Today was a heady return to the good old days of eating fruit and drinking coffee in various teaching lounges for hours. That's right, I spent part of the day lying on a couch in the nutritionist's office drinking free coffee and reading a book with a personal heater directed at my feet, after which I went to lunch, and then to the nurse's office for a dessert of coffee and persimmons. At which point she invited me to return in the 7th period for the early dinner of donggasu-kimbap and ddukbokki she had ordered for us (being her, the nutritionist, another teacher, and me). I didn't even know that donggasu-kimbap (only a combination of two of my favorite foods here) even existed. Oh yeah, and I taught some classes and stuff.
I don't think they did it because it was Thanksgiving. I don't even think they remembered that I told them about that. I think they did it because they are kind, warm, open-hearted people who genuinely enjoy treating their friends. But it was fitting that it happened on Thanksgiving, because it helped remind me of how thankful I am for these people. Without them, I would've spent those hours using my butt as a chair-warmer and surfing the internet for useless time-wasting material. Without them, this would just be a job, boring and necessary. Instead, it's an experience. Thank you, thank you for my friends here in Korea. Thank you for every student who ever spoke up during my lessons while everyone else was sleeping. Thank you for Hye-eun, who said her English had improved through talking to me at a time when I felt like I was failing her. Thank you for the taxi driver who gave me a discounted fare for speaking (pathetically disjointed) Korean with him. As you can tell from these thank-yous, not every moment here has been perfect or successful. What I'm thankful for is all the people and moments that make those failures totally worthwhile.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
North and South Korea
Since I had several people asking me about yesterday's artillery fire between North and South Korea, I figured I'd make a short blog entry about it.
Yesterday, the teachers' office remained full after the last bell (something that never happens), as everyone gathered around the room's single TV set to watch coverage of the fires on Yeonpyeong island. I didn't even realize we had a TV in there until then. Su-jin told me that things were "not good," and there was a generally solemn air. But after that, we went home, went out to eat, went to sleep, and came to school the next day. Life as usual.
Although the attack is considered the most serious aggression between the Koreas since the Korean War, there is currently no fighting going on, nor are there any plans to fight. Pretty much everyone involved wants peace, so there is pressure on all sides to patch things up. There are actually relatively regular clashes between the two Koreas, which are usually meant to serve some political purpose and keep North Korea on the map. I'm no political relations expert, nor am I Korean, and I can't really pretend to know all the details, so I won't. Although I encourage curious people to read up on it; it's actually really interesting stuff!
I did have some interesting conversations about it today with friends, co-teachers, and a student. Reactions varied a lot from people like my student, Hye-eun, who was really worried about the effect a war would have on the Korean people and the possibility of unification (which she is for), and Mr. Lim, who laughed and maintained that North Korea was only posturing and can't afford a war. Although there are plenty of views on the matter, there is currently nothing going on here and our lives haven't been affected. With luck, it'll stay that way.
Yesterday, the teachers' office remained full after the last bell (something that never happens), as everyone gathered around the room's single TV set to watch coverage of the fires on Yeonpyeong island. I didn't even realize we had a TV in there until then. Su-jin told me that things were "not good," and there was a generally solemn air. But after that, we went home, went out to eat, went to sleep, and came to school the next day. Life as usual.
Although the attack is considered the most serious aggression between the Koreas since the Korean War, there is currently no fighting going on, nor are there any plans to fight. Pretty much everyone involved wants peace, so there is pressure on all sides to patch things up. There are actually relatively regular clashes between the two Koreas, which are usually meant to serve some political purpose and keep North Korea on the map. I'm no political relations expert, nor am I Korean, and I can't really pretend to know all the details, so I won't. Although I encourage curious people to read up on it; it's actually really interesting stuff!
I did have some interesting conversations about it today with friends, co-teachers, and a student. Reactions varied a lot from people like my student, Hye-eun, who was really worried about the effect a war would have on the Korean people and the possibility of unification (which she is for), and Mr. Lim, who laughed and maintained that North Korea was only posturing and can't afford a war. Although there are plenty of views on the matter, there is currently nothing going on here and our lives haven't been affected. With luck, it'll stay that way.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Halloween Weekend
Since I'm behind, as usual, this is a post about Halloween. Hey, it's only a month late, right? In any case, Halloween isn't really celebrated here, so there wasn't much to do unless you want to go to a party at one of the bars where Americans hang out, but I didn't really want to, so my friends and I went to an amusement park in Daegu called Woobangland. It wasn't particularly big, but it had a Halloween theme going on for the holiday weekend, so we wanted to check it out. One ride in particular gave everyone bruises and sore muscles. The idea of the ride is that you try to hold on and it tries to knock you off. No seat belts, no safety harnesses, no cushions. You just sit on these unpadded seats and hold on to the handrails for dear life. In America, that'd be a lawsuit waiting to happen. But here, it's super popular with the teenagers.
