So yesterday it dawned on me that what I had previously registered as “gosh, even Koreans sometimes have trouble eating with chopsticks” (a sentiment verbally confirmed by colleagues commenting on my deft use of them) and occasionally noting how awkward some people held their chopsticks, upon closer inspection yesterday I noticed that many of the student’s grip looked awkward because, in actual fact, it is totally different!

So today I was watching and took notes.  Instead of holding the top stick  like a pencil, like all the diagrams at Chinese restaurants and the image above shows, the student I was observing seemed to be pushing down  on the top stick with her middle finger.  How can that be physically possible?

Then I noticed that the bottom chopstick was not resting on the ring finger, but on the pinky finger.  In this arrangement, the fingers are barely bent at all.  Try making your hand talk like inside a puppet.  The position of when the puppet’s mouth is closed is similar to this chopstick hold.

AND. the entire arrangement’s pivot point was not about 1/3 of the way down the sticks, like in the image above, but instead very close to the top.  So much so, that the stick ends were barely visible and barely extended beyond the hand.

In another arrangement, which I’ll call “the claw” it appears as if  the students have a closed fist wrapped around the chopsticks and it’s hard to figure out how the sticks operate at all, as it’s mostly hidden from view.

I asked some students about this, and they said that my way was easier, but that their way was better.  They couldn’t tell me why, but after I tried it myself, I’m thinking it requires/gives better hand dexterity.

And then I realized that this kind of chopsticks manipulation is probably ONLY possible because Korean chopsticks are flat!

Which is only possible because they’re metal…

Now, the majority of Koreans use their chopsticks as instructed in the video above, just like everyone else in the world, but I’d say about 30% of the students in my school are holding them differently.  I’m not sure if this is just a natural variation like some people hold their pencils differently, or if it’s intentional.  I suspect some of it is a kind of affectation/trend.  (like the teacher who always transfers her noodles onto a spoon prior to eating, I assume to satisfy her idea of being more cosmopolitan) But whatever – I’m really hell bent on mastering it!  If I do, I’ll try and film it for you somehow…fun fun fun!   (doesn’t take much to make me happy)

Actually, Korean hands and gestures are a constant source of fascination for me.  There’s a whole way of carrying oneself that I think may be thought of as more feminine or classy or something and it’s very different than how I carry myself.  It’s about delicacy, whereas all my hand actions are strong and a little clumsy.  Similar to shaking hands with Koreans is, in general, very limp, whereas Americans are very firm.  And affectionate touching is very light and patting…wish I could film all this stuff without offending anyone!   Not that I want to be more Korean, since I’m always being accosted by locals for directions, etc., but because it’s just interesting.  Good thing I’m not in Italy!

The shingle-covered round building across from my window has always fascinated me.  I ran across the name of this type of building a long time ago, but lost the reference.  Anyway, I ran across it again this evening, so I thought I’d share!  (btw, I always try to remember to link images from other sites to their original url’s)

We often see and think about traditional Korean homes as having thatch roofs for the poor and tile for the rich, but maybe you haven’t seen these shingle roofed homes before. But it totally makes sense, as thatch would have more opportunity to rot under mountain tree drip-lines and there would be less sun to dry out thatch once wet.

For once I can get gushy about something anachronistic and know it’s not just overly romantic!  Living in the woods, under the pines, in a cedar cabin before I left for Korea, I can attest what a wonderful lifestyle it was.  No yards to mow, nothing to upkeep except for an annual cleaning of gutters, and even sweeping the deck was a joy, as it just released the smell of pine needles and added more depth to the soft padding of detritus off the path.  It was cozy and so connected to nature…I would do anything to be able to live there again, now that my mind is more peaceful.

I also ran across one slate roof!  Ran across this while looking for more broken pot roofed houses.  It would be fun to have a car and take photos of Korean road-side attractions.

All around where I live there are roadside attractions to rival those we have on American highways.  Palm trees, Giant Alice in Wonderland statues, The Little Prince, The Eiffel Tower, etc.  The enterprising roadside restaurants & especially the pensions (inns) have come up with all manner of gimmicks.

Korea’s a pretty interesting place if you can maneuver through Korean blogs.  And, it seems there are a lot of Koreans my age who also find the obscure to be pretty interesting.  Oh, to just be here on vacation with a little pocket money!

Researching for school can net me some awesome finds like this article, How to rock Ajumma style  from Han Cinema (which, btw, is a great source for reading about, well, Han Cinema):

 

These ladies are totally endearing and funny on a good day and really really scary on a bad day, but at the end of the day you have to respect them for all the sacrifice and suffering they’ve been through.

Speaking of suffering, I saw the most horrifically brutal and violent movie against women I’ve ever seen the other day.  It was so bad I couldn’t stand to keep watching it.  But I looked it up and read that the protagonist gets her revenge.  If you’ve got the stomach for it, it gives a glimpse of patriarchal society at its extreme exaggerated worst.  The whole thing is on youtube…I may never finish watching it, as it will keep me awake at nights, but maybe you’re stronger than me.

Today the lesson plan for my upcoming open class was due. After putting it off until the last minute, I turned it in knowing it wouldn’t be received well, and sure enough, the co-teacher came back and wanted me to revise it.

See, instead of the typical lesson plan I spent last evening looking for a template that was fluid and conceptual, vs. one that dissects every minute of the hour into micro scrutiny. She wanted me to at least add the time-frame for each section of the plan, and I argued how that didn’t reflect how I taught. “But,” she asserted, “all the teachers do it this way. They’ve been doing it this way for a long long time.” And she wanted me to do it more like the lesson plan example we had from the middle school open class we’d attended last semester. The one that was two pages of intro and another FOUR PAGES of breaking down one hour, complete with scripted monologue for the teacher and scripted action of the student, down to every 5 minutes of time.

I argued how over-planned it was and reminded her how awful the lesson was, how it crammed too many things in, and how far away it was from a real learning experience. She agreed, but said I should still revise my lesson plan. Then I told her, “Look. How is Korea ever supposed to change for the better if everyone continues to do things they know aren’t good, just because that’s the way it’s always been done?” I then told her this was my protest and me changing things, and that this is what I want to submit and if it fails, then she can just say it’s all my fault. “Okay,” she said, and smiled.

I think she’s actually happy I’m such an upstart. She hates the book and these stupid monkey shows too.

This is the passive co-teacher, btw. I don’t know if it was my complaints about her or my standing firm making the students in that one class take my written punishment seriously, but she’s actually been supportive with the classroom discipline of late. We’re working pretty well together these days, and much of that has to do with throwing the book aside.

Yesterday we had one of those free-form lessons, and I brought up topics for the kids to just try and discuss. One of them was about me getting a tattoo. I told the kids foreign teachers couldn’t be hired if they had tattoos, and I asked them if they felt that was logical or not. Then I told them that many foreign teachers actually had tattoos but they were hidden under clothing. Anyway, one of the students said it didn’t look good, and another student showed me her tribal stylized dragon tattoo. I really love these conversations with the kids – it’s a struggle, but somehow they manage to find a way to express themselves: telling me tigers and dragons were mafia but anything else was okay, that people with tattoos were not bad people, and that (once again) it was mostly only the old people who stigmatized people in that way.

And so I will stick to my questioning and challenging the students, making them be responsible for getting their own clarification, making them find their own path to expressing themselves, giving them topics they are interested in enough to make the effort over. And I will protect it’s dynamic nature and let it meander where it wants to and won’t confine it to 5 minute increments, damnit.

Prior to turning the lesson plan in, both co-teachers have told me how this open class is more important than the others were, and that there are VIPs coming in from the school district to observe. Just a little pressure there…I hope the class will prove to them that we don’t need to invent some extraordinary one-time-only super lesson, that we don’t need to stress out and freak out expending huge amounts of energy on materials we’d never use in a daily setting, and that it’s less valuable to force an ingenuous performance and more valuable to see a real demonstration of actual teaching in action.

So today I’m just hoping I got my mojo next week, so this gamble pays off! I think it will go well, as the topic is explaining Korean customs. And hey – I’m a foreigner! Just try and explain it to me, I dare you!

Not that it matters, since I plan to move on. But it does matter if I can help free future teachers of some of the artifice we’re forced to conjure up for this annual exercise in self-justification.

And part of me is also feeling some alarm at the state of the union back home, as I just spoke with a former colleague who has been unemployed the past three years and only had one short stint delivering pizza before being laid off, and then there’s another former colleague who was unemployed for a couple years and is now working in China, separated from his wife and kids just to make a buck. I’m probably heading the wrong way, and while my particular job sounds promising, I do fear just seeing/feeling the unemployment of others. I guess I can feel very fortunate I came here when I did and have managed to weather the past three years so well, with a fairly easy job and a comfortable living.

And it’s not been without its good moments and the lessons have been priceless.

Here’s a vlog post by the popular Canadian teacher couple who blogged about their experience teaching English in Korea at a website called, Eat your kimchi.

I may be the only foreigner in Korea that doesn’t gush about them – they’ve always rubbed me the wrong way and I’ve yet to figure out why.  Is it because they’re so “on” all the time?  Is it because I find it ridiculous to see a grown woman screaming with her students about teenie bopper K-pop idols?  Is it because their dorky hip persona no longer works at their age?  Is it because they’re so narcissistic they have to video themselves all the time?  Is it because they sound like self-appointed experts on Korea?

Yes, but it’s more than that.  It’s their whole attitude about Koreans that gets to me.  Like in the video above, that students put their nose to the grindstone only to be thought of as better worker drones.  I mean, that just smacks of condescension to me.  And it’s not the only instance of this.  Too often their portrayal sounds like, “oh look at the cute little Koreans!  Aren’t they adorable!”  which gives me PTSD flashbacks to being objectified as the little adopted Asian doll growing up.

Korean students are not better behaved, (the woman above taught at an all-girl’s private school) and the students I know in America aren’t violent because they have too much free-time, but for a whole host of socio-economic, dysfunctional family, racist and political reasons, and damn if I’m going to put my finger on ONE thing that makes a very few that way.  And the students I know in Korea may not have a chance to be randomly violent, but you can bet they have violent thoughts – and they tend to take that violence out on themselves.  And the Korean students I know DO have dreams, just not a lot of hope to attain them.  And school for these kids is ALL about being social.  They spend all their time in school trying to subvert the system and capitalize on socializing, and when they’re out of school they’re trying to subvert the system to see their friends and socialize.  I could go on point by point, but that would mean having to watch their video again.   Anyway, maybe I’m just biased.  Watch and you decide.  They seem to identify many of the same dilemmas as I do, as most foreigners do, but their analysis of the root causes just seems simple and colonial to me…

If you have 13 minutes, this documentary made by Korean students is really thorough.

As a teacher in the public schools I find it interesting how the public schools get so much of the blame, since the teachers did not create the level of apathy evident when a third of the heads are on the desks and another third are ignoring the lesson.  The real culprit seems to me what this film suggests – everyone having the same goal, and that goal being in a position to make money, and that goal only being attainable by the already economically advantaged:  the small window of opportunity for advancement by merit being accessible by commoners only against incredible odds.

And yet – as my co-teacher, unsolicited, was consoling me after a presentation by saying that the same amount of students sleep in her class, too, all I could think was, “and you ALLOW that to happen?  This is YOUR element.  How did you allow them to marginalize you like that?”  So in many ways, behavior-wise, discipline-wise, inspiration-wise, I DO blame Korean teachers for not rising above the system.

Recently, having exhausted the national curriculum, yet with another month of classes to go, I’ve taken to being determined to get my students to have real conversations, and I try to show them how to open, ease into the topic they want to explore, how to acknowledge and interrupt and be proactive about reaching understanding and communicating.  Of course the topic of hating studying came up and I asked them if it wasn’t only a problem in their mind.  They were totally confused, and I then told them how I LOVE studying, and there were some gasps in the room, and then I gave them some examples of taking an interest and trying to learn everything about it, and that invariably those interests need knowledge that we’re supposed to get as basics in school, that it was only my mind-set that made learning a good or bad experience.  And I told them how much more interesting it is when you’re learning new things and how boring it is when you’ve stopped.  The students were like, well maybe it’s not the studying, but it’s how long we’re in school.  And I asked them well – what came first?  Long hours at school because the students were wasting their time in class?  Or sleeping in class because the students were in school so long?  They weren’t sure, and maybe being in school wasn’t so bad, but they wanted to learn extracurricular subjects in the evenings instead of studying the same subjects.  So I challenged them – maybe if you took those subjects seriously during the day, then extra study wouldn’t be necessary at night.  But, they explained, it’s how it is and it’s impossible to change it.  And I told them nothing is impossible:  you can influence your parents, and when you are parents you can influence the school districts and make this better for your children.

Anyway, I hope these little seeds I plant make a difference in some small way.  Right now Korean students almost unanimously say they would like to stop being testing machines and start learning for meaning.  They would love to develop their personal interests, but sadly have no compass.  But I think the larger question is can Korean parents and teachers learn to inspire vs. pressure their children, and center the erratic and hysterical pendulum swing between draconian rigor and guilty indulgence.

BUT in the meantime, the 수능 goes on and tomorrow all students but seniors will be at home.  As will most teachers.  Me, I get to volunteer with G.O.A.L.’S first trip home program this year.  That’s an annual effort to experience their birth country for the first time and to get full assistance with their birth family searches.  I was going to apply for this myself over three years ago!  Who woulda thunk I’d have ever been in this place and would be on the other side?  So that’s a nice feeling before I leave.

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