These are the Rules as Stated by the Administration

In the world of Korean school public education, nothing brings fear to the hearts and minds of teachers like the words ‘open class.’

We don’t really have anything like this in America. The closest comparison that comes to mind is Open House. You know, that event schools halfheartedly hold sometimes in which parents are usually too busy to show up. Parents that do manage to show up become weird, crazed versions of their former rational parenting selves. They enter a quasi-attack mode in which they use a technique called, in some circles, ‘ferocious niceness’ in an attempt to intimidate their children’s teachers into saying good things about their kids.

No, Korean school open class is an entirely different animal. The Seoul Metropolitan Board of education just passed a law (I guess technically it’s a ‘policy’ but policies feel like law here) that requires each teacher to open their class to families, teachers and administration four times a school year. This means that teachers are teaching an open class roughly once every other month. (This is my information for elementary schools, not sure about other levels)

I know what you’re thinking…so what? It’s forty minutes and the worst you have to endure is some smiling parents and an evaluation by the administration.

Wrong. So wrong.

The whole Open Class process lasts nearly a month in which time teachers slave over lesson plans-- re-working games, designing materials, meeting with administration to discuss their lesson plans, practicing the open class lesson on other classes. Teachers are required to consider ridiculous factors in their planning. For example, last year, my co-teacher freaked out two days before our lesson because she realized that the board game we were scheduled to play required the students to roll dice, and the dice would make too much noise on the desk top. She spent the next hour cutting out square pieces of green felt that she would put on the students’ desks before class began to dull the sound.



(Some kids at an English class I worked in over the winter. These boys chose me as their favorite teacher and followed me around. At least, that's what I like to think)


I was woefully naïve of the whole meticulous process. I thought, stupidly, that once we came up with our lesson plan (which had to be turned in to the administration over a week before we were due to teach the class), there would be nothing to it except to make the materials and teach the class. I was mistaken. Here is a quick list outlining the Open Class Process in further detail:

1. Pick your class.

This is tricky because you want to pick the class that has been the best. This means that the class participates well, is well-behaved and easily managed. The trick is that you can’t pick a class that you have already used before in a previous open class. Also, you can’t pick a class that another subject teacher (like science, music, etc) picked for their open class. These are the rules as stated by The Administration.

2. Come up with your lesson plan.

A typical lesson plan has an introduction section, a development section, and a closing section. Your introduction section has to include a review and some sort of motivation to get the students interested. Your development section must include GAMES.

Oh games. I think I have to take a minute to comment on Korean Elementary school English games. These are the bread and butter of our lesson plans. If students don’t get to play a game during a lesson, they demand to know why. If the rules of the game are interpreted by the students as somehow unfair, we have to figure out how to rework the game so it works for them. We can’t repeat the same games too closely or the students get bored. The games can’t be too hard or the students will give up. The games must be a delicate balance between fun and using the target vocabulary and grammar for each lesson. Too much of the former and you haven’t accomplished anything real in your class, too much of the latter and your class feels like a flop because the students won’t play. As a result of these restrictions (and others like them), games have become recycled and unvaried. (for those of your interested, there are three main types of games: card games, PPT games, speed games)



(Can you see me in the background? I'm attempting to manage the kids and make sure they share their food)


During open class, there are other, more strenuous variables to consider. During the open class, teachers ‘should’ include group work/pair work, individual work and class work. During the open class teachers ‘should’ have students doing listening activities, reading activities, and speaking activities. Parents want to see their children participate in class, so teachers ‘should’ include exercises that highlight individual student participation. These variables ‘should’ be considered along with the previously mentioned game requirement and accompanying restrictions. These are the rules as stated by The Administration.

3. Create your materials

A teacher ‘should’ look like she has put extra effort into the class. This often means creating his or her own materials via coloring or computer. For the last class, I spent an entire morning drawing and coloring an American flag and a restaurant menu for the motivation section of one open class. Teachers laminate flashcards, glue magnets onto everything so, if need be, it can be stuck to the blackboard for display, slave over Power Points, preview classrooms so that they can make sure the classroom is arranged to fully cooperate with their lesson plan. There is much prepwork to be done in the days preceding an open class.

4. Meet with the Administration.

This is the pre-open class meeting in which teachers submit their lesson plan (that they have already changed many times) to the scrutiny of men who haven’t taught in a classroom in twenty years (and who also probably had little interest in teaching, only in climbing the administrative latter). These men evaluate the lesson plan based on the above criteria and make alterations. No lesson is safe from administrative alteration. It is done so that the administration can feel as if they are doing their job successfully, not so much for the benefit of the students.

5. Prepare for the show

After the class has been picked, and all alterations to the lesson plan are complete, and the administration has approved the paperwork, and the materials created, it is time to start rehearsals…err, I mean practicing. Teachers practice their open class lesson plan on the other classes in the grade that have not been lucky enough to be picked for the Big Day. This processes is nerve-racking, because if it doesn’t go over well with the students, teachers must go back into the lesson planning phase, sometimes as late as the date before the open class.

The second part of preparation is training the class that was picked for open class. Teachers threaten, manipulate, persuade, and do anything short of promising to give them all As in return for their promise to act like good students on the Big Day. By the time the open class actually happens, students are no longer acting like themselves, but instead acting like Adderall-dosed robot children who have been programmed specifically to answer the right questions at the right time. They know all the words and motions to the songs by heart because they have been made to sing the song almost 30 times in the days leading up to open class. They know the correct responses to the teacher’s opening greeting because it’s been drilled into their heads through repetition exercises. I often feel bad for these classes whose award for good behavior and participation is a week of repetitive and anxious English class rehearsals.



(This is Jill. She's smart, but socially awkward so the other kids don't like her. She's all out all the time and sticks close to the teachers.)


So Why? Why do the teachers go to such strenuous lengths for Open Class?

Because they are the rules as stated by the Administration. The Administration is law.

After open class is over, the teachers have another post-open class meeting in which the administration evaluates individual teachers’ open classes publicly. Last year, I heard horror stories of teachers crying in the middle of the meeting (which is a dinner to reward teachers for their hard work). The administration can sometimes critique teachers on the most ridiculous and unreasonable things, such as the noise from rolling dice for a board game. There are catch-22s in which teachers can’t be right. Like, for example, the board should look neat and presentable during open class. So if, for example, you’re playing a game in which students move magnetized picture cards around on the board the end result could look messy. No problem, just remove the cards after the game is over, right? However, another rule is that you should not mess with already-used classroom materials until after the class is over. This rule also sucks when you play something like a board game and the students keep playing with the dice you weren’t allowed to pick up while you’re trying to explain a new game.

