Where I’m Headed

As I am set to begin a new year in Seoul, I’ve been doing some “seoul” searching  in regards to how I can make Seoul related-puns a more important part of my life.

Actually, that’s a joke, rather I’ve been thinking about the future of this blog. Last year, this blog was a vent for many things, and evidently it gave people a negative impression.

This year, I’m looking at working on new projects, so I think my posting here will be minimal… maybe once a week … and I’m going to try and avoid the negativity and criticism that bogged down last year’s writing.

Only poo jokes from here on out. Hello Seoul.

Technical Difficulties

After some wild technical problems I don’t want to get into, the blog is back.

I finished working at EMIL’s Jeju Island Winter Camp. The kids had so much fun! I am tired.

If you are considering working there in the future for a winter or summer camp, read this, and feel free to send me an email if you have questions: strayblog at yahoo.com. I can tell you all about it.

Korean Music Videos Confuse the Brain

5 days of camp left. I have now chased children around and danced like a monkey for 26 straight days, 11 hours per day. I think I’m going a bit loopy, but I have my flight from Jeju back to Seoul, so I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

My female teaching assistant got fired yesterday, as a result of a crazy staff party we had last week and some relationship issues. Why do office relationships in this country seem so strained? All right, I can think of a hundred reasons, but I’ll leave them to the sociologists among us.

I’m too tired to write about funny things my students have done, so 2 odd Korean videos will have to suffice:

I hope you managed to not have excessive neuronal activity in your brain as you watched that. “Bo Peep” sounds like something much nastier, I’ll let you listen again to figure out what she’s subliminally asking for (sorry mom). It’s amusing how the video starts out sounding like the theme song for a children’s cartoon, and quickly turns into a filthy romp that actually reminds me a great deal of most of my Saturday nights.

My new favourite Korean word is Ssalgooksoo Ddookbaygee. That commercial is so bad that it’s good.

Jenga as Weapon

Sorry for leaving you postless for a few days. Camp life is pretty much non-stop and I am tired. 8 more days to go. By now I don’t even know what day it is anymore. Did I miss New Year’s? (I was able to teach my class the lyrics to “Auld Lang Syne” on New Year’s Day, so I know that, yes, in fact I missed it. I hope you embarrassed yourself on my behalf).

The other day I was supervising a Unit 1 Class (the youngest kids – around 8 or 9 years old), when I witnessed an interesting ordeal. Two tiny girls started arguing about something. It was in Korean of course, so I didn’t catch on. One girl landed a couple smacks on top of the head of the second girl before I was able to break them up. At the time, the girls happened to be playing jenga, so when I walked away the one that had received the blows picked up and launched a jenga piece at her attacker. Fortunately, the flying block missed its intended target, and flew way over the little girl’s head, hitting high up on the wall. Unfortunately, it turned out to be warning fire.

With the missed attempt, I thought the conflict had come to a relatively peaceful conclusion, and so I directed my attention elsewhere. A few minutes later, tiny picked up another jenga piece and launched again, this time striking the intended target above the right eye from several feet. The sound of wood on bone made me shudder a bit. The victim proceeded to cry for 10 minutes. That’s street justice at Jeju Winter English Camp.

My suggestion: don’t buy a Jenga set (called Pisa in Korea) for your Grade 2 class, but if you do, you’d be smart to keep it out of arm’s reach of Ichiro Suzuki.

Playing Next to Boys, Just for Money

As I mentioned here, my Korean students’ favourite word sounds a lot like the abrasive “whore”. They told me that their use was spelled “hur”, and evidently it is similar to how “Oh my God” is used in English. I still laugh a little every time I hear it, which is a lot.Young people really tend to run with the “fad” expressions of the day. Just like how I used to say “the cow has left the barn” when that was all the rage.

I decided to ask the older kids (Grade 6/7) in Unit 4 at my camp if they knew how I was interpreting their beloved “hur”, and if they, in fact, knew what a “whore” was. Not surprisingly, they did not. So I made an offer of one evil Happy dollar for the person that could come up with the best definition of what a “whore” truly was, and is. They went home, pulled out their dictionaries, and did some important work.

The winner? This beauty, from a perceptive and charmingly innocent 6th grader named Julie:

WHORE

girls tha who
drinks next to boys, give drinks to boys, seating next to
the boys

receive money, and play next
to boys, just for money

How is that for a euphemism? Extra points for the unorthodox word spacing.

