Don't Ever Make A Plan

I was looking forward to this weekend a lot.  I was going to get a lot of work done on Saturday and go to an island with Esther on Sunday.  Probably stay in Friday night.

Wrong. Wrong.  And wrong.

After we (sadly) finished up Single Ladies in dance class, my dance class friend said that we should go to the sauna on Saturday.  So I said "Hooray!  Let's go."

I drank a lot Friday night and got home at 3.30am.  My friend called me at 10am on Saturday and though I could have slept more we went to the sauna.  As we were leaving the sauna we ran into out dance teacher.  Hilarity ensued.

We drove around and ate and drank beer (before noon, god love Korea).  Then we went to see 12 Years A Slave.  A very SAD SAD movie.  Yet something about this movie amused my two companions.  They chuckled and smiled and giggled throughout while I sat in shock and horror as tears streamed down my face.  I am not understand.

They asked me what my plans were tomorrow in what I thought was mere curiosity.  I told them I was going to go to an island with my friend.  They said "together!"  So together we went.  We drove to the ferry and took the car on the ferry and drove and hiked around the island.  We drank beer all day and ate delicious food.  They do not know barely a word of English.  But we trucked through it.  It was such an unexpected and awesome hilarious weekend.

Dance 수업

This was a hard weekend.  Things didn't go according to plan.  I ended up absolutely exhausted by Sunday night yet couldn't sleep due to a Skype date which was more than welcomed.  The ease of true friendship never lets me down.

Sunday night I hoped to sleep but due to stress I slept very little and I had a very vivid dream where I was cast as a very minor character in a show and my sole line was "many unlucky days."  It doesn't get more Freudian than that.

This morning I went to work and attempted to be in the best mood I could be.  I even listened to "Ain't Nothin' Gonna Break My Stride" and I can't think of a more uplifting song than that.

When I got to my adult class I mentioned my weekend.  I guess I didn't realize how disappointed I was in how it went until I spoke it alound and had to use ever force I had not to cry.  One student even said "Katie, face very red."  Oh no.

The rest of the day was average.  Finally work ended and I got to dance class.  I always look forward to dance class on Monday to see what the new K-Pop song is.  This week no K-Pop.  SINGLE LADIES by Beyonce.  I kinda freaked out.  I've always wanted to learn this dance and I knew in my heart that my teacher chose it because of me.  I'm the only foreigner ever. 

I arrived early to class and I watched the class before me dance to "Single Ladies" and I realized this was our dance.  I felt so happy.  My teacher came out to ask if I liked the song.  I said I was so happy.  I know he did this for me.  Every bad feeling disappeared.  I was so excited.

After work, two dance students took me out to drink.  They knew no English so we spoke Korean.  I've been studying a lot and we got along well.  I was so impressed with myself and so happy to make friends.  And one student confirmed that our teacher chose "Single Ladies" because of me.  

This day started off really bad, but joining dance class has been so inspirational.  I'm such a bad dancer, but it's so fun to try.  The worst day here had become the best day. 

What the Fox Say?

It always strikes me how trends spread here like rapid fire.  It's because Korea is such a small country, and it's so intensely homogenous.  A few examples of this in the classroom:

1.  Mother, Father, Gentleman.

If you are unaware of the latest Psy song, his sequel to "Gangnam Style," it's "Gentleman."  It's a song whose chorus goes "I'm a mother, father, gentleman." 

This is fun for English teachers.  And by 'fun' I mean 'kill me, kill me now.'  EVERY SINGLE TIME I have to teach a new class about family I encounter this.  As I teach "It's a mother, it's a father..." I get interrupted by a rambunctious student who yells "Teacher, TEACHER!! Mother father one more time."  So I roll my eyes and monotonously say "Mother, father..." and wait while they all yell "GENTLEMAN" at an ear-piercing volume.

2.  Let It Go.

This one in actually cute.  At this point, I don't think there is a single person in Korea who has not see the movie "Frozen."  Not one.  Even the president must have seen it.  It's all anyone talks about and if that wasn't enough, "Let It Go" plays in every single coffee shop and bar.  Mention the word "snowman" and instantly students yell back "teacher, oh-la-puh" (Olaf).  If I say, "okay let's do something else" this prompts "Teacher, Elsaaaa."  Yeah, yeah.  One day, as I was trying to teach 6 four-year-olds about toys I was interrupted by a boy in the class named Cole, who started to yell "Let it gooooooooo" as loudly and off-pitch as he could and for the next five minutes of class I endured a rousing chorus of the words "let it go, let it go" on repeat because that's all they know.

