I’m really enjoying class 1-1, believe it or not.

The funny thing is, the dictation as punishment has really been a wonderful vehicle for me and the class to develop a relationship of sorts.

As a result, these unruly boys have had to be my captive audience, and so I spend a great deal of thought and effort trying to find provocative material for them to consider as they listen and write.  For two weeks I read about education in America and told them my own story, and how if I can go from THE WORST educational background in America to being accepted to Yale, then ANYTHING is possible if you want it bad enough.  I read about the meaning of family and reunion and personal responsibility.  Today I got to class and the class was (will wonders never cease?) getting. out. paper. and. pencil. and . ready…I read two commencement addresses:  One by Anna Quindlan and the other by Steve Jobs.

Amazingly, half the class was at full attention listening to the Steve Jobs speech.  One of the boys asked if he could have a copy.  I think that’s kind of cool that he wasn’t embarrassed to ask for that out loud, so I just gave him my copy and said, “we all need a little inspiration from time to time,” and several heads nodded.  I wonder if anyone ever says anything inspiring to them ever.

I’m feeling teaching is very rewarding today.  I am glad I chose high school, because there is a certain level of self-determination that I like to appeal to that younger students just wouldn’t have.

In the other classes, I did a pre Halloween lesson.  I showed the kids a common craft video on How to kill a zombie.  Then, I gave each group images of different monsters/demons/what-have-you and asked the students to give the class a presentation on how to identify, prepare for, and kill the monster they were assigned using ordinals to explain the process instruction.  As always, the girls did way better than the guys, and some of the presentations are hilarious.  For example, In one scenario I wrote:

Werewolves are eating all the pets in your neighborhood and now your best friend is missing:  what will you do?

One girl group decided that first, they would throw a “fat” party.  “Why fat?” I asked.  “Because he ate so many pets, he must have gotten fat.  So we will throw a party for only fat people.”  Then, they would drug everyone with sleeping pills.  Next, they would check everyone’s teeth for fangs.  And finally, they would pull out the fangs with pincers so he couldn’t chew meat anymore.

So I was really pleased with them.  The students seem to be most creative when they see an opportunity for humor.

It’s kind of frustrating doing group work, simply because there are sooooo many kids in each class that you can’t engage them, give a lesson, and then give them enough time to both learn how to work on group projects AND prepare for presentation AND present.  But somehow we manage to get something put forward each week.  The Korean high school English classroom is a strange mixture of middle school projects with really high level vocabulary and elementary school verbal ability.  But I think they’re enjoying it.  And hopefully they’re speaking more than they were before.  Not as in just speaking, but communicating their own thoughts.

Hmmm…do I really want to leave and get a hagwon job or search for the more lucrative but less secure private lesson market?  I just wish this assignment wasn’t in Anyang.  I’m vascilating and glad I didn’t turn in my letter of intent to not renew.   Maybe I would like this job better if I got to move to old Anyang and took a bus into work.  Or maybe I should try to get a rural assignment, like a friend of Willies – maybe take over his position if it is still available – where I’d have half as many students I saw twice as much and also make more money.

After an entire Saturday spent exploring a neighborhood, shopping at Dongdaemmon for winter clothes and a rare night out with my Migook friends in Seoul, I woke up early (as always) and had to leave because (as always) being the only one awake and trying to keep busy with nothing at hand trapped in a small room having to be totally silent and not disturb anyone for hours and hours and hours (because most people after a night of revelry sleep even MORE than usual) is too much to bear – and it always happens, so I know that for my own sanity it’s best to leave, apologize later, and utilize my time better.

So I went back to Dongdaemmon because I was not yet done with my shopping mission.  In retrospect this was a mistake, because despite being wide awake, I was physically too exhausted and drained to be shopping, and as a result made some stupid and expensive purchases.

ANYWAY, realizing I hadn’t eaten in eons, I headed up to the 7th floor food court of Migliore, where I was instantly accosted by two of the most aggressive, pushy adjummas, trying to get me to patronize their food stand – and then I was lead away by another pushy adjumma, built like a bulldog, telling me THEY were same same and trying to shove HER menu into my hands.  I had to fight my way past her and out of her (literally) clutches and practically ran to the farthest corner of the food court.  I made my way past the rest of the Korean food stalls and got accosted by another aggressive (but half as much) woman who shoved a menu in my hands, and I quickly saw the kim chi bop and ordered it.  No sooner had I sat down, then she started barking at me and then realized I didn’t speak Korean, so instead she barked, “PAY NOW!”  Sure!  Anything you say!