The good news is that my open classes are over and done with for the year! I just finished last week and the only major thing left on the ole’ Korean Public School Teaching agenda is summer camps. I can’t wait to tell you about those.

Things just got political

It’s election time in Seoul and you know what that means.

Or wait, you probably don’t. And not just because I’m talking about Korean elections. If you’re like the majority of Americans, even the mention of the words ‘public elections’ makes you uneasy. Come November, when you’re pulling up to the drive through after work--between thoughts of what’s happening on Lost and whether you’ve made the right decision between Wendy’s or McDonalds—you can’t help but be plagued by a vague sense of unfulfilled duty…some lingering obligation that you’re usually able to suppress for the rest of the year. And its not until MTV tells you to Vote or Die, or you start seeing that damn blue rectangle bumper sticker on everyone’s car, that you realize---that feeling of guilt and bewilderment bubbling up at the back of your throat lately is your sense of patriotic duty.

Even if you do manage to get your butt out of the office chair, easy chair, driver’s seat for long enough to see if you’re on the registry at the local school, many of us still feel ill informed or downright bullied into our decisions by the nasty mudslinging campaigns on T.V.


Being a political science major, I often felt that I had to defend the American political system against some of its worst critics—my peers, the university students. Walking around, the sunshine of our youth glinting prettily off the windows of the humanities building, we’d suck down our Starbucks Frapuccinos and talk about serious political issues. Inevitably one rebellious soul would say something like “The electoral college, goddammit. Our country’s shit.” Of course, being the well-informed and wise political science undergrad that I was (and feeling like I had so went through this phase last year), I felt it was my duty to inform the ignorant of their mistakes.

I think Ben Franklin said it best when he said, “Democracy is a terrible form of government—but it’s better than the rest of them.”



So when I walked down the street on my way to work last Monday morning and was confronted with dozens of Korean women chanting and dancing in the streets, shouting out names of candidates between shuffle steps, I was immediately intrigued. Here is a country who shares our democratic values, but who had to fight for them much more recently than Americans and whose population is much smaller and more homogeneous.

I guess I felt it was my chance to observe the political process of a different country, especially in regards to campaign style (since I don’t care to do any serious digging into the nature of the Korean political machine itself…hey I’m only American after all).

To being, my first observation is that I have yet to see a campaign ad run on T.V. Instead, I’m bombarded twice a day by women in semi-uniform (they wear some sort of matching colored shift and sashes like girl scouts) and multiple times a day by these small motorized carts in which people are sometimes standing at a podium and waving and music is playing.

Now this music. This music is often a popular song (ranging from Mary Had a Little Lamb to current K-pop hits) in which the candidates have dubbed in their names at strategic intervals. Its kind of ridiculous.

Other forms of campaigning include posters at subway stations and other crowded public places. There are often Koreans standing in front of them reading the posters I guess in an effort to choose a candidate. The posters look like giant pictures of the candidates with a short list of their attributes. There are about 8 mayoral candidates for Seoul in this upcoming election.




I had a conversation with my co-teacher about elections. I asked her if she was voting, and her response was ‘of course.’ I also asked her if most Koreans voted and she said, ‘at least more than half.’ Indeed, in Seoul it seems like Koreans are taking an interest in the campaigns. And I can kind of see why. Instead of staring at semi-famous, somewhat removed men and women in suits through the medium of a TV screen, Koreans get face to face contact with the canidates’ campaign. I’m not sure how elections for the Mayor in major cities like NY and LA go, but my experience with senatorial candidates and gubernatorial candidates in my state does not afford me much personalized contact.

I find this more personalized approach a bit odd in Korea. I would have expected the opposite mostly because of the increased distance between those in power and those without power. Let me explain. A smaller scale example of the power distance index is my principal and the teachers (his minions). As I’ve mentioned before, we are required to do anything and everything he demands of us regardless of whether or not the request is reasonable or timely.

It’s not just at schools either. My coteacher used to work as a secretary at a bank. She told me that their official closing time at work was somewhere around four or five in the afternoon. But her boss (I guess the bank manager) would stay until seven or eight at night. Even though she was done working (and her pay only covered until closing time) she had to stay until the boss left because it was the ‘right thing to do.’ If she didn’t, the boss would ask her why she left. Guilt, guilt, guilt.



All this to say that those people with power, even a little bit, are uber respected and not your friends. My teachers don’t want to sit with the administrators at lunch because they are separated from us by an invisible boundary of respect and power-- much more so than in America.

That’s why I found the personalized, man-on-the-street campaign approach for the mayoral candidates of one of the world’s biggest cities so fascinating. It seems so much more personal than the TV campaign ads are at home. I’m not sure whether one is better than the other.

What do you think?

I also think it would be interesting to learn how different these candidates really are. Koreans, as a society, hold mostly the same values and ideals. And while Americans do too(the ideals of individual freedom, voting rights, equal opportunity) it seems to me that the Koreans' political debates would probably be much more mild in comparison. The areas of mass political disagreement, in my opinion, are likely to be much fewer than in America. Its in the definition of a collectivist society. Collectivism means coming together as one for the good of the whole group. Koreans are more likely to fall in line for the sake of societal harmony than Americans simply because that lies at the core of their beliefs. Look at collectivist japan. They have had a democracy for decades now and the same party has been in power for the entire time save for a few years in the 1990s.

Major political disagreements, i think, probably center around North Korea and South Korea's official policy on reunification. The older generation generally wants it, and the younger generation generally doesn't.




On a side note, the increased violence at the DMZ has become somewhat of an issue in the campaigns (or so I’ve heard through the grapevine). One of my South African friends’ mom called him concerned because the international news was saying Korea was at war. My own mother has asked about what’s going on in the country right now. Well, it doesn’t feel like we’re on the brink of war, that’s for sure. The Koreans aren’t talking about it. I haven’t seen an increased military presence. No one is buying tickets to flee the country. I guess its hard to tell whether or not this time the crazy N. Koreans really mean business or if they’re just blowing off some more steam.

Hell No, I won't Go

(My mom and I at Jeju Island in front of the rock formations)

My mother came and went.

Now I feel deflated and sad, even though our time together was wonderful-- probably because our time together was so wonderful. We went to Jeju Island for a week on vacation while she was here. (Jeju is a popular vacation spot below the southern part of the Korean peninsula)

It was like taking a rest from running a marathon. An extremely difficult marathon in which obstacles in the form of Ajummas and Ajoshi’s are sent veering into your path in daily intervals and the extremely long winter wears on your nerves and your spirit until you think you’ll go insane from so much gray and cold. Jeju was wonderfully unpopulated. There were trees and greenery and nary a traffic jam in sight. And, best of all, there was plenty of room to avoid KVPs! (The Korean Veering Phenomenon)

We stayed on the club level at the Hyatt, a five star hotel mom paid for out of the goodness of her heart. Here are the club level perks:

1.Free drinks from 5-7 every night. These include liquor drinks, wine and beer plus heavy appetizers like spring rolls and smoked salmon. Andrew never felt like he took enough advantage of this little perk.

