Tree Frog

This is a pure rant unrelated to Korea but just related to men.  Sorry boys and by boys I mean the only two people who read my blog, Steve and Phil.  Holla.

Anyways,  I spent three days, that's right,  three days coloring this awesome picture of a tree frog.  It was the best coloring ever.  It had shadowing and detail.  The best coloring I ever colored.  Could have gone up in the fucking Louvre.

I finished my coloring and decided to be cute and hide it in the Boxing gym for the boxing coach to find.  I fucking climbed five flights of stairs in the pitch dark secret entrance to the boxing gym like a goddamn ninja and taped my coloring next to the men's bathroom with the words "To: 김 성 수 From: Katie" written on it.  I figured, I worked really hard on my coloring but it would be appreciated.

Wrong.  Not even a thank you.  I'm not sure he got it.  It's been two days.  I am going to march in there tomorrow demanding Tree Frog.  WHERE IS TREE FROG??  Tree frog odiseyo?!?!  Give me Tree Frog, you don't deserve Tree Frog!!!

If it went missing I'm going to bring a blank coloring page of Tree Frog, hang it up with a sign that says "Have you seen this Tree Frog? Except, it's green."

Should have never thought to give Tree Frog away, I think of it and I am infuriated.  Leave it to a Korean dude to not appreciate the awesomeness of Tree Frog.  Never again.

Little Things

There are so many little random things that happen that make me laugh.  Last week, I was teaching a class of seven-year-olds and in the middle of class, out of nowhere, one student takes my hand, smells my hand and then goes "Teacher, you Ramyan eating?"  And I was just like, "how the fuck did you know that?"  Astounding.  She smelled my hand and then was able to infer that I had eaten Ramen at some point that day. 

One class particularly cracks me up.  They are an older class - maybe about 10-years-old.  There are nine boys and three girls.  The boys like to sing so a couple weeks ago I brought in the Bear Hunt song.  I so wish I could convey the melody through the computer, it's the best part.  "We're going on a bear hunt, we're gonna catch a big one, what a beautiful day, we're not scared.  Uh-Oh a forest, a dark scary forest. WE CAN'T GO OVER IT!  WE CAN'T GO UNDER IT!  OH NO!!  WE HAVE TO GO THROUGH IT!!!" and so on and so forth.  Now everyday I teach them, right in the middle of my lesson they will break into the Bear Hunt song.  Adrian will provide the beat and Kevin will conduct the others.  It's so funny.  It's really disruptive to my class and we rarely get work done but every time they do it I can't yell because I'm laughing so hard.  It's impossible.

Some less funny, more disturbing moments are times like last Saturday when I was walking around and an old man walked over to me and just hard-core smacked my ass.  What the hell.  I was so shocked by it I just turned and looked at him with a puzzled face and then walked away.  I was too taken aback.  What do you do in that situation?

The other day at the BBQ, Eric was cooking tree leaves over the grill and so as a joke I said "Oo leaves, delicious!" so he said "Really Teacher?  You eat?"  So I said "Yeah of course!" because I'm a totally idiot and I don't know where to draw the line.  Long story short, I ate some leaves.

The leaves, however questionable are nothing of a health risk compared to raw beef.  Not just raw beef; raw beef with raw egg mixed in.  I'm a vegetarian, but I tried some of the raw beef/raw egg combination just for the hell of it.  It actually tastes really good, but damn if I want to voluntarily risk serious diseases due to uncooked meat.  Never again.

Dead Fish is Die and Realizations

I've been thinking a lot lately about how much I love Korea and how sad I'm going to be to leave here.  I've been debating whether to stay or go.  I think yesterday's events gave me the answer.
Yesterday was the opening ceremony for the Expo.   We decided to have an E-World BBQ at the beach.  It was the four E-World foreigners - me, Robby, Kayla, Meg -, our boss - May, and two other Korean co-workers - Rock and Lydia.  We also had an E-World student, Eric, with us because Eric is Rock's nephew. 

