dish list.

Being in Korea has significantly limited me in what I can cook.  That's been the biggest drawback.  Certain foods are rarer or just harder to find, and the labels are mostly in Korean which I still can't fully understand.  I'm relying heavily on pictures and familiar brand names right now.  Also, as I figured out last weekend at the Gangnam station shopping area, being surrounded by a foreign language and a foreign people can be overwhelming.  (Who knew?)  After a few minutes of filing in with the bustle of the Koreans hunting for what they want, if I can't find what I'm looking for, I'll give up, quickly make my way out of the store, and step outside for some fresh air and no communication requirements.

While it's more difficult to find the groceries I want, I'm surely not starving.  I learned quickly how to order the delicious foods on the menus here.  The words dolsot bibimbap*, chamchi bonjuk*, and jap chae* are second nature to me now.  

Finding good food has been a small and conquerable challenge.  I'd forgotten that I would need to by contact solution, makeup, and other hygiene products, though.  I'd brought enough toothpaste and floss to last me the whole year, but I didn't even think of these other things.  Thankfully, there was never a need to worry.  There are many, many different cosmetic/skin shops.  I'm quite surprised at how plentiful they are.  There's usually a couple in the large subway stations, and they are on every corner in the nicer areas where we usually go for dinner or for shopping.  These shops have names like Inisfree, Face Shop, and Skin Food.  (That's not even half of them!)  And, is it just me, or do you just want to buy something from Inisfree?  Doesn't that just sound healthy and beautiful?

So, yes, I am quite taken care of in the beauty realm.  (I've even found a fantastic shampoo that makes me feel fabulous.)  I never need to go far for stationary, either.  Nor coffee.  Nor fruit, dry cleaning, baked goods, homegrown vegetables, money, and street food.  My small neighborhood has all these things in abundance, and it's really nice to not have to walk more than 5 minutes to get what I need.

Like slippers.

Yes, these are my slippers.  They are very Korean, and they make me laugh.

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Dolsot bibimbap - A Korea dish consisting of rice and vegetables like fern stems, dried seaweed, and bean sprouts.  A semi-raw egg is set on top, and the whole dish is served in a sizzling stone pot.  When mixed all together, the egg cooks and covers the rice with its delicious butteriness.  This is my favorite Korean food by far.

Chamchi bonjuk - Korean porridge with tuna mixed in (The porridge here is super healthy, and the Koreans eat it when they are sick.  I tried it for the first time when I had food poisoning last weekend.)

Jap chae - A Korean sweet potato noodle and vegetable dish that moms make when they're tired (like the American equivalent of spaghetti)

Korean vlog #5 - On Coffee

Instead of apologizing for not following up on my plan to post videos bi-monthly, I'll distract you with this!!

(The footage is about two months old.  Just, don't pay attention to that...)

See other vlog entries: One, Two, Three, Four

The captain of the police gave me his phone number today. No big.

Image via Daum
I like Korean policemen.  They keep me safe.

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I went to one of the small locally owned convenience stores today to pick up some prizes for students who won a speech contest.  This particular convenience store is usually very friendly and welcoming.  I usually don't feel like I'm a big deal there.

Well, I wasn't the only customer today.  The first man I saw had on a bright orange vest with "Police" written across the back.  He and the second customer seemed to be buddy buddy with the shop owner.  The three of them were bustling around preparing for Pepero Day*.  I felt a little in the way, so I waited till there was room for me to pick out the gum I needed for my kids.  I stood patiently by the counter till Policeman motioned me forward and Shop Owner stepped behind the counter.  Then the heretofore unlabeled fella asked me, "Where are you from?"

"Ah... Miguk saram eeyehoh..."

"Oh, okay.  Where in America?"

"Georgia?  Atlanta?"  (Of course I always ask in a question.  Who knows Georgia when there's New York, California, and Washington State to be familiar with?)

"Ah.  Okay okay.  You know policeman?"

"Uh, yes.  Otokeh malheyo?"  I asked how to say "policeman" in Korean thinking that we were just having a simple conversation.  Little did I know, this dude was after something.

"Have you been to police box?" he asked.

"Yes!  I went to the police box once.  I was lost, and they told me how to get to my school.  They were very nice."

"Ah.  So they helped you find your way?"

"Yes!"

"Ah, okay.  I am police captain.  Do you think you can come in one time and talk about the Georgia police?  It would help me."

Well, gosh darn, what do I say next?   I would love to humor him, but I know that comparisons between the Geogian police force and the Irwon-dong police force wouldn't be of much help considering the covered areas and their people are extremely different.  Spread out suburban soccer families vs. squished together apartment tiger moms?  Even if I were to compare the more compact Atlanta to Irwon, there's a pretty significant difference wrapped up in this one word: GUNS.  America has them.  Korea doesn't.