I watched with horror as each group of customers coming up the escalator were similarly greeted (with a smile through gritted teeth and loud desperate hawking of the merits of THEIR food stand vs. the others’) having to pass by their gauntlet.  Then, to my amazement they nearly ripped one customer in two trying to each get her to go in the opposite directions.  The poor customer managed to duck out of the way as the two adjummas started screaming at each other and bitch slapping each other over trying to steal the others’ potential customer.  Another adjumma came out to start screaming in support of one of them, and then the the bulldog adjumma began screaming at them as well.

I sat there eating as quickly as possible, my stomach churning and entire body tense with adrenaline, wondering about the kind of economic desperation that would cause those women to behave in that way.  Because it wasn’t just hatred of each other – they had instead, in their eyes, the look of hungry rats in survival mode.  They were literally competing for scraps like junkyard dogs.  They were scared.  They were also scaring away any customers they could have gotten.  Meanwhile, the more low-key restaurant was doing a swift business.  But that doesn’t seem sustainable for every restaurant up there, and it’s certainly not a place I’ll ever return to, no matter how hungry and exhausted I get.

I’ve noticed other things lately too.  The fares in half the taxis have incrementally risen by 200 won.  I’m not sure if Koreans tell these cabs to go to hell, or if like me they’re just happy to have gotten one and pay.  The price of clothes, too, seems to have risen a bit.  And the spaghetti I used to order at a pizza place near me is now too expensive to warrant purchasing ever.

I remember when I first got here I asked about the economy, and everyone said it was really really bad.  They said that it used to be much much better, and that everyone was tightening their belt and being very careful with their money.  It still didn’t seem that bad to me, as everywhere I looked Koreans were buying, buying, buying, and the stores appeared to be selling a lot of stuff at great prices.  But now that I’ve been here awhile, I am starting to see the relativity of things better.

Consider how this is a country without tipping.  What kind of salary can be made if, for instance, you wash dishes at a restaurant or you sell cell phones.  In every shopping district there may be four to six cell phone stores – each with anywhere from three to six employees.  How many cell phones must be sold to pay all those employees?  In every store you go to, there seem to be twice as many salespeople as needed.  If shirts are sold for $7 US each, how many shirts must be sold simply to support all those employees?  If you sell mandu for $1.75 US, how many mandu sales must you make just to keep your shop open? When I went to visit Jeong-Ae and wanted coffee, we had to go on a quest for it because there were no coffee shops.  No coffee shops survived long in her neighborhood because nobody there could afford to spend $3 US on coffee.  Why would anyone spend $3 on coffee when you can purchase an entire meal for the same price?  If you are working at one of the small businesses, can you even afford a meal?

In stark contrast to this is the omnipresent in-your-face barrage of luxury items on t.v.  From LG’s frameless flat panel LED tv’s, to luxury cars, to cell phones that practically brush your teeth for you.  And btw, internet access on your cell phone costs $8.55 more a month, but then you are charged for every minute of usage.  Who are these people watching t.v. on the subways, and how the hell can they afford two hours of streaming t.v. every day?  Who are the people buying clothes at the Korean Rodeo Drive?  How can there possibly be sooo many people wearing authentic Levi’s at $80 US a pop?  Who are these people paying 1 million won ($855 US) for their kids to have Hagwon lessons?  (answer:  nearly everyone with a corporate job or now dual income families) and HOW?  (answer:  dad never comes home except to sleep)  But for many Koreans, that treadmill is something they can only dream of and hope for.

And so, I have decided to do my best to support small business in Korea.  Last week I was excited to discover a banchan (side-dish) deli in an alley at Pyeongchon station and vowed to go there from now on.  (this may not sound exciting, but there is SO LITTLE here in my part of this new city, that it was truly exciting)  But tonight, while shopping at E-marte I totally forgot and bought kim chi there.  Damn it!  These mega stores will be the death of everyone, and I contribute to it through my laziness and forgetfulness.

