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!

Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay! 2 month anniversary post.

As of today (we will ignore the time change for now) , I have been over here for 2 months! It's hard to believe but it's true!  In some ways, I feel as though it's been longer, but at the same time, I feel like I'm just getting started… which I am. I'm only 1/6 of the way through my contract, after all.

I watched Bridget's Jones' Diary the other day, and so I have decided to give you an update on my stay here in the same way that she does her life updates… In a list.

days at work: 32

days not at work: 30 (the perks of only working 4 days a week, and coming right before a holiday)

Time I've sprayed myself with my shower head while attempting to brush my teeth: 5

Trips outside of Daegu: 3

Languages Learned: 0

Friends made: 12

Operas seen: 1

Yelled at by employer (directly)= 0

Angry e-mails from parents about low grades: 7ish. (these go to my Korean co-teachers. I'm sure there are a few they haven't told me about)

Student names learned: 14

Student names I can pronounce: 0

Sick days: 0

Movies seen: infinite

TV series completed from beginning to end: 3

New Hobbies: 1 (no, it is Netflix junkie'. That's more of a life-style than a hobby)

Tears shed: 0

Homesick days: 0 (though my dreams seem to be focusing more and more on my Canada life than here.)

Important birthdays missed: 2 (I won't mention names. This way everyone who's had a birthday in the last 2 months can assume that I'm talking about them)

Online shopping expeditions: 4

Lbs of rice consumed: 9 (dry rice. Not including restaurants)

Mountains climbed: 4

Temples visited: 5 (6 if you count the cave with the monk in it)

Awkward physical encounter with overly friendly Koreans: 5

Sarcastic remarks that my students didn't understand: a grateful 30

Miscommunications with the locals: 3 major ones, (but ordering at restaurants is always interesting)

Galbi meals: 5

American restaurant meals: 6

Skype dates with my parents: 8

… That's enough for now. I won't bore you.

I will share two quick stories with you before I go.

 I think I mentioned (or perhaps not) that we have phone conversations with out students after class. They sign up for them (or their parents sign them up for them) and they last for a lovely 9 minutes.  It's interesting how long 9 minutes can feel sometimes… Anyways, this week's topic is lying… one of the questions obviously being 'what do you lie about?".  One of the boys I was talking to today answered: "My brother doesn't like broccoli. So one day I made bread with broccoli in it and I didn't tell him." Now, a normal response would have been 'when my mom cooks something gross" or "when my friend asks me if she looks pretty".    If I hadn't been laughing so hard at his honest confession, I would have asked him how he managed to hide a green vegetable in a loaf of bread. Unfortunately, once I was in control of myself again, I simply moved on to the next scripted question.  I didn't quite trust myself.

My oldest students are getting ready for another round of exams at their schools, so we're not assigning  them homework.  Normally, Speaking class and Writing class are based off of their homework assignment, so we get to be a little creative about what we cover in class. Today, I chose to make them read this poem…

English is tough stuff

They did incredibly well!  Much better than I expected.  After the first 2 paragraphs, I actually stopped them to point out what the poem was doing and why it was difficult to read so that they understood why I was grinning as they read.  They all started laughing when they got to : "Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!". What made it better was the fact that the boy who was pretending to be 'too cool to care' was the one who was reading the line out loud.  He was much more interested after that…

Almost Behind Enemy Lines

I had an amazing weekend exploring the Northern border between South and North Korea. Myself and six other teachers from my Hagwan signed up for a weekend trip with EnjoyKorea!, a organization that plans weekend trips throughout the year that go to different destinations all over S. Korea. 

We left Daegu a little before 6 in the morning and spent 5 hours on a bus travelling North.  Our first stop was at the DMZ (demilitarized zone).  The DMZ is a section of the border that has been opened up to the public.  After a soldier checked the bus for bombs, it dropped us off at an area that had paths where we could walk.  We were told not to stray from the marked paths because they haven't found all of the land mines yet…

We also had to wear GPS tracker necklaces while we were there.  Since we were such a large group (there were probably around 50 of us on the bus), they assumed that we would stick together, so they only gave us 4 trackers amongst us… I guess foreigners aren't considered a safety concern.  I obviously volunteered to wear the necklace simply so that I could say that I was being tracked by military forces!