2.Free breakfast everyday. We stuffed ourselves so full, we weren’t hungry until Happy Hour. In fact, we spent very little money on food because we were always eating and drinking free food in the Club Lounge.

3.Free cookies and tea and coffee anytime you wanted.



(Enjoying free drinks and food in the club lounge)

Believe me, we were living in style. We had beach access, pool access, spa access. I saw a naked ajumma or two in the hot tubs in the locker room. (Korean bath culture encourages separation of sexes and nudity in public baths) Mom and I were fascinated by the intensity with which they scrubbed themselves in front of other people and then got in the tubs with us in all their naked glory. We toughed it out long enough to have an experience, and then we headed to the privacy of shower.

We took a taxi tour one day around the island. My Korean cousin, Dani, set the whole thing up. It was a long and eventful day in which we saw such natural wonders as a waterfall, rock formations, volcano and an underground lava tube (the tube was unlike anything I had ever seen before and will probably ever see again). The taxi man drove us around all day giving us information about the island in Korean which was interpreted through Dani. He took us around random back roads that followed the coast line…roads that we would have never found had it not been for him.



(Cousin, Andrew and I in front of some cool rock formations. It happened as a result of the way the rocks were cooled in the water. Each column was hexagonal or pentagonal)

At some point he asked if we wanted to stop for lunch but we told him we were fine (thanks to the massive free club-level breakfast we gorged on every morning). Turns out, we were probably starving the poor man… or at least jipping him out of a free meal. Dani called her mom during the trip who scolded her for not taking the taxi man out to lunch. Apparently its customary to not only pay the taxi man the agreed upon amount but also treat him to lunch as part of the fare.

So it happened that at the end of our long ass trip (at which point we weren’t even getting out of the cab to look at things when he stopped anymore because we were so exhausted) we had to take our taxi man out to dinner. Which was kind of a bummer, because he ended up picking the place and we had to eat dinner all sweat-sticky from our previous hikes up volcanoes and through lava tubes and other natural wonders.

Of course, he was nice and deserved the meal. I just feel like the whole thing was a wonderful illustration of the constant sense of obligation I feel in Korea. I feel as if my life is filled with unspoken but understood obligations. Obligation to my family, work, learning Korean, being polite to elders, yielding to people with children etc.



(Lava Tube Action: The lava tube was formed when the magma or lava or whatever was flowing underground out of the volcano and found an outlet. what was left over after all the lava/magma ran out was a hollow tube-like cave under ground. There was a whole park under which lied numerous lava tubes.)

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Everyone has obligations to work and family. But sometimes I feel as if I’m obliged to accept things that I would have a hard time accepting at home. For example, there are many times during the year when we do things as a school after school, like go hiking on a mountain or go to dinner or something. I’m often not told about these things until the last minute, after I’ve already come to school.

Sometimes I have plans to meet people for dinner or I wore shoes and clothes to school that are definitely not suitable to hiking. We are definitely not getting paid to go on these excursions, its just expected of you. If any of my teachers don’t want to go, they have to have an acceptable excuse and ask the head teacher if they can skip out.

Also, the other day, Yong-eun and I arrived at our second period class to find it empty, dark and locked. Apparently the class was doing some sort of health examination. We headed back to the office, happy that we had a free period off. (That’s one thing you can say about Korea, the incentives and rewards are just as unexpected as the obligations)

We get back to the office and the phone rings. It’s the home room teacher of the class we have to teach in the last period of the day asking if we could come in quickly and teach her class now instead of later. (I don’t know how she found out that we didn’t have class that period. She claimed that she wanted us to come in at the earlier time so she could let her class out early because she ‘heard’ that school was ending early that day) When Yong eun protested that the class would be short because second period had already started, the home room teacher said that we could just teach into our lunch time.

I don’t know about you, but in America, that’s when you say “hell no I won’t go.” In Korea, I guess you say okay and pretend like its all nice when you get to the classroom. Yong-eun was all grace and good manners, accepting the home room teachers’ apologies with a smile. I was not so graceful.

When we talked after class Yongeun said that the home room teacher felt she could ask those things of us because she was older, but that most of the teachers regarded her as rude and didn’t like her. I think people that are aggressive and straight forward like that are often disliked by people in Korean culture because many people don’t feel like they can say no to their requests.

I guess I could better explain it this way: Instead of having to say no to someone about something you’re uncomfortable with doing, the hard questions are just usually never asked. People are dissuaded from asking people for favors outright because its considered rude unless you know the person very well or they’re family. Even when your peers want you to do something, they’ll never phrase it that way. They’ll just say “you might want to….” Or ask some sort of question to dissuade you from your course of action… “Do you want to make up the class we just missed?” with an undertone of “because I definitely don’t want to.” its all about the tone.



(mom, andrew, me hiking up the path to the volcano)


Random Happenings:

1.During my after school class, the school intercom started playing the Disney movie “Anastasia.” The kids didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know what was going on. I just sort of yelled over the music.

2.One of my favorite after school kids, a fourth grade boy, is officially my favorite student. He had his homeroom teacher message me when he was going to be absent from after school class one day. “Bart says he can’t come to class today. He wanted me to tell you.”

3.This is the same boy who, one day when after school class was cancelled, came into the office and straight to my desk. (this is very unusual. Kids are usually intimidated by me and approach one of the other teachers instead) He came in saying “Malia? Malia?” saw me, came to my desk and stared at me for a minute, stammering some mixed Korean and English sentences. I waited for him, and finally he managed, “Class now?” I said no class today and made an ex with my hands. He nodded solemnly and went on his way. They’re always canceling after school class and not telling the kids.

Do You Know Who I am?

Here’s some Bloginess coming at cha--- (was that funny? Sometimes when I’m too happy my writing can get kinda punchy)

Mom’s here first and foremost and it’s amazing. Forget the fact that she’s paying for the five star hotel for our vacation to Jeju Island this weekend. Forget the fact that she’s bringing me Zpacks (hardcore anti biotics) and presents and messages from loved ones back home. She’s just so damn familiar. When I saw her these thoughts came to my head (not necessarily in this order):

1.Brodie, my beloved neurotic dog, sprinting around our house every time we come back home. He may be living with me when I go to law school next year.