The Evils of Happy Money

“Haaaaaaaaaaaaapy money! Oh God!”

I heard a student at my winter camp yell this as he ran down the hall. Happy money is our school’s currency; it’s given out to students when they do something good, like completing a crossword puzzle, finishing a journal entry, or winning a game. The happy money can be cashed in for snacks at parties which happen two times per semester. It may sound cute and an effective incentive to motivate students, but here’s the thing:

Happy money is evil.

But how could it be evil, you might ask. How could anything labeled “Do your best and then God will do the rest” be such an insidious and destructive force? The answer is that we have created a camp of Happy money addicts: the students will do ANYTHING to get their hands on another crisp Happy dollar. Like crack addicts that will do anything for another hit. Students spend about 1/2 of class time begging for Happy money. “Hey man, you got the stuff? I just need ONE more happy dollar and then I’ll leave you alone”. I’m pretty sure I saw a couple students in the parking light squeegeeing Kia windows and asking for more Happy money. Korean currency (the Won) has quickly became worthless at camp. “What, you got that Won crap? Burn it and get me some Happy money – that’s the good stuff”.

I believe that the students wake up in the morning and say to themselves: “You know what that smell is boys? That’s the smell of happy money. Let’s go rough up teach and get him to cough some up”.

I hate Happy money. My Korean colleague says it is too capitalistic. Unit 3 combined their Happy money to buy a bunch of snacks – an ideal form of communism. It is kind of an interesting human experiment I guess – but when I see another child fan his Happy money out, inhale deeply, and look at me with frenzy in his eyes – wondering where it is on my person I have hidden it, at that moment I wish I had never heard of Happy Money.

Whore! and Kids’ Beer

1)

Me: “Student, please give me the answer to Question a”.

Student: “Here is the answer to Question a … blah blah blah wrong answer”.

Student 2: “Whore”!

Me: “Cindy”!

It took me some time to figure out why my Korean students randomly yell out the word “whore”. I’d be teaching a seemingly innocent lesson, and then one student would say something, and another student would respond with “whore”. It was also a bit confusing that the girls would say “whore” just as much as the boys, so I had to dismiss any traditional sexual connotations. After hearing “whore” all day long, I had to ask what it signified. What is the meaning of “whore”? The response was simple: “Teacher, it means boo”. I think it is awesome that “whore” is such a common part of the dialect of today’s Korean youth. They say that it’s spelled “hul”, but I doubt it. I’d recommend saying “whore” in the future when you feel like saying boo – the result is sure to be better. I was able to fit the word “whore” into a paragraph 8 times (plus one if you count the Korean spelling). I feel better already.

2)

I’m putting numbers in like that because it’s how Malcolm Gladwell writes …in case you were wondering. But I doubt that Malcolm Gladwell has ever written about Korean boys who are slightly pudgy and waddle by, saying “Sunkist Grape Soda is like beer for kids!”.

9 New Dancing Queens

Jeju Island Winter Camp Unit 3’s New theme song. Sung to the tune of “Dancing Queen” by Abba.

“Bravery, young and sweet,

Only Geniuses, Oh yaah!

We Can Dance, We Can Sing

Learning and Practice Team bravery…”

Our team name is Bravery, aka the Simpsons, aka Dark Circles.

I will be teaching a listening class for 10 days. Listening is not exactly their strong suit. Some need more alphabet practice. Camp is slightly controlled madness. Why is hot water so rare in the washrooms here? My hands are freezing.

A Day at EMIL’s Jeju Island Winter Camp

The morning begins at 7:00 AM – I have my own room at the Halla College Dormitory. 13 boys are living on the same floor as me. It can get a little loud as the boys’ favourite game is re-enacting “Sudden Attack” – an evidently violent first person shooter that is popular in Korea (and is supposed to be for 19+ only but has somehow seeped its way deep into the subconscious of a bunch of 12 year olds who tell me I will die if I get involved).

I make my way up to the shower, which is a communal room with about 20 stalls. There is no separate staff shower. Thankfully the boys usually take showers at night, so I am able to get up a bit earlier than them and have the shower to myself. I always found it super weird in high school when our P.E. teacher or soccer coach would use the shower at the same time as us … and I feel generally uncomfortable with 13 kids that break down my every physical attribute seeing me naked. They have already pointed out that I have too much body hair, dark circles under my eyes, and a bizarrely large nose (not to mention, on the positive side, a 6 pack-they keep touching my stomach and saying “power!”). Another Korean teacher told me that the kids’ main topic (when they chat in Korean) is the physical appearance and aesthetic defects of the staff.

