Things I miss.

I’ve only been in America again for 2 weeks, but there are things I miss about Korea.

1. I literally jumped out of my seat when this came up on a special “Korea” episode on the Food Network.

2. I miss seeing his beautiful face while I wait at the bus stop.

3. I miss sitting here with friends who don’t understand what I’m saying but totally understand what I’m saying.

4. I miss being around other people who really like this music as much as me: boy bands with 11+ members….

…And colorful fashion.

5. Iris: my favorite show.

At least I get to return. The funny thing is, when I’m there, I will miss so much more.

Cafeteria Kid

I just thought I’d share with you all the things that I eat on a daily basis. I always eat lunch in the school cafeteria. The little children must eat a little of everything. I on the other hand, don’t want to waste food so I only get what I know I like. I always try new things at least once. Most of the time it’s so spicy you can’t taste anything anyways. Apparently the American teacher here last year didn’t like Korean food at all, so all three of us daily shock are Korean friends by even attempting to eat in the cafeteria. The older students complain that the food is bad, but honestly, which middle or high schooler actually likes school cafeteria food? To me, it’s just honest-to-goodness Korean. I eat rice and mandarin oranges every day.

School Food:

Purple potatoes. I like these. They just taste like potatoes but they are as purple as a king's royal robe. Sometimes they are boiled, sauteed, and yesterday they were fried! They will stain your tongue purple for hours. It's awesome! They're as awesome as a potato can be!

Egg drop soup, rice, squid and octopus spicy stuff, radishes, kimchi, and seaweed stuff.

The kids eat this like its french fries.

Soup at every meal- breakfast, lunch, and dinner! This is tofu, seaweed, and bean sprout soup. Apples, rice, tiny fish with eyeballs! and The stuff in the corner is canned curry potatoes and carrot mixture that tastes like a Kashi frozen dinner.

They look at you. They are sticky-sweet with a fishy after taste. Don't you just want some?

Rice with veggies and meat in brown sauce. This tastes very "Canned" American. Mushroom soup and mushrooms with spam. They have the strangest variety of mushrooms. They are all very good. They really like spam.

Tofu soup, rice, carrot and crab salad, purple potatoes, mushrooms and bell peppers, fried fish. FRIED fish tastes like fish sticks. One of the best cafeteria meals.

Yum. A very good meal. I remember this one Rice, tomatoes, the green stuff is good...I don't know what it is... and then soy sauce with sesame seeds. The fried things are delish. They have chopchey inside which is a clear skinny noodle made from sweet potatoes. The chopchey is wrapped in seaweed, battered and fried.

Kimchi, duck/pork/or lamb in sauce (with meats it's hard to tell what it is), and rice.

Bean sprout soup (I love bean sprouts!), squash and carrots, pork, rice, and the black stuff is seaweed wraps. That's one of my favorite things. They are dried and salty and perfect for wrapping up rice. I can now eat them like a true Korean. I'll have to show off my chop stick skills when I get home.

I learned this weekend from Sophia that Koreans are very skilled with trades and jobs where it’s required to use their fingers. From a young age, Korean children use chopsticks. This is true with most Asian children, but Korean chopsticks are considerably heavier than other Asian countries. I realized this immediately as I innicially struggled with using heavy, stainless steel chopsticks. Other countries prefer wooden or plastic sticks.  Because of this early and intense fine moter skill development, Koreans are “trained” to work in certain trades and industries.

Restaurant Food:

A selection of fermented veggies.

This is actually a Vietnemese food but I think it's fantastic! At first, I thought they were thin plastic plates. When dry, they are hard like a place-mat. You soak them in hot water and they turn into a wrap for veggies.

The same "place-mat" after it's softened.

We had a feast at this "fusion" restaurant. We drove 45 min into the mountains to get there. We all were pretty car sick and seeing some of the food didn't help matters. Beef patties, kimchi varieties, raw crabs, soup that smelled like stinky shoes, salads, ribs...

The school treated us to this lunch and then we had a meeting...all while sitting criss-cross applesauce.

Hot chrysanthemum tea. They just stuff the dried flower in there and pour hot water over it.

