First week in Daegu

Again, to all my loyal followers: You may be few in numbers, but I appreciate it every time you mention something I've written about because it reminds me that I'm not writing this solely for myself.
I've been in Daegu for 12 days now but more importantly I just finished my first complete week of life as a middle school ESL teacher. Calling myself a teacher right now might be an overstatement since I only gave self introductions last week, ranging from 5-20 minutes based on what the particular co-teacher wanted. I let the students ask questions about me and I only didn't answer the question about my age, based on advice from my co-teachers. Of course, that didn't keep the students from asking...and asking...and asking. Some of the interesting/strange questions I got this week from my students include the following (edited for proper English):
Answers in brief follow the questions
-Are you married? No.
-What do you look for in a girlfriend? Pretty, smart, nice, laughs at my jokes.
-How much did your watch cost? It was a gift. I don't know.
-How much do you weigh? 80 kilos.
-Why is your hair black? My Mom is Korean.
-Do you think the other teacher (my co-teacher) is beautiful? Of course.
-Can you hug the other teacher? No.
-Do you think your homestay Mom is beautiful? Of course.
-Are you rich like Bill Gates? No.
-Do you have a six pack? No, a one pack.
-Can we see your one pack? No.
-What's your phone number? I don't know it and my phone is in the office (truth!).
-Do you think Korean girls are beautiful? Absolutely.
-Can you dunk? Absolutely not.
-Will you sing your favorite song? At nolebang.
Other things to note about my first week at school:
1) I saw a kid get thwacked with a stick multiple times, presumably for doing something wrong. I don't speak enough Korean to figure out what his teacher was yelling, but she wasn't happy, and neither was he when all was said and done.
2) My gyomushil is a mad house, but in a good way. All of the other teachers are really nice, but individual characters.
3) My school's lunch is pretty good. I actually enjoy it. Of course most of you know I'm not a picky eater and will consume almost anything that's even remotely edible. Which is kind of what has gotten me into the predicament of agreeing to try the very refreshing summer delicacy of dog soup with the other male teachers.
My homestay has been awesome so far. I really have no complaints. Sure it's pretty far from the downtown area but I'll gladly sacrifice that for the great family that I've luckily been placed with. Like in Spain, I may be out there in the residential outskirts, but my homestay more than makes up for it with how accommodating and kind they've been towards me. They've really taken me in as one of their own. In fact, my homestay mother calls me her third son and says that her mother said she would have three sons and now I'm that third son. One thing that worried me even after I realized I had lucked out with a great homestay was how they would feel about me going out late at night. Obviously I'm used to caring for myself and not having someone tell me what to do, but in Korea you're not really an adult at my age (at least that's what I've gathered). Also, being a foreigner, everyone is overly protective and motherly. However, when my friends Jim (Naju) and Neill (Jinju) visited this past weekend, I knew that the curfew conversation had to take place. On Friday, we were at a school function for my principal who is retiring at the end of this month and my homestay Mom asked what time I was coming home that night. I dove right into the story about how my friends were visiting and how they had come from very far away. At that point, she interrupted me and said, "So you stay out all night with them. See you tomorrow!" After the dinner she left to go home to her husband and children while some of the other teachers and I went to karaoke. Soon, it ended up being just the male teachers remaining, apparently a common occurrence in Korea, and while they headed to play pool, I went to meet my friends downtown. Now this was the first time I had seen any ETAs since arriving in Daegu. For a city with 17 Fulbright ETAs, that's pretty impressive. Partially because I wasn't able to get internet or a cell phone right away, and partially because I wanted to spend some time at home with my new family, I was somewhat AWOL for our first week in Daegu. I'm sure that won't last too long.
Downtown Daegu really impressed me with how lively it was. I knew that Daegu was a big city but for some reason I was under the impression that downtown was something completely different. That impression stemmed from going to get my foreigner's ID number at the immigration office and thinking that was the downtown area. In fact, the immigration office is near the airport, quite far from downtown.
In order to keep this post from dragging on forever, I'll briefly summarize a few more salient points:
-At the retirement ceremony, my Principal's son in law, who is an opera singer (I'm going to his concert on Thursday), performed Figaro. That was quite the spectacle.
-I saw Inception with my host fam. It wasn't as good as I had heard from other people, but I enjoyed the plot. It was a thinker. I don't know if my host family understood it, even with the Korean subtitles.
-On Sunday I took Tae-mook and Sang-mook to the body painting festival. I couldn't find a schedule so we got there at 12:30, only to find that the real festival started at 7:30 PM. We saw a few belly dancing acts, saw the body paint being applied to the performers and got caught in a torrential downpour. We also had ice cream. Maybe my first day out with them wasn't so impressive.
-I'm playing volleyball with the gym teachers on Wednesday and going to a baseball game tomorrow.
-One of the gym teachers gave me a badminton shirt. If only I had a gold chain I'd look like a true ahjasshi.
-Still on the topic of the gym teachers, somehow they convinced me to do this iron man competition with them. I can't remember the exact distances but I think it's a 5k swim, 10k cycle and 5k "sprint". I don't think I'll be sprinting anywhere if I even make it that far.

