1st Day!

So today was my first day of class!

This morning I walked into a classroom of about 25-30 Korean 4th graders all giggling and going “Ohhhhhh” at the tall white guy in the corner. I was a little nervous going into class but then quickly realized that they couldn’t really understand me. It worked out pretty well, my co teacher and I have a pretty good system, if I said something too quickly or use some vocabulary that the student’s don’t know, then my co teacher will repeat, in Korean, what I say. It’s really funny, the students are very, very curious of me. At the end of my slideshow I opened it up for questions and the most common questions I got were “How much do you weigh?” “Do you have a girlfriend?” and of course, “How old are you?”

All three times I walked into class I almost started laughing, because there is a, “Whoa” when I walk into the class; some of the kids sit hard back in their chair and get wide eyed like they’d just seen a ghost. It’s seriously hilarious. My co teacher took the first 20 minutes to introduce herself and go over class rules; while I was given the last 20 minutes to introduce myself. During the first twenty minutes I would sit over to the side and let my co teacher do her thing, during that time I would catch about 5 or 6 students literally staring my down like I owed them money. I would make eye contact with them, thinking they would shy away and start paying attention… wrong, they would just give me an expressionless stare, but they’re literally so cute that I can’t help but laugh. The first ten minutes of each class consisted of me sitting in the corner trying my hardest not to break out laughing. It’s hard to describe the situation. All these kids are staring me down and you can tell - itching for a chance to ask my age and weight; it’s the funniest thing ever.

My introduction got progressively better throughout the day. I’m pretty sure my first one sucked, and then got a little better from there. I showed a video of the Minnesota Vikings on my PowerPoint… They were asking me so many questions about American Football afterwards. One student asked, “Is football in America violent?” I don’t think they really have much for contact sports over here; Ty Kwon Do is huge as is baseball and soccer. Oh, and a side note, after the first class, I don’t know what I did, but I had about 15-20 kids follow me and my co teacher out into the hallway laughing, jumping up and down, wanting a high five or just saying, “goodbye” and waving with both hands. One girl even wanted an autograph.

I also asked them if they knew who the president of the U.S. was, and the entire class erupted and said, “OBAMA” “OBAMA”- it was pretty hilarious. I didn’t think they would know who the U.S. President was; I thought I might be able to teach these Korean 4th graders something today, but apparently not. I did show a picture of Obama after that and said, “Handsome?” and the entire class said, “NO!!!” I guess I really don’t know what to think…

Once school was over, all the male employees, my interpreter and I went out to dinner… we had raw fish and steamed pork… it wasn’t nearly as sweet as it sounds. The fish, whatever kind of fish it was (I saw a picture of it, and the fish was a in the shape of a square, so your guess is as good as mine) was probably one of the worst tasting things I’ve had ever ate. I almost puked. And on top of that it smelled awful inside (like ammonia maybe) and it was a smell that didn’t go away with time, it stayed right under my nostril and burned inside my nose, terrible. On top of that I was sitting on a pad on the floor so I had to choose which leg I wanted to fall asleep next, by which one I decided to lean on. I can’t sit camper style, because I’m about as flexible as a 2x4 so I had to put my legs straight under the table, which helped for a while but then my side started to hurt because you can’t lean back. It’s just the worst situation I could have been in. Oh, and we had some homemade fermented rice wine that had literal chunks of rice in it. It probably wouldn’t have been all that bad if I didn’t have to sift through the rice with my teeth as I drank it. To sum up, this evening I was sitting at a two foot table with 4 other people, 3 of which I can’t communicate with, eating god-awful, unnecessarily spicy ‘food’, drinking fermented rice wine with literal rice chunks floating inside while I’m trying to situate myself so I don’t die of a side ache or turn the table over.

Besides these conditions I was in it was actually a pretty nice restaurant, clean and very traditional. It was expensive too, I saw the menu and our meal was about 80,000 won, about 70 some odd dollars, all of which was paid for by the principal. I may have paid my own money not to eat it, but that’s part of the experience I guess. I didn’t feel too bad either because two of the other people I was with openly admitted not enjoying the meal either; which I thought would be rude but apparently not. We did have some good conversation too. We talked about North Korea and how bat-shit crazy Kim Jong Il is. I told them I was hesitant to ask about this because I was unsure if it was a sensitive subject or if they openly talk about it - I guess 30 years ago it would have been sensitive but apparently not anymore. The younger generation actually has the mindset that North Koreans have the same blood and could see the two countries merging in the future. Another interesting bit is that Korean men are required to join the army for two years during adulthood, which I was told because “North Korea could attack us at any point and we need to be ready.” Comforting I guess.