There was also a interactive land mine exhibit! …  I could tell you what it was, but I think it best to let your imagination run wild.

We also came across a display of letters that we are assuming were written to fallen soldiers.

There were, of coarse, other statues and monuments etc., along the path.  There was also an open playground/modern art exhibit area where you could run a 'military boot-camp' course, practice your sling-shot skills, and try to pet a wild, yet very calm, bunny.

The site itself was beautiful and we couldn't have asked for better fall weather!

After that, we went to an observatory that had their eyes on North Korea.  You could actually see a N. Korean soldier at his look-out post.  We were told not to take pictures of the view… but we're foreigners and don't know any better…

 

We then went to a South Korean War Museum which was extremely small and did not have to serious and gloomy feel to it that you would expect from a war museum.  It took at total of 8 minutes to walk through and mostly consisted of one sculpture (seen below), an display of helmets and bullet casing and some guns.  There was also an arcade-like game where you could use a fake gun to shoot at enemy forces… it was a weird and slightly disappointing experience.

After that, we went to 'tunnel 4', which is a tunnel that was used during the war by North Korea.  The South Koreans discovered and intersected it and has now turned it into a tourist attraction! The S.K tunnel was well drilled with smooth, curved walls.  There was precipitation on the walls that got worse that you descended deeper into the tunnel.  When you hit the T-junction they had set of a small shuttle train (sort of like a roller coaster!) that takes you through the N.K part of the tunnel right up to the designated border.  The N.K. tunnel was much more crudely built and wasn't tall enough to stand up in.  You could see holes where they had stuck dynamite stick is when they were making the tunnel.  I can only imagine what it would have been like to be using the tunnel during the war.  They would have had to walk almost single-file into enemy territory, crouching over, with cold water dripping down onto their necks from the ceiling as they went.   I'm sure they were all just hoping that there wasn't an ambush waiting for them at the other end.

We weren't allowed to take pictures in the tunnel itself, but the S. Korean soldiers who were working there were quite happy to have their picture taken with us afterwards (actually, he suggested the idea himself!)

After that, we went to the hotel-spa where we were spending the night.  When we walked into our room, we found a small kitchenette and an empty room… No beds. I was taken aback for a moment until  I remembered that I was in Asia.  There were floor sleeping pads and blankets in a closet.  Not the most comfortable hotel stay in the world, but it wasn't bad!  We had Bimbap at a restaurant nearby, grabbed some wine/beer/soju from a convenience store on the way back and spent the rest of the evening talking to a guy rom South Africa who was on the trip with us! I learned a lot about the politics and life there.  It was quite interesting!

The next day, we were dropped off at Seoraksan National Park! What at first sounded like a daunting 6 hours of hiking, turned out to be just the right amount to time to see some amazing stuff! Koreans do nature well.  There were café's restaurants, ice cream, bank machines, big Buddhist statues, everything!  All as you hike! We chose a trail that walked along a river bed with a 'rock' destination (wasn't very exciting).  It was a beautiful trail, but what was strange was the fact that it ended with a restaurant! I wouldn't want to be the one to deliver the food up there… or have to hike for an hour to get to work every day!  We then continued on to 0.6K cave hike.  It was marked as 'expert' and it actually took an hour to hike the 0.6.  It was mostly stairs going straight up a cliff… for an hour.  It was hard, but we made it and the view was amazing!  We found ourselves over-looking jagged mountain tops that could only be described as 'Asia'. Absolutely beautiful.

After making it back down the stairs (possibly more daunting that the hike up) and making our way back along the river to the main restaurants, we had a much-deserved lunch and then did a short hike to a 'waterfall'… Maybe it's more impressive during the rainy season? After that, we hopped back on the bus and make our way back to Deagu!

River bed 

The Restaurant in the woods

Our cave destination, compete with Buddhist Monk!

View from the cave

The view from a little lower down

More pretty mountains!

Nobody Nose the Trouble I've Seen

Today was Katie's birthday! She's one of our newest teachers (from the Cananda!) and we all met at a jjimdak restaurant to celebrate before work.  Jjimdak is a chicken dish (chicken = dak) with noodles and veggies, cooked in a spicy sauce, with the option of cheese melted on top (an option that we obviously took advantage of).  The server in the restaurant originally turned the 11 of us away, saying that he didn't have enough room, but eventually he let us in as 2 different groups. It was quite a lovely lunch, which was kinda ruined by that fact that we then had to go to work...