Belly dancers at the Body Painting Festival

-Lastly, at dinner my host Mom and I had a really complex conversation about destiny. Very eloquently she said destiny is very difficult to understand, unless it happens to be easy. Maybe that falls flat out of context, but it sure made sense at the time. It was a pep talk somewhat like what my real Korean Mom would give me. Things happen, sometimes they seem bad, sometimes they seem good but most of the time there's something good that comes out of it even if it's just a lesson. Life spanks me with new lessons every day.

My sister introduced me to this many years ago and I just stumbled across it again. It's Japanese and has nothing to do with Korea but I thought it was adorable at the time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oolong_%28rabbit%29

Crazy middle school girls

OK so since this is getting out of hand, I figure I'd really take the time to list the ridiculous-ness I've been hearing. I'll edit this post as I go along:

My middle school girls...
-Have created a fan club for me
-Yell things like: I love you, you're so handsome, you're [sic] a movie star and should go to Hollywood, and all around squeals
-Write me love notes...well pieces of paper in the shape of different objects with hearts and their names on it
-Squeal when I tell them how tall I am (186 cm)
-Come into the gyomushil and refuse to leave because they're "practicing English"

My middle school boys...
-Tell me I'm handsome
-Squeal when I tell them how tall I am
-Told me I look like Wayne Rooney (uh...) http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Rooney

A good day

I now have internet, a phone 010) 4504 3686 a bank account (empty, yes), the love of hundreds of screaming middle school girls who tell me they love me in the halls, tell me I should go to Hollywood and make movies, tell me I'm handsome (the boys also tell me I'm handsome), scream when I tell them how tall I am, and finally leave me love notes in the shapes of watches. Today was a good day, minus the screaming middle school girls.

Oh, I almost forgot to talk about when they come into the teacher's office, plop down next to me and refuse to leave because they're "practicing their English". Life is hard when you're a celebrity. Has it gone to my head yet?

Arrival in 대 구!

On Thursday, August 19, 2010 we left our quaint little 괴 산 bubble for our placements. The day started off by checking out of our rooms, eating a mediocre breakfast, and basically twiddling our thumbs until the placement ceremony. When my name was called, I looked around and saw my co-teachers on the other side of the auditorium (Sung-a and Hye-young). Having subpar eyesight, I had no idea what they looked like except that they were female. Luckily, at the end of the ceremony, they easily found the lanky, confused looking half Korean. We loaded my stuff into Hye-young’s SUV and off we went. At a rest stop along the way we ran into two other ETAs from 대 구. Arriving at my homestay, I was probably the most nervous I’ve been since hearing about our placement locations on placement day. Meeting me in the parking lot were the homestay mother and her two adorable sons, Sang-mook and Tae-mook. The Kangs looked to be a very friendly family and I couldn’t have been more right. Sung-a and Hye-young came upstairs and we had some jap chae together. Again, per usual, everyone was impressed that I could use chopsticks, eat kim chee and bust out a few basic Korean words here and there. When Sung-a and Hye-young left, they told me that I didn’t have to come to school the next day.
Going to sleep that night, I was pretty tired but still happy with the initial impressions of my homestay family.

