My principal decided to start a walking class before school. I actually wouldn’t really call it a walking class as much as I would call it, ‘before school recess.’ These kids get no time to actually play and ‘be kids,’ and that’s why I think more students participate in this walking before school than I had originally thought. The average elementary student will be at school from 8:30 (without walking class) to 4:30 and then head to a hagwon (more school) for at least another 4 hours. It doesn’t seem too awful but remember, these are elementary students, aging from 7-11 years old; their schedules consist of school, school and more school from elementary all the way to high school where it gets much more intense and time consuming. They also go to school every other Saturday; Saturdays that they have off they are referred to as ‘holidays’ instead of weekends.

So, on days it’s not raining, the students have the option of coming to school before classes start to walk in circles around the playground and listen to music. It doesn’t sound too thrilling but let me tell you, it’s as entertaining as anything you’ll find on TV. During one of our teachers meetings, the principal suggested that I come early and walk around with them… at first this sounded pretty awful because getting up early and exercising isn’t really my thing, but after I did the walk a few times I really started to enjoy it. Everyday that I’m early enough to wal, how everything unfolds is like clockwork; once I’m close enough to the playground where kids start to realize that there’s a way-guk (foreigner) the, “Mayo Teacher” starts spreading through the playground like a damn wildfire. Most of the kids running up to me just come up and say, “Hello Mayo Teacher” and then scatter off, but some of the older kids who can actually formulate sentences will ask where I live, for candy or even ask for money. There is this grade 2 girl, whom I don’t have in class because I don’t teach grade 2, who literally hangs on me while I walk around the playground in the morning.

I’ve learned to keep my laptop bag on my person because I’ve brought a backpack to school before and this girl had actually taken it and hidden it on the other side of the school. While she thought it was HILLARIOUS, I didn’t quite see the same humor in it as she did… It took me about ten minutes just to get close enough to her without her breaking out in laughter to figure out where it was. It was quite a show. I would think following me around in circles might get boring after a while, but she seems like she can’t get enough of it. There are literally about 10-15 students surrounding me at any point during my walk. I wish I could get a picture of this. I tried pulling out my camera this morning but it was pointless because I had no arms to snap a picture, the kids had hijacked my arms and were using them as their personal human jungle gym. Sangwon keeps some pretty intense video footage surround the school (they probably have about 10 cameras outside the school) - I’ll check the tapes and see if they have a camera on the playground because it’s literally like a paparazzi surrounding me every morning and I really need to get some footage of this. Most of them are just following me, trying to hold my hand, jump on my back, tackle me, ask me to run, to race someone or asking me where I live for the one hundredth time.

It’s pretty fascinating how entertaining they find me. I’ve been here for two months now and they still act as if seeing me everyday is some sort of miracle. I don’t know if they’re expecting me to bounce out of this country everyday or if I just hand out the most candy in class but something is sparking these kids into a frenzy every time I’m spotted. Well that’s all for now, I did my best to take pictures today during the walking sessions and the after lunch recess. Like I said, it’s difficult to snap pictures in the morning because they hadn’t seen me in a whole 16 hrs so I’m pretty tied-up, but I did my best to take some pictures during recess. Some of the kids get shy when cameras come out and some go frickin’ nuts, you’ll see…

The Hike...

I had wanted to climb a mountain since I’ve been in Korea. Actually probably before I arrived, because I remember watching a YouTube video of some guy climbing Mt. Apsan which is the biggest mountain around Daegu, and I just remember it looking like something I really wanted do once I got here. Well I finally ended up going this weekend and it was actually pretty cool. Not quite as intense as I thought it was going to be, but for a Sunday afternoon, after a long weekend, it was just about perfect in the struggle category. Not an intense where you couldn’t feel your legs, but I certainly had to stop and take a break every twenty minutes or so. I went with my co-teacher and her husband. We had lunch (their lunch, my breakfast) in the park before we headed up the mountain and then went and drank some mokolii (rice wine) afterwards, which was much better than the rice wine I had had earlier by the way. There were still rice chunks in it, but not to the same extent as the previous experience.

On our way up the mountain, about ¾ of the way up, at a particularly challenging part of the hike, my co-teacher stops, looks at me and says, “This is a test for me.” I didn’t really know what she was talking about, but I was thought to myself, “maybe she’s challenging herself to be more active, I mean, she did tell me a few weeks ago she’s trying to loose weight.” She probably weighs 120 lbs. soaking wet and she’s worried about loosing weight… anyways, her husband is leading us up this mountain and he’s a good 20 yards ahead of us and we had only taken one break at this point so we were getting pretty exhausted.. Nevertheless, I stop and ask her, “What do you mean?” I was really curious what test she was referring to, or if she had just misused the word “test”. She responds, “My husband is making me skinny, because in Korea, men do not want fat wives.” I was taken back a bit by her bluntness, but at the same time it didn’t surprise me as much as it would have a month ago. I actually found it hilarious and I’m pretty sure I laughed out loud after she told me. I explained, “Actually, I think it’s similar in the U.S., but I can’t speak for everyone I guess.” She laughed and continued up the mountain. I tried to explain to her that she’s not fat and that she shouldn’t be worried about her weight being as skinny as she is but I don’t think it registered as she shrugged off the topic… She nodded and carried on the hike, we actually ended up climbing to the top which was more hiking than I was planning on doing on the Sunday afternoon. My co-teacher also kept reminding her husband and I that, “we work tomorrow, we mustn’t climb too far.” Which I was actually opposed to because I had never been up a mountain and I just really wanted to keep climbing even though I could tell she really didn’t. I couldn’t really tell what her husband was thinking. He would crack jokes every once and a while but for the most part he didn’t smile much and seemed to take life a littler more seriously than his wife…