2.My backyard at my parents’ house—we have a lame little peach tree (the pathetic wispy, Lowes –bought kind that are planted in middle class suburban neighborhoods) that produces hard, inedible peaches. I like to go out there when I’m bored or restless from being inside and break them in half in my hand to look at the fleshy inside.

3.Having space to maneuver around people so as to avoid hitting them (not possible in Korea due to space restrictions and weird cultural norms that avoid acknowledging a strangers’ existence)

4.Being able to drive a car. (before Korea I was all for public transportation, saving the environment and money etc etc. I can envision my little uppity liberal mouth spouting all kinds of crap about the way of the future. Now I’d shave my head for access to a car and the freedom to come and go as I please without having to worry about subway schedules, puking Korean girls or drunk ajoshees (old Korean men) trying to yell at the entire subway car.)



(My mom and I during the first time she visited in November)

My principal asked me today if I knew who he was (In Korean translated through my co-teacher). After I told him Yes, I’ve been aware that he was the principal ever since we were introduced in his office right after he came to the school, I got to thinking: Does my principal think I’m retarded because I can’t speak Korean?

I mean, this is somewhat valid. The students get frustrated with me all the time because I can’t speak Korean. For example, a student might ask me for help with the rules of a game and I completely misinterpret what they’re asking me. I think it would go like this:

Student Perspective:

Student: (in English) Malia Teacher! Help!

Me:Okay.(approach the table and look open and helpful)

Student:(in Korean) My partner won’t say the English word during the game. Does that mean he doesn’t get his points?

Me: Umm okay. Let’s do rock paper scissors to see who goes first. (pantomime rock paper scissors)


Student: No teacher! Minsu won’t say the English word but he’s still
counting the points.It’s not fair.

Me: Why aren’t you doing rock, paper, scissors?

Teacher Perspective:

Student:(in English) Malia Teacher! Help!


Me:Okay.(approach the table and look open and helpful)

Student:Korean Korean Korean Korean Korean. (Point vaguely at their
desk) Korean Korean.

Me:look around for where my Korean co-teacher is. She’s busy. Wing
it.) Let’s do Rock, paper, scissors.

You can see where it’s going from there.

My friend Neil who works at an elementary school in a different district of Seoul swears straight out that he hears his students calling him stupid (which is bobo in Korean).

I think they also feel as if I’m a little stupid for staring at them blankly when they come up to me and earnestly try to engage me in conversation (I mean, as earnestly as a third grader can). In my opinion, kids and adults have a hard enough time communicating without the language barrier, and kids always tend to get exasperated that those of us living in the adult world can’t remember enough of what our own childhood felt like to relate. I remember consciously having a thought when I was somewhere around 10 or 11 that went something like “when I grow up I am not going to forget what this feels like and act as stupidly as mom and dad are acting right now.”

Outside my school atmosphere it’s worse. In Seoul, Koreans think I’m Korean and treat me like one of their own. This may sound good in the ‘oh you’re experiencing what the culture is really like’ kind of way, but its not. I get asked for directions to places all the time on the street and in the subway from people of all ages (but mostly old people). When I tell them “I don’t understand Korean” in Korean, they just repeat whatever they said louder, as if I may be slightly deaf. I finally have to just break into speaking really fast English so that they’ll get the point and walk away, leaving me with the definite impression that I was the one who messed up that ordinary little societal exchange.

I feel as if I’m constantly doing something that clashes with what I’m supposed to be doing, with the idea that people have of me (as a perceived fellow Korean). I think this is hard to understand through a western lens because we are not a collectivist people. In Korea, you are constantly observed and conscious of those around you, even if you’re ignoring them. And I can guarantee you that they’ll notice if you do something immoral or even just embarrassing and, depending on what demographic they fall into (male/female, old/young, rich/poor) they may say or do something in reaction to your perceived immoral act. Korean children must attend ethics and moral education starting in the first grade. They have classes that talk about what the right thing for them to do is in a certain situation.

Koreans can be drunk in public (even though its not something people strive for its definitely culturally accepted as part of life), but they don’t want to be seen drinking in public places that aren’t designated as a place to drink (like a bar or restaurant etc). This is true even though there’s no open container laws or public drunkenness laws. I can’t tell you how many Koreans I’ve seen passed out or throwing up on the subways, but I’ve NEVER seen one actually drinking alcohol on the subway. Last weekend, when us ‘crazy foreigners’ popped open some soju and passed it around between us on the subway on the way back from a baseball game, our Korean friend that was with us refused to join us even though she drank before that at the game and after that at a bar.

I’ve already talked about the giving up your seat thing. That is definitely a moral struggle young people have to deal with everyday and believe me, the old people are not afraid to make you feel guilty.

Andrew and Lisbeth often talk about their get-out-of-jail-free White Card (WC). They use it all the time even when they don’t want to. They have no choice, their face and skin are a walking talking WC. Because of this, they are forgiven for drinking on the subway, for not giving up their seat to an old person, for talking too loud in places wher eyou’re not supposed to talk loudly, etc because just by looking at them you can tell they’re foreign and don’t know any better.

But I also think their WC separates them from the Korean population somewhat. The people who approach them do so because they want to practice their English, or are fascinated by a foreign culture. People don’t sit by Andrew on the subway for some reason (still haven’t figured that out yet). The other weekend we went to a place by the river to watch the cherry blossoms bloom (which btw hadn’t yet because the temperatures were still regularly below freezing in mid April). We were walking into a restaurant and Andrew was in the lead. As soon as he entered a little boy, who was running around the restaurant apparently on a free-for-all romp, stopped short when he saw Andrew and began to cry. Hilarious WC action working against him.

Anyway, my principal made me re-evaluate my status as a foreigner dressed in Korean clothing today for perhaps the hundredth time. Just thought I’d share.

I’ll leave you with some thoughts on Korean baseball:

1.You don’t get out if they hit you with the ball. I think its because pitchers don’t actually mean to hit you here, its just an accident so there’s no punishment.

2.I don’t think there are any pinch runners. At least, there appeared to be none because the big guys that could hit the ball weren’t rounding the bases very fast and they never subbed anyone in for them.

3.Many of the fans find the cheerleaders and cheers the crowd is doing more entertaining than the actual sport. Everyone buys those inflatable noise bats and beat them to dubbed American music like ‘dancing queen’ by abba and various greenday songs.

The Plague

The reason I haven’t been updating my blog is because I have had the plague. Well, really I’ve had a couple of recurring sinus infections and an upper respiratory infection, the latter of which put me out for a solid five days (of course I was still societally pressured into work for four of those days…barely managing to find the strength to hand out papers to the kiddies.) All of my strength and energy was temporarily diverted from everything (blog, studying Korean, working on my pathetic lame excuse for a short story, working out, cleaning the bathroom) and channeled toward being able to function outside of bed.