The next day, I was woken up at 9 AM by my homestay mother, who told me that I did in fact have to go to school that day to meet the other teachers, Vice Principal and Principal. Everyone kept apologizing to me but it really was quite OK since I don’t know what I would have done at home all day. My interaction with the Principal was limited by watching him sign my contact, I met the Vice Principal briefly where I think I screwed up the 인 사. The VP told Sung-a to tell me that I should only speak in English to my students, which I think shouldn’t be a problem at all since my Korean only consists of greetings, food and directions so far. I was also told that I’d have to make a videoconference speech to the school on Monday, introducing myself.

After school ended, Sung-a and I went to Costco. Apparently my Aunt called the school and told them that I needed to go to Costco to buy cereal. Where she’s getting this information is beyond me. First off, I haven’t eaten breakfast in 10 years. Second, I don’t even like cereal. Third, I haven’t spoken to my Aunt in 22 years because of that little language barrier thing. Anyway, we got to Costco, roamed around for a bit and came out with some melon and chocolates for my homestay family. I felt especially bad since it was way out of Sung-a’s way and I knew that I didn’t need anything there.

My family really appreciated the melon and chocolates. They all like sweets except the youngest son, Sang-mook, who partook in the melon instead. The best part of that day was the snack before dinner. My homestay Mother made Poppingsu with her ice crushing machine thing, as well as mini burgers. This combination proved to sit rather uneasily a little later but at the time it was great.

That night, I finally met the homestay Father. He works a lot, reminding me of my own Pops back in the day. After dinner that night, he ordered fried chicken and we drank some beer. I’m not quite sure of the purpose of the fried chicken, but I guess it was to make me more comfortable. Again, he was amazed that I could use chopsticks and eat spicy food. A theme seems to be developing here.

On Saturday, my uncle from Jinju came to visit. He came bearing yams and grapes, which I guess I expected in this food centric society. Since arriving at my homestay, my uncle, aunt and Mom have called repeatedly, which has turned out to be embarrassing for me. I don’t want my homestay family to think that I’m incapable of caring for myself but that is definitely the impression they’ve gotten. I’ve already been asked if I’m a “momma’s boy” which was surprising given their limited English proficiency. Yes, part of the reason I came to Korea was to familiarize myself with a family that I don’t know, but another (larger) part was to engage in some self discovery and I can’t do this if my blood family suffocates me and puts undue pressure on my new homestay family.

Anyway, my uncle, my homestay family and I went to eat at a typical Korean restaurant, spent some time together, I got the typical shocked look when I picked up my chopsticks and ate kim chee. Soon after, he went back to Jinju. He was here for about 6 or 7 hours and it was a good visit.

That night we had spaghetti with tomato sauce for dinner. I’m not sure if they’re Americanizing their diet for me, but I hope that eventually they realize I can eat Korean food. In actuality, I can eat any kind of food. Growing up in a house with a Mom who cannot follow a recipe has forced me to be this way, which isn’t a bad thing, seeing as how my sister is much more picky. I believe that Imo is a fantastic cook, and when she says she isn’t I hope she’s just being modest and doesn’t actually believe that.

This has been a particular long blog post because I haven’t had my own internet access yet, and only use the internet on the family computer. This has made me feel a little awkward so far but they keep telling me not to feel this way. Apparently they’re looking into a wireless router on Monday but we’ll see how that pans out.