3.  What Does The Fox Say.

The most obnoxious example of this is "What Does The Fox Say?"  Though I'll admit this song has come in handy when teaching animal sounds, this song has become the bane of my existence in ways.  Like I said, it's fun to use this song when I want to ask my class about what a cow says or rabbit says.  "What the cow say?  Moo moo moo moo moo moo moo moo moo."  You get the idea.  However, I have one class who was clever enough to figure out that "What the fox" sounds a like like "What the ..."  (fill in the blank, reader).  This class will sit in class and go "What the foc...x say."  To which I respond, "yeah, that's...that's a good one guys.  You're so funny...ha. ha. ha."  Sadly, they don't understand sarcasm.

Jeonju

Off the bat, I'll know I'll get a little backlash for this one.  I'm fine, seriously.  I always use my judgement.

Last Saturday, February 1st, was New Year's Day in accords to the Chinese Lunar Calendar which is also in practice in Korea.  So I decided to get an little escape from Yeosu and go to a town called Jeonju which is known for it's traditional folk village "Hanok Mal (한옥마을). " 

The last time I visited Jeonju, it was virtually dead.  Mostly everything way closed.  I feared this may be the case once more, since it was a holiday.  WRONG.  It was so packed in the village I felt like I was in Shang-Hai.  (Politically incorrect??)  It was so hard to get anywhere, there were so many people.  This fact is why I knew right off the bat that someone was following me.

While pushing and shoving my way through the village, I made a second-too-long eye-contact with a guy who had a grammatically incorrect English shirt on.  This one was particularly offensive to the name of English and I without thinking did a double take to 1. read the shirt and 2. throw my hands up in anguish.

Later on, I decided I needed a break from the madness that ensued around me as Korean people in general cannot a. walk in a straight line b. NOT walk in a blockade of the throng type variety or c. let anyone through or EVER move out of the way.  They just can't allow it.  I decided to sit down and drink some coffee.

I chose a coffee shop with a really cute lion dog in it.  You know, this kind:   I pet the dog and somehow I scared it.  I looked up to see if anyone was around to share a 'haha' moment with, and who did I see through the window but the guy with the bad English shirt.  I thought, hmm, that's a coincidence.  But deep down, I knew something was up.

I got my coffee just as I was finishing it I noticed that the bad English shirt guy was down in the coffee shop, sitting at a table a bit near mine, but not drinking coffee or any liquid of any kind in fact.  Red flag.  Finally he got up and, as these things always turn out for me, he came over to my table and asked to sit with me.  I think my exact words were "...ugh...sure..."

And so he did.  He asked a few generally questions and then I got hit with it.  "So, are you a Christian?"  Ugh.  I came to Korea because I thought this was a country full of Buddhists.  I could NOT have been more wrong about anything in my life.

I avoided the question entirely because nothing motivates a missionary more than someone that says "no" to that question.  I tried to get up to leave but he decided that he was going to be a part of the rest of my journey through Jeonju.  I couldn't shake him.

We went to look at an art gallery.  Inside, the owner thought we were a couple and took about twenty pictures of us together.  When he finally noticed my somewhat horrified expression, he asked me why I wasn't smiling and the bad English shirt guy finally explained that I wasn't his girlfriend.  That was awkward for everyone involved there.

While in the shop, the bad English shirt guy decided he needed to buy me something so I let him buy me a postcard.  Hey, I'm not one to pass up free gifts...but it's not going to convert me over to Christianity if that's what he was hoping.

After we left I needed to just leave Jeonju.   I couldn't take it anymore.  Just as I was about to hail a cab, the bad English shirt guy said he'd drive me to the station.  I'm not one to pass up a free ride...so there I went.

I had thought we had gotten past the God-pushing part of our time together but it turns out that the car ride was the perfect opportunity for him to make me watch God videos on his cell-phone.  Videos so cheesy and terrible that I could have vomed everywhere.  Vom.com/youtubegodvideos.  Bleh.

What do you say in response to these videos?  I just said "um...that's nice."  I have no idea.  When we finally arrived at the station I just kinda booked it.  See ya never.  Like one cheesy youtube video was going to convert me into a Christian.  Jeez.  Can't we all just believe what we want to believe quietly to ourselves in peace?  Why do people have to shove their religious beliefs down other people's throats?

