Watch your back in Korea

A common practive amoung the younger folk here is called "ddong chim" (literally, shit poke; koncho in Japan). There is where the attacker sticks out one of their fingers and pokes an unsuspecting victim up their ass. If the attacker is extra evil, he or she will then smell their finger to see if your shit really does stink.

Much to my dismay, I have been attacked my this method multiple times by my students.

Congratulations!

This post goes out to my most awesome friend from high school, Mike, and to my great friend and former housemate in university, Sarah.

You two both got married on the same day (not to each other!), about a week and a half ago. Congratulations!

Even if I was in Canada, I would've missed both weddings. One was in Vancouver and the other was in Thunder Bay. At least I had a good excuse for not being at either!

It was also awesome talking to Mike, his new wife Christie, and my other most awesome friend, Jeff, via my mother's hand-a-pone during the reception.

Here's a few picas that Jeff sent me:
















There's Christie the bride (left), Jeff (middle) and Mike (groom). It's a really nice picture except for one peculiar thing; why does Mike's face has a slight grimace to it? We shall soon find out...

















Jeff and Mike are pretending that they're pro wrestlers; doing an nWo pose. Jeff looks a little to happy for the part and Mike tooks a little to stiff. The slight grimace from the previous picture has developed into a slightly painful look. I think he may have swallowed a brick when he was up at the alter. You okay dude?
















If you look closely at the expression on Mike's face, you can conclude that the brick has now passed though the large intestines and has entered into the district of the lower intestines of Mike's inards. It must've been a rough night for Christie...

Jeff must've realized this, as his large happy smile has evolved into an all out slight chuckle.

















Ahhhhh... relief is in sight. Jeff has finally felt some pity for his newly wed friend and let Mike lean on his shoulder as the brick passed from his lower intestine into the upper rectal region. That is why you let him lean on your shoulder, isn't it Jeff?
















I've just realized that Jeff wasn't smiling because of the brick that Mike ate before the wedding, and that he wasn't letting him lean on his shoulder because he felt sorry for his friend. It was because he drank so much free wine that he mistook Mike for Tammy Plante! Dude, you might want to cut back on the drinking a little bit. When the girl's hand is as large as your head, it's time to go home... by yourself.

Plug for Rory's online Korean cookbook

I take a lot of my writing ideas from Rory, of What Not to do in Asia. He writes some funny shit. It's generally more funny than my funny shit. His latest post had me in tears. So much so, that the Korean guy on the computer next to me at this PC room looked at me with great concern while trying to find the English words to ask me why I was crying, laughing and grabbing my crotch all at the same time. I was trying to find the Korean words to tell him to read this funny site. Neither of us were successful. Go to his site right now and read "What not to cook: Dogshit Nachos". If you don't cry, laugh and grab your crotch all at the same time, then it's your loss.

My crazy job

Sometimes my job makes me shake my head in utter disbelief.

Here's a few points:

1. I have a cheap boss. So cheap, that he hides the paper for the printer and photocopier in his office. The paper in the photocopier was replaced with scrap paper. Today, I printed out a few tests, only to find that on the back of them was a childs work from another class! I actually had to dig around to find some "acceptable" paper to print the tests on. In an amazing coincidence, we had two "craft weeks" right before they claimed that we were using too much paper. Go figure...

As well, I recieved shit from the boss' wife for going though too many markers on Wednesday. When a marker is dead, it's dead. It's dry and you can't write on the whiteboard with it. When I grabbed a new one from the closet yesterday, I was scolded.



2. The "manager" (Susan), aka. the "translator" between the English staff and the boss and his wife, has poor at best English skills. She cannot adequetly convey her, or the boss', opinion to us foreign English teachers. All too often, she gets things mixed up or seems to alter the truth to benefit herself (knowingly or unknowingly).

