My biggest problem, I believe, is my inability to explain to the children what I want from them in Korean. When I'm scolding them for misbehavior, I'm sure it just sounds like a bunch of scary gibberish. In fact, I know this to be true because I had a student today say, "Jessie Teacher! We don't know what you want. Say in Korean!" My Korean is getting better. Much better. I can understand a lot of what my students are saying to me and even respond accordingly. My scolding vocabulary is just rather scant.
On the topic of my Korean skills, whenever I speak Korean to my kids they either break off into fits of giggles or say, "OooooooOOoooo!" I asked my 7 year olds today if I sounded funny. They said no and told me that I sounded very good. The teachers have told me that it just sounds cute when a foreigner tries to speak Korean. But it's not just children that do this. It's everyone. Pretty much any Korean that I spend any amount of time around reacts thusly when I speak Korean to them. It's a bit of a damper on your confidence, having someone laugh at you or go, "OooOooOo, you speak Korean!" (pronounce with thick asian accent). But as it seems to be innocent enough and you can't get away from it, it's just something you have to get over.
Apparently my kids also speak Chinese. One of the students broke out some Chinese in class. This conversation ensued.
Random student: Jasper! This isn't the time for Chinese!
Me: Jasper, you can speak Chinese?
Jasper: Yes, everyone can (gesturing to the class).
Me: I can't.
Jasper: (looks up at me) I know.
Gee, thanks kid. :P
It looks like I've started my new job in a time of political upheaval. My old supervisor finished her last day of work at the end of my first week. I had a new supervisor by my 6th day of work. Since then, a war has ensued between her and the English teachers. The battlefield was laid open today as I watched the women argue in rapid Korean. It seems the first battle went to my supervisor. As a result, all of my fellow English teachers have put in notice and are quitting at the end of this month.
I'm rather nervous about it. This is the second time a trainer(s) has thrown me into the deep end and walked away before I felt ready to swim. We'll see how it goes.
Alan has been doing well with his new position. The professor changed his research project but Alan seems to be rather indifferent about it. So he's currently researching ways to make a new compound of interest. I'll have to let him speak for himself in regards to what he's been up to.
We've started dancing again. After about a month long hiatus, I was really starting to miss it (my feet might say otherwise). Tomorrow evening, Alan and I are teaching a beginning ballroom lesson on campus at UNIST. We practiced a bit this evening and it made me a bit nostalgic for the countless hours of dance practice we put in at Case. We decided on cha cha and tango for tomorrow and get about an hour to teach them. Afterwards, I believe we are heading out to spend a salsa-filled weekend in Busan.
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| songpyeon |
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| Korean hanboks |
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| Korean hanbok |
their entire extended family. Sound familiar? Shame there's no turkey. Instead, the traditional holiday food is called songpyeon. They're essentially sweet rice cakes filled with nuts or other goodies and are steamed with pine needles.
More observations about Korea.
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| This was the best picture of the scars I could find. On my kids, the scars are just older, paler, and faded. |
I started noticing that a lot of my kids had these weird 3x3 grid scar patterns on their upper left arm. Today I realized that it's not just some of the kids. Every single child has one. I asked my elementary students what it was from, but their English vocabulary only enabled them to tell me that they were shots received as infants. I did some research and found out that they're from vaccines. One 3x3 scar pattern is from the TB vaccine and the second one, below the first, is from the smallpox vaccine.
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| keloid scar |
This grid-like pattern of injection seems to be a more recent implementation. In earlier years, the vaccines were given as a single injection and often formed larger, raised scars called keloids. I've actually seen these scars too, but never realized they were from shots.
If you were previous unaware, meals in Korea are communal. Wherever you go. At a restaurant, you do not order individual meals for yourselves like in the States. You order for the table and then you just take what you want. Better eat quickly too or all the good stuff will be gone! My meals at school are like this too. I share with the other English teachers (though I generally only eat the rice...I've found Korean food to be a little hard to enjoy). It's not bad, but sometimes I do find myself missing my own plate of food. Also, water is not served. Generally, you can find a pitcher somewhere against the wall, but you go get it yourself. I think Koreans just go indefinitely without water and I've established that they are biologically related to the camel. Alan and I go through glass after glass of water at our table while the Koreans all around us don't even have cups.
You never see anyone exercising here, bicyclists being an exception. Apparently all the runners come out at night. You must be fit, but no one can see you working towards it. Shhh.
I had heard rumors that Korean toothpaste does not contain fluoride, a component involved in enamel strengthening. The consensus seems to be that fluoride-containing toothpaste is available but not as common. Whatever the problem, most of my students have some degree of tooth rot. The irony in this is that Koreans brush their teeth after every meal. The students (and teachers!) all have toothbrushes at school and everyone brushes their teeth after eating. Doesn't seem to be doing much for them.
So, that's it for today's update!
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