Anyway, Happy New Year's.

The living fossils...goats

This weekend was full of firsts for me.  After work on Friday, we drank and then took the midnight bus to Seoul.  We arrived in Seoul at 4:00 am and decided it was best to just sleep in the bus terminal for we needed to be at Camp Kim at 8:30. 

We got to the bus terminal and we found all of these seating areas surrounded by various faux-foliage.  So we chose one area to be out campground.  Our clothes had gotten wet on the bus because the floor of the bus was wet and we put our bags down.  So we took out our wet clothes and hung them around our area to dry.  It looked so much like camping that it prompted Robby to say "ah, I love camping."  At that moment this weird music came on and we could hear birds chirping.  It was perfect timing.  Camping!

Later when we were looking around the bus terminal, we passed a true picturesque scene.  We walked by a McDonald's where they had a bench with a statue of Ronald McDonald sitting and next to Ronald was an old Korean man just hangin' out.  It was hilariously anachronistic.

We finally got to Camp Kim which is the USO base and where we began our DMZ tour.  First we went to one of the underground caves that North Koreans had build in attempt to infiltrate South Korea.  Before the tunnel we got to watch a movie about the DMZ and how beautiful it is and how many wonderful wild animals live in the DMZ including "the living fossils...goats."  Bahahahaha

In the tunnel everyone had to duck to walk through because the ceiling was so low.  Everyone...except for me.  I ducked not once, not once.  Take that tall people, no back pain for me!  So many advantages!

We went to a spot where you could look into North Korea and we went to the train station that connected Seoul to Pyongyang.  But the most exciting part was going to the Joint Security Area and getting to step into North Korea.  Bam!

Later that evening we met a friend in Gangnam.  He took us around for drinking and one bar carded us.  Now, not only was this the first time I have ever been carded or seen anyone be carded in Korea, it was the first time I've ever been carded outside of North America.  However, I suppose I'm grateful and I take it as a compliment,

The next day we went to Everland, home of the steepest wooden roller coaster in the world.  It is the best roller coaster I have ever been on in my life.  It was awesome. 

Everland was Halloween themed when we got there (in the beginning of September) and everyone kept singing "Happy Halloween" and we were just like....not Halloween.  But it was cool because we got to go into this terrifying haunted house.  I love haunted houses; I go everywhere to get to the best ones.  This one was unexpectedly the best haunted house I've ever been in.  It was so scary.  I was genuinely terrified.  They did such a good job.

But the bext and most unexpected part about Everland and the whole trip was that we got to see a Liger!  I didn't know they were real.  But they are!  They are so bizarre looking.  Much bigger than a lion or a tiger.  They have tiger stripes and lion color.  So mythical-looking...wow, fantastic.

바 보

I was walking Benes today when I came across a couple with a dog.  (This is pretty rare, most people are terrified of dogs). 


The couple came up and started talking to Benes and they tried to get her to do some tricks.  Benes only knows "sit" in Korean, so "anja."  But Benes ain't the brightest crayon so the guy is going "anja!  anja!" and she was just staring at him with a look of sheer confusion on her face.  Then they tried "hand" or "som" and that wasn't happening either. 

So I patted Benes on the head and said "babo" which means "stupid" in Korean.  I was trying to make a joke like "she's dumb so she can't do tricks."  But the couple thought I meant that her name is "babo."

The guy then starts asking me "where are you from?" and all that.  Then he points to his girlfriend.  "My...girlfriend."  Then, he points to her again but looks directly at me.  "I love you," meaning "I love her."  Pronouns are tough...



So anyway,  I walked away but turns out they were going in the same direction as me so they started after me yelling "BABO!!!!  BAABOO!!!"in attempt to call Benes and get her attention.  I just laughed and laughed.


When we both crossed the street they called to Benes again, convinced she was going the wrong way although I had her on a leash, "Babo!!"



God this was so funny, SO funny.

You Can Call Me Jelly

 

I know I’ve talked about English names before.  But it’s a constant source of amusement and frustration to me.  Most of the time foreign teachers name the new students, thus “Atreyoo,” “Tobias,” “Mick,” “Raphael,” and such.  I tried to name one “Jafar” but he wouldn’t have it.  Anyway, sometimes either A, the students name themselves or B the Korean teachers name them.  Both A and B produce problems of what I deem epic proportions.