At work, we were supervising placement tests.  The students take these tests every 4 months or so and the Hagwon takes these very seriously and are quite strict about time etc., during the period.  The tests contain over a hundred multiple choice questions that include a vocabulary selection, reading comprehension, grammar, and listening comprehension.  The listenings alone took half an hour to get through and the full test lasted, depending on the level, an hour to an hour and a half.  During the test, the teachers paced the room (which is 2 rows of desks) and handed out white-out tape where necessary.  Once their time was up, we would check for homework completion and use the rest of the time to do some sort of language exercise with them (I got one of my classes to write a quick 'speech' on whether they'd rather be a dinosaur or have one as a pet.  I though it would be fun and entertaining, but they actually struggled to find two reasons to support their decision.).

In my first period, one of my kids developed a nose bleed. I discretely gave him the remainders of the tissue box that was under my desk and he proceeded to stuff them into his nose.  He eventually signalled to me that he was going to leave and I gave him to OK.  A few minutes later, the slipped back into the room and collected his things, quietly explaining that he was being sent home early.  I was quite impressed at how quietly he was being... It's unfortunate that a moment later, one of the other teachers came in a loudly announced that the boy was being sent home, which made the rest of the class look up from their test and turn around to see what was going on. This was, of course, during the listening section of the class, and I can only hope that they didn't miss a question because of the interruption!  At the end of the period, I wiped down the desk where the boy had been sitting (and cleared away the bloody tissues).

The next class came in and, wouldn't you know it, the girl who sat down at the same desk had a runny nose!  She quickly ran out of her own tissue, which was soggy and falling apart, and proceeded to use her sweater to catch the drips.  I went to grab my tissues, but it was empty from the nose bleed incident! I watched her struggle for a bit, as I contemplated what to do.  In the end, I e-mailed the desk teachers and asked them to bring me a new box of tissues.  One of them appeared, asking for clarification of what I wanted.  I handed her the empty box and asked for more.  She looked a little confused (we wouldn't normally request a box of tissues in the middle of a period) but accepted the request and returned with a box. I placed the box beside the girl, who gratefully took some, and continued my pacing.  At the end of the period, I again wiped down the desk with a wet wipe.  Yuck.

Not the most exciting post, but hey, wasn't the most exciting work day!

Hey There, Sweet Thang ;)

I briefly fumed about a guy putting sugar into his pre-sweetened drink in my last post, so I figured I should elaborate a bit on the whole 'sweet' situation over here.

Before coming over to Korea, all I heard about the food was 'It's delicious' and 'It's spicy".  Both of these things are true! 'Korean Spice' directly translates into 'hot red peppers'. No variant whatsoever. If it's not in a red sauce or sprinkled with red flakes, it's probably tasteless (unless it's fish, of course).
What people neglected to tell me is that Koreans don't like anything sour or salty! Which is very odd, seeing as Kimchi, which is served with everything, is fermented and salted cabbage.  You would expect it to be salty! Unfortunately, they smother it in - you guessed it - red peppers! so you can't really taste the salt.

If it's not spicy or bland, it's sweet.  I'm talking about chips, popcorn, BRAN cheese... you name it (I'm serious about that last one).  And Koreans go wild for it!  I was walking through a convenience store tonight and found HONEY DORITOS!! I didn't even know those existed!

I've also tasted corn flavoured popcorn (I'll let that one sink in for a sec. It tasted like creamed corn), similar to our smart-pop minus the salty cheese.  When you go to the movies, they sell flavour packs with the popcorn.  In Canada, they sell flavoured salts... Not in Korea! They sell fruit flavoured packets.  Imagine banana flavoured popcorn!

I have to hand it to them, though. Koreans don't do anything in moderation!  An article to prove my point...

http://munchies.vice.com/articles/korean-honey-butter-chip-hysteria-has-created-a-snack-black-market

You can't understand how disheartening it is to open a bag of chips only to discover that your salty treat has been converted into a sweet... thing... yuck (but yum at the same time).

