Pictures Worth a Thousand Words

Time really flies. I can't believe it's November! A lot's happened in the past month and a half. Since a picture's worth a thousand words, I'll tell it partly with pictures...

Sports Day at my school at the end of September

The students and teachers had spent a couple weeks preparing for this event at the elementary school (and sometimes missing my English classes as a result). Each grade had their own tent they sat under and even a stereo system set up so the teachers could DJ music. Some students did the dances to Korean pop songs (like what these students are doing). (Aren't they adorable?!)

Each grade had a routine they learned and performed on the field in front of the school on Sports Day.

1st grade: belly dancing (yes, 1st graders belly dancing)

2nd grade: traditional Korean dance

3rd grade: I'm not quite sure what they were doing...

4th grade: hula hooping

5th grade: Taekwondo dance

6th grade: Korean mask dance

They had taken the masks off their faces by the time I took the pictures but the dance involves clothing with long ribbon-like sleeves which they stuck on their arms.

There were also events like relay races and tug of war that sometimes involved teachers and parents. I got roped into doing tug of war.

That weekend, I went to the Andong International Mask Festival where we were welcomed with this sign:
Many of the events at the festival were surprisingly similar to the events at Sports Day:

Belly dancing

some of the belly dancers at the festival were also elementary school students...

Taekwondo dance to the song "We Will Rock You"

Korean mask dance

There were also performances by a Russian dance troupe that were AMAZING.

At the beginning of October, 1st through 5th grades went on a field trip and I got to go with the 4th graders on their field trip to Millennium Park in Gyeongju.
We saw a play on a part of Korean history of which I understood nothing. Something about a man meeting an important looking woman and her showing him a humongous suit of armor.
Then he went to a town that was then taken over by an army
which was defeated by another army
but then the first army came back and they fought each other the sea
and the second army won and a king came out and everyone was happy...?
Anyway, after that we went to watch a show with men doing tricks on horses. Easy enough to understand.

The last event was some kind of interactive activity that didn't have anything to do with Korean history or culture as far as I could see. But the host on stage challenged the kids to clap some kind of rhythm and do some tongue twister things. I actually started falling asleep when suddenly she asked for a teach volunteer so all the kids started screaming "Debi teacher!" and little hands pushed me up on stage (and I had absolutely no idea what I was doing there). They made me dance. I have no pictures.

The first weekend of October was the first of two conferences where all the English teachers in our program have a big reunion and talk about our experiences, teaching, etc.

After the conference, I took a trip with some friends to the Pusan International Film Festival.

While we were at lunch, I overhead the guys sitting next to us talking in Chinese so I asked them where they were from.

Turns out they're filmmakers from China and offered us free tickets to see a movie at the festival. We went to see The Chaser, a Korean movie based on a true story about a serial killer who targets call-girls, usually using a chisel and hammer to kill them. "In the midst of police indifference and incompetence, Jung-Ho, an ex-cop-turned-pimp must dust off his old flatfoot skills to find the killer and save the life of one of his girls who has gone missing."

The Chaser

After the movie, there was a special Q&A session with the director and two of the actors (although it was conducted in Korean so didn't understand much)


Last weekend, my other host brother came back from the Philippines for a week so my host family took a trip to Danyang about 2-3 hours away and invited me along.


After watching other people bungee jump, my host brothers decided they didn't want to do it anymore, lol.

Outside a remake of a traditional Korean house (not quite sure what we're doing...)

The amazing view from our suite

Picture at a museum we went to in Andong

The whole scene is made up of butterfly wings

Last week I did lessons on Halloween and carved a pumpkin with the help of one of my co-teachers. I was so touched when some of my classes came to school in costumes on Friday!