On Halloween itself, Sandy, Geoff, and I went hiking at Eunhesa again. I recommended it since I thought it was so beautiful before. This time it was fall, so we went to see the changing leaves. I think the temple is more beautiful in the summer but it was nice in the fall too, and the weather was really good. We had a picnic along one of the trails and it was a really pleasant time. Trying to get back from the temple, we couldn't figure out the bus situation. A bus came, which I still think was the right one, but the driver told us no and drove away, stranding us for who knows how long until another bus came. Fortuantely, some middle-aged guys coming back from the temple gave us a lift. I actually got to use one of my few Korean phrases, which was awesome. It was, "우리 집이 삼산Apartments 옆에 있어요." It means, "Our house is next to Samsan Apartments." Straight out of the old textbook.
Check out the pictures and stuff under the "read more" link.
On Halloween itself, Sandy, Geoff, and I went hiking at Eunhesa again. I recommended it since I thought it was so beautiful before. This time it was fall, so we went to see the changing leaves. I think the temple is more beautiful in the summer but it was nice in the fall too, and the weather was really good. We had a picnic along one of the trails and it was a really pleasant time. Trying to get back from the temple, we couldn't figure out the bus situation. A bus came, which I still think was the right one, but the driver told us no and drove away, stranding us for who knows how long until another bus came. Fortuantely, some middle-aged guys coming back from the temple gave us a lift. I actually got to use one of my few Korean phrases, which was awesome. It was, "우리 집이 삼산Apartments 옆에 있어요." It means, "Our house is next to Samsan Apartments." Straight out of the old textbook.
Check out the pictures and stuff under the "read more" link.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
The Perfect Opera
"You'd never get away with all this in a play,
But if it's loudly sung and in a foreign tongue,
It's just the sort of score audiences adore,
In fact, the perfect opera!"
- The Phantom of the Opera
As people who know me are aware, I love The Phantom of the Opera, and I was very bummed that the short-lived Korean revival production would be closing just before I got here. But in a stroke of amazing luck, the run got a short extension, and even moved from Seoul to Daegu, the big city 30 minutes away from Yeongcheon! Long story short, I got to see the show on Oct. 28th, and I'm so, so grateful for the opportunity. Not only was it fascinating to see the show in Korean, it was a flat-out incredible performance with some of the best singing, lighting, and overall presentation I've ever seen. I fell in love with the show all over again.
I went with my friend Sandy and some of my co-worker friends including Su-jin and Kyoung-ha. I was really worried they wouldn't like it, since they'd never heard of it, they had never been to a musical, and, well, the seats weren't cheap. But the first thing they did at intermission was jump out of their seats to go buy the cast recording, so I guess they didn't hate it! Actually, the whole night was a total success and a wonderful experience.
Click "read more" for more photos!
But if it's loudly sung and in a foreign tongue,
It's just the sort of score audiences adore,
In fact, the perfect opera!"
- The Phantom of the Opera
As people who know me are aware, I love The Phantom of the Opera, and I was very bummed that the short-lived Korean revival production would be closing just before I got here. But in a stroke of amazing luck, the run got a short extension, and even moved from Seoul to Daegu, the big city 30 minutes away from Yeongcheon! Long story short, I got to see the show on Oct. 28th, and I'm so, so grateful for the opportunity. Not only was it fascinating to see the show in Korean, it was a flat-out incredible performance with some of the best singing, lighting, and overall presentation I've ever seen. I fell in love with the show all over again.
I went with my friend Sandy and some of my co-worker friends including Su-jin and Kyoung-ha. I was really worried they wouldn't like it, since they'd never heard of it, they had never been to a musical, and, well, the seats weren't cheap. But the first thing they did at intermission was jump out of their seats to go buy the cast recording, so I guess they didn't hate it! Actually, the whole night was a total success and a wonderful experience.
Koren for this post: 오베라의 유령 or "opera-ui yu-ryung"
is Korean for Phantom of the Opera.
Click "read more" for more photos!
Old News
I realize I've been a little slow updating, and there are a lot of things I never got around to blogging about, so here's an apology post with some old photos from last month. Terrible, I know. Basically, I went on a few trips that I never wrote about, but I have pictures for. The trips were a weekend outing to the beach with my co-teachers and a general teachers' picnic celebrating midterms. So here they are!
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