Needless to say, during this time the Korean Health Care System and I became much better acquainted. And this entry has sprung into existence in order to tell you about its Pros and Cons.

But first some history.

Around the fourth grade I got a cold. Up until this point, it was my mother’s philosophy that unless you were running a temperature of over 100 degrees or having a bone stick out of your body, you’d be just fine weathering it out at home with some cough syrup and/or sprite depending on your ailment.

It’s not surprising. My mother shares this philosophy with most Americans who, although they may have money and health insurance now, grew up poor and without the means to pay for doctors’ visits or prescription meds. They were the ones who busted their chins open and had them stitched back up with tiny butterfly band aids. They were the ones who broke their nose because they were bent, table-height, to watch the pool game and the pool ball jumped off the table and smashed them in the face. They were the ones who got a tooth pick stuck—not once, but twice—in their mouth and had to get their mother to reach into their throat and pull it out. All of which happened to my mother.



(My mother at Christmas)

But perhaps the early childhood story that illustrates my point the most is this one:

My mother and her older brother grew up running around outside and playing after school more or less on their own. Not because their parents were particularly neglectful, but because people were more trusting back then. And if you had to work late or on the weekend, or you had to clean the house, the kids were occupying themselves until you called them in for dinner. At least, that’s how it was for my mom. One weekend, my mom and her brother were home alone and mom got stung by a bee. She began to have an allergic reaction, swelling up and all that. She had never been allergic to bees before and neither of them knew what was going on, so Uncle Garry called my grandma at work. “Mom, I think Mary’s sick. She’s swelling up.”

To which Grandma replied, “Put her in the bathtub.” Case in point---her first reaction was not “take her to the hospital to see what’s wrong.”

Uncle Garry put her in the bathtub and mom continued to swell. It eventually got so bad that Uncle Garry called her back. “Mom, Mary says she feels like she’s gonna die.” Grandma finally relented and told Uncle Garry to get the neighbor to take her to the hospital whereupon the doctors saw her and immediately stuck her with an epi pen.


(Grandma and Uncle Garry around Christmastime)

All this to say that my mother does not go to see the doctor about ‘any old thing’ (like we say in the south). And, as a result, neither do I. So when I got a cold in the 4th grade, we prepared to ride it out. I took tissues to school, soccer practice, cheerleading practice. I blew my nose every chance I got. I tried to keep the snot from falling out of my nose every time I did a back handspring. That kind of thing.

The cold lasted through most of my fourth grade year. And when I came down with a fever one night that topped 100 degrees we went to the doctor. The family doctor, the one you have to schedule an appointment for and whose supposed to know your history and all that jazz. We get in, the doctor takes some x-rays of my head and declares that I have one of the worst sinus infections he’s ever seen. He prescribed me some heavy anti biotics and sent me on my way. Within a week or so I was feeling much better.

My mom, whose experience with allergies consisted of the aforementioned bee sting, felt like the worst mother in the world for not taking me into see the doctor sooner. She didn’t know my ‘cold’ was actually allergies that could not be ‘fought’ off like any ordinary virus or bacteria. It had taxed my sinuses for so long that they had become infected and made me really sick.

From then on I suffered one or two sinus infections every year until I finally got allergy tested in high school. Like my mom, I was hesitant of doctors and tests and all that. I avoided allergy testing and shots and instead relied on pills like claritan and zyrtec. When I finally got the shots they changed my life. I was no longer living in allergy hell.

Now I’m in Korea. I’m not getting allergy shots because I didn’t know how to deal with transferring prescriptions and, like I said earlier, I just don’t like to DEAL with all that medical stuff. I guess I still haven’t learned my lesson because now I’m suffering horribly.



(Me out at a bar on the weeknd. I was not up for partying)

I experienced the tell-tale signs of infection about three weeks ago. My co-teacher agreed to take me to the doctor. (She even said she thought she’d like to make an appointment because her throat was a little sore). I felt pretty proud of myself for going to the doctor. I was heading off the infection, taking initiative, not repeating my mistakes.

We went to an ear nose and throat doctor near my school. It was a small office and hardly anyone was waiting, although my co teacher was afraid there would be many people there. The doctor saw us right away. He looked up my nose and poked around a bit. I explained to him in English that I thought there was a sinus infection on its way. My co teacher didn’t really understand what that was, but I think she tried to explain to him the best she could.

After looking in my nose for a while he nodded and seemed to dismiss me. I moved to another chair where they had me put a weird red light thing on my nose for like a minute. My teacher got her throat looked at and, at the end, she leaned over a throat spray thingy and got stuff sprayed in her mouth for a minute. We paid about a dollar twenty each for our visits and trooped downstairs to the pharmacy. There we each paid about three dollars each for pills. I was supposed to take three different pills for three days. My co teacher got some stuff too (for what exactly, I’m not sure).



(Me after being sick for a while. You can see the sore on my nose from where I blew it so much.)


I took the pills. At the end of three days the infection moved into my lungs and I began coughing. This is where it got bad. I began to get feverish and extremely weak. I missed a day of school. I waited it out until my pills from the first doctor were done before I returned to the hospital. This time, I had to go to a big hospital because it was Sunday and all the small clinics were closed. This hospital was slammed with people.

I had to go up to a large counter and get a number, then sit and wait for my number to be called like at a Sears or JC Penny’s customer service desk. Then I went up to the desk to tell them my ailment, I guess they put my name in the computer on a list for a specialized doctor. I paid them a couple dollars and they sent me into another waiting room with a ton of people. I waited there for about twenty to thirty minutes. It was weird. We were all waiting in a central room with doors for different specialized doctors all around.

I went in to see the doctor, she listened to me breath through the stethoscope for a minute, listened to my self-diagnosis, and prescribed me some meds. The whole actual doctors’ visit took about five minutes. The whole process itself (I had to get another number in the bigger waiting room to check out) took about an hour. I went to the pharmacy and paid three dollars for a shit ton of pills. And when I say shit ton, I mean enough to take six different pills three times a day for ten days plus a bottle of cough syrup.

I took these and immediately felt my cough get better. AT the end of it I could tell the infection had moved out of my lungs, but now its back in my sinuses. I get sinus headaches everyday, I have to do a sinus rinse often. Its probably just Spring in Korea (it just now got warm enough for the blossoms to come out), but with all the antibiotics they were giving me, my body should not have been prone to infection that soon.



(Crash!)

From this experience, I will now tell you the pros and cons of the Korean medical system as I see it.