There are a few students at E-World who have named themselves.  These students are “Shinee” who named himself after his favorite K-Pop band, “Chandler” whose parents probably watch Friends, and most recently “Jelly,” whom after telling me her name proceeded to say “yum, yum.”  To this I throw my hands up.  Whatever you kids want, just don’t go to a western country and tell people that they can call you by your English name – Jelly.  No no no.

Far worse are the Korean teachers who think they know everything, which is why I teach two boys named “Raven,” a boy named “June,” a boy named “Jaeden,” and a girl named “Haley” but spells her name “Healy.”  How many times have I argued that Raven isn’t even a name and if it is a name, it’s a name for a black girl?  How many times have I told Healy and the Korean teachers that Healy is not how you spell Haley and that it can NEVER be spelled like that?  It’s like talking to a brick wall.  What’s far more infuriating is when I name a student and the Korean teachers try and tell me that it’s not a name.  Um…excuse me?  Who’s the native English speaker?  Don’t ever argue with me about that.

Just Introduce Yourself, and This Won't Happen

When Robby and I first joined the boxing gym, we were two of the very first members.  There were two trainers: 김 성 수ㅏand  이 기 봉and the few people who had joined the gym.  Since then, the gym has gotten really popular.  There are very many members and the two trainers have had to hire other trainers to compensate for the amount of members they now have.

Like I said, when we first started it was basically just us so the trainers learned our names and we learned theirs.  Now that the gym is so busy, there are three new trainers but we’ve never had the time to learn their names. 

No problem for us because we’ve come up with some pretty fitting nicknames for them.  The first day I saw the primary new trainer in the gym he was my trainer that day.  He was ruthless.  It was the most difficult workout I have ever had.  I wanted to die.  I really did.  I met Robby for drinking later and I said Robby, the new trainer, he’s like Hitler.  And thus, “Hitler.”

The next week, there was a second new trainer.  He’s really tall and when I trained with him I noticed a tattoo he has on his ankle of the Buddhist symbol/Swastika.  I am 99% sure that that tattoo is an association to Buddhism and not Nazism, but nonetheless, now his nickname is “Goebbels.”  It didn’t hurt that he somewhat resembles the infamous Reichsleiter.

I really like te last new trainer.  Now, most Korean dudes dress like hipsters.  Not because they are hipsters, but just because it’s Korean style.  But this guy, he is a hipster among hipsters.  And thus, we call him “Hipster.”

Now, we never thought these nicknames would come back to haunt us, but one night we saw Hitler out and about and so we called after him “Hitler!  What’s up  brother?”  We don’t know his real name!  I don’t think he picked up on it that time.  But I am certain that next time we won’t be so fortunate.

'7' Take Three

It had been a while since we’d been to the night club, and since Meg was out of town, and we were no longer were being invited to drink with the boxers, Robby and I decided it was time to go again.

The first part of our plan was to drink in Hakdong (which we love-I’ll get to this later or in another vignette) and see if we could spot some friends to bring with us.  You see, these past few weekends we’ve been sitting outside Wow Bar or various other places and people walk by that we know, from boxing or just from drinking around and meeting people, and they stop and drink with us.  We wanted this to happen.  But it wasn’t our night.  Our table at Wow was occupied and so were all the tables outside the ministops and all the other bars that have outdoor seating.  We were out of luck. 

Robby suggested we drink in Yosodong, and while I was reluctant because I thought for sure we’d never spot anyone we know there, our current predicament left us no other options.

We found a bar to drink outside of and we ordered some Soju and beer.  Not five minutes later a dude walked over to our table that we had apparently met last night in Hakdong (neither Robby nor I recall this) and he sat and drank with us for a bit.  We told him to bring his friends to our table but he told us they’d be too embarrassed because they don’t know English and even though Robby and I professed to speak as much Korean as possible he wouldn’t bring them over.  Anyway, he lives in Hakdong so we got his number and then off he went to drink with his friends. 

We were alone again, but that’s the best thing about being a wayguk in Korea.  We were not alone for long.  Soon after two guys sitting at the table next to us asked if they could join us.  So of course they could.  We told them of our night club plans which lead to a discussion about K-pop dancing (more on this later) and I stood up to perform my best 2NE1’s “내가 제이 잘나가” which is terrible but lead to the guys in the window that we were sitting in front of to perform their best “Gangnam Style” so there were random Korean dudes just Gangnam Styling in the window at us.  Greatness.  (Although I will say the novelty/hilariousness of seeing random people Gangnam Style down the streets is wearing off, especially after seeing a group of ten guys just Gangnaming down the street for a good three blocks the other day.) 

