Hayes in January

Mu cuddle bunny.


Rolling around.


Princess stole my pillow.


He always wakes up when the shutter snaps.


Cozy.


Post-bath, wet and unhappy.

Paul (Y550)

When I began in October, my hardest student to keep in line was Paul. He would always pretend not to understand, and instead say lewd things in Korean (or sometimes in English). One day, after pushing and pushing me, I was at the back of the classroom closing the window, when Kate came in to drop off some homework. When she left, Paul swore at her in English as he gave the spot where she’d just been the finger. Apparently, he didn’t realize I was still there.

I was furious. I tried to send him out, but he wouldn’t go. (They like to do that in Korea, just refuse to go to their punishment. It’s unreal.)

After class, I sent him to Kate, and nothing happened. Not only do I have no recourse or punishment ability, but apparently no one else does either. I lost it; I just started crying as soon as the students were gone. That was my first breaking point.

Paul’s behavior was similarly bad a few more times, until I insisted that Kate speak to Paul’s mother. Miraculously, Paul’s behavior improved dramatically. I got the feeling that he got the beating (or threatened beating) of his life. I don’t condone physical violence against children in any way, but I admit that whatever happened, worked. Paul suddenly paid more attention in class. He went out of his way to speak to me and improve upon his sentences and conversational skills, and became the politest boy in the school.

It was astonishing. He improved so much, and so quickly, and encouraged his friends to be better students as well. In fact, within a couple of months he was so far ahead of his peers that, while they went into intensive remedial courses for middle schoolers, he didn’t need them. He was at the level he needed to be, and maybe even higher than he needed to be. It was amazing. I didn’t know that such a transformation could happen in the space of 3 months. I’m proud to say I was a part of it.

Tongue Twisters #1

I decided when my boss told me to stretch out the time we use our books that I would have to get creative. So I did a lot of research, and found some great tongue twisters to teach the kids. Some loved them, some hated them, but the letters each focused on get better across the board.

1.
A big black bug bit a big black bear,
Made the big black bear bleed blood.

2.
How much wood
Would a woodchuck chuck
If a woodchuck would chuck wood?

He’d chuck all the wood
That a woodchuck could
If a woodchuck could chuck wood.

And my favorite…
3.
Of all the felt I ever felt,
I never felt a piece of felt
Which felt as fine as that felt felt,
When first I felt that felt hat’s felt.

Adventures in Food: Pizza School

(My store is at Sawol, have multiple locations)

Pizza School has super cheap and tasty American-style pizzas. The two people who are always at my store by Sawol Station are really nice, and after one time of managing to tell them in Korean “Oks-su-su and yung-pa, no, ju-say-oh” (no corn or onion please), they remember every time. Either I’m the only foreigner who goes there, or I go there too much. Probably the latter.

They don’t do delivery, carry-out only. The size is equivalent to a large in America.

5,000 won: Cheese, Pepperoni, Combo, Sweet Potato
6,000 won: Potato (my favorite), Hot Chicken, “Roastmeat”
7,000 won: Napoli (I don’t know what this entails)
8,000 won: Carbone (Maybe this is ham?)
9,000 won: Deutsche Bite (a.k.a. Hot Dog), Mexican Bite (a.k.a. Spicy Hot Dog)
10,000 won: BBQ Pork Ribs Pizza

A cheese pizza has on it: Cheese, Corn (tons), Onion (tons), and Mushroom

A potato pizza has on it: 1-2 potato wedges, a piece of “bacon” (a.k.a. ham), corn, onion, mushroom slices, and cheese.

Hangman

Our director decided that, to save money, he would only order books every two months instead of every month. (He still charges the parents for books every month.) The books are intended for one month, which is still way too long for kids who understand easily. By the third week, we're playing a lot of hangman. I make the words longer as they get better, sentences for more advanced students, and usually on topics the book has covered that month. They've gotten much better at understanding the relationships between English words and letters, and now realize that many words have the same beginnings, and that (like in Wheel of Fortune) R,S, T, L, N, and E are the most frequently used letters. I've gotten better at drawing things to "hang".