We're at the beach and I love the beach so I'm playing in the sand with Eric, making holes and helping Eric find shells.  "Teacher!!!  SHELLSS!!!!!!!"  He gets really excited about shells.  Then I see one of my students, Kaeden, and she comes over to me and is so happy to see me.  So we are playing and then Eric finds a dead fish.  The kids go nuts.  The start playing with it, running around with it, covering it's eyes with sand and going "no eyes!", bringing it around like a pet, all of these things.  "TEACHER!!!!!  Fish is die!  Die fish!  Die fish!"  They can't get enough of the dead fish. 

So I leave and I tell Robby and Meg, "those kids are down there just playing with a dead fish."  All of the sudden I turn around and Rock is scrubbing down Eric because of all the dead fish handling.  Perfect timing.

Later, I see Kaeden and I say "Kaeden, dead fish where?"  and she says with the utmost of urgency in her voice "TEACHER!  Dead fish is die so (motions burying something) and finish-y!"  It was really important that I knew that apparently.  All our students are like that.  They have to tell you things and it's always so important.  "Teacher!  Teacher!  Yesterday.....I go to the home and sleeping!!"  Umm...ok?  That was that important that you had to interrupt my class to tell me?

Anyway, so later on, we're chillin' by our tent drinking and Kaeden comes over and says "Katie Teacher, my father, you come."  So I went with Kaeden thinking "Oh I'll just say hi to her father and then go back to the tent." 

But of course, as with all Koreans, every meeting is a big event.  So I go and her whole family is there and they have me sit down and they give me all this food and soju and moonshine.  I didn't want to drink in front of my student but I couldn't be rude and not accept the liquor so alas, I did.  Then they started passing around a bottle and everyone had to sing into it.  So it was my turn and I sang "manem" (the Korean song I learned for the wedding) because it's a crowd pleaser and I knew they would love it.  And of course they did.  Then the next guy started singing "Edelweiss" and everyone was singing it.  It was so funny to me.  A whole bunch of Koreans sitting around drinking, eating, and mumbling Edelwiess because they know the tune but not the words.  I love that.

Then Kaeden was asking me if I liked her father and if I had a boyfriend and I should have her father for my boyfriend.  And that's when I thought I had overstayed my welcome so I went back to my tent.

The long-winded point I am making here is that the Edelwiess moment made me realize something.  Every single day here is an adventure.  Every SINGLE day something happens that is so so funny to me.  I love my life here and I think I have to come back here.  I have to go back to America for one year and then I have to come back to Korea.  Life in Korea is the happiest life.  I just realized I typed this whole blog like I am talking to a Korean person.  I'm really sorry for my terrible and awkward-sounding English.  It's hard to speak well these days.

Of Chicks and Bugs

So turns out, in Spring, agimas stand on the corner outside E-World and sell little chicks to kids for the equivalent of 50 cents.  Chicks, chicks, little yellow baby chicks.  The kids give the agimas 50 cents and in return the agimas give them a chick wrapped up in a plastic bag.

These poor chicks.  The kids squeeze them, abuse them, malnourish them, and they end up only living a few days.  It’s strange and sad, but mostly it is incredibly annoying.  There are loud, noisy, chirping chicks in my classroom all of the time.  It’s distracting, not to mention disturbing because I know the fate of the chicks.

But I’d much rather have a chick in my class than a huge bug.  My 3:00 class keeps bringing spiders or cockroaches in their pencil cases to my class. It’ll be halfway through class and all of the sudden chaos erupts, three girls are crying because Lia opened her pencil case and there’s a huge bug in it.  One girl wouldn’t come back into the classroom for the rest of the period.  This has happened more than once with different students brining in different bugs.  God kids are gross.

The Door

Last night I went drinking with Meg and her friend San Ki, or as he likes to be called, “Johnny Depp.”  He thinks he resembles Johhny Depp, though he doesn’t at all, and he lets this idea fuel his ego like gasoline fuels a car.  One day Meg told him he should send Johnny Depp his picture with a note that reads “don’t we look the same?”  He would do it too, this is the guy that bought a book about the history of Korea with the intent to mail it to President Obama in case he was looking for some leisurely reading. 

