So today was the Pre SAT’s in Korea.  Got to play test proctor all day.  (only it’s much more boring than I’d remembered from my college days, where I worked in the testing office)

The kids are being tested ALL DAY.  Us teachers at least get a changing of the guard.  Evening classes are cancelled, since the kids minds will be fried by then.  A week from now is midterms, and then the following week is Spring Break.  I had to wake up four kids today, during the exam.  I smiled as lovingly as I could at them, instead of scowling.  I don’t think the Korean teachers were going to bother waking them up – but I slept through a final exam once, and  nobody bothered to wake me up – had to take an entire quarter of Physics over as a result.  So hell yeah, I’m happy to wake them upl

Well, I didn’t go to church this morning and the shit didn’t hit the fan.

At lunch the man who takes attendance DID sit next to me.  He asked me if I knew Jesus Christ, and I said that yes, I had been raised Presbyterian.  He asked me if I was religious and I told him no.  I then told him that I didn’t believe in religion.  He was about to ask me something else about religion and I beat him to the draw by saying “…and I PLAN TO KEEP IT THAT WAY.”

My co-teachers showed up at three of my four classes today, so that’s something.  Don’t know how long that will last, but it was something.  Surprisingly, aside from maybe two barks from the male co-teacher, he pretty much was like a limp noodle the rest of the time and contributed absolutely nothing to classroom management.  Maybe I was doing all the things he would do or something, I don’t know.

I think he brought his stick, but I think those sticks are mostly just to intimidate most of the time.  I also am beginning to think this is why the children are so unruly.  On the one hand, the teachers aren’t earning their true respect, and on the other hand, their stick-wielding reveals them to be essentially impotent people.  The teachers just become pathetic at some point, worthy of daily derision.  I have to figure out how to avoid this, if it’s not too late.

Anyway, it WAS interesting to see him for a second and third time this entire time, twice in a row!.  It was interesting to see his face light up with my lesson the first time, and then to see him dying of utter boredom the second time.  I can’t for the life of me see why they would subject any teacher to seven classes of the same…

After lunch, during my once daily trip to the roof to smoke, I had an interesting conversation with Y and the really articulate man who paid for beer that night I cried.  We talked about the corporal punishment, culture shock cultural differences, and the preservation of culture.  And, BLESS HIS SOUL here was a Korean who totally agreed with me that the market was the living legacy of traditional Korean culture, and that I was very smart to go there.  And then we talked about farmers markets in America, and about cowboy culture and zydecco culture and bayous and first nations culture and all those the little vestiges of our melting pot euro-descended culture that have become unique to America, and that are disappearing before our eyes, unrecognized because we are too far-sighted to see what’s at hand.

And here I am, at middle age, with my first bi-focal prescription, looking optimistically out to a blurry distance, yet straining to see what is right in front of me.

He told me about a street fair that takes place all over Korea, the five day fair.  It happens every five days, in a circuit five locations wide, only in the rural areas.  At that earlier beer for tears conversation we had, he told me about the traditional home and property he owns in the countryside, and that is how he knows about the five day fair.  He had said then that he loved that house, but he will probably have to sell it to pay for his children’s education.  To which I implored him to save it for his children’s children, that there will never be another opportunity to have anything like that ever again, on this ROK, with all these people.   I do hope he adds my voice to the voice of his heart and keeps that family place with all that scenery, fresh air, and good memories.

This is also the man who would refuse his daughter’s marrying someone she loved if his job had no status.  But I do so enjoy talking with him.  His several years in the states made him appreciate that what Americans lack in formal respect systems, they more than make up for in being considerate and thoughtful.

This is the double-edged sword of his appreciation of culture.  In his culture social standing means everything.  His house is traditional.  His values are traditional.  Yet, he appreciates the culture I was raised in and feels it is healthier for modern people.  It is a collision of worlds and not just a generation gap here in Korea.

When I look at the globe and think about all the countries that have coveted and emulated the west, I can’t think of any of them who have done a better job than Korea.  The collapse of the Soviet Union, for example, was based upon a people that just refused to sacrifice its culture for its socio-economic goals.  But Korea will sacrifice body parts for that goal if it has to.  Its eye is on that prize.  It is obsessed with nothing less.  And it is willing to relegate its culture to the history books to do so.  And the irony they live is that they will never truly be what they want to be, because their motivation is rooted in the very culture they would throw away.

If I could have a meeting of the minds on this place, I would definitely invite John Locke and Confucius himself.  What would you do about this?  Maybe the answer lies more in recognizing, acknowledging, and elevating the Confucian precepts being carried out in these modern times.  Maybe then respect would be restored to the students and the youth’s loyalties between their family’s ambitions and their own hearts would not be so incongruous.  Maybe Confucius was interpreted wrong.  Maybe the answer lies in not trying to be like the west, but in being better easterners.