This Zombie Girl is very popular with the kids, as are monsters.

Topics: Phone Charms

Koreans love their phone charms. Accessory stores are full of hundreds of them. I bought a white rabbit for my first (pink) phone, who guarded it. I also attached my subway/bus charm, which was extremely handy. Some people live in apartment buildings with scanner-lock front doors, so their “scan-key” charms go on their phones, too. Some are cute and cool, and some are crazy and inappropriate.

A Lesson on Colors in English

Me: What colors are in a rainbow?
Smartass Students: Rainbow colors!

School Daze

At my school, I "teach" half of each Korean teachers class. So for example, I'll teache 22 minutes of Erin's class, then 22 minutes of Kate's class. I pile my books up before classes start each day, in a vain attempt to stay organized. My boss often puts my books away on the bookshelf while I'm teaching, and I must remind her that I'm using them. The pile is quite substantial when you teach 12 classes in a day.

The Jjimjjilbang Debacle.

I had a nightmare. My friends wanted to go to a public bath house, where I would have to strip down in a women’s locker room, walk passed staring Koreans and into a room with many shared soaking tubs and scrubbing areas, and had odd conversations with English-speaking students and their grandmothers while naked. I watched as we attracted more and more children to our tub, increasing in number exponentially each time I noticed them, like a virus. Then I was convinced to have a sadistic middle-aged Korean woman in bra and panties scrub me with a Brillo pad. Then I realized I was awake.

It was all real. The humiliation, the stares, the delightful conversation with a gifted high schooler and her grandmother while naked and sitting in a hot tub of water and ginger. It was all real. And at present, my skin was screaming for relief from this crazy scrubby woman.

The next step was just confounding. She oiled me up for the “massage” portion of our program, which I later discovered basically consisted of cupped hands hitting me in different places all over my body. As I lay there being greased, I kept thinking of how I could possible explain this horrid adventure to Westerners, who could never fathom of this being in the realm of possibility. It was a toss up between “She lubed me like a chassis” and “I was basted like a Thanksgiving turkey.” Before I knew it she frosted my face with a cucumber mask, made of pulpy real cucumber. It felt disgusting, and made me hungry for a salad. While I endured the pain of my “massage” I thought about the fact that this woman’s work clothes are a bra and panty set. I started to wonder how many sets she had, and if she hung them up nicely in her closet like other people hang up suits. I was brought back to reality when the oil slid me nearly off the table with the force of her slap.

And my friends can’t figure out why I don’t care to go again. Hmmm.

Post-Jjimjjilbang Adventures

After leaving the jjimjjilbang, I was totally traumatized, and starving. Jasmin, Jazmin and I headed for a buffet in Chilgok, which was quite nice. I little expensive, but delicious, and highly entertaining. (We like to play with our food.)

This little guy had a piece needing to be removed, then you have to suck him out of his shell. I couldn't partake. (He was "looking" at me.)


We couldn't figure out a name for this thing, but we laughed so hard we cried trying. (If you know what it is, please email me!)


Even worse looking when you open her up... LOL!!!


Next, we found an accessories store that had hundreds of fun things...

Tons of hair stuff...






Even blue balls! (for your hair)


And a traditional-looking bobble-head thing.

Jasmin’s Birthday

For Jasmin’s birthday in January, we had a full night of activities. We went to Maya for a delicious Nepalese dinner.

At Maya.


Jasmin.


Romi and Amanda.


Shakara.


Most of the group.


Amanda brought a cake for Jas. I love the look on her face.


The man on the right is the owner of Maya Restaurant. A very nice guy.


Next to Shi-Sha for hookah.
Amanda.




Some of the girls.


It’s not my thing, but the ambience was nice. I went with Amanda to Billibow for a bit and finally met Lynn Harper, whom I had been speaking with online about a job.

At Billibow. The entrance hall.


Above the bar, dozens of tiny skeletons in nooses. I don't know why.


We met up with the rest at Urban, where I felt like I was meat on display, and had a guy lick me as a hello. (I didn’t know him. It was gross.)

Kelly and Jasmin.


Jessica.