Anyway, so these guys were ALSO from Hakdong so we exchanged numbers and they told us they’d go to the night club with us.  We were still drinking when Robby (pretty drunk at this point) found a big weird-looking cricket, picked it up, and thought it would be hilarious to go up to a table of random Korean girls and put the cricket on their table and then just walk away.  This is why people hate foreigners.  Those girls lost their shit.  They freaked out and they were so mad.  We had to apologize profusely to them.  It was really funny in retrospect, but geez.

So we got to the night club finally.  And I will say this.  Koreans may love to sing, but they REALLY love to dance.  And not just dance.  Line dance.  They know at least 20 or 30 intricate line dances that I swear professional choreographers couldn’t pick up unless it was broken down for them step by step.  I mean, my god.  I tried so hard to learn even just one of the dances, but in the end I just looked like Lucy Ricardo in the Ballet Class episode where she just gives up and starts doing the Charleston.  That was me.

That was me until they extended the stage and invited people up there to dance.  No one was going up and I love attention so I decided to go up there and be the first one.  I did and DAMN I felt like a rockstar.

Eventually we left the night club because Robby was so gone.  On the cab ride home he just kept going “I love those people man, they’re good people.”  And I said, “Who?  The guys we met?”  And he said, “No.  All those people, man.” 

Jeju brings about the robot bitch slap

We went to Jeju for vacation for four days.  It was three foreigners (me, Meg, Robby) and 10 Koreans (Our boss May, her husband and his two nephews and one niece, May’s sister Jasmine and her three kids, and May’s mom.)  We took a ferry to Jeju and rented what I called “the party van.”  It was a big bus that more than comfortably fit all thirteen of us. 

I’ve spent some time with Jasmine’s three kids, as they are E-World students, but it was my first time meeting May’s husband’s nephews and niece.   Naturally, they were afraid of Meg, Robby and I because we’re foreigners.  We got to our pension and settled in.  We had two pensions and the foreigners were bunking with May’s husband’s niece and nephews.  Like I said, they were afraid of us.  Unbeknownst to me the youngest, 우 현 hid himself in the closet to escape.  I went to get a blanket and pillow out of the closet and when I opened the door 우 현 started screaming and I started screaming and we both just screamed at each other because he didn’t expect anyone to open the closet and I didn’t know anyone was in there.  It was so funny.  That kid turned into my bff for the trip. 

Later on in the trip we had a BBQ and we were talking about how our adult student Masashi is leaving back to Japan soon (he was in Korea working for the Expo which ends next weekend.)  Last week he gave all the teachers gifts.  We opened them and no one knew what they were so we asked Masashi.  He didn’t know either.  Lydia guessed it was a skirt, Robby guessed a table cloth, May guessed a scarf.  We’re having a goodbye party for Masashi on Friday and we decided we’re going to wear his mysterious gifts as capes to his goodbye party.  CANNOT WAIT.  It’s going to be hilarious.  We just decided, ‘”Oh, they’re capes.  Clearly capes.”

Later on in the trip Andrew, Jasmine’s son, found some crab/slug-like creatures at the beach.  He took them into the car and we were driving for a couple of hours when Robby asked ‘Andrew, are your friends ok?”  “Not ok.”  He responded.  “Die.  No in water and die.”    Later on we’re walking through E-Mart getting food for later when Andrew comes running up to me “KATIE!!!  NOT DIE!!!  ALIVE!!!!!!!!”  They then lived in the fresh sink water over night before eventually being discarded.

My favorite part of the trip was the boat ride back when Robby, Meg and I were on the deck with 우 현 and Andrew and we were just singing "I'm so curious yeeaaahhh - over and over) and dancing and pretend fighting (robot fighting - robot bitch slap) for like two hours.  Andrew is the most ridiculous person I’ve ever met in my entire life.  Sometimes he'll do this gangster move and I'll chime in like - "you doin' ho activities, with ho tendencies, hoes are your friends and hoes are your enemies."  Good thing he can't understand English.  Absolutely impossible to explain or describe this kid in words but we just annoyed everyone else on deck with our preposterousness.  We also invented “everybody Andrew’in.”  Ask me about this please, it must be demonstrated.  