Lastly, Imo does laundry every day and told me that she will wash my clothes too. However, the ETAs were told that to give our homestays our soiled undies would be impolite, so I’ve been hoarding my boxers unsure what I’m going to do about them or how I will explain that I want to wash my own clothes. This morning however, Imo asked me if I wear underwear because she hasn’t seen any in the laundry basket. With the help of the dictionary, I explained that we were told it would be impolite and she dismissed these concerns and told me that she doesn’t mind. I hope this is the truth because tomorrow I’m going to have about 5 pairs of underwear in the basket.

My room

Lastly, we took an adventure to Jukjun Middle School today so that we could all take the bus back together. I live about 40 minutes away via a combination of walking and a bus so Imo wanted to make sure I could come back by myself when I left school.

The fam, minus Young-rae who works long hours as some sort of businessman

So now it makes sense...

Or maybe not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death

Seoul and more

This past weekend the entire 2010-2011 ETA class went to Seoul for the weekend, We stayed in the Seoul Garden Premier Best Western Hotel, which was a lot nicer than your average Best Western in the US. We immediately went over to the Fulbright building where we were briefed by a very funny white man who happened to be more Korean that all of the ETAs. He talked about our medical situation in Korea and what to do in case of emergency. Following the medical briefing, we walked over to the house of the US Ambassador to Korea, Kathleen Stephens. She graciously hosted a pool party for us. There were burgers, hot dogs, and basically a whole lot of other foods that had obviously come from my favorite place, Costco. More to come on Costco in a bit. As far as the rest of Friday went, a bunch of us went to a few bars in Seoul, which was an experience much more similar to NYC than CNY (or Goesan for that matter).

Kathleen Stephens' crib

On Saturday we took a tour of the DMZ in Korea, which was probably the most interesting thing I've done since arriving here. After a briefing at the Joint Security Area, I realized that the DMZ was a highly pressurized military front. While that defines a DMZ, it wasn't necessarily something I suspected since an armistice has been in effect over 55 years. We also got to travel down the 3rd tunnel, which is a nifty name given to the 3rd of 4 tunnels discovered from NK to SK. It was an amazing feat to be constructed, but not an interesting one because it was obviously built for a smaller person. I walked down a steep incline in dress clothes for 20 minutes to eventually arrive at a steel door surrounded by barbed wire and signs that said "Do Not Cross". Great. After lunch, we toured the Dorasan Station, which connects NK and SK, although passengers don't currently use it. By the looks of the metal detectors and such, one can plainly see that the station is prepared to accommodate patrons when the two countries reunite.

The NK-SK joint meeting area

When the tour was over, I was beat tired, sticky from the wonderful SK humidity, and pretty hungry. I had made plans with my cousin, Ji Hye, She picked me up from the hotel with her younger sister. I had met them both about 10 years ago when I was in Korea, and again when they visited the US a short time after that. However, obviously my relationship with them was pretty non existent. Luckily, in true Korean fashion, their family took me in very quickly and it wasn't awkward at all. In total, about 10 of us went to dinner at a Korean BBQ place where we had a variety of Korean foods, all of which I don't quite know how to romanize, nor am I quite sure how to spell them in Hangul. They were all very surprised/impressed that I knew how to use chopsticks, that I poured and received with two hands, and that I could eat spicy foods. In their eyes, I was the stereotypical American who had never seen Korean food, let alone enjoyed it. That's a strange concept to me since in America I'm regarded as looking Asian, but here I'm apparently American looking. I think they were pleasantly surprised that I did in fact have a little Korean flair (emphasis on the little). After dinner we went back to one of their apartments and talked some more, ate Korean melon (which I never really liked), and then Ji Hye took me back to the hotel. That night, a huge group of us went to a club called The Noise Basement.
Sunday was a free day, so my roommates and I slept in a little, went to the Kimbab Heaven (a fast food Kimbab chain that is all over Korea) for the 11th time and then trekked over to Costco. We took a cab to the nearest of the 3 Costcos in the Seoul area. We had the wonderful company of a very eccentric cab driver who focused on us a lot more than the road. Sitting in the front seat, I felt like I was getting a vocab lesson from him. His English was quite good but he would point to various things and ask if I knew the word in Korean. When I didn't, he would delightfully inform me. Costco itself was quite the experience. It was packed with mostly American items, but with a Korean touch. For instance, there was a guy cutting the heads off fish for sale at what resembled a sampling station. Also, there was the gigantic package of 6000 stickers for sale. That's something you don't see in the US. I only ended up buying a laptop bag because I figured I could go to the Costco in Daegu, and I didn't want to lug around anything I purchased.