So none of this post is anything new to anyone living here.  But for those of you back in the states, I just thought I’d bring you up to speed on how my perception has changed over the past few months.  It’s all kind of warping my own sense of monetary value as well.  More on this in a different post.

Class 1-3’s last dictation was today.

Like some of the other class material I have introduced in the past, I vacillated whether or not to share what I chose today.  I have to carefully consider politics, my audience, the politics of the school, and the parents of my audience.  My lessons are sometimes strange even to me because, for instance, the last three weeks the focus has been about economics – and that’s thinking which is far to the right of my own nature.  Similar to when I did a lesson for my evening discussion class on body modification.  Despite my personal bias against plastic surgery, I found myself saying I would not take any position, as my ears were pierced and some might find that barbaric…

Consider if you will the current president is likened to Bush and was elected into office for the same reasons Americans tentatively and regrettably elected Bush into office.  Then you have the world’s oldest continuously maintained armed border for a war that officially hasn’t ended.  You have an older generation who fought against communism, decades of dictatorship and a middle-aged generation who fought for democracy, and young people who enjoy the benefits of capitalism but who think that the fights of the past are irrelevant and impotent.   And through every one of these political eras, Korean families have been separated and sacrificed.  Anyway, I am careful not to talk about reunification to anyone here.  Mostly because I haven’t done my homework and don’t understand all the nuances, and can at best only put my feelers out for what Koreans I talk with think – and those tend to only be middle aged Koreans, limited to the few who can speak English with me.  My sense is that most people want reunification, and that each and every family has somehow been touched by personal loss as a result, but that everyone secretly is glad if it doesn’t happen in their lifetime, as it will drastically alter the distribution of resources and affect everyone’s standard of living.

Today’s fare was an article Jane wrote in Pressian about Cheuseok.  It spoke about a Korean expression about returning home and the importance of family for the holidays.  It chronicled the emptying of Seoul as everyone returns to their family seat to honor their ancestors and their cultural traditions with loved ones.  And then it spoke about the two Koreas putting their differences aside for one day to allow 100 N. Korean and S. Korean family members to reunite.  It also linked a bit of news that had recently captured the hearts and minds of many S. Koreans, that being the Imjin river which flows across the border, which killed 6 S. Koreans and which, after devastating flooding in N. Korea, carried the body of a nameless boy across the border, yet obviously N. Korean due to his different attire.  The article spoke about adoptees as nameless and different:  returning yet denied the opportunity to have meaningful cultural experiences because we have no elders to bow to / no family to return to.  She likens this to how like the N. Korean and S. Korean families, adoptees and their families are kept divided by politics – the politics of governments and adoption agencies.  Jane wished also for 100 adoptees to be reunited this holiday, and then closed with a statement about the importance of family for ALL Korean people.

Despite dictation being a punishment for these young boys who need to learn appropriate behavior and self control, I’ve made sure that all the dictations also provided something insightful or provocative for them to think about.

Today, at the finish of the article, one boy applauded.  Applauded Jane’s writing, and maybe because I chose to read it to them.  Others hesitated but thought about it too late before the moment was over.  But I noted and registered and I respect where their hearts and minds were.  This has happened in other classes in the past, for other messages I’ve tried to impart.  I find the willingness of Korean students to show their appreciation in this way very encouraging.  I know I’m not the most fun teacher in the world, but I do feel like I am value added!  I think they are beginning to realize I REALLY CARE about them and their futures, so they are listening more and more.  I think it is partially this and maybe partially that their Korean teachers don’t appeal to their intellect much through issues-based discussion topics.

The non-dictation classes have been going well too.  The girls, especially, do an amazing job with their short presentations, even though their vocabulary is limited, they somehow manage to express themselves.

Some of their multi-cultural sensitivity is a bit disturbing, but I try to explain, for instance, that nappy hair is not dirty  (actually, just like delicious the word dirty is over-used for lack of other vocabulary, so that’s sounding like a new lesson in the works…) and that black hair is  a lot of work to take care of, etc.  That old people CAN work and have a lot of experience.  That baldness has nothing to do with skills, etc. etc.