I saw Abdou, whom I met on the subway one day, and who had been asking me out almost daily since. Apparently he did the same thing to Amanda, and even tried to meet both of us on New Year’s. Nice guy.

We all made our way across the street to Old Skool, which is the biggest dump I’ve ever been into, and that includes all those places in college. It’s where all the U.S. military guys go, since they’ve been banned from most other bars in Daegu. I was in there for 10 minutes total, during which time I saw a girl giving a guy a lap dance, a guy giving a girl something more than a lap dance, and a swarm of guys casing my purse. This is the sign placed 20 places around the very small space:


What? No to-li-et sex? Aw, man!

The music was good, but when they started playing “Culo” (by Pitbull, I think), the scene reminded me a little too much of South Florida, and it was time to go. The fighting Latin couple arguing over a girl in the stairwell on my way out proved I made the right decision.

Heat, and Other Things I Miss Having at Work

It never occurred to me before moving here that I would work in a place that doesn’t want to spend money on heating, so just doesn’t. You can’t allow your employees to freeze in America. Here, there’s not much in the way of worker’s rights or unions, so many places cut as many corners as they can. This translates for most that the heaters are turned down as low as possible.

In fact, I usually see the lobby heater (at one school) set to around 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit). The other day I saw it go as high as 19C (66.2F) before it was lowered. Yesterday, for most of the day it was around 9C (48.2F). I understand not wanting to spend the gas and electricity to run it on high constantly, but here’s an option: run it on a decent temperature for a short bit to get it warm, turn it off, and turn it on again when it has cooled down too much. I think the same amount (or more) of gas and electricity was used by having it run all the time, and we were downright frigid all day. I mean, honestly, what’s the point of having your heater set on 9-19C (48-66F)? I have to go outside and start walking home to defrost my feet.

I should mention at this point that Korean buildings don’t have central heating like we do in America. Homes here have Ondol heating, which is basically a series of pipes running under the floor, which contain water that is heated when you turn the gas on. The floor gets warm, and eventually the entire room gets warm. This is why traditionally Koreans (and other Asian countries) use short tables and sit on the floor. It’s to keep warm! They don’t use carpet here either, because with the Ondol system, the carpet would actually be a barrier to the heat coming to you. In many Korean businesses, however, no heating system is in place at all. When a business rents an office or floor of a building, they are responsible for buying a heater (or heaters) for that space, as well as paying for the gas and electricity used to run them.

In my schools, there are individual heaters in each classroom, and one central heater in the lobby. At the school with the lobby heater issues, the teacher’s room has no heater at all, but can sometimes feel a slight breeze from the lobby; the other school has a heater that tends to blow only lukewarm air. However, because of the tendency to try to cut costs as much as possible, if the heaters in the classrooms aren’t working, no one’s in any hurry to fix them. The students and teachers alike are used to wearing many layers of clothing and their coats the whole time they’re at school. I’m not. I find this unusual.

I’ve found also that there is usually only one bathroom on each floor, which is shared by all the businesses on that floor. In one of my schools, the bathroom is for females only, so the boys must go up to the floor above if they need a toilet. (Or outside, which is too often chosen, by men of all ages and levels of sobriety.) There are rarely restrooms in individual shops unless they are restaurants or bars, and even then they are often shared with the place next door.

Bathrooms are usually not heated, not do they have hot running water for hand-washing. I’m learned to use the term “restroom” less, and have started calling it simply “the toilet”. These are not places where you would want to rest. You get somewhat used to making the shortest possible bathroom breaks, so not to freeze to death, but washing your hands in frigid water when it’s zero degrees Celsius outside and 15 degrees Celsius inside is just brutal.


***Follow up:***
The heater went down to -2 the other day. Seriously, why does a heater even have that setting? What’s the point of “heating” a room to less than freezing? At that point, I was being refrigerated.

My theory of Korean schoolchildren’s lives

Kids here are so overwhelmed by the burdens their parents and ancestors have placed on them. Korea is a funny place. They are studied by scholars the world over for their incredible progress from nothing to major global player within such a short time. After being here even such a short time, I feel I have gained some insight.