1/10th of the Humor...

I have many a "special" student, trust me on this, many a "special" student.  Thus, it is somewhat unimaginable that I would be able to focus a blog on two above the rest, but after today...le sigh.  This one is for Atreyoo and Colin, respectively.

Atreyoo is an indescribable creature.   He's one of my older students; I'd say 12?  11?  But he's just not right.  He was named Atreyoo after the kid from The Never-Ending Story by a former teacher just before she left E-World.  What a perfect name for him.  He is my student, but he is famous at E-World because he's such a ridiculous person.  I really can't describe him at all, but when I tell you about a few stories in which he stars, just picture a fat, dumb, spacey-looking kid with bad teeth. 

So first of all, he's pretty dumb.  He is in the level just before Exploring (which begins the advanced English levels at E-World) which means his English should be pretty good by now.  The other day in class he asked me:  "Teacher.  'Shut up' spelling, whaaaattt????"  So I said: "A."  He wrote is down frivilously and then looked back up at me, so I said "T."  Again he scribbled it down.  "R."  Again.  "E."  Again.  "Y."  Again.  "O."  Again.  "O."  Then he looked down and snapped his head up "Teacher!!  Gah!!"  Really Atreyoo?  You didn't realized that "Shut Up" wasn't spelled A-T-R-E-Y-O-O until the last letter???  Come on.

A few weeks ago, his mother bought him a sharp pencil that was apparently really expensive.  Kids go crazy over sharp pencils here - this is literally a whole other story.  Anyway, he lost his sharp pencil right before my class.  I tried to help him look for it but it was nowhere to be found.  Eventually I started class.  But Atreyoo was very upset about the loss of his pencil and he just sat in his chair with an exasperated look on his face going "shaarrrrp-uh"  "shaaaarrrppp-uh."  Over and over.  I felt bad for him but it was so funny.  I tried to explain that, if anything, he should be going "penciiiiillll" "penciiiiilll."  But still he continued "shaarrrrppp-uh."

I know that last story cannot possibly be as funny on paper as it was in real life, but everything I think about it I laugh out loud to myself.  I'll do impressions of it in the future.

I have a plethora of stories about Atreyoo, but for now we'll move onto Colin.

This kid is a little troublemaker.  Again, difficult to describe, but I'll try.  He's in a pretty low English level.  He's about 8 or 9.  He is a really funny kid.  He's not bad per se, but he doesn't EVER shut his mouth or stop talking or sit down.  He always just plays around and giggles and makes loud ridiculous noises.  He ALWAYS draws poop.  No matter what the assignment is - poop.  One time I had them draw their dream house and his dream house was a poop house that was pooping.  So gross.

Whenever he cracks himself up so bad that he has to go to the bathroom he says "Ah!!!  Teacher!  Yellow water!!"  Sidenote and somewhat ironically, the word for blood in Korean is "Pee" 피. 

Today we had to read this stupid mini-story in class.  Every teacher hates this mini-story.  It's the absolute worst.  Here's the entirety of the dialog:  "Look!  A carrot!  Let's pull it out!"  "Ok!  Let's pull it out!"  "Use your arms!  Use your arms and legs!"  "Hooray!  The carrot is out."  Fucking stupid.

Anyway, after reading the mini-story, I asked all the students  "Did you like the story?  Yes, I did or No, I didn't."  I got to Colin and he said "I didn't like the story, but I liked the movie."

I realize as I write this that this in no way comes across on paper, but I laughed so hard in class - yellow water, yellow water.

Next, the students had to draw what they thought happens next in the story.  Once again, Colin provided absolute amusement.  "Colin, what happens next?" 

"Mother is, sister...home run!"  I look at his drawing and he drew a picture of the mother holding the carrot like a baseball bat and swinging at the daughter's head as if it were a baseball.  God, so funny.

Gonna miss this.

Frienemies?

         I got home yesterday around 5pm.  My roommate Meg was in Seoul and my other roommate Kayla was at church or something so I was home alone.  Or so I thought.  I turned on music and started to cook dinner.  I got a text from Meg’s boyfriend, San Gi, saying “what you doing?” and I said I was home cooking and so on.  Five minutes later I heard heavy breathing behind me and I turned around and San Gi was directly behind me.  I have never screamed so loud in my life.  (This is very typical of San Gi - he is the ultimate creeper.)  He was just hanging out in Meg’s room all day even though she wasn’t there.  At the time I was mostly annoyed and inconvenienced.