Dessert! Tomatoes!

Many Korean restaurants make you cook your own food. At this one, we boiled meet and veggies as well as fried some. You do all the work but besides the meat, you get unlimited food.

Som-gupe-sar. Pork! We get this at least once a week! You fry it with onions, garlic, etc and wrap it up in lettuce.

And depending on the place, you get this lovely egg thing. It's good...

Wedding food:

Joshua's plate from the wedding buffet. They had everything from sushi to cereal on that buffet. Josh likes the raw fish. ....Korean Pepsi or "cola". It's all "cola". Speaking of buffets... one time I had sushi with processed cheese wrapped around the seaweed and topped wih sprinkles. It was digusting....but very pretty.

Needless to say, I am craving some American food! Seriously people! No rice!!

My Korean Date

This is a true story: every bit of it.

I didn’t think I’d squeeze one in before the end of the year, but it finally happened. I went on a date in 2009. Just one date. That is all. I spent 9 months in America this year and not one date. Not one English-speaking guy had the guts or interest to ask me out. I get to Korea, where about 1% of the population can speak the same language as me, and guess what? Just after 2 months, I get asked out on a date.

 Me and Kimber love to go dancing on Saturday nights. It’s hard to think of a “dance club” without thinking of a Western “club” where young adults are “bumpin’ and grindin’ or acting “ungodly” on the dance floor. Korea’s dance clubs are much, MUCH different. The first weekend I was in Gwangju, the pastor’s son invited us to go to Club Houze with him. I was hesitant because I don’t like American dance clubs, but he offered to pay, so we all went. I immediately realized the vast difference between American and Korean (or Gwangju) clubs. When Koreans dance at clubs, they definitely leave room for the Holy Spirit. This means, they all stand in a circle of their friends and kinda bop around. Their feet usually don’t even leave the ground. They focus all their energy on moving their arms, kinda like they are running in place. It is so fascinating. They also dress much different at their clubs too. Korean women are petite and sophisticated. Their idea of club clothes is not a slutty top and some apple-bottom jeans. Instead, they opt for a turtle neck, a high-waist-pencil skirt, tights, and heels. They are very classy club-goers. Granted, they aren’t really doing much “dancing” so I guess they can wear whatever they want. It’s very nice.

 So anyways, Kimber and I love “dancing” on Saturday nights. It’s fun to goof off and act like a Korean and dance like idiots. Recently, some other foreigners have been coming to the club and poisoning it with their westernized club-ways. It’s very refreshing to see a tall, handsome Korean man hold up his arms in a big X when some white girl tries to dance on him.

So last Saturday, Kimber and I were having fun, as usual. We were “dancing” by ourselves, laughing, and burning calories. One Korean seemed very interested in dancng with me. He spent the rest of the night beside me and even bought me a drink– juice. Actually, I got 2 drinks bought for me that night– pineapple and peach juice. haha

When it was time for us to go, the Korean guy asked for my phone number. He did this by waving his hand-uh-pone around. I don’t have a cellphone. Kimer does. Therefore, I don’t hesitate handing out her number. I gave him that number intending to never speak to him again. I’m pretty sure he didn’t say one word in English to me the whole night which was fine with me. I wasn’t there to meet friends anyway. His name was Kim Dok Yang. He was taller than me.

Monday morning, Kimber handed me her phone. “You got a text message”. Dok Yang had been sending me text messages and I couldn’t understand a single one of them! None of the made any sense. He was trying to text in English. The only text I understood was this “I am inferior to English. You inferior to Korean?”

 Thursday, Kimber and I already had plans to go to the Bus Terminal to get some Burger King for dinner (big deal!). The Bus Terminal has a lot of restaurants and shops in it. That’s where the Louis Vouton (spelling?) and Gap are….you know, all the expensive stores. There are also art gallerys and music halls as well as a huge, nice, IMAX theater.

Before we left for work on Thursday, Dok Yang sent Kimber’s phone a text. “You have plans tonight? You want to see a movie with me?” I said “yes” because I believe in signs and thought it was no coincident that I was already planning on eating right outside of the movie theater. Plus, I thought this would make a great story.

