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

OhMiGod Korea

So I was leaving from Itaewon (the foreigner district) last week and I experienced the ultimate in Korean subway annoyances. Let me start from the beginning…

The trip started off okay. I had just left Neel and some others behind at the Wolfhound’s bar. On our way to the subway, Lisbeth and I spotted the holy grail of advertisements: a 20 ft banner advertising Taco Bell’s imminent return to South Korea (It had been here briefly and left after Taco Bell execs realized Koreans didn’t know what to do with on-the-go burritos and low grade meat tacos. Lisbeth and I were floored, and paused to take pictures and engage in what I like to call “foreigner-volume-level” exclamations.



Anyway, I got on the subway, rode the line 6 to my transfer at Dongmyo station, and broke into a Korean-style light jog in order to make my train on line 1 (which was sorta fun with my Wolfhound buzz). When I got there, however, I realized this train’s last station was Cheongyangni--the station right before mine. This happens to me about 40% of the time so I was willing to let this annoyance fizzle out a little even though it was late on a weeknight and I still had to hydrate and watch Gossip Girl before bed.

So I waited for the next rain in a semi-patient state. There’s an electronic board at most of the newer subway stations that shows if there are any trains at the two previous stops before the one you’re at. As the Cheongyangni train pulled away, another one popped up on the board.

While I waited, I occupied myself by trying to find the exact subway car door exit at Dongmyo that would open up at Hoegi by the escalators. This is very important, because if I’m in the right one—the car whose door opens right by the escalators---I can exit the subway train and jump right on the moving stairs without having to deal with Koreans cutting me off, or old Ajummahs disobeying the subway escalator etiquette and riding instead of walking up the left side of the steps.

Then, three things happen in quick succession:
The next train pulls into the station.
The loudspeaker announces that this is the train’s last stop.
I throw my head back and grumble at foreigner-volume-level.

Right around the time the third train rolls around (bound for a station past mine thank God), John Kennedy calls…my friend from TN, not the president. I haven’t talked to him in at least a month, and the first words he hears amidst the static and delay of our phone call are “Ohmigod Korea”…or something like that.



I board the third train (in what I hope is the ‘money’ subway car that will let me off at the magic exit). I have to stand up because there are no seats, but I don’t mind because I’m only four stops away and I’m talking to John Kennedy. We pull up to Cheongyangni, the stop right before mine, and everyone who had to get off of the previous train crowds onto ours. This makes the subway so crowded that there is barely standing room. Also, an old man gets on.

This man is not old old, just a little old. Old enough to get off work and get smashed at dinner on Soju and Malkali with his co-workers, or old enough to be newly forced to retire and bored with nothing to do except get smashed at dinner on Soju and Malkali with his other friends who have been forced to retire. Hell, who am I kidding? After you pass high school age in Korea everybody gets smashed at dinner on Soju and Malkali!

Anyway, this guy had had a bit more than the average Korean who usually just gets on the subway, swaying slightly, and smelling like he’d dumped a whole bottle of Soju on his pants by accident when the barbecue grill sputtered at dinner and he jumped, knocking the alcohol and a pound of kimchee and possibly garlic on his lap. This guy was leaning with his forehead against the doors, and, as the subway transferred from the underground track to the above-ground railroad tracks, he started holding his mouth with his hands, pinching his lips together.

As if this wasn’t enough, a girl was standing behind me pushing against my back, saying “Chamshinmanyon” (or at least, that’s how it sounds) which is something Koreans say when they want you to move or want you to wait on something. In this case, I think she wanted me to move. But my stop was the next stop, and, in any case, even if I had wanted to move there would have been nowhere to go. Nevertheless, the girl kept pushing and saying “Chamshinmanyon, Chamshinmanyon” to anyone who would listen…and people weren’t because everyone standing near the door was, get this, getting off at the next station. Can you imagine? Why would you stand by the door if you were getting off? That doesn’t make sense. If you’re getting off, wouldn’t you stand back in the middle and wait until right before your stop comes up, then start pushing on people’s backs saying “Chamshinmanyon” assuming that you’re the only person who wants to get off at this upcoming transfer station?

So there’s Chamshinmanyon girl pushing from behind me and the not-so-old guy about to puke all over the door everyone’s about to exit out of in front of me. Also there’s John on the phone listening to me bitch about everything.

When the train finally pulls into the station I see that I have grossly miscalculated the ‘money spot’ subway car and end up about five cars away from the escalators. But that doesn’t matter because Chamshinmanyon girl pushes me from behind as we get out so that I’m propelled forward at a speed that allows me to make up for the lost ground.

Finally I manage to get through the turn styles at Hoegi without falling victim to what I like to call the ‘Korean veering Phenomenon.”

Korean Veering Phenomenon: A phenomenon that occurs in Korea, especially in public places, in which Koreans utilize a sixth sense that allows them to detect when a foreigner is approaching them from behind at a pace quicker than the pace they are walking. This sense also allows them to detect the angle and direction from which they are approaching. Koreans often use this knowledge to veer gradually toward the right or left such that the foreigner runs out of space and can no longer pass them. You know KVP has occurred when you see a foreigner walking closely behind a Korean watching TV on their cell phone. (I myself experienced KVP the other day when I was trying to catch a subway train and had to round a corner to go down some steps. There was a large crowd of people coming up the steps in the opposite direction. There was just enough room between the wall and the crowd of people to squeeze around the corner and make it down the steps, but an old man (ajoshi) came out of nowhere and KVPed me into the wall. I ended up sort of side shuffling along with my arms spread wide until I made it around the corner and was able to run down the stairs)



That night after dinner in Itaewon, the missed subway cars, the almost-puking guy, and the Chamshinmanyon girl, I managed to make it out of the turn styles at Hoegi station without falling victim to KVP. Usually after this, I’m home free. All I have to do is walk a straight line the twenty feet or so out the door.

