Korean oddities

I really don't have too much to say about what is going on. My supervisor is still being a jerk, but the director of the school is great. My kids are getting ready for their graduation, which is coming up at the end of February. I am working on finding a job for next August, but oportunities seem to be passing as quickly as they are coming. Next week I will be starting a small group bible study through my church. I am hoping that it will be a new positive thing in my life.
My favorite student quote from the week comes from one of my elementary students. On Wednesday, she looked at me, and completely randomly said "Teacher, I am made in America and born in Korea." I laughed so hard, it completely made my week. She then wanted to explain herself, but I had to tell her that I completely understood, she didn't have to explain at all.

I have wanted to do a post that listed a bunch of the really weird things that I have gotten used to here. Most of them are normal for me now, but they are still mildly humorous.

-Need a napkin? We don't have any, but here is some toilet paper... Many restaraunts don't have napkins. Instead they have a roll of toilet paper on all the tables. It is really impractical. I mean really, the toilet paper just falls apart when you try to wipe off your hands.

- Fan death, All fans here have a time setting. Most turn off after a maximum of 3-4 hours. It is believed that if you go to sleep with your fan on, and the window closed you will die overnight. There are a few different beliefs about why this happens. I think the most widely accepted belief is that the fan chopps up the oxygen molocules and you suffocate. Others believe that the fan creates some sort of vortex or something like that, which sucks all of the oxygen out of the room. Some think that the fan causes hypothermia, and some think that the fan overheats and causes a sweltering condition that kills the person. None of it makes any sense, but it is an actuall "cause of death" on people's death certificates. (Also, supposedly, if an animal is left in a closed room with the fan on, the animal will spontaneously combust.)

- Children are constantly talking about death. If a student is absent and we don't know why, they will say that they are dead. If I hesitate in the middle of a sentence, someone will jump in with "and it died." They also speak of heaven as "up-stairs" and hell as "down-stairs." This makes it really easy to talk about someone who has passed away. If we are learning about a historical figure, I can simply say that the person is up-stairs now.

- Name in red: I hate using red pens, just because it seems really harsh. I always use blue or green pens to correct. But.... It is believed that if your name is written in red, you will die. I have no idea where this idea came from, but your students will freak out on you if you make that mistake.

-Kai, bai bo: (rock paper scissors) This game is played about 800 times a day, and it is used to determine everything. The results of the game are never questioned. whoever wins, gets what they want, no questions asked.

-Public trash cans: they don't exist! If you are walking along the sidewalk, and eating something, there are no trash cans to throw away your trash. People just throw their trash on the ground, and this is perfectly acceptable.

- "three more sleeps until my birthday!" Instead of saying how many days or how many nights until something happens, they say how many more "sleeps." The sad thing is, I have started to say this.

-age: Koreans calculate their age differently. When you are born, you are 1 year old. Then everyone gets older on January 1st. This means that if you are born on December 31, you are 2 the next day. It gets really confusing when you ask someone their age, because their Korean age is either 1 or 2 years older than their western age.

-siblings: There are 4 different ways to say sister (a girls older sister, a girls younger sister, a boys older sister, a boy's younger sister) and 4 different ways to say brother. However, cousins are called the same thing as brother or sister. I have asked students how many brothers and sister they have, and they will say "5 sisters, 7 brothers, and 4 babies" I end up having to ask how many brothers and sisters they have that live with them, or have the same mom and dad. We have ended up calling cousins "cousin brother" or "cousin sister."

-Korean moms: Korean moms are seriously like high schoolers. They have little aliances. Some moms will hold social events for their child's class, but won't include one student because they don't like the mom. They will tell the school that they don't want their child in another mom's child's class. We actually had a mom tell us to tell another mom that they should pull their child out of the school. They have their little social circles that are their clicks, and it is completely rediculous.

There are so many other things that I could list, but they aren't popping into my head right now. The truth is I love it here, even with all the weird things that I encounter every day.

Back to Work

It has been quite a while since I have posted an update, and a lot has happened since then. First, my students had thier Christmas show at the end of December. It was quite an ordeal. We rented out a performance hall, and also rented costumes for all of the kids. The costumes weren't ideal. My reindeer got good costumes, but my elves got jipped because the supervisors at my school waited too long to try to order the costumes, and all of the cute Christmas ones were taken. The stage was also really awkward for a Christmas show, but what the heck, the kids were cute. The show was two and a half hours long, because there are 16 classes, all of which did about a 10 minute show. My students went 14th. We had to sit and wait in a side hall for 2 hours before it was our turn. The kids were so patient. They kept themselves busy with coloring sheets, books, and a movie. We finally went on and did our show, and the kids were great. I was so proud of all the work that they did memorizing their lines, songs and dances.

I got to be back in Minnesota for about a week. I had a ton of fun, and it was great to see everyone. Highlights were meeting my new second cousin (is that the right family relation title?) Oliver, playing "hockey" with my family, and snowtubing with the neighborhood kids. It was great to be in my home environment, where it is cold and snowy. It was also refreashing to be away from my work for a while. Christmas is always such a magical time, and they really don't have the same feeling here in Korea.

I have been back at work for a week now. We have new director, and she seems really nice. The tension has gone down in the staff room, but there will always be a division.

I had an interview this week with an international school. This time it was with an American, but he was at least 95 years old. I like the school, but I'm not sure about the area that it is in. I really enjoy being away from the city, near parks and mountains. Probably any international school that I end up working at will be in the city.

I had to include this picture on the left of Monica. We were decorating cupcakes. This is by far the cutest picture that I have of her.

One quote worth mentioning from this week. My partner teacher is teaching my kids about music, and this week the learned about hip-hop. I glanced at their homework as I was collecting it. One of the questions was something like "write the words to your own hip-hop song." One of my kids wrote one line: "My mama don't raise no fool."