Blogs from Bundang, Seongnam, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea, Asia - page 5

Finally! After many painful hours of practicing our play for the Winter Drama Festival, class Pluto put on a great performance of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer for their families. The play consisted of roughly 7 lines per child - memorized - and two Christmas songs with actions (Rudolph and Jingle Bell Rock). We would practice a minimum of 45 minutes since the beginning of December. There were many problems leading up to the actual presentation, but they managed to pull it off. The kids would memorize their lines, then over the weekends they would come back and either forget their lines or when it was their turn to speak. In addition, my original "dance moves" were seen as inadequate by my superiors for Jingle Bell Rock so they taught the kids a whole new routine. I ... read more

After being in Korea for a month, Kovats and I started to feel pretty lazy with the lack of physical exercise. We were drinking lots of beer and eating lots of rice. That's a bad combination for the appearance of any body. So we had the option of either joining Taekwondo, or joining a gym. We joined "Kyunghee University Taekwondo". We refer to the owner as Grand Master. There are also two other instructors, whom we refer to as Mr. Lee and "Kevin". They are usually the ones teaching us. For the first two months we were White Belts. White is a symbol of innocence, as in we have no idea what we are doing. Thankfully we're since then graduated into Green Belts. There is lots of kicking and lots of stretching. I don't think I've ... read more

Wine Party About a week ago, Dave organized a little wine party for anyone who was interested. He was able to gather about 12 of us and naturally it ended up being mostly foreign teachers. So, this wasn't the kind of wine and cheese party where everyone brings something and all share, or the kind of party where Dave is kind enough to supply several bottles of wine for the enjoyment of others. Though Dave may be a generous guy, he's a bit smarter than that. If you're going to have a wine party, how about you find out a way to make the wine free for everyone? Dave found an add for a wine distributor that puts on wine tastings for large groups. He spread the word, gathered enough of us, called the guy, and ... read more

A girl in one of my classes asked me, "If Americans go to school less than Koreans and study less than Koreans then why does America have more geniuses than Korea?" This is a question that requires more thought than usual because it asks about deeper implications on the differences between the Korean education system compared to the American education system. Koreans are very smart. They study much harder than the average American. Koreans are taught to memorize. They go to school Monday through Saturday for an average of 3 hours more a day than Americans. At age 13 they take midterm tests and final tests for which they study for several weeks in advance. I teach at a private academy where kids come after regular school. Right now, during exam season, I have kids not ... read more

So my buddy Warren asked me one of my first days if I had had a Johnny Cash Dump yet. I didn't know what he was talking about... One of the best things about Korea is obviously the extreme cultural differences. Eating in Korea can be nothing like eating in a Western country (the States). Sure, Korea is a developed country and they have taken their fair share of ideas from the West and introduced them into their culture. You can go to an Outback Steakhouse, TGIFriday's, McDonald's, Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, or even Baskin Robbins if you'd like. Or you can go to some knock-off Cheers restaurant that serves "quesadillas" and "mozzarella sticks." But that's not what I'm looking for in Korea. If I wanted to eat at those places, I would've just stayed in the ... read more