Neill, Jim and me, prior to inhaling a Costco pizza

 The next day, we had graduated at Korea University, which was probably fancier than Colgate's graduation. For a 6 week program, we sure rolled in style, giving us gifts and much nicer diplomas than was necessary. Our teachers were all very sad to see us go, but I'm sure we'll see them again. Lastly, we headed back to the Fulbright building to go over our contracts, and to eat pizza from Papa John's. Interesting way to wrap up a very eventful, interesting and enjoyable weekend.
Tomorrow is departure day. That means that our little American bubble is about to pop and we'll be released into real Korea.

Class picture!

Happy Friday the 13th

So today is Colgate day, Friday the 13th. Yea, yea, 13 men with 13 dollars somehow founded a school in 1819.
On a slightly more interesting note, I'm going to Seoul this weekend. More to come after we get back on Monday!

The Old Man's Birthday

Dear Pops,

Golf in Hawaii. Should have tucked in my shirt!

Today you turn a year younger. I'm fairly certain that your life is on a parabola and after a certain number of August 10s, you started to get younger. I've never met anyone quite like you and I'm actually pretty happy about that for two reasons. One, I can honestly say that my 아 빠 is one of a kind. Two, this world could not handle another one of you. Stay ridiculous, but please try to keep it in line. I miss you and love you!
Have an awesome birthday!

Archery

Staring down the target, imagining it's a slow moving mammal

This weekend, similar to last weekend, I didn't go to Seoul or Cheongju. However, next weekend I'm definitely going! I did opt to do one of the optional extracurricular activities -- archery! It was a lot of fun and a lot harder than it looks. We were shooting targets 10 m away, which I was pretty good at, but it still wasn't easy. After we finished, I had the urge to hunt small game in the woods but I refrained.
Tomorrow we have to give our Korean language speeches as part of our final exam, so I better get back to work.

First month in Korea

It's been a month since we arrived on July 4th (hurray to celebrating American Independence while jet lagged in an airport!) During this month I've met a bunch of Americans, a bunch of Koreans, had Korean language classes kick my ass on a weekly basis, taught a poor lesson and a couple of better ones, and sat through a ton of workshops with topics ranging from teaching to cultural adjustment. I've learned about Korea both inside the classroom and out. To say the least, it's been an eventful month.

My Korean language class with one of our 선 생 님 in the middle

Not much new has happened lately except that I found out my placement location yesterday. I'll be in Daegu (대 구) at Jukjun (죽 전) Middle School. There are about 10 new ETAs in Daegu with 7 renewals. It's the third largest city in South Korea with a population of 2.5 million. Best of all, there's a Costco there. If you're reading this, you probably know the special place that Costco has in my heart. It's not that I need American products so badly, but it'll be nice to have that option. Plus, I sincerely enjoy just wandering through Costcos and seeing the different regional things that they have. For instance, Costco in Hawaii has tons of seafood and Hawaiian shirts, Kirkland style while Costcos in NY just don't have that stuff. In my placement preference form I described my ideal situation. I wanted to be in a place where I could study for the LSAT, take Korean classes or study it some other way, meet lots of "authentic" Koreans, easily travel to other parts of Korea, easily travel to see my relatives in Jinju, and possibly join a recreational sports team like the volleyball team I joined in Spain. I pretty much hit all of those nails on the head with Daegu. ^_^