The group work is always noisy, but there are often one or two students who will help call the class to order should my bell or voice fail.  One girl in particular, I complimented her group on their skills at concensus building, and she just BEAMS whenever she sees me.  Fortunately, she appears to be the class captain, so she’s on top of excess class noise more rigorously than even I am now.

Yeah, today was a good day.  I think I like teaching high school.  And honestly, there is sooo much prep time and vacation time and free time and liberty with the lesson planning, that I will miss it if I go entirely privates or privates and part-time hogwan.  I just wish I was in Seoul or the countryside instead of this new city.  And then there is Mr. Lee.  …

Today after school, hungry, I walked towards the spicy garlic fried chicken place.  Yet I kept walking, thinking better of the huge quantity of fat fried goodness and the high cost.  I wandered and wandered past dozens and dozens of Korean restaurants:  pork restaurants, beef restaurants, eel restaurants, puffer fish restaurants, prehistoric-looking monster fish restaurants, North Korean restaurants, etc.;  all of which beckoned me inside but none of which had photos of the food or any way for me to order any of it and slim prospects of being able to order a single person’s portion.  So I just kept walking and walking. Famished, I went into a Chinese restaurant and sat down, but the prices were Hagwon-ga upper middle class high and had to leave.  Walking some more, I stopped at several more restaurants inquiring after an English menu or asking if someone spoke English or asking what an ingredient was in English.

Everywhere you go, the response is something like, “yeongeo…” (which is Korean for English) while sucking in air between their teeth and shaking their head in combined apology/self disappointment/consternation/pain/sympathy) followed by a barrage of muttering, followed by an “annio..”

So I dispensed with my desires and just decided to get anything I could.  But even at the street-food-like places, I couldn’t order anything.  So I finally settled on pizza.

It was actually the first time I’ve ordered pizza in Korea.  I know you’re thinking, how can that be possible, you’ve been there over half a year now!  Well, I’m just not into pizza that much.  Especially the Korean pizza I’ve had with others.  It’s pretty expensive, and again comes in portions that are too large.  Anyway, I went to one with a walk-up window and pictures, and I pointed to the pizza I wanted, but the workers couldn’t see the picture because they were inside.  So some salary man standing next to me ordered for me.  Only there was some confusion about which one I really wanted, and I couldn’t tell them the difference.  Suddenly there were two salary men, and three workers all incredulous that I – this very very Korean looking person – couldn’t speak Korean.  They were all very kind and attentive and one of them handed me a pre-packaged chocolate covered waffle, saying, “service.”  At first I thought he wanted me to buy it and I declined, but the salary man kept handed it to me repeating, service, service. It took quite a bit for me to convince them I didn’t want the waffle.  So I went and sat down inside once students came up to order, and one of the pizza guys give me some slivers of pizza to eat and a cola to drink while I waited.  “Service” he told me, and then a different salary man told me, “free charge.”  So I thanked him for the snack while I waited, and the pizza man kept saying, “oh! free charge!”  delighted he’d learned some more English.

And so I walked home with my small but too large pizza.  Which ended up being quite disappointing because it had potato on it, which has a texture that is kind of weird to me, and the sauce was sweet…surprisingly, there was no corn on this pizza, which is hugely popular here.

And then it dawned on me how very behind I am.  I’ve had – and continue to have – so many other things on my plate, that I am still very much a newcomer here.  And it’s really strange, because if I were just on vacation to some foreign country, I’d be guidebook familiar, phrasebook ready, survival phrase ready, studying for hours to get the most out of my few weeks.  But all these other things I do and my focus on learning about SOCIETY here has usurped all that space in my brain.

I am hoping next year, when this contract finishes, as my birth family search chapter closes, and I have restructured my living situation to be more convenient, that I can start fresh and focus more on being able to order food and get pizza without potato and corn.  I’m hoping I can walk around Seoul more.  I’m hoping I can find favorite hide-aways and regular haunts, interesting things to do and relaxing activities to participate in.  It’s time to not only stop being so new, but to also be new the right way.

I just woke up an hour ago and handled some back-logged emails.  It’s been the pattern the last few days to come home, work on the TRACK website, and fall asleep sitting up and my laptop still running. I wake up after about four hours, work some more, until almost dawn, again fall asleep with my laptop still running, and yet amazingly still wake up ten minutes before the alarm goes off and work some more, leaving myself not enough time to shower or walk the twenty minutes to work.  I now spend more money on cabs than food!

