Happy New Year!

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Dear Blog Readers,

So I’ve found another gem of a café in Cheongju to do the blog. The sign outside said ‘Coffee and Tea’ – result, if I made a café it would probably be named something along those lines as there’s no room for misunderstanding or misinterpretation. Confusingly, the sign is posted outside a shop selling jewellery so I nearly cursed my luck until I realised, as usual, that every building in Korea has about 15 floors so the Coffee and Tea shop is actually on the first floor, or second floor, if you are American where the first floor is the ground floor. Anyway, I’ve ordered a pot of English Breakfast tea and it looks amazing – in fact, I’ll take a photo. Laura and Stephanie have gone to see Harry Potter. A bit late you might say for Harry Potter fans, but then again, this is their second time. I’ve pondered over the pointlessness of it all. Going to see a great film twice isn’t too uncommon, but they’ve read the books countless times as well and both prefer the books to the movies!? I’m quietly hoping they have sneaked in the Korean Directors Cut version where Harry turns into a samgyeopsal hungry wizard and is thwarted by the escapades of his kimchi loving nemesis, Boldomort.

The English as a Foreign Language (EFL) website proudly boasts the Robert Heinlein quote, “When one teaches, two learn.” I’d like to make an amendment:

“When one teaches, two learn except for the first ten minutes of Monday morning’s Winter Camp when nobody turned up.” - Simon White (2011)

Other than that minor mishap, the rest of the week has been great fun. Plenty of time to prepare the lessons and the majority of the students turned up – including one student voluntarily turning up for my Winter Camp lesson on Wednesday!? Having time to read other people’s blogs and forum posts on Waygook , I’ve realised I’ve been particularly fortunate with the standard of my student’s English and the hours I have to work. I can’t help but wonder why they let native teachers attempt to teach low level students on their own. This is particularly prevalent for Winter Camp where we do not have a co-teacher. Simply, the students will become frustrated that even the most simple question or misunderstanding cannot be conveyed properly which leads to agitation and a permanent scarring on wanting to learn English. Luckily I haven’t had too many problems but I can completely sympathise with my friends and the people writing the blogs and posts who have been less than fortunate, and really, with no fault on their own, or their students part.

On Monday, the students had to clean the teacher’s room. Most, if not all, of the teachers were in lessons and away from their desks so I had the awkwardness of sitting doing my work whilst a slave-like student is cleaning around me for an uncomfortable amount of time. I felt like I was meant to tip him or something. There is always one teacher who has to answer the phones for the day and they take it in turns on a rota. There was a particularly amusing incident when my mobile phone went off (it’s so old school that I have the standard telephone ringing ringtone) and the teacher mistakenly picked up the school phone. I had to do that thing where you disguise hysterical laughter for a coughing fit. I hope they don’t think I’ve “catched a cold.”

Food has been quite a good theme to discuss this week. Laura and I are beginning to get a bit frustrated. I’m sure there is plenty of healthy food that would be just as delicious as anything we could rustle up back at home but we probably don’t know how to make it or where to buy the ingredients. In fact, I haven’t dared try out the butchers counter or the vegetable trays to avoid the humiliation of being surrounded by assistants (the assistant to customer ratio is about 17:1) and ending up getting 47 carrots and half a pig when I wanted some potatoes and a slice of beef.

Anyway, we love this Chinese dish called jajamyeong which is noodles covered with a black bean sauce. Instead of getting it from the take-away, we decided to try and cook it ourselves. I say we, Laura mysteriously lost her appetite for it as soon as I started cooking it. The ‘beef’ in the sauce was particularly deceptive. On the outside, it looked like quite a succulent looking meatball so I imagined those ones that Butler and Dilley used to make back in Tiverton Road. Then I put the said ‘beef’ into my mouth, and to quote Bear Grylls, “It’s like a beautifully tender piece of steak…smothered in dog faeces.” Damn, I’m craving a Shepherd’s pie!

Mr Oh and I were practicing how to order a Chinese on the phone during our lunch break on Monday. He wrote down what to say and from the other end of the table we had a mock telephone conversation with the inclusion of hands-to-ears-as-telephones. We thought about how much the Korean person would be laughing at the other end of the phone after such a conversation but he thought I could get away with it. Also, I’ve found a new love in bibimbap. It is an amazing Korean dish which is basically rice with a mixture of vegetables. I’ve had it for lunch almost every day this week because the teachers keep buying it and it tastes so good! My first bibimbap was terrible in Seoul during Orientation, but since then, it’s been great. I’ve also found a great blog explaining the love of bibimbap which is worth having a read if you have, understandably, lost interest in this one!

Tuesday was ridiculously cold; I think it hit -17 degrees in Boeun. My face turns so red that the teachers are genuinely concerned for my facial welfare. The snot in my nose freezes and my face is so numb that I can’t feel the running snot freezing to my upper lip. I nearly slipped over outside the front gate again and I can’t help but imagine Laura in a similar situation turning the humiliation of falling over into a beautifully crafted 360 degree toe-loop ice skating jump and gliding into school to the admiration of the students lining the way to the front door.

On Thursday I got a great surprise – a late birthday present from my friends back in Birmingham. They’d sent some necessities – Haribo sweets, chocolate, and naturally, fajita spice mix. But(ler), they’d also sent a CD with video messages which was great. Having been here nearly 5 months now, it was one of those horrible homesick moments, but the video was so funny that it subsided quickly.