I ate with Kimber and then she waited with me ’til he showed up. I was a bit nervous. I felt like I was going on a blind date, except (without disrespect) it was actually deaf-date because we weren’t going to be able to communicate. Plus, I couldn’t really remember what he looked like! haha Luckily he wore the same jacket he did on Saturday.

This guy can’t even say “hello” in English. Poor thing. It was very funny. I went into this “date” treating it like an experiment. I was curious to see how a Korean man acted on a date. He picked out the movie (2012), he paid for the tickets, he bought me a drink and within 2 minutes, he offered to carry my purse. He just smiled a lot. Good thing we were watching a movie! The movie was in English and although I had already seen it, I was fine with watching it again. We tried unsuccessfully to use our cellphone dictionaries to communicate. (Kimber lent me her phone for the night) It was so funny. While we were waiting for the movie to begin, I just decided I was gonna have fun with it. I just talked and talked and talked in English. He just smiled. lol. It was great.

When the movie ended, he walked me to a taxi kissed me on the cheek, and I was off! The end! He had a lot of guts to ask me out when he knew he wouldn’t be able to communicate with me.

 The next day I got a text that said: “You listen at your house?”

Not sure what that means. This isn’t gonna work out.

bapo

Some words in Korean are taken from English words. Even though as an English speaker, I recognize the similarities, Koreans, however, will not. So if you want them to understand you, you must screw your words so they sound like their versions. For example. Koreans are not born with the ability to say the “f” sound. Therefore, coffee is “coppee”.  So when I want a coffee, I have to make myself sound like a 3 year old with a lisp and say “coppee” or they won’t understand me. A big Target-like shopping store called Lotte Mart shares a parking lot with a huge soccer stadium. This stadium was used for a World Cup game a few years back. Hence its name “World Cup Stadium.” If you want to get to Lotte Mart you always call it the World Cup Lotte Mart. Even though “World Cup” is on every road sign, you can’t say “World Cup”. You have to say slowly to the taxi driver “Word Cuh Lotta Mar”. Enunciating here will only bring confusion. Everything is dragged out. “Worrrrrd Cuuuuuh Lottaaay Marrrr”.

Cellphones are known as  hand phones or Han-duh-pone-uh.

My bathroom light went out so I walked down to the DC Mart to get a new bulb. The entire bulb shattered so I had nothing to show the clerk. Ted taught me how to say light bulb in Korean. “Light-uh Brulrb” Yeah. I felt like the biggest bapo (idiot) saying that “Light-uh brulrb!” But she understood me. Now I have light!

Sometimes when I’m at a lost for words and I need help, I’ll just try saying English words drawn out and slow. It has never worked. Here are some failed attempts:

deodorant: deee-oohhh-dar- ant-uh

peanut butter: peanut-uh butter-uh

If that doesn’t work I just try  it in Spanish.

“el deodorante”

“el peanut butter”

Si? No? No comprendes? Ay mal!

 

Say, what?

1. David is the pastor’s son. He’s 29. He works at the school taking care of random things. He can speak only a little English and it’s usually just 10 random words thrown together at a time. He always starts a sentenc with “How’s about”. Not sure who taught him to say that.

2. I handed Brian back a quiz recently and he was dissapointed with his grade.

Brian: ”I’m suck!”

Me: “You what?” I asked.

Brian: ” This grade–I’m suck!”

Me: “You mean ‘I suck’?”

Brian: “Yeah. I suck.”

Me: No you don’t.

3. Susan doesn’t really like Joshua Teachers beard. Actually, no Korean really likes his beard. Susan told Josh the other day that she wants to see his “empty face” (aka “clean-shaven”)

4. Everytime Jeany hands in a test or when class is over, she always thanks me. “Thank you for test, Teacher”, “Thank you for class, teacher”. It’s nice…(Even though she is the one whining before the test, miraculously, by the end, she is thanking me for it!)

5. When we vistied the school in Seoul a few weeks ago, the students there had to introduce themselves. One asked “What is your name” but didn’t specify which one of us he was talking to: me, Josh, or Kimber. His teacher asked him to clarify. “I done know. The one with the yellow hair!”