There are a few other discrepancies in the flavouring of products.  You can't mix fruits.  I'm in a land where strawberry-banana doesn't exist.  MIND IS BLOWN. They think it's gross!

I would kill for some pretzels right now... or salt and vinegar chips!

Are You Afraid Of The Dark?

The last 48 hours have been very eventful.  Yesterday morning, myself and some of the other teachers from the school were sent to an orientation seminar of sorts that is mandatory for the foreign teachers at some of the Hagwons in Daegu.  It was only 2 hours long and consisted of a traditional Korean dance performance, a magic show, and two lectures.

The first lecture was supposed to instruct us on how to teach grammar.  It was presented by an American who had been in Daegu for 13 years (he started as an ESL teacher) and has a masters on functional Grammar (or something like that).  It was very technical and overly-complicated and needless-to-say, went straight over our heads.  It doesn't help that, at my Hagwon, we don't teach grammar, making the lecture quite irrelevant.

The second lecture was called 'Living in the 'gu'' and was again presented by a native English speaker who had lived in Daegu for 12ish years (he was from Canada).  This lecture was much better received and focused on how we can integrate ourselves into the Daegu community and generally how to live in Korea as a foreigner.  The lecturer was quite entertaining, had good personal stories and a lot of good information.  I didn't learn much new information, but some of the other teachers around me were certainly interested and jotting down some notes.  It make me realize how fortunate I was to get a job at a larger Hagwon that employs more than one or two foreign teachers.  The group of teachers are my Hagwon create a tight-knot community and support system for the new teachers coming in.  Many other teachers are dumped into this new country with no contacts, no friends and no help.   I certainly have it easy.

Upon arriving home after the seminar, I discovered that I no longer had electricity... And I still don't.  I have, however, developed a new respect for my gas stove.  When all else failed (i.e., my microwave and fridge), I was still able to cook (starting with the un-frozen freezer foods respectively). When I got to work a few hours later, I informed by boss that I had no electricity and she said that she would contact the landlord and inquire as to why that was... 8 hours later, I returned home to find that I still had no electricity, sped-walked back to the school to ask if she had gotten a response from the landlord and discovered that she had not, in fact, contacted anyone about the issue and now being past 11 pm, she would probably not be able to get a message through until the morning.  She then suggested that I go back to the apartment and find the breaker and see if I could fix it myself and then e-mail her to tell her if it works (because I obviously have internet in my power-less apartment.  Needless to say, it did not work, I walked down the street until I could pick up an internet connection, e-mailed her to say so, and then went back to my apartment, crawled into my dark bed and decided not to worry about it 'til morning.

Morning came and went.  No electricity, no contact from landlond. Finally, he showed up with a plumber to fix my toilet and shower head... which I'd asked them to do a few days earlier.  When they went to flick on the light, they were confused about why it would not turn on... The plumber then turned to me and said 'no problem'... YES BIG PROBLEM!!!! He looked at the breaker
switchy-thing, exchanged words with the landlord, and told me that they would contact an electrician to come fix it.  'Please
wait'... And so I wait.

At about 3 pm, the Landlord returned with an electrician, who started testing all of the outlets and determined that it was my fridge that can caused the problem.  He then told me that I would have to leave it unplugged for a week to let it dry out properly before trying to plug it in again... Not cool. IN the end, the Landlord moved the broken fridge out of the apartment and moved another fridge from down the hall in to replace it. Much better.  They also did more work on the toilet (it no longer leaks!).  The whole process took a little over an hour.  For a good chunk of that time, we were waiting on the Landlord to get something... I think, so I was left to entertain two older gentlemen in my apartment.  One of them spoke enough English to make the exchange quite entertaining.  They told me many times that the Landlord was a 'bone head' and was probably hit on the head as as young child. They were also interested in the photos that I have from back home on my wall.  I have a good variety of different Canadian landscapes that they were quite enthralled with.

Once everything was fixed and functional, they asked me to make them some coffee.  I was quite happy to oblige but all of my mugs were dirty.  The Landlord disappeared yet again, returning with small paper cups.  I quickly made up some of the instant coffee sticks and handed them to my saviours.  One of them made a face when he drank it and asked for more sugar! MORE SUGAR?!?! Those packets are 75% sugar! I couldn't believe