You may remember me mentioning an influx in people coming into the school teachers’ office advertising products, and more often than not, they look at me and quickly move onto a Korean speaking teacher instead. However(!), on Friday, a man actually came up to me advertising something and speaking (broken) English! I was almost overwhelmed that he’d even bothered but I noticed the dismissive response from the vice-principal when he came in so I thought maybe something was up. Anyway, the conversation went something like this:

Him: Hello. How are you?
Me: I’m fine thank-you, and you? (Korean school children esque)
Him: I’m fine thank-you, and you? (Classic)
Me: Erm…I’m fine thank-you.
Him: What do most difficult you think English students find English?
Me: ….
Me: What do I think English students find most difficult about English?
Him: (Expression that says, “That’s exactly what I just said you idiot.”)
Me: Probably conversation and word order because it’s so different to Korean.
Him: Ok. I think it is word order because Korean word order so different.
Me: Ah OK.
Him: And they hard find conversation with speakers in English.
Me: Ah yes. I agree.
Him: I think main problem that Korean teachers and professors have English very bad.
Me: You think all Korean English teachers speak English badly?
Him: Yes. Generally.
Me: Oh. Well the English teachers here have great English so maybe it is elsewhere?
Him: Oh ok. Yes. Maybe. (This basically means, “I think you are completely wrong.”)
Me: So what are you advertising? I am very busy. (A ‘White’ lie)
Him: I think students will better English if they have good conversation. I have online course to conversation teach English.
Me: Oh right. Well, I’m employed in Korea to be a English conversation teacher. That is my job.
Him: Oh. Ok. I must go now. Bye Bye.

I spoke to Stephanie about it over a game of Scrabble and she said the same guy had been to their school and given the same pitch and received a very similar response. He was clearly doing the rounds. She commented; it’s a bit like us going into a local grocery shop and getting the shopkeeper to advertise buying fruit and vegetables online!

Last night, the foreigners of Boeun decided to have New Year’s Eve Take 2. None of us had a particularly good actual New Year’s Eve since Laura and I had our heads down the toilet and Stephanie, Betty and Chris had a miserable time in Seoul. We felt we deserved a good New Year’s Eve…even if it was 14 days too late. It started with some great tasting galbi and quickly followed on to norraebang. We turned up at ‘the usual’, and to our absolute horror, found it to be closed!? We figured it was just too good to be in Boeun so they’d moved to Cheongju. We found two more, and after a quick scout of the first one, we decided to go to the second one because it didn’t resemble a cold prison cell.

Chris and I stepped up to the plate first, and as expected, got 100% first time with a rousing rendition of Bon Jovi’s ‘You Give Love A Bad Name’. Other classics during the night included Betty and Angela’s duo (what was the name of the song?) and Stephanie and Chris completing Baby Got Back. I believe that they did the impossible by being the only people on the planet to complete the third verse in its entirety. For one night only, Laura decided to sing One Night Only, and got 100% with it for the second time. I think she got ahead of herself though. She decided to do ‘Nella Fantasia’ on the basis that, “the ringtone sounds really good.” A harrowing three minutes later, we decided it was time to leave just as the room was getting noticeably warmer.

We brought in the New Year at 10pm and then some of us stayed on to have some drinks and snacks at a bar. Bar snacks don’t normally include dried anchovies so you know the sort of place we were frequenting. Our Korean friend, Eunice, ordered in some food. First course - skewered chicken feet – “Is it delicious?” “Mmm, it is delicious.” Then came the platter of which I only knew about 2% of what was on the plate in front of me. Unfortunately, the 2% was the wooden skewers that the meat was wrapped around. I put on of them in my mouth when Eunice said, “Do you know what that is?” Well, it was a bit late now wasn’t it? I started eating before she uttered the words, “It’s chicken heart.”

This morning was nice and relaxing. Laura hit the gym again because she’s a machine and undeterred by the fat naked old Korean woman who shouted at her for not being completely naked for the sauna the night before. Unfortunately, this time she was confronted with four fat Korean women discussing her appearance in the changing rooms telling her she had fat thighs. It was at this point that she regretted eating dried anchovies, chicken feet and skewered chicken heart the night before.

We’re spending the weekend in preparation for Japan. We leave on Wednesday so we’re really looking forward to it. Laura found out that the ‘groups’ of snowboarders that I mentioned at the end of last week’s blog are actually ‘hunting’. I’ll explain – apparently, groups of Korean boys and girls go to snowboarding resorts dressed in the latest fashion not to actually go snowboarding, but to go ‘hunting’ for other groups of the opposite sex. I can think of more enjoyable ways to go ‘hunting’ than to use up valuable space on the slopes and avoid contracting a new STI – hypothermia. Let’s hope there are no ‘hunters’ on the slopes in Japan!

Tink and Laura

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Photos

Coffee and Tea
English Breakfast Tea

Norraebang
Interesting name.

Elton and Kiki
Somebody phone Chris and Stephanie. Elton and Kiki have crashed the party.

Baby Got Back
Phenomenal rendition.

Complicated
That is how seriously we take norraebang.

Oh Korea
Eunice and Chris in classic photo opportunity form.

Happy New Year!
Take 2

Bar Snacks
Yum Yum. Dried anchovies.

Bar Snacks 2
Chicken Feet

Bar Snacks 3
"Do you know what that is...?"

Comments

[Tink's Mum]

Great cup of tea!
Now that's what I call a good cup of tea. Do you get milk with it?

[Tink And Laura]

Milk
They didn't bring it at first, but I was able to ask for it in Korean because 'milk' is a really easy word. It is 우 which is 'u'. So it's 'u juseyo' is milk please!