Speaking of jokes, my co-teacher ended up inviting me to her house that evening for supper as sort of a thank you for talking with her in English a few times a week. She will call me, about three o’ clock everyday, Monday thru Friday and ask that I come upstairs and teach her English. This normally consists of me complaining about something, or her talking about how she “doesn’t understand” why one of her kids studies so hard but doesn’t get good grades… it’s seriously the same thing every week. But I don’t mind, it’s good to get out of my office and feels good to help her with something even though it normally turns into her helping me with something, i.e. figuring out when I get vacation days, figuring out my pay schedule or making sure that I get an air conditioner in my apartment before it starts getting ridiculously hot out. Supposedly Daegu has similar weather patterns to Minnesota, with the super cold, dry winters and the hot, humid summers… fantastic. Anyways, I meet her son’s at the corner of a bank near my house and they walk me to their home. She lives door-to-door, about a 7-8 minute walk, so it was pretty convenient. I walk inside and it’s a pretty big/nice apartment, at least compared to the apartments I had been in before, which just consisted of my fellow EPIK teachers. I told her she had a beautiful house and that I was surprised that it was so clean, because I usually make fun of her for having such a messy office. Her oldest son assured me that it’s not normally this clean and that they had spent most of the afternoon cleaning and preparing for my arrival. Which actually made me feel a little bit guilty because I wasn’t that excited to go there. I had just spent about three hours with her climbing a mountain and I see her everyday at work so the weekends are a nice getaway normally. But in the end it was actually very nice. She cooked a bunch of beef that she always assumes is my favorite because I’m an American and a bunch of side dishes. It was delicious. Her husband busted out some whisky which they also assumed I like because I’m American, and we sipped on some Scottish whisky for the remainder of dinner.

What I was going to say about jokes though was that her son wanted to hear an American joke… he had just explained to me a Korean joke which I didn’t understand at all but faked a laugh, to make it seem like I at least pretended to understand. But he sort of put me on the spot, he just said, “Tell me an American joke.” My mind went blank; I don’t know any American jokes… I thought for a while saying, “ummmmm”… to make sure he knew I was thinking. I had just started up watching ‘The Office’ again so the only thing I could think of was “That’s what she said” jokes… I thought to myself, “great! I can use one of these!”, forgetting that the only way to explain them to a foreigner was to explain something sexual. So I’m sitting there, on a pad on the floor as usual, sweating because their house was 100 degrees and I had just drank a few shots of whisky and an entire Korean family is staring at me, really expecting me to say something that will really tickle their funny-bone. They have this idea in their heads that all American’s are comedians… and fat. But anyways, they’re all staring at me, I’m sweating, thinking of a way to explain “That’s what she said” jokes without being sexually inappropriate and am just drawing blanks left and right. I begin to explain, “That’s what she said” and come to dead-end every time. I try about three different ones but when I realize they’re starting to get sexual again I stop and just kind of awkwardly laugh it off as if to say, “I forfeit this American joke thing, I can’t think of anything you would consider funny, and the only joke I can think of is referencing to out of context, sexual innuendos.”

I finally end up changing the subject and explain to them that maybe we have different senses of humor and that I couldn’t think of anything right then. Well we finished supper and my co teacher’s youngest son actually has a friend of mine that I met at orientation for an English teacher at his middle school. I introduce the family to facebook and show pictures of his English teacher, myself, friends from college and high school. I also show them a picture of my sister because the two boys really wanted to see what my sister looks like. I get to her profile picture and they both go, “Ohhh beaufiul.” I replied, “ I know! Right?” And then the youngest son says, “She looks Asian.” So I don’t know if their judgment was off or what because she most definitely doesn’t look Asian… unless most Asian’s have blond hair and blue eyes. It was pretty funny and I know Brittany will appreciate this story. Well, that’s all I have for now. I hope this finds everyone well and that I can continue to update you whenever something interesting happens!

Explaining the pictures.

The pictures are from my trip to Seoul the other weekend. the first one is of me and a few friends in front of the hostel we stayed at called "Mr. Sea"

The next picture is of us decided which delicious selection of street meet to invest in.

Th 3rd picture is of myself in front of Seoul soccer stadium. We never actually went inside but it was pretty enormous.

The 4th picture is of a few friends any myself in front of a traditional Korean castle.

The last picture is of the super complicated subway map of Seoul. Daegu has 2 lines...