Down on street level, and despite it being midnight I go to buy some mild coffee and the new GS25 employee is out front with two other college-aged boys practicing some footwork for a dance choreography, which reminds me of Karl who would dance anywhere anytime if he had an idea he wanted to work out.

It dawns on me once again, that I am a fixer.  Whether it was the Latin dance community in Seattle, or Korean society’s attitude towards adoption and women’s rights, or websites, or homeless issues, or pretentiousness in building design, or anything on the planet, I am obsessed and driven with fixing things.  Whether I am an un self-actualized artist in a cabin in the wood, or an Architecture student in slum lord housing with a leaky roof, or an English teacher in an officetel, my best moments are when time is lost and I’m so absorbed in my work that I neither eat nor sleep nor bathe. It doesn’t matter where in the world you are – it’s all good if you have a purpose for being.

A 2nd year high school student was in one of my 1st year classes yesterday between periods, and he turned to me ans asked, “Is it true?  You REALLY can’t speak ANY Korean?”

“Yes.  It’s true,”  I replied.

Jane called us unicorns – people really can’t believe we exist sometimes.

This isn’t the first time and it won’t be the last.  Others dismiss this as laziness on my part.  They will tell you Korean is easy to learn.  Why, there are foreigners competing on t.v. all the time!  Yes.  There are:  young foreigners who do nothing but take Korean classes three hours a day  for two years straight…Me, I have to be on the ten year plan.

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Between classes a second year boy who’d dropped out of my evening class because his father made him  (He didn’t do so well on a test I guess) and who is exceedingly smart, very good at English, and just an all around good guy, stopped by to settle an argument with his teacher over grammar.

Presented to me was the longest, most chewy, hard-to-follow, pedantic sentence I’d ever encountered.  And there was a word which it wasn’t clear if it was being used as an object or as part of an adverbial and I told him either way would work, depending on what your meaning was.  Okay.  So try to explain that to someone.  Okay.  So the instructor had told him it was an object and that it didn’t make sense the other way, but because the damned sentence was soooooo long and compounded, I couldn’t break it down for the kid.

It really pained me to have dropped a notch in his eyes, and I hope to run into him and explain:

I want to explain that a) we native speakers wouldn’t WRITE a sentence that complex and b) if it’s that hard to discern under a microscope, then we wouldn’t be concerned with it.  (The level of splitting hairs and near sadistic grammatical torture they put these kids through is almost abusive, in my opinion!)

I want to tell him that in all my years of college I never had to crunch grammar in so rigorous and taxing a manner.

I want to explain that the best Korean English teachers in my school may be good at breaking down examples like the preceding, but that when I am asked to edit exams and handouts, etc., I am always finding the teachers themselves don’t have a command of the most simple things like articles, prepositions, and pronouns.  I want to explain that the use of million dollar words while not having mastery over the basics only hurts them by using up valuable resources.

I want to explain that learning obscure vocabulary and untying the most mind-bending grammar imaginable doesn’t help them communicate with the world.  I want to explain that listening, comprehending, and being able to express oneself is more important.

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I think Jane is disappointed I gave up on Korean.  Unlike her, though, I don’t have a family here that I need to NEED to communicate with.  I also don’t have a family here or anyone here that will bother to take a moment to mentor me.  I am also surrounded by people who a) are only concerned about improving their English or b) are freaked out by the prospect of talking with me in English.  And except for Y, nobody here is so excited about the western mind-set to want to get to know a westerner well enough to get any further understanding. (or they think they know it already)

Taking the subway and meeting for a lesson meant 1.5 hours travel each way.  That plus the actual lesson and eating dinner would eat up 5 to 6 hours of an evening.  So that was 3 nights a week, and then 2 nights a week, and then 1 night a week.  Working with TRACK and searching for my family meant there was no time for study, and it’s been a long time since I’ve studied and am very undisciplined and rusty.  Anyway, it was exhausting.

So it’s just pointless to expend that kind of energy unless there’s someone to communicate WITH.

I’m actually much happier now that I’ve set that aside.  I’ve got time on my hands, and can watch a movie now and then, which I learn much more from.