Example #1: One of the students, Dion, switched into a slightly more advanced class. The rest of the class is using a reading book in addition to their regular textbook. The new student did not have the reading book. I asked Susan if he would be getting a reading book. Due to the high cost (I roll my eyes here) of ordering only one textbook, he won't be getting one. One of the other students, named Matthew, that was formerly in that class does have that reading book though. She suggested that maybe Dion could use Matthew's book, since it only had a few pages marked up in it. She then left our office to talk to the boss' wife about this idea. She came back and informed me that since it was used, Dion might not like it. Okay I thought, I'll just photocopy my copy of the reading book for him. So, like a good little teacher, I photocopied that pages that I would be teaching today for Dion. Later in the day, Susan looked at my desk and noticed the photocopied papers and asked what they are for. Happily I told her what they were for. She got mad and in a huff of frustration, asked me why I was doing that when she told me that Dion would be using Matthew's book. I told her that she never did tell me that, and in fact implied that he would not be using Matthew's book. She got mad and left the room. Luckly David, the other foreign teacher here, was around for every incident and can back up my story. Not that it matters when Susan has the trust of the boss, since she's the manager who knows excellent English and all...

Example #2:

My "advanced" class, consisting of five middle-school girls (middle-school girls often have huge egos and are very rude), finished their "textbook" today. Actually, they finished it a month ago. The actual textbook goes from unit 1 to unit 8. It's sold in a set of two, with the second book including units 9 through 16. The person responsible for buying the books, the same manager that I talked about in the previous example, only bought the first book. Accompanied by these books is a workbook, which has all 16 units in it. Naturally, I stopped using the workbook at the end of unit 8, since that's where the textbook ends.

At this point, I began asking Susan repeatedly when we would be getting a new book for this class (as opposed to my asking her occasionally before). She kept telling me that she hadn't found a good book yet. *sigh* So, I began to make my own lessons; arranged from other books which we have in the school. Photocopying, much I did. It wasn't long before Susan and the boss' wife began to question me on why I was using so much photocopied material for this class (photocopying is very expensive of course!). I told them that the class was finished the textbook. Susan told me that they weren't. I told her that they were. Susan told me that they weren't. Etc. Eventually, I was able to explain that this was a miscommunication. I didn't realize that they wanted me to finish up to chaper 16 in the workbook. Why they thought I should teach the entire workbook when the actual lessons are in the textbook is beyond me. Apparently the boss' wife (I have no idea what her name is. I call her the Korean name for "boss' wife. It's acceptable here) later agreed that it was silly using the workbook when there was no textbook to go with it when she questioned why I was teaching out of it! Susan agreed with her that what I was doing was silly. *sigh*

So, last week the girls requested that we have some sort of party when we finished the workbook. I told them that I liked that idea and would talk to Susan about it (she's the Korean teacher for that class). She liked the idea too, and had actually suggested it to the girls a few weeks earlier. So, after some thinking, she gave me the go. Unfortunately, our schedules didn't allow for much of a party, so I thought that maybe we could just play a game instead when the workbook was finished. Today was that day. The class is a one hour class, and the book was finished just after the half hour mark. I broke out the Scrabble. Halfway into the game, Susan and the boss' wife were peering into my classroom door's window. I open the door and ask them what's up. They look very upset and Susan asks me why I am playing a game. I told her that it was her idea anyway and that we talked about this a week ago. She completely ignores that and scolds me, as does the boss' wife, for playing games when I should be teaching.

At least David was there for the whole thing and can back me up...



3. Next week, we begin the special summer schedule. The student's summer break started today (Thurs.) and goes until the end of August. Unfortunately for those poor kids (and for poor me!), their private schools go on as usual. That includes not only their extra-curricular English institutions, which includes what I work in, but also their science institutions, math institutions, etc. These kids are forced into wayyy too much school. Not only do the kids still have to attend, but the private schools add on even more hours and charge the parents accordingly. This school system really is about making money for the owners, not about teaching. So, for August, I'll have to begin teaching at around 10:30am. I should finish at around 6:30pm. That's not what's bad. The school offering extra classes for a price isn't neccessarily bad either. What is bad, while annoying anyway, is that I was told to make these extra classes "special".

The students taking these special summer classes are generally the same students that I see later in the day. They will just come twice a day now and use a different textbook for these classes. I was told that I was not to teach like I normally do, but to teach in a "special way" so that the kids would have a memorable time. How do I do that? I have no idea. When I asked Susan how I am supposed to do that, she told me to teach differently and really stressed that I make the classes "special".