At 7:50 we get the boys in line to go to the cafeteria for breakfast. Some stumble out of their rooms groggily, while others have been up for an hour and run out blazing their Sudden Attack weaponry while attempting to jump on or punch me. I have never had my physical space violated so much as I have at this camp. I feel like a jungle gym.

Breakfast at the Halla College cafeteria alternates between Korean and Western food. That means Corn flakes every other day! I am resolutely opposed to eating Kimchi at breakfast. I also read an article that said Kimchi has a high level of some toxin which predisposes Koreans for a higher level of stomach cancer. The article suggested that I only eat Kimchi once per week, but that’s kind of like saying just breath air once a week while you’re in Korea. Difficult to accomplish.

Breakfast goes from 8-8:20, and then it’s clean up time to get ready for the day. At 8:50 everyone lines up to go to class. This was a particularly bad day in the morning line up, as two of the littler kids were bawling for one reason or another. I’d say we average about 5 criers per day at camp, and that’s not including the kids who cry in their rooms at night because they miss their parents.

From 9-10:30 I teach the Unit 3 class, which is my homeroom. These are older kids, we’re talking upper middle school … so they are pretty easy to manage. The textbook I’ve been given to teach with is pretty bad, so I usually rush through two lessons and then we play a game or do some activities that I’ve thought of as I went through the lesson. The kids like two types of games: “Mafia” – where they can kill each other, and “slapsy” type games where they can hit each other. Unit 3 generally walks around with bright red hands having been freshly smacked.

10:30-12:00 is pretty much a write-off – during this time I “teach” the Unit 1 class (the youngest). Teaching involves getting them to pronounce words and then draw something for an hour. Comic books, dream houses, etc. I hope I don’t run out of ideas in the next 20 days. They are willing to help me with my Korean so I take advantage of that when I’m not babysitting.

12:00-12:30 is lunch time, and then class starts again at 1. Unit 2 is a bright, energetic, out-of-control bunch. They will sit through a couple lessons and then I give them the best activity I thought of while I taught. Today I gave them “Be a Sports Broadcaster”. They simulated an Olympic event while 2 of them described the action. Unfortunately in the junior girls speed skating competition one of the speed skaters was crying too hard to finish the race, as was one of the commentators.

From 2:30-5:30 we do various random activities.. today we rehearsed English pop songs and performed them. Our class sang a song about infidelity, lust, and sexual impropriety called “Anyone of Us” as well as Brian McKnight’s romantic classic “Back at One”. I had a small solo which I’d like to think I nailed.

5:30-6:00 is dinner time. Go easy on the kimchi. Annnd finally we have “Review” time from 7-8:30. By this time I am mostly too tired to care. Some of the students write diaries or just play the games where they beat each other continuously. I chime in with “Speak English, now” every once in a while, interrupting the stream of Korean.

Finally at around 9 I struggle back to my room. 7-9 is a pretty long day.. and for only 500 beans a week it makes me look forward to my incoming public school job with SMOE.

Are Koreans Angry?

At Jeju English Camp I am working with Korean boys that range from Grade 3 to Grade 8. Their personalities are pretty interesting to me. There are 4 older kids who hang out together and seem to enjoy each other’s company. But it’s strange to see them blow up at each other almost every day in a fight that ends in tears. As they are always speaking in Korean, I can never understand the circumstances that cause these fights, but I really can’t believe how much rage and anger I can see forming in their eyes out of nowhere.The first time I saw it I was actually a bit frightened. I can’t recall ever seeing such anger in young people before. It was like these boys had another side to them that was simmering slightly below the surface… Dr. Kim and Mr. Park.

And then, poof, the next day they have forgotten whatever it was they were fighting about and have gone back to being the best of friends again.Until the next blow-up comes along.

Last year, while I worked in a public school, a Korean co-teacher told me that Korean men have no problem having a full on brawl at work or school (minus the punching), and then going out for a beer together afterward. It’s amazing how early this personality trait manifests itself.

Update

Of course I realize that saying Koreans are angry is an implausible meme, I’m just wondering if Koreans are angrier people on average, or perhaps have more extreme personalities. I also realize that I probably would be angry too if I was forced by my mother to learn about common and proper nouns for one month of my winter vacation. After someone went down in tears today in the cafeteria, I’m wondering if I should really lay into them with a lecture on respect.