1..2..3 Everyone say “Kimchi!”

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I’m now quickly becoming convinced that the beginning craziness of moving and working here may just never stop. As far as school goes, there is somewhat of a routine, or an attempt at one, with all kinds of things popping up told to you after-the-fact. Outside of school, the opposite of normal is the norm, and along the lines of the food, well, that’s another story.

School is going well for the both of us, still crazy, but good. The ‘rock star’ phenomenon hasn’t died down- where there is a mob of children following you around discussing what they might be able to say to you. It’s pretty wild; there are also those numerous kids that pass your room every three minutes, back and forth, saying hello. The province follows an English program that is fairly simple. The hardest thing is coming up with better things for the kids to do.

I’m super thankful to and for my co-teacher, Mr. Kim. He has been the best. Cass and my situation is a little different, whereas I have a co-teacher who I am with nearly all the time, the English teacher, with a few ethics classes when I’m in the primary grades, at the school. Cass is the English teacher and has every other homeroom teacher in her class as a ‘co-teacher’. Her actual co-teacher is another homeroom teacher and is bogged down with all that it takes to do that job. Mr. Kim has more or less been our co-teacher, helping us when the heater went out, taking us to the bank for accounts, shady hospital for a checkup, arranging his brother to take us to our foreign registration, etc., etc.

I have a feeling he may have more pull around these parts than he lets on. Or the school may have some money to throw around because there have been many good things happening to our classroom in particular. The other day, without my knowledge (which is the norm) two workers marched into the room holding a huge, 42” flat screen TV. They installed it hanging from the ceiling in the corner of the room. Later I found out that the principal realized the class needed more room with two desks so this TV would get rid of a huge cabinet and make more room! Actually, I was using a table for a desk at the time, so that meant I had a desk on order. Then, the next day, Mr. Kim showed me the brand new computer they ordered for me, my new desk, and new flat screen TV. Seriously?! If only in America…

All in all, Cass and I talk about it being a ‘fake’ job. We work half time, we don’t go to any staff meetings or do any other school stuff because we don’t, and most likely won’t ever, know what is going on, get paid pretty well for it. It’s a weird phenomenon.

The one question that seems to dominate our conversations isn’t, ‘what did you do at school, today,’ it is, ‘what did you have for lunch, today?’ I can honestly say that every time I walk into the cafeteria at my school, I don’t know what to expect. Dirt soup and kimchi, those are a couple staples at my school, but this week, we had two things that made me take notice.

First, was a corn dog. An actual corndog, for a second I thought I was in P-burg talking sports at the teacher’s table, but then I investigated a little more. There was no Ballpark frank inside that thing, it was more like a sausage version. It was one of those situations you get really excited about and leave saying, ‘it was a good effort.’

The second thing, is that we had fish one day. I’m not talking about fish nuggets, the processed breaded deep fried kids is all our schools. Fish… a chunk of fish. Skins, bones, fins… everything. Picture slapping an entire walleye on a piece of foil, throwing it on the grill, hacking it up into three or four pieces and serving it for school lunch! Seriously?! I was trying to explain to Mr. Kim that would never happen in America, and his reply was, ‘the kids know how to use their chopsticks.’ Regardless, it was a good piece of fish and I tossed my skeleton away with my milk carton. I’ll file that one away to tell another day.

Oh, just as a side note, I think I’ve found out why Cass and I haven’t completely gotten over our lingering colds, the answer came to me, again, in the school cafeteria. I sat down and noticed there was a commotion at one of the ends of the room. All the kids were standing up and obviously looking for an adult. There was a small snake under the table, most likely a garder snake or the asian equivalent. The guy eating across from me at the table, I want to say he’s a janitor, but I have no formal evidence of that, gave a big sigh, got up and marched right over there. He picked up the snake, took about three steps outside the back door of the cafeteria and tossed it into some bushes. He turned right around, came back to our table, sat down and picked up right where he left off, as if nothing had ever happened. Once I get that first pay check, I think I’ll invest in some hand sanitizer…

Friday night, we were curious about the Cho Young Gu’s American style pizza. It claimed to be, on the sign, as a ‘Delicious Concept for Family.’ (???) We walked over there and it seemed to be a good place. We did our ordering gestures to the girl at the front and sat down. At that second, I heard English (or to the Koreans- Englishy). We looked and saw a white person! Jackpot. It turns out that she is from UW Madison and that there is quite an exchange of teacher from Madison in Yeoju, like 20 or so! How crazy is that? Then we just got our pizza and we saw three more whiteys walk in, with Wisconsin Badger shirts on! Wild! And halfway through our pizza, three older, middle aged white folks came in. We chatted with all of them, all English teachers, the younger ones from UW and the older people we met from South Africa! It was like every native English speaker within walking distance goes to pizza on Fridays. We would see them all the next day at our YES (Yeoju English Stars) Festival.