My students are wonderful. :)

Other random things from the past month or so:
Saw my friend playing live classical music at an orchestra concert in Gyeongju

She got more flowers than the soloists

And after the concert, saw my friend that I grew up with at home in a store in downtown Gyeongju

(it's a poster. she's a model)

Saw Crown J, a famous Korean rapper/ singer, live in performance at a night club downtown (after waiting 4 hours for him to perform for just 30 minutes, I guess it was worth it)

Saw an octopus get flipped inside out at the fish market

Before

After

So (after working on this post for almost 5 hours) I think I've redeemed myself somewhat after neglecting my blog for the past month and a half... Maybe I can keep from being lazy enough to post again before the end of the semester!... >>

Long Overdue Update

It’s about time I wrote something of substance here...

I started teaching the first week of September. After not doing much for 2 weeks besides going to the gym with my host mom every day, I was getting pretty pumped up about finally starting to teach. On the first day, I was introduced to the school over their TV broadcast system and gave a speech (in English) about myself. For the next couple days, random kids would shout “Hi Teacher!” in the middle of running around in the hallways. One of the first grade teachers told me her students started talking to the TV because they thought I could hear them! While I was waiting in the broadcast room, the 5th and 6th graders who are part of the broadcast crew did rock, paper, scissors to decide who would talk to me first. The only boy in the group lost and got pushed out into the room I was waiting in and introduced himself really fast and ran away. Then the some of the rest of the kids got braver after the first one went and came out and introduced themselves anyway.

My first week of classes consisted of having the students write self-introductions and bring photos of themselves for homework so my homework can be trying to memorize their names from the photos. (I’m slowly realizing that memorizing over 700 names from photographs is going to be nearly impossible but I’m stubbornly trying anyway.) I started trying to socialize with the students and the teachers during lunchtime to try to get to know faces (because I definitely still don’t know names).

I also started Taekwondo at a gym near my host family’s apartment where my host brother also used to do Taekwondo. There’s 5 other students in the class and at least 3 of them are my students (the other 2 might be too but I don’t recognize them...). They seemed to get a kick out of the fact that their English teacher is doing Taekwondo with them but actually tried their best to help me out and didn’t make fun of me. The kwanjangnim doesn’t speak any English but was also really nice. I think he’s actually nicer to me than to the elementary school boys maybe because I’m just starting out or because I’m a girl or foreigner (or all of the above)...

This past weekend was Korea’s Thanksgiving, Chuseok so we had a 4 day weekend off from school. My host family owns a supermarket so they were really busy with that before Chuseok. During this holiday, people will gather at their relatives’ house, sometimes in their hometown or where they grew up. On Saturday my host dad’s relatives came to Pohang and Sunday morning they laid out all the food they had prepared the day before and formally paid respects to their ancestors before we ate. (I watched but didn’t participate in the ceremony although I participated a lot in the eating afterwards. ^^)

I’ve been in Korea for over 2 months already but it doesn’t feel like it... In some ways it feels longer, but in other ways it feels shorter. First we had orientation, then went to Seoul for a couple days before moving to our placements and then starting teaching... A lot of time has been spent adjusting to new places and situations and things and I’m still getting used to everything, but I get more settled in, it feels more like home.

Downtown

My school ^^

English classroom

Some students hanging out outside my classroom

Pictures

My laptop still can't access the internet, but my school got me a USB flash drive so I can upload pictures! Yay! (Actually the point of the flash drive is for school, but it has its other uses...)

The U.S. Ambassador, his wife, and me

Some fun on Yonsei Day

Samgyeopsal with the homestay in Yeongcheon

My host brother

My host parents taking a nap

My host cousin

Raw fish for lunch (but they don't call it sashimi here...)

POSTECH University

One of my co-teachers

Me in front of the fountain at POSTECH (in my school clothes)

I realized I don't have a picture of my school or students here but will post more pictures and stories soon...