Pros:

1. Cheap Cheap Cheap!

My whole experience cost me under ten dollars. Perhaps a better example is Andrew, my boyfriend. He broke his wrist snowboarding. He had to go see two different doctors for preliminary examinations of his wrist, Plus had to get a cast on his wrist AND see the doctor twice for x-rays. The cast isn’t off yet, but the whole ordeal has cost him, as of now, under two hundred dollars. CRAZY.

2. Visits are fast

One of the first things Andrew said about seeing the doctor for his wrist was that it was amazingly fast and efficient. My own experience the first time I went to the ear nose and throat clinic was amazingly quick. I was in and out of the doctor’s office in thirty minutes. My co teacher and I even let school grounds to do it and were back before the school days was over.
Cons:

1. Quality may be sacrificed for Quickness

Although we were in and out quickly, neither Andrew nor I are feeling 100% better. In Andrew’s case, he happened to break a bone that takes a long time to heal. In my case, I think the meds they gave me were ineffective. Plus, I don’t believe they took time to examine thoroughly, especially when I went to the big hospital for my respiratory infection. This surprised me, because the language barrier prevented me from adequately explaining my situation. I thought, therefore, that they would take the extra time to examine me to prevent misdiagnosis.

2. Overperscription of meds

It has been my experience that doctors in Korea overperscribe meds like crazy. I think this is partly because they’re so cheap. Everyone can afford them so why not? But also, I think it has to do with the fact that Koreans feel better with a diagnosis and meds.

It has to do with the culture. I’ve noticed Koreans always like to prescribe a reason for things, even if the reason is not well thought out or based in fact. For example, Koreans like to say that the reason they didn’t get SARS when the other asian countries did was because of the healing powers of Kimchi. Also, whenever a kid is misbehaving in class, they like to say its because he/she probably has family problems at home even if that teacher knows nothing about that child’s family life.

I think it’s the same with medicine. They’re sick, they want to know why and theyw ant to be doing something about it. My co-teacher and her sore throat are a good example. She wasn’t really sick. She just went because it made her feel like she was doing something to get over her fatigue and sore throat (probably resulting from having to teach all day and yell at kids). My friend, Lisbeth, is another good example. She called in sick to school one day because she was tired and didn’t feel like going in. When she told her school, they said she had to have a doctor’s excuse. So she went to the doctor and made up some B.S. about “stomach problems” (of course there is still the language barrier and all that). The doctor diagnosed her with an infection of the large intestine and prescribed her meds!


Random List of the Day:

1.My co teacher just told me that we’re going on a faculty field trip at 1 o’clock. I wore a skirt and flats with holes in them to school today. I asked her when they found out about this field trip and she said “Yesterday, but we didn’t think we’d go because the forecast said it was going to rain. But it didn’t rain. So I guess we’re going.” To which I replied “I wish you had told me about the possibility yesterday so I could have brought extra shoes along.”

2.Its getting warmer in Seoul, but the temperatures are still pretty low. Like the low fifties and getting down into the forties at night. For a while, we felt like spring would never come (a week ago temperatures were still below freezing) The Koreans say this is the longest winter they’ve had in 100 years. Global Warming?

MEGA harsh

This is the story of my grandparents.

My grandfather, Kim Joo-taek, was the third youngest son of a fairly wealthy family in North Korea before the Korean War. They lived somewhat near Pyongyang by what is now the DMZ line. He had two older brothers and four younger sisters. During the Japanese occupation of Korea (in the years preceding the Korean War), his oldest brother became lost in Japan.

I have interpreted the term ‘lost’ in many different ways since I’ve been in Korea. The official story (from Halmony…my grandmother) was that the older brother was taken to Japan because the Japanese knew of his brilliance in some sort of science or math related field. This story is suspicious to me, however, because we were never allowed to talk openly about him in the family. My mother didn’t even know of his existence for a long time. I don’t think his name is on the family head stone at the cemetery. That kind of stuff. If he was taken involuntarily for some sort of extraordinary ability or intelligence, then it seems to me that we would honor him, or pity him at the least. But to pretend as if he doesn’t exist, that seems harsh even for strict Korean value standards.

A story closer to the truth might be that, during the time of Japanese occupation, he went there voluntarily. He was the first son of a semi-wealthy family. It would make sense that some Koreans made partnerships or friendships with the Japanese. I’m not even sure if it would have been seen as a betrayal of the family at the time that it happened. At any rate, as the years passed and the war uprooted the family, loyalties changed and this brother became ‘lost’ or, perhaps more like Halmony put it, dead. Who knows? Maybe I have some Japanese relatives out there.

Anyway, war broke out in the 1950s, of course. As I understand it, Halbodgee’s family took a while to decide to flee. The trains were already shut down. They were a bit further south so I suppose they could afford to wait longer. Also, it seems like they may have had a lot to lose—their land, their house, their estate. My Halbodgee’s second oldest brother fled ahead of the family to the south. That left Halbodgee, at age 16, as the oldest functioning male in the family. His father was so old that they had to leave him behind when they fled.

I’m not sure where his family settled or how my grandfather was able to go to the best college in Korea. (There are three colleges in Korea that are like our Harvard, Princeton and Yale. Those are Yonsei Univ, Korea Univ, and Seoul National Univ. Koreans call it SKY. Of the three, only Seoul National Univ. is a state school. The other two are private. Its, therefore, much cheaper to obtain an education at Seoul National Univ. Koreans let a lot ride on those schools’ reputations. For example, when I came to Korea, Halmony told me to make sure to mention to my superiors at my school that my grandfather went to Seoul National Univ. and that he was a doctor...:-p. Also, if you ever have the privilege to go on a blind date with a Korean, one of the first questions they ask you will be “Do you go to SKY?”)


(My cousin and I dressed in traditional Korean Hanboks for a photo.)

My grandmother, or Halmony, has a little less traditional story. She was the product of an affair between a married man and his mistress. She was born in China; however, Halmony claims her father is Korean.

At some point Halmony and her mother moved back to Korea and away from her father (on the northern border of the peninsula right next to China). Now to give you some idea of the fluidity and politics behind Korean family history, the original story I was told by Halmony was that her mother and father divorced when she was young. I learned this story later from cousins and confirmed it through my mom at a later date. Anyway, at that point in time in Korea, it was very unfortunate to be a child without a father. It was even more unfortunate to be a child unrecognized by her father. And it was extremely unfortunate that she was a girl.

Family is important in Korea, and the fact that Halmony had no ‘official’ family left her with no ‘official’ place in the social hierarchy. Eventually, Halmony’s mother met another man and they tried to get married (let’s call Halmony’s mother G.G. for great grandmother and her man S.G. for step grandfather).