Also, Meg told him a saying we have that goes something like “if you’re ugly, you probably have a really great personality.”  Yesterday, Meg said to him, ”Hey, thanks, that was nice of you,”  and he responded “No!  I’m not ugly!!” 

Anyway, so we’re out drinking and Meg is really plastered.  We get to a Norebang around 4am.  Meg goes to the bathroom and she’s in there for a while so I start to get worried.  I go in to see if she’s ok.  “No!  I’m stuck!” she responds.  She assures me that the door in unlocked, so I begin to pull on the door and sure enough it won’t open.  I keep pulling and Meg keeps pushing against the door.  Eventually Meg begins ramming herself against the door so hard it seems like the door is going to completely break off.  We are being so noisy that the Norebang worker comes in and turns out the door pulles in, not out.  Neither of us could figure that one out.  Thank God I was too drunk to feel like a complete idiot, but I do now.

If Madonna Could See Me Now

            Today was a crazy and exciting day for Yeosu.

First of all, it’s children’s day – a day where children are welcomed to run amuck and dine on chocolate and cotton candy while being showered with gifts and money.  Why don’t we have this holiday in the west?  The point is, there were happy children everywhere today.

             Second of all, today was the opening day of the World Expo rehearsal week.  The official opening is next Saturday.  This week the doors open to Yeosu citizens who somehow managed to snatch special tickets.  The estimated attendance for today was 100,000 people.  Lucky me, I got to be one of those people. 

            I arose at 6.30am after a night of drinking to go to the Expo with the Korean family I adopted (my one student’s family loves me so they take me places.)  By the time we arrived, the Expo site was packed.  I won’t go on about the Expo but I am very impressed with everything; they really pulled it off. 

But Koreans crack me up.  They wait in long lines for things and then they dash through the things they waited in line to see.  We waited for almost three hours to get into the Expo and get to the aquarium.  Once inside the aquarium, everyone in the aquarium was running around at high speeds and I could barely keep up.  It was like “Oh! A Beluga!  Ok, saw it!  And go!  Next!!”    Meanwhile, I’m mesmerized and I start singing “Baby Baluga” at the top of my lungs and no one knows what’s happening.  This is what happens when you rush me.

Sidenote:  I teach an adult class these days and one student (Masashi) is from Japan and is working at the Expo.

Later, Jennifer Student and I went to the Japanese Pavilion to look for Masashi.  We couldn’t find him anywhere, so we stood outside the pavilion and chanted, “we want Masashi!  We want Masashi!” until someone noticed us and told us he was out to lunch.  So we just told her to say to him “Konichiwa!” and then we left.  (I’m trying to show off my lingual skills here, haha)

So we left the Expo and I went home and waited for a call from a friend, whom, very long story short was too tired to hang out, so I decided to go downtown.  This was my best idea so far because turns out on this day Yeosu also celebrates the Goeboksun Festival (a festival for Admiral II Soon Shin and the Turtle Ships that won the war against Japan). 

            There were all of these tents set up downtown and I was so excited to see them all.  The first thing I came across was a recreation of the torture methods of old Korea.  They wanted to demonstrate on someone, and when no one else volunteered I volunteered myself.  I laid down on a wooden cross not knowing what to expect and all of the sudden I’m being spanked with a very large wooden panel.  Spanked.  I was publicly spanked.  Madonna would have been so proud of me.  Only in Korea would this ever happen…and only to me.

            I later ran into Lily student and her two siblings whom I also teach.  We hung out together for a bit.  Lily kept asking me:

 “Teacher!  How are you here?”

And I kept saying:

 “Lily, I LIVE here.” 

“But how you go downtown?” 

“Lily, I took the bus.” 

“Alone?” 

“Yes, Lily.”

I think our students think we just live at E-World and never leave and that May keeps us as slaves.  I honestly think that’s what they believe.

            I hung out downtown for a while meandering trough all the booths and then it began to rain so I tried to take a bus home.  I waited two hours for a bus that wasn’t packed like sardines because today was soooooooo busy.  I finally got one a bus but it was incredibly crammed.  Aside from being short and surrounded by sweaty agimas at the end of my day, today was awesooommeee.