You read that right, they don't have guns here.  As The Korean from AskAKorean.com has said, "In practice, only hunters own guns in Korea. (And hunters are not many in Korea.) By regulation, hunters cannot keep their guns all the time -- they must keep their guns at the police station during off-season. Handguns are pretty much nonexistent among civilians."

I was hanging out with one of my Korean friends who got his degree in Canada.  When I asked him why he chose to go to Canada over the States, after first mentioning the great tuition difference, he said he wouldn't feel safe in the USA.  "They have guns there."

This conversation occured when I had been here only a month and a half.  I had just learned about this firearm regulation, and I naturally found it strange.  I spent 12 years in The South where the boys go to school in their camo with their rifles waiting for them in the beds of their trucks.  My sister got a .22 for Christmas one year, and it was always a special treat when either of us could go hunting with Dad.

It was all I could do to not gawk at my friend in sheer amusement.  I may have actually snickered when I heard later about how all of Seoul was virtually shut down once so that they could find a gun that supposedly got through the airport's security check.

All that was a pretty big aside.  What I set out to say was this: I now have the Police Captain's number in me cell phone!  He has mine, too.

I never would have thought something like this would happen, not in America, not in Korea, not ever, but I think it's kind of cool.  I really appreciate when people put themselves out to help me make this Korean experience a personal one.  Like the street vendor who beckoned my foreign friends and I to his shop with eating motions.  If he hadn't been selling squid, I would have walked right up and bought  10,000 ₩ worth just because he treated us like normal people.

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Pepero Day- November 11th.  Pepero is the name of long, skinny chocolate-cookie sticks.  They're tasty and make a fun snack.  The four ones of 11-11 look like Pepero sticks, you see, and the manufacturers got a brilliant idea and decided to claim this day as the day to buy, share, and scarf down the delicious cookie sticks.  Seriously. Marketing Genius.

Prepare yourself for pictures.  I'm bringing Pepero Day to you soon.

Classroom quotes

"You don't like to give speeches?  Why not?"

"Because, teacher, in my head there is full of think."

- Brian (7)

"Why do you like to cook, Owen?"

"Because I am hungry man."

- Owen (7)

One of my students wrote a journal entry about "Aengguribeodeu."

Translation: Angry birds

- Andy (9)

Another entry about bad habits read like this:

"My bad habits is not be humble to my class teacher.  So I'm a bad student.  My class teache hate me.  I hate my class teacher too."

- Donghyun (9)

(He was talking about his public school teacher, by the way, not myself nor my Korean partner teacher.)

In my training, they never told me to not have favorites.  Donghyun is one of my favorites.  He has a scoundrel's charm about him, and he knows it.  He leans back and turns his head in when he smiles, he has that bad boy edge, and his dark skin looks good with every color.  This kid is going to be a lady killer.

When I asked Donghyun about a good habit he has, he told me, "I am always honest."

"Donghyun, are you serious?"

"Yes, Teacher."  He smiled that smile.

"Are you joking?"

"Teacher. I am always honest."

"Donghyun, come on.  Really?  Are you being honest right now?"

His affirmative reply was tinged with haughty offense at having his honor questioned.  Ha, whatever, kid, your wiles won't work on me!

An open letter to expats

Dear expat or potential expat,

You are going to be in a different country!  You're excited, maybe a littler nervous, and you're checking to make sure you have enough peanut butter in your suitcase before you head off into the different.  In this country, there will be different foods, different laws, different bugs, a different language, different paradigms of modesty, different ideals, and different smells.  There may be different plumbing or none at all.  But you are going , and your host country is accepting you.

Again, that's Host country.

Okay, now let's get serious.

Tell me, how do you act when you go to someone's house for dinner?  Do you talk in front of them about how you don't like the meal they prepared?  Do you make fun of their style choices?  Do you complain about the cleanliness of their bathroom?  Do you whine about how you can't pick up cell phone service?

If your answer is yes, then you have no business traveling anywhere besides maybe your local Wal-Mart.  The people there are used to dealing with ungrateful cry babies.  Even so, you shouldn't make anyone suffer through your attitude.  Please, stay home.

If, however, you make an excellent house guest, then, by all means, test the foreign waters and get out there and experience a new culture!  Just be sure to take with you the important knowledge that you are, in fact, a guest, and do all you can to be the kind that would be invited back.

For example (or, "Expat Requirements")

Welcome to Korea, now contain these children.

After two weeks of blurry jet lagged training, I got thrown into what we call Intensives.  These classes run each day for a month when the Korean kids have a break from their usual Korean school.  (I'm really, really glad my mom didn't make me go to school during my summer break, by the way.)  I was in charge of these three 40-minute long storybook classes.  Each class went through one book each week.  I love children's stories, and i generally like kids, but these classes were ridiculous.