I think that I'm going to me take "special" as meaning that I should had out lollipops to the students.

I'm dead serious.

We'll see how well that one goes over...

What I ate for supper; version 2.0

It all started when I decided that frying up some mushrooms, onions, and a variety of bell peppers would be a good idea.
















Then I started cooking some rice. I only burned it a little bit. I had to add some more water so that I could mix in my next ingredient...
















A bag of curry powder! This bag lasted for three meals. It's pretty good stuff.
















Here is what a random Korean can of tuna looks like.
















This is what happens when you mix rice, curry powder, tuna and water together. You get curry-rice-tuna mush.
















I fried up the giant mushrooms as an appetizer.
















Hey, this actually turned out okay! I call it, "Curry-rice-tuna-mushroom-veggie dish". I ate both helpings in one sitting.

The three most useful ways of teaching with a paperback textbook

1. Smack a student over the head with it if they are acting up.

2. Roll the book up and smack a student over the head with it if they keep acting up. By rolling the book up, you are able to cause greater pain. By using this method, you let the child know that you are being serious when you yell something at them in a strange language which they do not understand.

3. Smack a student over the head with the spine of the book. By using this method, you are able to direct the entire energy (chi 지) of the book onto one focused area of the head, inflicting the most amount of pain possible. By using this methed, you let the child know that you aren't screwing around when you tell them not to shit themselves during class anymore.

My school has a new bus driver!

My school, as do most other private English institutes (hogwans), pays a bus driver to pick up the students from wherever they come from, bring them to the school, and then take them home again. You can witness these private school buses picking up and dropping off kids until the wee hours of the morning; even on Saturdays. Sucks to go to school in Korea, eh?

To the point of this little story:

One of the, ahem, fat girls in our school (and shot-putting champion of her age-group in the city, not to mention the sister of the boy that shat himself a few weeks ago) has a habit of unknowingly slamming the bus door. One day last week, the bus driver wasn't able to distain his anger over this and told the poor girl what he though of her; that she was a fat pig (dumbed down translation). Of course, the girl's mother found out and told our director/owner/boss (wonjongnim). In an attempt to get an apology out of this bus driver, the driver decided to get pissed off over this and quit. As a result, wonjongnim had to spend a couple of days driving the kiddies around until he was able to get a new bus driver today.

It seems that many Koreans have a difficult time apologizing. This is one example of this.

Peace Cup 2005

On Sunday, I was privilaged to watch a football match between the Ilhwa Chunma and the Lyons Olympiques (from France). Lyons won the game be a score of 2-1. The game was part of the Peace Cup tournament, which I'm pretty sure that nobody outside of Korea or the Unification Church (sans the teams involved) has heard about before. At least TSN's and ESPN's sites failed to acknowledge this tournament.

Both the Ilhwa Chunma and the Peace Cup are financed by Sun Myong Moon and the Unification Church. They are better known as the Moonies.

The game itself was a lot of fun, and the Ulsan World Cup Stadium was more packed than I've ever seen it at any K-League game. Tickets were only 10,000 won (10 $US). Our little group of foreigners managed to drink the place dry before the 10-minute mark of the first half. The folks that run the stadium have no idea how to capitalize on beer sales. They didn't have nearly enough beer (mind you, I'm sure that us foreigners buy a lot more beer than the locals), and there were no restrictions on how much beer you can buy and the prices are barely marked up. As well, you are free to load up a cooler or backpack full of beer and bring it into the game with you. I bought three Heinekin's (that's all they had at this point) for 7,500 ($2.50 each), and Al bought an entire case for 60,000; which we shared amounst ourselves until we ran out well before the second half had started. The Koreans (and the other foreingers!) must've been slightly upset that there was no beer left. Well, blame the stadium management for their poor planning.

Here's some pictures from just before the game and from the game itself. Remember, you can click on the pictures to make them larger:















This is in my neighborhood. Those Koreans sure look white! Notice how Dave covered his face because to my bad jokes?
















A shot of the field from the top level.
















