Chungnam Orientation

Last week, all of the new teachers in Chungnam province attended orientation.  It was held in Cheonan, the biggest city in Chungnam.  Even though it was held in a big city, they set us up in a training facility on the outskirts of town.  I guess they didn’t want a bunch of foreigners running around town together, causing mass chaos.

There was a mix of different teachers at orientation.  Some of us have been in Korea for up to 5 months, and the others were fresh off the plane a day before orientation started.  We were split into elementary and high school/middle school for our lectures.  The days consisted of lectures from 9 in the morning until 8 in the evening, stopping for lunch, dinner, and snack breaks (those were the best times of the day).

I had heard so many horror stories about orientation that my first expectation was poor. So, the first couple of days were dreadful.  Hearing some of the lecturers drone on and on while being exhausted was not what I considered a fun way to spend my time off from school.  The only time we had off was at night between the last lecture and our 11 PM curfew.  This time was spent playing ping pong, card games, or hanging out- anything to keep our minds off the daily lectures.  After the first couple of days, it started to get better.  The lecturers had interesting ideas, I was learning new things, and I was used to the schedule.

We finished off orientation with a Korean competition, some ice cream, and a closing ceremony.  The Korean competition was called the Golden Bell- a popular game in Korea. We played it to answer questions about the Korean language.  We wrote it down on paper and if we got it wrong, we were done.  Jeremy and about 10 other people from our program made it to the end!  I, sadly, got out about half way through on a simple word- bus.  I mixed up my vowels! 

Elementary school teachers 

We received certificates and were scurried out the door. The new teachers were picked up by their co-teachers and taken to visit their schools.  Us teachers, who had been there for a while, were on our own.

A handful of us caught the city bus back to the bus station- but we weren’t able to have a calm and relaxing ride back of course.  The next couple of stops were loaded with ajummas (old Korean ladies) and the whole bus became filled.  The guys and I made a strange and unexpected acquaintance.  An older Korean man saw us all on the bus and tried to make conversation, except his way of making conversation was very different than what we are used to. 

He started off asking if we were from Russia- laughing devilishly all the while.  Then, he grabbed onto Steve’s arm and pretended to pluck hairs off of it.  Moving from his arm to his chin, the man continued to pluck- or pretend to pluck.  He moved onto Jeremy and continuously told him he had a "good nose." Then, he drew a picture of Jeremy's nose to show us all.  Before we know it, he’s gotten up to go grab Jeremy’s nose like a parent would to a child when saying “got your nose!” Thankfully, settled down for the rest of the 1/2 hour ride. 

Before getting off the bus, the old Korean man jabbed Jeremy in the neck as a last good-bye.  When he stepped off the bus, he waited while waving until the bus pulled away.  We took this whole ordeal as very odd but I think we made his week by putting up with it all.  I could only imagine how one of the teachers that just arrived to Korea would have taken this situation!