I called Robby to come over to save me from San Gi hitting on me while Meg was away.  He came by and soon the three of us were hanging out drinking when all of the sudden I heard a loud banging on my door.  I opened the door and there was this angry agishi screaming his lungs out at me in Korean.  I looked and he had kicked over a bag of recycling that I had left outside my door to remember to take downstairs later.  We’ve been doing this all year; no one has ever said anything.  I started to pick up the contents of the bag that HE knocked over all the while he is cursing at me in Korean.  He called me an idiot among other things.  Luckily San Gi was over and he stepped outside and San Gi and the angry agishi started yelling and screaming at each other and at one point San Gi was called “son of a bitch” (when a Korean says it in English, it comes out ‘son of a bitch-y’ – hehe.) 

Robby and I were pretty freaked out and we went back inside while San Gi and Angry Agishi duked it out.  About a half hour passed and Robby and I didn’t know where San Gi was so we went to look for him.  We found him downstairs in a restaurant drinking and laughing with Angry Agishi.  Then Angry Agishi was inviting us in to eat and drink.  I felt really uncomfortable but we went.  Anyway, it’s a really long story but in the end we ended up drinking with this guy for about two hours and he apologized and I half-heartedly apologized.  Geez.  Everything just escalated so quickly.  It was insane.

           Sadly, that was the better part of my night. 

Superman Dat Hoe

 

Last night I had plans with my friend Song Won.  I love Song Won.  He’s so sweet and so funny.  Sometimes he’ll just call to ask how I am and ask me what I did that day.  He’s a really nice guy and handsome guy.  But he thinks he’s not handsome.  He was telling me “this winter, face chang-y.”  Eye surgery, nose surgery….  Ridiculously unnecessary things, this guy is really handsome. 

Anyway so we hand plans and we were going to go to the singing room.  However, before we went I had to celebrate my friend Masashi’s birthday.  Song Won came for a bit and then he invited everyone to his coffee shop but no one wanted to go, except me.  So I went with him to his coffee shop and he cooked delicious food and made fun drinks for us.  Then he said he’d drive me home, not enough people for the singing room.  So we were on our way when he pulled out his phone and started playing music and singing along as eloquently as he could.  He has a great voice.

He was playing some English songs, among them, ‘Invisible’ by Clay Akin, which he was singing along to with all of the feverish passion he could possibly muster.  It was so funny, but I went along with it. 

Then he parked his car by Seonso and he kept playing music and singing while we walked along the water.  Then he started to play Soldier Boy and we both were doing to Soldier Boy dance outside by the water with cars dashing by…honestly hilarious.  Make it a life goal to watch a Korean dance to Solider Boy, seriously.

And then he drove me home.  It was such a random night.  Song Won is hilarious.

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.

Friday Night Boxing

        Friday night.  I had no plans. I was looking forward to staying in and just relaxing.  But if you know me you know I can’t say no to anything, so I get a call around 11:00 from Robby saying that he and our boxing trainers were drinking in the middle of the boxing floor and did I want to join?

        Oh sidenote, I’ve been kickboxing these days.  Our boxing trainers are hilarious.  They don’t know any English, so they always just say “come on!” (with the emphasis on the “come” so “COME on”) and “Hey!”  and “Fighting!”  These are the only words they’ve learned so far.

        Anyway, so the idea of drinking in the middle of the boxing floor seemed pretty hilarious to me so I went along.  All they kept saying to Robby and me were “Hey!  Come on!” and occasionally “Hey! Be quiet!”   The main kickboxing guy kept saying, “I am king!”  And then he made us drink somek and somek and somek.  And we had to do somek “one shot” every time.  He’d pour us somek and then say “Hey! Come on! One shot!”  Alas, I got so drunk, I don’t really remember the whole night.  But I do know that for a while there I could not get over how amusing it was that we were drinking on the boxing floor.  Koreans would.  They just would.

        Also, I don’t think I trust these guys with my diet anymore.  I started kickboxing to lose weight, but last night they ate fried-chicken and drank somek and smoked cigarettes IN THE KICKBOXING ROOM.  They asked us if we like Ramen and the head trainer showed me a picture of him when he had a six-pack “yesterday, yesterday, yesterday, yesterday, yesterday.”  No six-pack now eh?  What are you doing wrong?  Maybe I should find a new trainer…