Now I'm able to look back with a fondness, but back in the day (that would be August), these kiddos were shaving years off my life with their lovable rambunctious antics.

I had these kids first thing in the morning.  Su Hyun, Daniel, David, Amy, and Tony was out that week because he was hanging out in America.  Seriously.

Having this class first eased the blow the rest of the classes left.  In fact, the insanity gradually grew as each new class period begun.  These kids were good kids.  They listened, responded (for the most part), and the two girls were the sweetest.  In fact, I think I'd win the argument that Su Hyun is the best behaved girl in SLP.  I still see her in the halls occasionally, and she always beams at me and gives me some of the snack she has in her hand.

Class #2.  More kids, less teacher control, but more teacher apathy, too.  We had Robert Munsch stories for this class.  His books are great, but they do not last long when you're reading them.  They surely don't last for a whole week.  We watched lots of videos, played lots of games, and acted out the stories to take up time.  They loved acting out Something Good.  The girl in the pink dress, Michelle, loves attention, and, when everyone else pretended to be shy, she jumped into the lead role and won the hearts of the audience (myself).

Meet the terrors.
From top left going clockwise: Jason, Gundam, Oscar, Harry, and that's Andy in the middle.

Each of these classes had two other teachers while I was occupied with one.  All of us agreed.  We hated this class.  Yes, I sound like a terrible teacher.  The thing is, one on one, these kids aren't too terrible, but, put the together and they are the embodiment chaos.  One of the kids, James, is missing from our class photos.  I forget why he was absent, and I didn't care why he was absent, I was honestly just glad that there was one less boy to try to harness.

Every chance they'd get, they stuck out their fingers and pretended to shoot each other.  They made sound effects with their mouths and acted fairly realistically when they got shot with machine guns.  I never thought I'd be saying things like, "You can't shoot the teacher" and "No guns at the table!"  I certainly never thought I'd have to say them multiple times in 40 minutes.

I got to monitor the kids, not only for the storybook time, but also for a 20 free-for-all break and for their 40-minute lunch.  As soon as they were finished eating their food, they ran to the blocks, perfected their bazookas, and had at it.  If it wasn't war game, it was "James is a zombie."  I've heard a lot about how boys need to be boys, but I never thought they'd want to be boys ...like this ...all the time.  It was exhausting.

They would all be playing during every spare moment and also during class.  If you were listening outside my classroom door, you'd hear "Andy! Stop kicking Oscar!" "Oscar, pay attention, please."  "James! What did I tell you about guns at the table!" "Gundam, stop interrupting everybody!"  "Oscar, I need you to pay attention."  "James, speak up, please."  "Andy!  No sir!  Feet off the wall!"  "James, what the heck are you doing?!"  "Andy!  Stand outside until I tell you to come back in!"  "Oscar!  Pay! Attention!"
I swear, only 10 minutes of that class was anything close to learning English.

Would you believe it, though?  They each had their endearing qualities.  Now I love getting to see them in the hall on their way to their regular classes.  Gundam's constant interruptions make me smile to think how conversational and curious and engaging he is.  James taught me how to make the machine gun sound when I asked.  Andy was a wealth of entertainment with his painted fingernails, beach-wear shorts, and... a purse that his grandmother sent with him to school.  Oscar, well, he has a cute smile when he's not just staring into space with his mouth gaping open and his nose wrinkled up to keep his glasses on.  And James.  Always the sweetheart.  Always the first to sit nicely.  Always the one eager to help with dishing out lunch.  The kimchi lover.  Oh yes, he has my deepest friendship for being some kind of balance in that class.  He is still all boy, but there are glimmers of something else there.

Here's what I mean.  For lunch, we got containers of food, trays, spoons, and chopsticks.  I always let the boys help set things out, and they usually enjoyed getting to be a part of that, and I took the chance to rest my mind a little as I handled the big hot things and they squirreled around the room with the tongs and the kimchi.  Midway through the month, lunchtime started to get more chaotic when our lunch set started getting a couple smaller spoons mixed in with our silverware.  Apparently, these were baby spoons, and, apparently, Gundam would rather die than be left with one.  He pitched a winy, cry baby fit every time the baby spoon landed at his tray.  Near the beginning of this saga, I took the baby spoon because I didn't want to deal with the issue.  He remembered that and tried to switch with me on later occasions.  Here's where James stepped in.  He knew the spoons had been doled out.  He knew that it wasn't a big deal for Gundam to get the baby spoon.  But he knew that it was not right for the teacher to get the baby spoon.  He argued and fought with Gundam to make sure that I kept the regular spoon.  Did you catch that?  James defended my honor.  A 7-year-old!  Already practicing chivalry!  And already winning girls' hearts.

These pictures pretty much sum things up.

Intensives were a crazy time, but a good and usually fun experience.  I sure did come out of it with some great stories.