6. The school secretary, Miss Hon, asked me why American car tags have fruit on them. She thinks they are pretty and asked if you get to choose which fruit you want on your tag.

7. This lovely man from Sophia’s church was very excited to meet me and Kimber. Unfortunately, he didn’t know a lot of English. He did however, speak Italian because he is an opera singer/ professor. Hence, he thought we’d understand his Italian better than his Korean so he proceeded to talk with us in Italian. All I understoond was “bella” so I guess he liked us!

Saturday

1. Finally a Saturday with no obligations.

2. Went shopping for Christmas presents.

3. Followed the majority and parked  on the street.

4. Four hours later, nothing was there but a blue parking ticket taped to the curb. Our car got towed. The ticket was in Korean.

5. We literally chased a tow truck for about 10 blocks. With the help of Ted via phone, we got a taxi driver to read the map on the ticket and take us to pick up our car. We got in the cab and the taxi driver drove one block to the lot. We ran for 10 blocks and rode in a cab for one block. If we could read Korean, me and Kim would have seen the HUGE BLUE SIGN right in front of us…but we can’t. We had to pay the cab driver AND pay to get our car back.

6. I met a guy from Toronto who has been to Myrtle Beach multiple times. He comes all the way to Myrtle Beach from Toronto! He seriously needs a new vacation spot!

7. Kim and I went to a special visitors service at our coworker Sophia’s church. We were the first foreigners to ever visit that church. They had a raffle and my number was the first one drawn. I had to go up in font of the whole church. The MC was talking in Korean and laughing….and everyone was laughing. Sophia was translating but really, she was just laughing too. The MC asked me what I was feeling. “Embarrassed” I said. I was standing in front of all these people who were talking about me and laughing. Embarrassed. Anyways… I won two bags of salt.

Korean Wedding

So this past weekend, one of the teachers at school got married– Pastor Ko. He is an associate pastor at the church affiliated with GVCS. He is also the worship leader at church.

The whole school took a tour bus up to Deajon which is about 2 hours away. It was a nice drive. We got to see all the leaves and a different side of South Korea. This was the snack we got on the bus. The big white thing is a rice cake. It just tastes like rice when you smash it against your fork to get the last bits up off your plate. The ball things are herb rice ball things. I don’t really know…but they taste like raw dough with flour on the outside of them. It’s really hard to eat. The other brown stuff is rice….kinda like a rice krispy treat but it’s made with real rice and it has raisins and sunflower seeds in it…

This was the most interesting wedding I have ever been to. It included a fog machine, strobe lights, many LED lights, Celine Dione, Savage Garden, Take 5, techno music, hymns, and lots of rhinestones and sequins.

Most weddings here are held at places specifically designed to host weddings. You walk up to the appropriate floor where it’s an open floor plan and then upstairs is a big reception hall with tables and a buffet (lots of gooood food!) We walked in and the previous wedding was finishing up. People are standing around talking and chatting. Instead of giving gifts, you just walk up to this booth and pay cash to the couple. When you make your donation, you receive a ticket to the reception. You don’t get a ticket unless you give cash (not a bad idea). The cash booth:

All the GVCS students at the wedding. They sang a special song during the ceremony.

When the other wedding finally cleared out, the mothers of the groom and bride, the groom, and the bride and her father all lined up at the end of the aisle. There’s no dramatic entrance of the bride because she is standing in the back chit-chatting before the wedding anyways. It was very westernized…or it tried to be. This bride just wore a white dress (instead of changing later into a Korean wedding dress). The mother’s wore traditional clothes as did some of the other family.

For anybody who watched the Japanese wedding video in the Global Perspective class–it was pretty much like that!

In the middle of the ceremony, the had their cake cutting. Every part of the huge cake was fake except the top. They first blew out two candles on top and then cut it with a huge sword. They didn’t feed it to each other or even have cake at the reception. They just “cut” it.

It was a fun wedding! Pastor Ko sang a song to his bride, they read their vows, and they walked down the aisle as streamers were popping out of the ground.

The main aisle...it was plexy-glass with flowers under it...It was rigged with a fog machine and flashy lights that ran along the side.