These three fans were happily cheering for Lyons and booing Korea. Probably because the Korean team playing is a rival of the local Ulsan Hyundai Tigers team. I taught them a nice chant to help encourage the team de france.

"Lyons, mange la merde! Lyons, mange la merde!"

They had fun AND learned some good francais!
















10,000 won for general admission, and I get a seat on field level? Why would I ever pay 30,000 for "better seats"? Where was absolutely no assigned seating. I just sat wherever I wanted to. Never ever pay for anything more than general seating in Korea. If you pay more money, you'll just get laughed at by the person sitting beside you that paid half of what you did. Strangly enough, movie theatres have assigned seating. WTF gives?
















Here's a shot of the crowd behind me.
















Lyons was in the white, while Korea was in the yellow. Lyons won the game. What a surprise...

What I ate for supper on Saturday

This is my spicy ramyeon noodle dish. Rhiannon, you can make this at home for mum and dad and eat just like I do in Korea. You'll be eating Blake-style Korean food!

First, I chop up part of a zucchini and a green pepper and begin to fry them. Then I add some baby tomatos. They taste good when they're hot and fried.















Second, I boil some water and add a package of ramyeon noodles. I dump in the spicy mix that comes with the noodles into the water. It makes the food hot and tasty.
















Third, I fried the ramyeon noodles in with the veggies for extra texture. If desired, I also add chicken, tuna or tofu.
















Now it's all ready to eat! Pick up your chopsticks and dig in. Mmmmmmmmmm. Spicy veggie ramyeon noodle dish.

Thy Chicken Guy

This is the guy that I buy chicken from. He can speak basic English too!

My tribute to Mike

One of my best friends is getting married this weekend to his girl, Christie.

Buddy, I wish I could be there for you, but I ran of to Korea instead!

Congratulations! This is my photo tribute to you:

Dong dong ju and Russians

Since I somehow had a credit on my bar-tab at Tombstone, I decided to have supper there last night. After scarfing down a cheeseburger with double cheese and bacon, I realized that I was the only foreigner in the bar. At the pool table were four Korean university students and their professor, who was treating them to nachos and vodka. Being the friendly guy that I am, and being the friendly people that Koreans so often are, I was playing pool and doing one shots with them in no time. They were all in the same computer engineering class togather, and it was their computer prof that was treating them. As it turns out , I had an hour long conversation with him a few weeks ago that I could barely recall.

Following a couple of games, I found myself walking (as opposed to riding my motorbike) to the university with my new friends. Apparently most of them had remembered me from a few weeks ago. We wandered down to their computer lab, where we just BSed about whatever. After realizing that there was only juice and water to drink in the fridge, we made the difficult decision to head down to a Korean bar to drink some dong-dong-ju. Dong dong ju is rice wine that is quite milky-brown in its appearance. It comes served in a large bowl (bowls in our case), and is served using a ladle into our individual cups. It's pretty good if it's mixed with Cider (Sprite/7-Up) too.

On our way to find a dong dong ju restaurant, we ran into a few Russian students; two girls and a guy. The guy I knew already, because he hangs out at Tombstone and is in the Tae-Kwon-Do class that I keep saying that I'm going to join but never do. The girls were new to me. One of them speaks pretty good English, and the other doesn't know any English at all. I'm not even sure if she knows Korean. Well, she did speak Russian at least (like that's any help to me!). My Russian vocabulary consists of "Privit(hello)", "Korasho(good)", "dobrae(good/fine)", "Spasiba(thanks)", "courva(#%&^%$%)", "peardolit(#$#%^#$)", "znosdraovia(cheers)" and "boka(goodbye)". I guess I learned something.

We probably spend a good two or three hours drinking dong dong ju and eating the crazy octopus omelet that they served us. I lost count of how many times and in how many languages that we said "cheers". All in all, our group consisted of one Canadian, three Russians and four Koreans. Out of the eight of us, five of us spoke working English. This is one of the reasons that I have so much fun here. You never know what language is going to be spoken and just what is going to come out of the night. I started out the night by going out in search of a burger for supper, and I ended up drinking Korean rice wine and speaking Russian until 3am.

