I'll (not) Be Home For Christmas....

Merry Christmas!

I've been dreading this holiday for a while and I'm not quite sure what to write about it.  It's strange to be away from my family and friends but it hasn't been as difficult as expected so far (it's 4pm on Christmas day) This morning my group of friends got together for 'breakfast' (we didn't start eating until about 11:30 ish) and did a Secret Santa gift exchange (I got an awesome fuzzy blanket, a magic spells note book, a really cute bookmark and some of my favorite Ferrero Rocher chocolates OMNOMNOMNOMNOM).  After that, I went home and skyped with my dad and now I'm watching all of the classic Christmas movies, waiting for it to be Christmas morning back home to Skype with my mom and siblings!

Over the past month I've been getting presents and cards in the mail from my family, which has been amazing.  It feels great to get things in the mail even if you're expecting them and know what's inside. I feel so grateful to have such an amazing family and great friends who send me letters and things! It really makes me feel less isolated from everyone :)

Christmas isn't as big of a thing in Korea as it is in North America.  Schools only close for the day and, from what I could gather from my kids, very few families actually celebrate Christmas.  Even today, there are stores and caffe's open as they would be on any other day.  It makes me realize how much of a foreigner and a minority I really am. 

My conversations with students also made me realize how ignorant they are of world religions.  Many of them didn't seem to realize that Christmas was actually a religious holiday (aside from the few who practice the Christian faith) and non of them could name any other December holidays!! They hadn't heard of Hanukkah or Kwanza!  I can understand them not fully understanding the meaning of these holidays (I'm certainly no expert) but to not even know they exist!?!?!

In preparation for Christmas, my Hanvit Family got the classic family photos taken, including are two most recent arrivals Sarah and Tilly (Tilly had only been here for a few days before the pictures).  Needless to say, we have very few personal boundaries in the group and I hope we didn't freak them out too much (the photographer was certainly a little alarmed when we created a huge dog-pile). It was a good time. We laughed, we suffocated each other…the usual.

My Korean lessons are progressing! I can now introduce myself and others! I can also write my name in Hangul (though I disagree with how my teacher told me it should be spelt.  It's written in a Korean accent :( 

Keryll: 케를

I am Keryll: 제는 케를 이에요

I am Canadian: 제는 케나다 사람 이에요

I am an English teacher: 제는 영어 산상님 이에요

Pies, signatures and symbols

Oh no! It has been a month since my last post! Sorry about that...

A lot and not a lot has happened during November.  We celebrated American thanksgiving with a lovely pot-luck meal (squeezing 15 people into one of our small apartments was interesting). We even managed to buy apple and pumpkin pie (in two separate entities respectively)! Thank God for Costco!

The school has also decided to change out contracts and are asking us to sign new ones. The main changes are to do with our holidays.  In the past, the public schools have coordinated their winter exam period so that they all happen at the same time.  Normally we would get that time off.  This year, however, the schools are not aligning the exams, which means that there isn't a good time for the Hagwon to shut down, leaving us without a break ( aside from Christmas day and New Years and the Lunar New Year in February).  Our school, in response, is trying to give us floating holidays and if we don't get the right amount of days off during the year, they'll simply tac them on to the end our contract and let us stop teaching a few days early.  These changes have caused a fair amount of uneasiness among the staff which isn't helped by the fact that ever few days they would tell us something different.  Hopefully we will have the finalized new contracts soon to look over.

This whole conundrum has also brought to our attention the difference between how N. Americans and Koreans understand the work 'contract'.  It appears that Koreans see it more as a general agreement that can be changed and altered at any time, whereas North Americans see it as a... shall we say a more serious document which should be followed? I don't think the school is trying to take away out vacation, but there are a lot of horror stories about school who don't uphold their contracts and the foreign teachers end up in bad situations.  Apparently our hagwon is not aware of these stories and they were quite confused about why we were panicking about the changes.

On another note, I started Korean lessons! I had my first lesson yesterday.  I signed up for a beginner class, which means that the material was mostly a review for me since I had already taught myself the basics.  We spend the full 11/2 hours on learning how to read the hangeul alphabet.

There are 40 characters that can be broken down into 14 consonants and 10 vowels.  The other 16 characters are combinations of the characters that create different sounds.  The consonant characters are supposed to represent the placement of your tongue or lips when you make the sound.  For example, sounds that are make with a closed mouth (m,p,b) all have a closed square.  The symbols for sounds such as n,d,r,t are all based around a L shape because the tip of your tongue is up.

Easy.

The vowels are a completely different story (literally).  The vowels, when broken up into the fundamentals, are made up of 3 shapes;

` l __   a dot, a vertical line, and a horizontal line. The shapes represent all things on Earth. The sun (dot), human beings/animals (l) and the ground (__)

Vowels are either vertical or horizontal and the placement of 'the sun' (which is actually written as a short line, not a dot) determines whether the sound is dark or bright. For horizontal lines, if the sun is above the ground it's a bright vowel, if it's below, it's dark.  The vertical vowels also follow the placement of the sun, which rises in the East and sets in the West, so obviously if the dot/line is on the right side of the larger vertical line, it's a bright vowel and if it's on the left, it's a darker vowel.

Following me so far?

Unfortunately, this lovely philosophy goes astray very quickly after this.  In order to create a 'y' sound (as in yellow, not party), you simply add an extra sun... Also, a 'W' sounds is only created when you put a vertical and horizontal vowel together. It itself doesn't have a symbol outside of the vowel combinations.

There are also twin consonants to worry about.  The different between 'g' and 'gg' are very interesting. Essentially, a 'gg' sound is louder that a 'g' sound. More forceful. You only get these twins with g,d,b,s, and j.

Also, the symbol that creates a guttural 'ng' sound, when placed at the beginning of a word that begins with a vowel, makes no noise. This only seems strange until you try to say a word that starts with an 'ng' sound... in any language. You just kinda choke on your own tongue.

Add it all up and you get 40! Cheers!