The Black Sheep

Apparently once a month all of the single teachers at the school get together for dinner and drinks after work. This was obviously my first time joining and was really looking forward to it. It’s all females by the way, and most of them speak pretty good English so it’s nice to be able to talk to some people who speak English well, unlike most of the people I share an office with. We went to a Korean BBQ, surprise, surprise, of the millions of restaurants in Korea I think about 99% of them are Korean BBQ joints, which isn’t terrible but gets old after a while. And they are delicious, but you stink like a deep fryer when you leave. Anyways, we’re finish eating super and decide to head to another place for more appetizers and some fruity soju. Fruity soju is basically watered down vodka mixed with sugary fruit drinks, needless to say, delicious. We literally order a ton more food, it was like eating another meal, and we’re all stuffing our faces with this delicious deep fried food like we hadn’t just eaten an entire meal moments earlier… Anyways I get a call from my co teacher and she wants us to go meet up with her and the principal for more drinks. Nobody was very excited to leave because we had just ordered some delicious fruity sojo… Anyways, we ended up going; it turned out they weren’t that far from where we were eating…

So we’re rolling up there and it’s literally me and 5 other Korean girls; I’m getting mean mugged left and right, but at this point I didn’t mind. We get to the restaurant and my co teacher is TRASHED. She begins by pretending to be mad at me for not going to some dinner thing with her and the principal that I had apparently agreed to a week earlier. She kept saying “Arrrron is a bad guy” and that I was very untrustworthy. It didn’t hurt my feelings because I could tell she was blitzed. Well anyways, once us 5 get to the restaurant we had to move to a bigger table to fit everyone. We finally get situated after making quite a commotion (my co teacher was trying to chrs (cheers) with literally EVERYONE) well we get situated and I see what’s for dinner.... Raw meat. More raw meat. It was raw fish and raw beef. Both of which looked and smelled terrible and were about as uncooked as a raw piece of meat could possible be. I refused. I couldn’t do it again. There’s no way I’m going to go from eating delicious deep-fried food with five single Korean teachers to raw fish and meat with the principal and my belligerently drunk co teacher. Speaking of my embarrassingly drunk co teacher, she was now telling everyone to only speak in English and that she was very sad because she didn’t pass her exam to become a vice principal. She was telling EVERYONE this… oh, she was also telling people she didn’t know where she lived and she had no clue where her car was. Some of the teachers I was with and myself kept insisting that we had a sober ride home for her, which just prompted the next ‘chrrrs’. I really wish I could describe this sound with letters… Koreans have a hard time with the letter ‘r’; added to a heavily intoxicated older woman is literally priceless. I’m going to guess she probably tried to cheers about 30 some odd times with everyone at one point in the night. The principal, whom I was sitting next moments earlier to said, enough of this and moved to the other side of the table. Anyways, there was this jar of peanuts on our table and I told my co teacher that I could beat her in picking up single peanuts and putt them in a separate dish using chopsticks faster than her. Not to toot my own horn or anything but I’m becoming pretty phenomenal at using chopsticks, I still struggle with lettuce and noodles but am getting much, much better… Anyways, we started off playing fairly and after she realized she was loosing (no lie) she began to pick up 3-4 at a time which I cannot do, but it was taking her longer to grab 3-4 at a time and I was still keeping pace with her. I think the soju must have kicked in because she ended up grabbing a bunch with her hand and putting them into the bowl. Perhaps this was a bad competition for me to start because she proceeded to ask me every two minutes if I wanted to race again. I kept saying “No, you’re wasted Sister Kim, plus I’ve already proved I’m better than you at using chopsticks”. This really lit a fire under her because then she kept saying “Arrrron I’m better than you, I’m better than you” enough times to get under my skin enough that we played about 4-5 more times more, all of which ended up with her tossing peanuts across the table.

During this time there was a clear division of the people who wanted to hear her ramblings and get a good laugh out of them and those who were trying pretty hard to avoid her. I was stuck. I was sober, or pretty sober and every time I would leave she would screech, “Where’s arrrron” like a five year old might say if someone just took her favorite play toy. I actually ended up pretending to use the bathroom about 3 times just to get some fresh air and get away from the constant ringing of her babblings in my ear.

Her shenanigans got progressively worse throughout the night. The principal’s son and son’s friend ended up coming and eating diner with us towards the end of the night. Anyways, the principal introduces his son to me and emphasizes how handsome he is to everyone. My co teacher must have thought this was untrue because she stood up and said, “Principal Hueng, only you think so.” I was shocked. I actually was a little upset. I put my hand over her mouth and told her to sit down; it was getting a little ridiculous now. We finally ended up leaving after several attempts at getting my co teacher into a cab and convinced her that nobody wanted to go sing karaoke with her and that we had someone with us that knew where her house was…

During orientation, someone said that no matter how drunk Koreans get the night before and no matter how much of an ass you make of yourself, it’s never brought up the next day. This was apparently false because everyone at school was saying that they had heard about my co teacher the night before and how bad everyone felt for me. It was pretty remarkable. I actually found out that she said, “I can be a better principal than you” to the principal, which I did not catch because she had said it in Korean. So it was actually a slightly worse situation than I had initially thought.