Pohang (포항)

As of Monday, I moved into my new home in Pohang! We live in an apartment complex (one of many) 10 minutes from 포항대흥 Elementary School where I'll be teaching. My host dad drove my principal and co-teacher to Yonsei University in Seoul to pick me up. My host mom is an amazing cook and when I told her samgyeopsal (barbeque pork) is one of my favorite Korean dishes, my family took me out for a samgyeopsal picnic by the river in Yeongcheon. They have two sons who attend the elementary school I'll be teaching at. One of them is studying in the Philippines for the year so I won't be seeing much of him but my other host brother is home and is usually "studying and playing" (his response when I ask him what he did or will do for the day). His cousin is in middle school and is also staying at their place until school starts for her. Sometimes I play soccer with them at the elementary school. Classes don't start until September 1st so I won't be teaching until then. My co-teachers have been very welcoming. One of them took me around Pohang after I first went to visit the school and meet some of the administrative staff and the other teachers. Pohang is a suburb of about 500,000 people on the east coast of Korea. It's famous for POSCO the steel industry and POSTECH one of the top science and technology universities in Korea. (It's kind of like Bethlehem...) I still have a lot of exploring to do while I'm here. Unfortunately there won't be any pictures with this post because my laptop can't access the internet at my host family's house so I'm just using their computer for now. More pictures and stories to be posted later!

IETC, TKD, and the DMZ

Last weekend a bunch of us went on the IETC (Intensive English Training Camp) trip with KEY Club (I still have yet to find out what the place is called). It reminded me of times I went camping with Travel Club at Kansai Gaidai. We were divided into different groups of KEY Club members and ETAs and competed against each other in games like “I am a model.” One person is the “model” and the others are blindfolded. Each blindfolded person feels the person before him to figure out how he/ she is standing and tries to imitate it and so on. The next game was called “Suck and blow” where you get a piece of paper and pass it down the line mouth to mouth. Our team did pretty well with that one. They seem to like to line us up girl-guy in these kinds of games. You get some pretty awkward/ interesting pictures out of it.


After that, we got in the pool with all our clothes on (I learned that people don’t wear bathing suits in Korea) and played water polo, trying to knock down empty bottles on the side of the pool with a ball while holding hands with a partner so we could only use one hand to get the ball. After dinner, we had a Miss Key pageant where we dressed up one freshmen KEY Club guy and one male ETA from each group in drag. They came down the “walkway” and demonstrated a special talent (which was usually some kind of “sexy dance”) and the judges chose a KEY Club winner and an ETA winner. I don’t know the name of the KEY Club winner, but he made a better looking girl than I did!


This week was the last week of Taekwondo classes. On Monday we were tested for yellow belt which involved going over the moves we learned in group of five in front of the kwanjangnim and the rest of the class. Needless to say, everyone passed. The rest of the week involved learning a routine of twelve steps which goes along with getting the yellow belt.



On Tuesday I actually twisted my ankle pretty badly. I did it right in front of the kwanjangnim because we started sparring and I didn’t really know what I was doing so I was hopping around trying to kick and then back away and landed on my ankle. I’ve never twisted it that badly before, but it's in the process of getting better. I went back for the last class on Thursday though (and made a fool of myself messing up the form we learned in front of the class). After class, we went out for dinner and patbinsu (a dessert that is a mix of fruit, red bean, shaved ice and ice cream) with the kwanjangnim. It was pretty cool getting to know our teacher outside of Taekwondo. He told us if we want to continue at our placements, just give him a call and he will get us in contact with a Taekwondo academy in our area. Our translator told us the kwajangnim has a seventh level black belt. Every province has a Taekwondo "master" who is the best in the province and that's our kwanjangnim. He's also part of the Taekwondo Association! Talk about making connections...

Yesterday we went to the DMZ which was an outing hosted by Hwacheon’s county officials. On the way there we stopped by a tomato festival in Hwacheon and they gave us shirts and we joined in a random parade.


We took a boxes of tomatoes home with us and they actually taste pretty good, sweet, even though I usually don’t like eating tomatoes by themselves. At the DMZ, it’s actually really beautiful there because people aren’t allowed to go in there so there’s a lot of untouched nature and wildlife. One of the tour guides told us if we took one step into the DMZ, we would probably be shot. There were signs right outside the fence warning of mines. We weren't allowed to take pictures of most of the area.