The bride and groom with their parents.

The bride was sooooo beautiful.The groom, however, kinda just looked like Elton John. He had makeup on.

They had these wedding coordinators on overdrive. Every break in the ceremony, they were combing hair of fixing the bride or grooms makeup. They had head sets on and were communicating to each other like they were in the Secret Service. It was funny.

Showing off their promise rings.

They were heading to Guam for their honeymoon.

This was at the reception. It’s a popular fruit here and it’s really good. You just have to get into first!

Picture Update

Susan and me at Nareh-bong (the Korean word for karaoke. If you use the word "karaoke" here, they'll take you to a place where you sing and get a hooker.

Susan and Monica are two of our students. Their mom is the Art teacher at school and she wanted us to hang out with them. Mrs. Park took us shopping, bought us lots of food, and paid for us to have some fun! Plus, she drives the nicest car in Gwangju so just riding in that was nice! A BMW SUV...

We ate at the best restaurant in town! This was REAL Italian. Wonderful! You don't have to tip anyone in Korea...waitresses, taxi drivers, the ppl who pump your gas. That's nice. They literally think you are stupid if you try to tip. ...so a nice restaurant like this was pretty reasonable.

At some national park in Seoul... we couldn't read all the signs, so we had no idea what this use to be. It was pouring down rain....had to buy an umbrella off the street.

We walked into an art gallery. Korean art materials = face masks. You can share this mask with one other person you know isn't sick!

You can share this face mask with all your coworkers...while you're on a merry go round.

An old temple in the middle of Seoul...

Laura and Ally who we met up with in Seoul.

We brought the TORCH along...hopefully we'll be published!

In the movie theater, letting our socks dry. You have assigned seats...

City girls: Conquering public transportation.

Walking in Incheon where Laura and Ally live...soooo pretty!

You have to taste this to believe that it is the best dessert ever! Chocolate Chex cereal, shaved ice, hot cocoa mix, condensed milk, marshmallows, and whip cream. "Chocopinsu"

Karrik and Charles getting punished by Mr. Ted. One time, Mr. Kim picked Karrik up by his head, just his head. His feet were dangling 3 feet in the air...

James is in the background. He does sign language for everything. Every word is "hmm" and he points and mimes. "Teacher: hmmm and hmmm to hmmm." Justin is the one up front. He has the best giggle and is always doing the right thing. I love Justin. That is Karrik's hand. This is an example of Karrik not doing the right thing.

This is Celeste. When she found out she was moving away from Canada to Korea last February, she gave away all her Chuck E Cheese tokens. She said " I didn't need them anymore so I gave them away." How mature is that? I really like her. Sometimes, we'll eat dinner together at school and Principal An will walk in and give a long, upset speach to the highschoolers. She'll translate everything to me. It's very cute. She's my tiny interpreter. "That last part doesn't apply to you unless you need to get toilet paper out of the boy's bathroom."

Joshua and I made it on TV! This is a shot from the computer. It was from the night we went to that blind clarinet player's concert. I didn't say anything (because they didn't want me to say anything) but Josh pretended to like clarinets for a second and stole my line about Beethoven being blind...while I just looked pretty.

The good kids choosing prizes...Karrik is just watching. I taught them all how to play Mother May I. It's really cute. I had to teach them what "tip toe", "frog leap", "bunny hop" "side step", etc. all meant. It actually is the perfect inside game because they talk the whole time.

 

Women Wednesdays

Kimber and I have been feeling like bums lately because all we do is eat, sleep, and work. On a regular day, I sit down at my desk at school at 8:00am and don’t get home until 7:00pm….and by then all I want to do is take a shower and get in bed. We aren’t taking advantage of our youth or our city.

Last Wednesday we had eaten a horrible lunch. We were starving at 4:00pm and were seriously craving Italian. So, we decided to escape school early and walk to Mr. Pizza to get some Korean “Italian”. It was worth the walk…

 That’s when it all started.

 We decided that everyone Wednesday from then on will be dedicated to doing what we, as grown women, with jobs, who live in a city, want to do. (Most of the time that means we go eat somewhere NOT Korean, but still.. it could get more exciting in the future!)