S.G.’s mother had a problem with G.G. (I’m not sure why, other than the fact that I get the feeling that she was kind of weird). G.G. was afraid that if S.G.’s mother found out about Halmony, she would keep them from getting married. So she told Halmony to go away and forget that she was her mother.

MEGA harsh. I mean, who deserves that? She didn’t ask to be born into existence. Anyway, this further proves my theory that G.G. was weird and cold.

Halmony went to live with her grandmother (G.G.G.?). Meanwhile, G.G. and S.G. got married and begot four children. Halmony helped raise them and was (I guess?) still involved in the family.

Anyway, Halmony eventually scored big and married Halbodgee, who was, I suppose, a catch for her economic and family situation. They met when a cousin or something introduced them. I don’t know, it’s all very vague. But they had two sons, my dad and uncle, and left Korea four years after my father was born. The story doesn’t really get interesting again until forty odd years later when a small miracle arrives in the form of a granddaughter…


(Halmony in front of a Korean exhibit in Washington DC)

List of CRAP things that have been going on lately

1.I’ve had the plague for over a week now. Two rounds of antibiotics and hospital trips. No going out on the weekends. Its depressing.

2.I just found out I have to teach an after school class once a week for two hours. That adds my total teaching hours to 25 hours a week. I already feel like I can barely handle the energy required to teach my class load. Almost everyday I teach classes straight from 9-2 with a break for lunch except on Wednesdays. So whatever day they decide to put my after school class on I’ll be teaching straight through the day.

3.I have an open class in a couple of weeks in which the administration and supervisors of the district are supposed to come in and watch. So we have to have a super awesome lesson plan and stress etc. But the thing is, no one speaks English, so they never wanna come in and watch English class. So we’re just doing it to satisfy some bureaucrats that won’t bother to check if we’re actually doing the class or not.

4.I miss my friends in TN a lot right now. The weather is FINALLY getting warm in Seoul (last week it was still freezing temperatures!) and I keep thinking about walking around the Fort and hanging out with friends and opening up all the windows in apt. 7. I’m coming back to K-town next year…will you be there?

5.Mom is coming at the end of the month! So excited.

Teacher, He's Crazy!

Let me tell you about Korean classroom discipline.


It’s Friday. Its still cold and icy in the middle of March. I can’t believe it, but I’m actually yearning for the rainy, mud puddle East Tennessee Marches that, although damp, were warm enough to wear sandals and shorts. I got all nostalgic for my flip flops--the ones that shot rain water dirt up the backs of my legs on my way to class last spring.

Now, on my way to a different kind of class, I try to avoid the iced over puddles sitting slick between the holes in the gravel, my winter boots not quite keeping my toes from feeling the cold. On my ways to class I have to dodge kids, ice, mud. Mud mud mud because our school is under construction and Seoul citizens don't understand the value of grass.

Fridays are bittersweet: I’ve got the weekend just around the corner (a sweet ass St. Patrick’s Day celebration in Itaewon where my friend Ian is making his DJ debut), but to get there I’ve got to teach five classes of fifth graders. On our way to class 5-6, Jenny (my co-teacher) reminds me that this class has the infamous ADHD kid lurking in its midst.



(Me, my friend Ian and some of his girlfriends at Roofers in Itaewon. It was a combined St. Patrick's Day Party and 6th month anniversary for those of us who arrived at the end of August.)

Now I’ve heard about this “ADHD” kid. The students say he’s crazy. The teachers pity and slightly fear him. They often talk about “the boy with the disease" who is supposedly taking his medicine to no effect.

I don’t know what the big deal’s about. I come from the good ole' land of the free-to-have-whatever-disease-you-want. It seems to me like every other kid in school had ADD or ADHD. Hell, we even knew the medicine names—Ritalin was fashionable in elementary school...sometime around late middle school Adderall became the new drug of choice. We knew that ADHD kids were just like us, if not a bit more fidgety, and simply needed an outlet for all their energy. They weren’t dumber than us. They weren’t crazy.



Jenny and I get to our classroom late in typical Korean-style fashion. This suits me just fine because every minute late is a minute less that I have to teach. We begin our lesson and it goes pretty well. I recognize some students from the fourth grade who were pretty high level and usually say hello to me in the hall. Our lessons are set up like this:

Introduction: Hello class./Hello Teacher….How are you?....How’s the weather?

Development: Introduce students to lesson material. Do the CD from the book which consists of dialogs and repetition exercises. Play a game.

We get to the game activity at the end of every class. This particular game required us to put the students in groups of four. Then each group was supposed to write down as many responses to “How are you?” in English that they could think of in a specified amount of time. Usually, this meant assigning one student to be the writer in each group. Having some students write while the others contributed orally served both the advanced kids and the lower level kids' interests. At the end, we would tally the scores on the board and give the winners a stamp in a chart at the back of the book.

So there’s one winner and six losers. We had just declared the winner and moved onto the next activity, when the ADHD boy began tearing up his partner’s papers and throwing them all over the ground. Several students turned around to watch. I stopped talking, thinking Jenny would discipline him. Jenny, however, tried to continue class. So it was like this: Jenny trying to teach up at the front of the classroom, drawing the students' attention to the tv screen, while the boy went on a silent tearing rampage in the back of the classroom. He tore up the girl’s worksheets and kicked her chair, shoved her and threw her pencils on the ground. I, apparently, could do little more than stand off to the side with my mouth open, looking as if I might do something. Finally I told Jenny “I think we should do something about that.”



She sighed and walked over to where the boy and girl were sitting. But instead of removing him from the classroom, Jenny took the girl from her seat and brought her over to the other side of the room where she stood awkwardly in the upper front corner.

ADHD boy began throwing the girl’s pencils, books, bag and jacket onto the floor. This made the girl, who was now the center of attention at the front of the classroom, begin to cry. Jenny, again, stood by the girl and wasn’t sure what to do. So I said, “Jenny, if you want to take him out of the classroom I’ll continue class on my own.”

Note: Us foreign teachers had no prior training on classroom management. When I asked questions about classroom management to veteran foreign teachers and SMOE administration, the general response I got was to “let the Korean teachers handle it.” It’s a weird time for Korean classroom management because physical punishment was just made illegal and there is no other system emerging to take its place. Furthermore, most teachers still use this form of punishment even though they’re not supposed to.



So anyway, by the time Jenny decided to follow my advice about the boy’s removal from the classroom, he had begun to hit other students around him. (By hit I mean hit in the chest and shoulders. Also, the students would grab his hands and they would push against each other as if in a test of strength). Some students were picking up the girl’s stuff and holding onto it to save it from the ADHD boy’s wrath. Higher level english language students were apologizing to me, saying “Sorry teacher, he’s crazy. I’m sorry you have to see this.”