The YES Festival (the program had it spelled Fstival on the cover before they noticed and fixed it) consisted of every school in Yeoju County to have a booth with some sort of English game for the kids. It was pretty cool, there were booths making hot dogs, playing football, face painting, etc. My teacher arranged our booth to have ‘I Will’ by the Beatles playing and making a card using the lyrics. Cass, which turned out to be right next to me, had some type of grocery store with money. It was pretty cool, there were like 25 booths each with their English teachers, probably 1,000 kids, and nice weather. It was good to meet the other English speakers, there are far more than I thought.

After that, Mr. Kim dropped Cass and I off at the bus station, we had a date with twenty others in Seoul to watch Cirque Du Solei. Renata got us the tickets through a friend and I gotta say, it was incredible… like a circus ate a gymnastics team and pooped out a Broadway show. I was blown away, a floor routine using trampolines, contortionists so good I couldn’t make out their front from their back, trapezes, balance beams that bent and sprung people in the air… held by people, flame dancers setting the whole stage on fire… I just can’t describe it well enough. The only thing I can say is that if you get a chance to see it, they are all over the states and world, do it, you won’t regret it! We got a fun group picture I’ll try to find and put up here, 1..2..3… Everyone say Kimchi!

Tired from the show, Cass and I just bummed around Seoul for Sunday. We figured we’ve been here twice already, and haven’t seen too much, so it was sightseeing day for us. Renata, before she left, recommended an area for us to check out. It was a shopping district, like none I’ve ever seen before. It was the layout of a typical big city street shopping on a pedestrian mall. But I have not seen this amount of humanity in one area ever before. It was like someone rounded up the entire population of Montana and dropped them into a three block radius. Just a sea of people, not exaggerating, probably 5,000 people or more smashed into two or three streets. Mindblowing.

Then we caught a glimpse of the Seoul’s needle-like building, much like the space needle in Toronto, or a Seattle, without the fanfare. It looked like a long way off, but we had some time to kill and thought we’d try to find it. After weaving through some of the Seoul back alleys, we came to a huge park in the middle of town. It was basically a mountain in town that was designated a park with trails, a gondola to the tower, a road way with a rubberized track layed down for the walkers and runners. There were these “exercise areas” throughout the park… um… they were entire outdoor gyms. Elipticals, complete free weight sets, steppers, no vandalism, stolen equipment…unbelievable… if only in America. We found a little respite from the city and were totally excited about it. It was crowded, but was good to see that it existed. We found a fountain area and hung out for a little bit. The views weren’t much because of the smog, aweful that day. That is whole other can of worms; I live in perpetual fog, disgusting. So… I guess if the crazy morning drivers don’t hit me, and I avoid swallowing the fish bones at lunch, perhaps the smog will catch up with me… Let’s hope for the best!

Another good week from these parts of the world! My goal this week is to get cable and the internet at the apartment. Then this place will be fantastic. Let me know any news from home, either comment on this blog or shoot me an email. Sorry about the length, I kind of rambled on a bit, I think I’ll write more often and a little shorter from here on out.

Oh… by the way… There’s an indoor ski area we found just outside of Seoul! Looks like I’ll be riding all year!!!

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Comments

[Judy Gilbert]

Hey!
I think I'm finally figuring out this blog thing!! It is so good to hear about your wonderful adventure! Both of you take care and email when you can. I sent a private message, too. Love both of you! Love, Judy

[Laurel]

Hi, I'm James' friend
Hi Jon, you don't know me, but I know a bit about you as I worked with your brother James at Hillfield. The story of how I ended up on this travelblog site is sort of long and this comment space is short, so we'll save it for another time. Anyways, I taught in Hong Kong for four years, three of those at a Korean school and I had to laugh at your blog entries...I have many similar experiences! From a drunk (normally very serious) director who sang karaoke duets with a plant, to the as yet to be determined dishes in the cafeteria, to the Korean barbeque dinners where at least one teacher fell ill afterwards, to the parents who bowed everytime they saw me, and the students who were the most respectful and disciplined I had ever taught! They were better at math than me (which isn't that difficult, I admit, but still...) So, I wanted to tell you guys that I absolutely LOVED traveling in Asia...there are so many cool, interesting adventures to be had there. If you ever want some info on some great spots, or if you'd like some connections with people over there (all legite, honest!) give me a shout. My email is : [e-mail] Cheers (I can't remember how to say bye in Korean...the standard English one will have to do) Laurel :)