Tomorrow is Wednesday. On our walk back to school last Wednesday, we decided what we are going to do: Holly’s Coffee and a deli sandwich.

I can’t wait! I miss sandwiches!

This weekend, we indulged in womanly things and went up to Seoul and Incheon to visit Laura nd Ally who went to Lee with us. I had never met them but Kimber knew them. It was so refreshing to hang out with other girls who spoke English and who were living a common life. They teach in Incheon (which is an hour out of Seoul) at a Hagwon. They work 1pm-9pm at a tutoring center. They have the cutest apartment and live in a very nice town. I was kinda jealous until they spilled horror stories about the place they work at. Then, I realized how lucky I am to be at this school. (I also realized that not planning and being unorganized is a Korean fault, not a GVCS fault.) It was a great weekend. It poured on us while we were site-seeing on Saturday so we went to the movie theater and saw “Time Traveler’s Wife”. We drank lots of coffee, watch movies at their apartment, and had some amazing food! The only thing is, I left my deodorant there and now I can’t find any to buy. I haven’t been to the big stores because I can’t drive and Kim works late, so I’m kinda in a pickle. Not a good week to lose my deo, though….

This week is parent-teacher conferences. I was pretty nervous because 1. I’ve never been the “real” teacher in a parent-teacher conference, and 2. They gave us like 2 minutes notice: ” We are having ‘PTA’ this week. Sarah’s mom is here. Can you go have a meeting with her?” They call it PTA but I’m pretty sure they have nothing to do with the Parent Teacher Association..or even know what the ‘A’ stands for.

The meetings have been going well. A translator has to sit in there and I’m sure a lot is lost in translation. I just got finished meeting with one of my ESL student’s mother. I was talking and Sophia was translating. Then, Mrs. Byeon talked a lot in Korean. She was looking at me and talking and talking with the most sincere face. She was close to my face and looking me straight in the eye. I was waiting anxiously for Sophia to translate imagining the worse:

“She says you have the most beautiful eyes. She’s an Art professor at the university here so she notices stuff like that.”

Ok! Works for me. Thank you, thank you. Nice to meet you!

Next!

This week is gonna be a breeze!

October Twenty Nine

1. It is very funny to me the names the Grammar book uses in example sentences. Each class, I literally have to explain that real people, real Americans, do have names like this; and if they don’t, you’ve got to expect them to.

Herbert, Yolando, Reevja, Paulo, Patty, Boris, Harry, Barry, Lloyd…the list goes on.

 I’ve never met anyone by the name of Boris, but it could happen. I have, however, met a Sky, Genesis, Jesus, Meadow (Charis: imagining her singing Baby Bubble Bee) and Xochitl. This is all too confusing for my students.

2. The name “Jenny” is really popular here for people to choose as their “American” name. They spell in Jeany, Jenny, Jinny. It can get really confusing because they are very serious about HOW you pronounce their name. I get it. I mean, I understand that if you throw an A in there you want it to make a different sound. It just gets ridiculous. One student’s name is Jenny- short E sound. Her sister’s name is Jinny- short I sound. They are sisters! Jenny and Jinny. When you say it in conversation it sounds the same! I’ll be like “How’s your sister Jinny?” “It’s JINNY!” Jenny will emphasize. “That’s what I said ‘Jinny’!”

3. I ate a chicken’s foot. I forgot to tell you that, but I did. It was at the Field Day when all the parents brought picnic lunches for everyone. Parents were just throwing food at us–lots of food! One mother came up, and with the utmost sincerity, handed me a chicken’s foot. Then she starts motioning for me to eat it. I couldn’t be a jerk and refuse it, so I ate it. Not the whole thing, cause that’s just impossible, but I knawed on it for a good long while.

4. I had my middle school Science students watch an episode of The Magic School Bus to review our chapter on water. They had to answer questions while they watched. the bonus question asked what the teacher’s name was. After just hearing her name repeated in teh video (Miss Frizzle), here’s what they wrote:

 Ms. Freeism

Ms.  Prizil

Ms. Freesle

Miss Prisol

Frezel Teacher