For millennia, the Korean peninsula was beaten and pillaged by forces wanting access to the Asian mainland. Russia, China, Mongolia, and Japan have all tried their hands at ruling this land. Koreans have been subjugated, raped, their villages pillaged, all my many forces over the centuries. Still, they have retained ancient customs and belief systems, and now have an overdeveloped inferiority complex and revenge hatred.

After the cease-fire accord of the 1950s (necessary because by then even Koreans were fighting each other for survival), the 2 Koreas began down very different paths from the same starting place. The arbitrary line drawn by the American forces along the 38th parallel forced families apart, and changed the course of South Korea’s future. The North embraced communism, and the poor Koreans remained poor, with lessening freedoms. They were tirelessly fed propaganda about the North Korean system being the only way they would survive, and how the Southerners were perishing without Communist guidance. The government worked hard to secure its necessity in the minds of its citizens, and for nearly 60 years, it has worked. But things are starting to change- a little. North Koreans are not permitted access to outside news sources or internet access, but even during the short reunification visits that some have been lucky enough to experience, the vast differences can be seen.

The South, after feeling relegated to the dredges for so many years, began its path toward industrialization and advancement. They worked longer hours than they could stand, many times at 3 or 4 jobs, to learn many skills and earn as much money as possible. They became entrepreneurs, opening small shops and restaurants. They created a need for increased education in all areas, but especially in skilled fields and English, seen as the gateway through which they could accomplish anything. If they were able to communicate and compete in the global marketplace, they could secure their place in future history.

The grandparents (and great-grandparents, at this point) worked as hard as they could to create better opportunities for their children. And them, for their children. Grandparents today think the kids have it pretty easy- all they have to do is go to school and learn- so they see nothing wrong with sending them to school (and several hagwons) for up to 16 hours a day.

But the kids are exhausted all the time. Yes, if they make it, they’ll have great knowledge and will do well for themselves and future generations. But they can barely keep their heads up in class. By the time they see me, they’ve already gone to school and several hagwons. They drive me crazy because it’s my job to keep them focused and on task, which is next to impossible. And I feel bad punishing them for being exhausted. It’s a no-win situation.

OPPs (Other People's Pictures)

Sometimes I see a photograph and wish I could go to the exact spot and reproduce it. Sometimes you can, but often the first is the best. The pictures of Luke Roper's were so amazing of Daegu at night that I felt I had to share the originals.

Taken from a mountaintop lookout over Daegu City at night.

Snow in Korea

When I was trying to decide which city in Korea to move to, weather played a big part in my decision. I was told that Seoul was the coldest, and (naturally) the further south you go, it is warmer. Daegu is the warmest city (supposedly) because it’s inland and surrounded by mountains that keep in the warmth. (Similarly, Orlando is the warmest city because being land-locked also means no ocean breezes.) I was told that it rarely (if ever) snows in Daegu and when it does it’s only a few flakes and doesn’t stick.

So imagine my surprise to wake up Monday to a full-fledged snow storm. What’s more is that everything was covered in a couple inches of white. The streets, cars, everything. It was hard to walk in and for cars to drive in. It took over 20 minutes to catch a cab, and once I did the cars were mostly stopped, as only 1 or 2 could make it through the light each time it changed. I began to wish more heartily that I had chosen to teach in Thailand.

My Store!

I finally found myself! All the Lauren you could ever want.

A Smattering of Journal Entries

The reason where I is happy plays the pup and is because eating the marine products plentifully.

Corrected:
The reason I’m happy is because I played with the puppy, and ate lots of seafood.
***

I went to my grandmother’s house to eat crap. Crap is very delicious. Crap legs are very long and delicious. -Jack
***

Hi Lauren, when I first see you, I feel strange. -Jack
(Um, thanks.)
***

My fish are small and big.
I give my fish rice.
My fish die.
I’m so sad.
But I like fish.
:)
***

The glass is slipper.
(I thought Cinderella…)
Intended to be:
The grass is slippery.
***

But I can 13 minutes for cloth putting on the sheep.
(Huh?)
This is my artist's rendering of what that might mean: