Now, I am warning you in advance, this is probably going to be a very long post. I am going to try and catch up what happened the last couple of weeks, so brace yourself
Sometimes I wish I just kept a small notebook or something in my back pocket everywhere I went. There are always things I think of or see that I want to write down but never remember after the fact. The past couple of weeks have just flown by and I find myself with no extra time during the day. I have started teaching at my first school, Janggi, and they have me booked from morning until afternoon with teaching, reading books to students, and learning Korean. Yes, I am taking classes with my Vice Principal every Monday-Wednesday morning, which is great! The only thing about it is we are using a little kid’s Korean book so all of the vocabulary so far has been semi-useless. It involves family members, animals, and school vocabulary. I have a feeling I won’t need to be calling anyone Mom here but if I do, I am prepared. The picture is of the hallways in Janggi.
School- the schools I teach at are great, the kids are great, and the food is great (I will talk more about that one later). One thing I noticed while teaching was the kind of students that are in the classes. In Korea, they do not separate mentally disabled students from others. There are at least 10 students in the two schools that have learning disabilities. Normally they will just be in their own world or trying to follow along but are just lost. The one thing that confuses me, is they are tested on the same level as everyone else. This seems unproductive because they are obviously behind all of the other students. This week we tested the 4th graders on the lesson they just finished. They had to listen to sentences to match pictures with prices, spell words, and recite a dialogue (the name of the lesson was ‘How much is it?’). The dialogue is just something they are expected to memorize (I will talk more about this later). All of the kids successfully regurgitated the dialogue word for word, except for one. It was as if he was listening along when all of the students would uniformly recite the dialogue during class but he had no idea what the meaning of each word was or how to spell it. When it was his turn to individually recite the dialogue to me, he just blurted out gibberish in the correct up and down tone of the sentences. It just showed that he was very behind but no one was helping him catch up, they knew he wasn’t on the same level as everyone else, but seemed fine with it.
Memorizing: I think just about all of the classes that Korean children take are based off of books. The teachers use books, CDs, and workbooks for every subject, including math. This is where I wish I was part of this- there is another English teacher that works at my schools but she teaches the kids in Korean. She uses all of the English materials and I am just left high and dry trying to figure out lesson plans from scratch. When learning English, the students are just supposed to memorize sentences and phrases instead of understanding how to actually read them. They can recite a sentence that was written in their books, but once you take the book away from them and write the same sentence, just re-worded, they have absolutely no clue what it means (which is what I have been trying to do- have them understand the meaning of each word and sentence).
There is a annual English competition called the Golden Bell- there are three students chosen to represent their schools, two for speaking and one for writing. Instead of the judges asking the students questions and basing their scores off of their answers, the speaking students must memorize 10 pages of dialogue from their books. From those 10, 2 will randomly be chosen at the contest and they must recite them in front of the judges. I helped students at both schools with their memorization and pronunciation of the dialogues in which both sets of students sounded like native English speakers- they practiced day and night for this contest. From that, I assumed they were able to understand more than the other students- but I was wrong. They just memorized exactly how to say each word, each sentence, and each dialogue until it sounded perfect. This way of learning just doesn’t seem helpful but I guess the Korean government thinks otherwise.
I am finally completely settled in at this point. I have received my Alien Registration Card- which is practically a foreigner’s driver’s license, a bank account (and my first paycheck!!), and a cell phone. Getting a phone took a lot of time and money to set up but now that we have it, it is so much easier to get around and communicate with others. When we didn’t have a cell phone, we would have to use a pay phone, and the first time we tried using it, we had some trouble. Not because we are too technologically savvy to understand those phone boxes that are attached to a wall, but because it was all in Korean and the phone practically screams at you when it is trying to connect you to the other party. I was actually surprised as to how many pay phones there are in Korea. Maybe I never noticed them in America, but I feel like it was rare to find one on the side of the street….and to actually be working.
One thing I noticed while traveling in Korea is the trash issue. Now, I have been to Japan and from what I’ve seen, Korea seems like it tried to mimic Japan’s trash system but failed miserably. In America, you can find a trashcan just about anywhere. I remember hiking with my Dad once and seeing a trashcan on the way up the mountain-it seemed strange but I guess it was a way of having people not litter. In Japan, they were very strict on how to throw away trash. Everything had to be separated. Green bags were for things that could be burned like paper and scraps of food, pink bags were for things that needed to be recycled, and the white ones were for whatever else was left that could not be recycled or burned (I think those were the colors). Every Tuesday was trash night at my school in Japan and when Tuesday came around; everyone would bring their trash out to be inspected before thrown away. When I say inspected, I literally meant it. Volunteers would hold the bags up and look to see if something was in the bag that shouldn’t have been. It was weird to me but I guess very useful. Since Japan is such a small island, they do not have room for dumps or heaps of garbage, so they have to do as much as possible to get rid of what they don’t need.
Well, in Korea, I have seen the green bags around. You actually have to buy them individually at the grocery stores. Instead of using grocery bags at the store, they sell the trash bags so you can use them to take groceries home and then later use it as a trash bag- convenient! Instead of Koreans just using the green bags though, they use any kind of bag. Some days, when walking down the street, there will be bags upon bags of trash sitting on the side of the road just waiting to be picked up. And I still am not sure what day trash pick-up is. Unlike America, Korea does not have trashcans anywhere in the city. If you have some trash, you either hold on to it until you get home or you just put it on a pile of trash that you come across on the side of the road. Some people even litter- I saw three little boys sitting at the bus stop enjoying breakfast before school and they just left all of their wrappers on the ground.
I think Koreans know they have a littering problem but just accept it and make jobs from it. Instead of making laws to stop people from littering, they just hire more people to pick up the mess. At night, they have workers come out with rickshaws to pick up trash. They carry around what look like hand-made brooms and clean the streets and sidewalks. During the day, old people are the ones that clean. I am pretty sure Korea does not have retirement homes- instead elders live with their families and during the day they clean or work on the farms (at least in my area they do). There are always a group of elders cleaning the highway that I pass over to go to school in the mornings. They pick up the trash and then burn it on the side of the road… crafty old people! They keep themselves warm with the fire on chilly mornings.
Besides littering, Koreans have some pretty crazy laws. If there is a law for stopping at red lights, they don’t follow them. Around here, everyone I have talked to has said they feel very safe in Korea and I agree. The only way we imagine ourselves getting hurt, is getting hit by a car. I have only seen one accident, but I swear there must be more. The way Koreans drive can get pretty crazy and most of the streets are the size of one-way roads in America. They also do not stop at red lights or crosswalks, unless they see pedestrians. If there is a pedestrian, they will stop but if they don’t see you or if everyone has already crossed; they will run the red light. It seems like instead of a red light- it is what us Americans think of as a flashing yellow light- yield or slow down (but the thing is, they have those lights here!). They also don’t seem to care as much about child safety- or maybe Americans are overprotective. I have ridden in a car with a young child that was not in a car seat, or is even wearing a seatbelt! I saw a little boy standing on the passenger’s seat of a moving vehicle the other day. Crazy.
The food here is exceptional. I love it so much- and think it is probably the best part about Korea. The women that work in the cafeteria at my schools really don’t get enough credit for the amazing things they make. I am completely satisfied every time I leave the cafeteria. One thing that I should be used to but haven’t gotten the hang of it yet is not drinking while eating. The Koreans eat their food, and then after they are finished, they all gather around the water/tea dispenser and drink a cup before leaving. Sometimes it can be hard because the foods can be very spicy so you just have to eat quickly and then get something to drink. I sometimes find myself coughing from the spiciness and find that chugging the soup (which is also normally spicy) or eating a big mouthful of rice helps.
I think Americans in general just drink more water then Koreans- maybe because you have to boil the water here before drinking it because it is not purified yet. One thing that reminds me of the Polish (or at least my Polish family) is pleasing the chef with an empty plate. The way to show the chefs appreciation for a great meal is by finishing everything on your plate and going back for seconds. This wouldn’t be a problem because all of the food tastes so good, but they give everyone huge portions when served. I don’t eat much in general and some of these kids can definitely out-eat me any day. It surprises me that most Koreans are skinny- since they eat so much. Speaking of the size of Koreans- I think if you are chubby in Korea, a sense of humor comes along with the stature. Every single chubby kid in my classes is hilarious. It’s as if the inherit the quirky personality with every pound they put on.
Koreans are very big on sharing. I guess they don’t have a problem which germs. Yes, some people wear face masks, but I think they do this because they are sick and do not want anyone else to get sick. Something that I am still trying to stop, is saying ‘bless you.’ They don’t say anything when people sneeze here…and they definitely don’t cover their mouths most of the time either. It makes me nervous, because if any of you know my immune system, it’s terrible. I contract sicknesses very easily- thankfully I have discovered a vitamin C powder and drink that I take if I am feeling sick. One of my sweet students gave me a packet before class. It seems to work almost instantly!
The bathrooms here normally don’t have their own toilet paper. There is either a communal roll that you have to grab before you go into an individual stall, or there just isn’t any at all. I have learned to always carry a stack of ‘just in case tissues’ with me. They are also big on using bars of soap. I have only seen one place here that uses liquid soap and it’s actually the texture of lotion- I thought it was lotion the first time I used it.