After a while, it became apparent that Jenny was simply hovering around him. We had wasted a full twenty minutes of class time and our period was almost over. I managed to ask Jenny why she wasn’t removing him from the classroom. She replied “He’s too strong.” I was debating on whether or not I to just pick the boy up kicking and screaming and carry him out of the classroom, but I decided against it. I didn’t want his parents to accuse me of anything, and I didn’t feel like I could adequately defend myself (because of the language barrier) should his parents complain to the administration that I somehow acted with misconduct. I suggested that we call a male teacher to come in and help us with the boy, but Jenny replied that the homeroom teacher of this class would be back soon (like we were holding out, waiting for someone who could control him to come back).

Right around the time some of the boys from the classroom were getting up to help restrain the rogue boy, the homeroom teacher returned. She was about 5’5 and weighed 90 lbs. Jenny looked relieved. If the circumstances were different I would have laughed.

The homeroom teacher managed to drag the boy outside by grappling with him. She wrestled both arms under his arm pits and more or less hustled him into the hall. A couple of boys from the class helped clear the way (because all the children were up out of their seats by this point) and a couple more were helping her carry him out. Once they got out into the hall, several students rushed the door. I finally opened my mouth and told them all to sit down and close the door, but not before a few of them went out into the hall. Once we had finally gotten the class to settle down Jenny told me it was time for us to leave. So we left.

Outside in the hall, Jenny talked to the homeroom teacher who gave up her struggle and let go of ADHD boy. He immediately lumbered back into the room and started shoving students around. I told Jenny I’d meet her back at the office and got the eff outta there.



For me, that class period was hell because I felt that it was completely out of control. Later I learned that the general consensus was that his homeroom teacher was so skinny because the ADHD boy ran her ragged. (I saw her last year, she was just as much of a stick then as now). I felt like there were several things wrong with this situation and I will now list them:

1.“ADHD” is not a correct diagnosis, or at least it’s an incomplete diagnosis, for this boy's condition. ADHD is simply a term for diagnosing someone who has trouble paying attention and has excessive energy. Not someone who has targeted rage episodes at a peer for half an hour in the middle of class.

2.the reason this child is misdiagnosed probably has something to do with the fact that mental illness is not readily or openly discussed in Korea. Up until recently it was something one ignored or, if it was too big of a problem to be ignored, kept out of public site. This means there is probably insufficient research into mental health issues, especially issues pertaining specifically to the Korean population and the added cultural effects of Confucianism.

3.The home room teacher was obviously not equipped to deal with this boy’s classroom interruptions. The boy should have been assigned to a male home room teacher’s classroom.

4. There should have been a method set in place by the administration for dealing with this kind of situation or misbehavior. There was no recourse available to the homeroom teacher. She couln’t take the boy anywhere when he was interrupting class. There is no “taking you to the principal’s office” option in Korean Elementary Schools. The administration is above such duties. There is no detention room or even school officials to deal with this kind of severe misbehavior. In most cases, there is not even a classroom disciplinary code in effect. Teachers usually avoid discipline by instituting a merit system instead. Or they discipline on a case by case basis.

Now, I want to address why there is no set disciplinary code in the classrooms. I think one reason is that Koreans expect that the students will discipline each other. By this I mean that there is always an all important and dominating SHAME factor. Well-behaved students are expected to keep their not-so-well behaved friends and colleagues in line. And students, for the most part, do this because they are worried about how their class as a whole looks to the teacher, to outsiders, to their parents and to the administration. For example, in the situation above, the students kept apologizing to me over and over. They were worried about how this one boy made their class as a whole look. They tried to make him seem like a rogue figure, calling him ‘crazy boy.’ When he got out of hand, the 10 year old boys in class felt it was their duty to help their homeroom teacher by helping to manhandle the boy out the door.

There is one third grade class in particular where two boys sit up front kind of close to where I stand to teach. One of them is a good student and is usually quiet, but he’s friends with another boy who sits behind him. This boy likes to talk a lot while I’m talking and rock in his seat and do generally bad boy stuff. I know that all I have to do is look at that boy when he is turned around or talking and his friend in front of him will smack his desk and tell him to pay attention. I mean, crazy, right?

The crime rate in Korea is very low. The Koreans contribute this to the fact that there are no guns allowed in Korea. But I think it’s because of the SHAME factor. People don’t commit crimes because they are afraid that if they get caught, the shame brought on them and their family would be unbearable.

The suicide rate in Korea is very high. Young people, in the prime of their lives, often kill themselves during college or even high school exam week because they are afraid of failing their parents. There is a sort of urban legend story about students at a prestigious school in Seoul who got caught smoking cigarettes at their school and all jumped off a building. SHAME is potent stuff.


Here is my random list of the day:

1.The Yellow Dust came to Korea. It clouded out the sun and reminded me of the Matrix (remember that the future humans had to block out the sun so the machines couldn’t function anymore? But then the machines just used humans?) Anyway, all the Koreans stayed inside because they said it was super bad for your lungs and stuff. I didn’t notice anything except for the fact that the whole damn day (which was a Saturday wouldn’t you know?)was depressing as hell.

2.I have my first Korean test in like an hour! I’m so excited. I hope I pass. I studied a lot yesterday but didn’t study today because I wrote this post instead. Fail. I don’t have class next week but I’m not telling my school because I still wanna leave school early. (they gave me permission to leave early for Korean class)

3.I ordered my bride’s maid dress for lucie’s wedding!!!!!!!!!!





(Here are my choices for bride's maids dresses. which one do you think is better?)

4.I just got back from a third grade class. A boy was pestering a girl all period…flipping her the bird and calling her fat. Yong-eun simply kept yelling at him to turn back around in his seat and sit down, but didn’t draw attention to the fact that he was calling the girl names or anything. She bore up well under his constant torment and kept playing the game (usually kids who are being made fun of start crying or shut down and put their head on their desk). Ultimately, Yong-eun ended up using her rewards system to punish him. We have a chart in which we have each third grade class represented by their class number. The class numbers move up the chart according to how good they are. If they are bad, the class numbers fall. Right after this boy kept talking, she moved this class’s number down below all the others. Immediately the class fell silent and another boy began chastising the mean boy. On our way out, the kids (who usually say goodbye and get up to put their books away) was quiet, and the kids sat still as if waiting for us to leave.

5. I just bit into a rice cake and it spewed rice cake juice (???) all over my computer. The Rice cake was a present from someone to the teachers, not sure who.


6. For more information on ADHD, here is a helpful photodocumentary i stumbled upon:

http://www.webmd.com/add-adhd/slideshow-adhd-in-children