I learned two important things last night:

1. Computer guys in this country cooler than computer guys in Canada.

2. Russian girls have sexy accents.

Happy

David teacher asked June, an 8 or 9 (we're not quite sure) year old boy, this question:

"How old are you?"

To which June replied:

"Happy."

Easiest day ever

I woke up at 12:30pm.

I went to work at around 1:30, after stopping by a convienience store to pick up a couple of sandwiches and a couple of cool coffees for less than $3 CND.

I prepared for classes (aka. surfed the internet for 50% of the time). Report cards are now finished.

I taught a class with one student (the other student wasn't here today for whatever reason) from 3:00-3:30. I had him read a few pages from a basic kids book and then played crazy 8s with him.

I taught my "bad class" of three boys from 3:35-4:30. They were bad, but I had pretty good control of them. We finished six pages from their lesson book, so we did a good job.

I taught my absolute tied for largest class of five kids from 4:35-5:30. Only one student, Anna (my current favorite student, she's so sweet), showed up. Everyone else is camping. She read from a mid-level book for 15 minutes, then we played Scrabble for the rest of class.

I had an hour break. I surfed the internet.

I taught a class of two students for 45 minutes. We listened to the radio for 5 minutes, as I thought that teaching them about the radio in English was a smart idea. It was a smart idea. Then I taught them numbers from ten thousand to one billion. They actually needed the refresher, as they couldn't remember 10,000 right away. Then I helped them rearrange sentences for the rest of the class (ie. I woke up at 7:00am. = At 7:00am, I woke up.). They caught on to that pretty quickly, as I had already gone over it with them on Monday. Quiz will be on Friday.

I kept one of the kids for five minutes after class so that he could finish his homework (sukjeh).

I'm now in the middle of the 45 minutes break before I can go home. We all leave at the same time.

I'll ride my motorbike home, and make some sort of supper if I'm feeling ambitious. Maybe I'll make spaghetti (haven't made it in a couple of weeks) or a kimchi/rice/chicken/veggie dish. Maybe I'll just pay $2 US for 20 rolls of kimbap (sushi rolls) instead from the convienience store. Sushi is so cheap here. I'd be paying $10-$15 for it back home. That is, if I could get it back home! Dryden has no sushi. I had to make my own there.

I have lots of soy sauce and wasabi in my fridge, so no worries there.

I might go out to Tombstone and play a few games of pool and talk to some of my friends. Maybe I'll have a beer or two.

I might go for a bike ride.

I might pay 500 won (50 cents) for 5 mintues in a batting cage.

I might give Dave a call and see what he's up to.

I might just stay in and play X-Box, while I learn how to write and count to 100 in Chinese. I've already got the hang 1-10, as well as the Chinese writing for "door". Chicken, pork, water and beer will follow as well.

For all of my time actually "working" today, I made roughly $40-50 CND an hour.

I have a rough life in this country. :)

Japan is bad

Here is a poem one of my students wrote that I'd like to share:

Japan is bad;
Japan is crazy;
because Dokdo;
is Korea's island!

Japan is very bad;
I don't like Japan;
Korea is very good;
but Japan is very bad!

Super Barf

During one of my "intermediate" classes, I asked one of my kids what his least favorite food was. After having to spend a good ten minutes explaining what "least favorite" meant, he thought about it for another ten minutes and replied "super barf".

Canada Day

Happy Birthday Dad!

I was supposed to go on a big Canada Day weekend beach/camping trip, but that didn't happen. The plan was to go to Tombstone on Friday night, get served breakfast there in the morning and then hop on a bus to Jung-ja (45 mins north of Ulsan, still in city limits) to go to the beach.

When I went to Tomber, people just kept bringing me drinks like it was my birthday. I didn't make it until morning. I woke up at home on Saturday just after lunchtime.

Being the good sport that I am, I jumped onto my bike and rode up the coast to Jung-ja. I couldn't find anyone. Apparently, they all came back to Ulsan before lunch. Some beach trip they had. Anyway, I had a fun time by myself just wandering around Jung-ja and the ocean side. Here's the pictures. I call the collection, "Foggy Day at the Beach":