So on the inside of my door I’m saving all the take-out brochures that often appear when I return home. These glossy brochures have magnetic strips on them and hang on the doors, because each one of our apartments boxes has a metal fire door as our front door.

I’ve yet to call one, since my pronunciation of my own address isn’t so good. But the food looks great and seems pretty reasonably priced.

You can always tell who’s had take-out, because you’ll see the bag or box of dirty dishes waiting in the hallway outside people’s doors. There’s very little disposable take away containers here in S. Korea. Instead, they drop off real bowls with lids and utensils, and then return to pick them up once eaten from.

As I said previously, bicycle lanes are on the sidewalks with the pedestrians and motorcycles are prohibited from the sidewalks – but the take-out guys seem somehow exempt from that rule, and the only real valid traffic worries here are being run over by a take-out scooter as he jumps the sidewalk and pulls up to buildings, or zips back onto the street between cars.

The bus drivers are pretty aggressive here as well, but they’re big enough to win any argument, so I guess I’m more wondering why Seattle bus drivers don’t work their advantage more. However, I have yet to see an articulated bus here. It’s Korean auto industry all the way here, so makes sense that the Mann buses wouldn’t be used. but it certainly makes for confusing parking lots – I’ve no idea how anyone can tell which car is theirs…

I want to rent a car, drive to the mountains, and rent a cabin for the weekend. But it sounds like I’ll be doing this by myself. (sniff, sniff) I think I first saw this on a K-drama, actually. It just seemed beautiful and nice, and a great way for friends to hang out and actually talk. All this running around and bar hopping, etc. that my English teachers do – there doesn’t seem to be a lot of actually getting to know one another. I also miss cocktails – which are good for conversation. Slamming beers is one kind of socializing yes, but it’s too fast paced to take the time to learn anything real about anyone.

sigh.

I’m also missing dives, where working class people go and unwind. There are dives here – so far they all seem the same – the metal round BBQ tables in the buildings w/ vinyl covered outdoor seating. But those require a posse of people. You can’t really slip in as a solo and just hang out. And like I said, they all seem the same – as it is a mono culture here. I am wondering what country dives are like…

Look! There’s my Traditional Black Bean Porridge.

So yummy.

So comforting.

And for those of you who question my “obsession” with adoption, how would you like it if you were denied your favorite food for forty years? Hmm??? If you didn’t know the name of it, never saw it again, and were unable to describe it to anyone?

and especially how not to get a date…

Be like the following guy, and send people you just meet who you’ve searched for on facebook and then only done a cursory look at their blogs the following:

Subject: Wow…
you really are troubled and angry over your fate as a small adoptee aren’t you? Why?

Yes.  Small adoptees unite together and take up arms!!!

Then this guy tells me my pain makes me attractive.  Then he offers about three long unsolicited paragraphs about his personal pain here, followed by:

and i have now arrived at a place in life from which I firmly believe I can be of use to other people, that I can help.

then he tells me something OBVIOUS:

Consider please, the possibility perhaps your birth family might have been abusive and bad too.

and continues on with his own heroic story of saving someone

…Over time i have realized I have a talent for intervention.

hope his intervention isn’t as successful as his talent for offending people is…

In your case,

I am pleading with you to seek peace with this obsession of your’s.

this obsession of mine…

i hope I am not out of line by saying this. We barely know each other,

that’s right, you condescending, patronizing, assuming, prick – you don’t know me at all.

but I’m the kind of guy who just doesn’t dick around with pleasantries when it’s painfully obvious that things are anything but pleasant.
Let me know what you think, and take care.

Here’s what I think.  I think you haven’t a clue what heroic is and maybe if you dicked around with pleasantries a little more you wouldn’t be eating lunch by yourself.

I told him yes, he was out of line, and that he’s a piece of work.

How is he a piece of work?  (aside from the obvious, above)  Well, maybe reading Fast Food Nation and talking about how you’re thinking about becoming a vegetarian and how guilty you feel, all the while stuffing meat into your mouth is one way.  Or maybe confronting me after I go to sit near him at lunch and accusing me of being mean the previous day (a not so inside joke between myself and a friend that he read wrong and OF COURSE assumed was about him) and then spending the rest of the lunch time talking about himself and his neurosis and how he is feeling is another several ways.

Others I’ve sent this to have called him a tool.

We can start a contest on what to call this guy.  Go ahead.  Have fun with it.

This is my favorite convenience store beverage.

It’s sweetened white grape juice, but it has about a dozen peeled white grapes in it. Not only are they tasty and surprisingly fun to smash into, but getting the last one out of the hole is a great challenge!