So remember, I was talking on the phone to John K., walking my straight line, when a small girl/woman runs into my left shoulder. Her head’s down. I can’t see her face. She makes no move to go around me. I think, “if I keep walking in a straight line and this girl keeps moving forward in her own direction, she will come unstuck from me and go on her way.” Because that’s what we were: stuck. It’s like she wasn’t a human but some sort of rag doll programmed to walk a certain way and then the programmer died and forgot to do give her a brain. (okay that’s harsh, but still).

I keep walking forward, and she sort of let’s herself be carried along with me. Her head’s on my shoulder and we kind of walk together for three or four steps. Then her boyfriend (I guess) swoops in and kind of ushers her away, saying something I assume was an apology.

Hey kids, its just another day in Korea. An especially bad one, and one that can be avoided if you avoid the subway, but a normal day nonetheless.

I had other stuff to tell you guys besides this story, but I got so bogged down by everything I forgot.

Here’s a list of things random happenings:

1.A 3rd grader stood up in class and asked “May I speak Korean now?”

2.There is a character in our 3rd grade textbook named “Lisa” who is an African American cartoon girl with dread locks. In the CD rom accompaniment to the book, however, the actress that plays “Lisa” is Indian (from India).

3.I guess I’ve been sleeping weird lately. When I stood up to go to the bathroom the other night I immediately dropped to the floor because my foot was asleep. Weird.

Thank God my co-teacher is a capable human being.

Thank God my co-teacher is a capable human being.

We’re a new team, her and I, and I was anxious about how well we’d work together. We do fifth grade, nine classes, at the end of every week. She’s new to the school, she’s young, and I didn’t have high expectations because when we planned out our lesson together she seemed to follow pretty close to the lesson plan recommended in the book-- which tends to be a bit dry and suggests games for students that are unrealistic because either the students’ level isn’t high enough or because they are not well behaved enough to handle the relaxed classroom atmosphere the game requires. Plus, her previous position as a teacher in Nowon probably meant that she taught higher level students who were probably relatively well behaved.

Side note: In order to understand the different levels of students one may encounter in the Seoul school system you must have the following background information: Most of the higher education level/higher economic level students that go to our Elementary School move to Nowon in middle school to get a better public school education because there is more money flowing into the school system there. This phenomenon happens all over the city even though the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education requires teachers and administration to rotate randomly to a new school every five years to help keep education levels equal. The discrepancies in quality of education probably happen because of the different levels of income. Higher income areas send their kids to expensive after school academies, have higher parent involvement in school activities and I suppose have more money in their budgets for classroom equipment. When you ask someone in Seoul where the ‘bad’ areas of the city are, they will tell you areas in which the education is poorer because, let’s face it, there is really no unsafe areas in this city.)

Needless to say, I felt that my new co-teacher had had the life up in Nowon and was dreadfully unprepared for the roughness of our student population. But The Powers That Be must have felt I deserved a break because she blew me away.

She had behavioral chants for them to say when they began to act up. She had them bow hello and goodbye. She had them make nametags with their English names on them and display them on their desks. In short, she was MegaTeacher.

Fifth grade went by swimmingly, and I felt myself beginning to enjoy getting to know them.

Here are some more random happenings:

1.The third graders absolutely hated the names Rose and Sam. Sam means “fountain” in Korean. I’m not sure why they didn’t like Rose, but one girl begged me to change her name. She even took the time to think through an English plea: “Please teacher, I don’t like this name.” When I took up the nametag, she put it in my hand and said “I don’t like this!” It was like I was calling her Crap or Butthead.

2.When I asked the fifth graders to name any states they knew, I got the following responses: Guam, L.A., Miami, Mexico, London

3.My Co-teacher kept telling the kids that San Fransisco was a state.

4.I took my first Korean class yesterday. It was taught completely in Korean by a rather attractive Korean man. He had a doll made up of two pandas connected by a string. When you pulled them apart, they made cute noises and a little song played. He used this doll to demonstrate something or other. The funny part is, he thought the panda dolls were the cutest/funniest/most entertaining thing. He kept pulling them apart and laughing even though to us (a class full of westerners…Germans, French, Egyptian, American, etc.) it was only slightly funny the first time. The entertaining effect the Korean teacher was going for worked, however, because we thought his fascination with the pandas was funny.

5.Andrew Dillon broke his wrist snow boarding a couple of weeks ago. Since then, he has decided to continue working out one side of his body.



(Andrew Dillon making the "L" for loser sign. He claims he was scratching his eyebrow in contemplation.)

Respectful Barriers

Let me tell you about something that happened to me this morning.

To begin, I was told that today I’d only have to teach two out of four classes because the kids were having class elections (a couple of days ago they all marched around the school with signs and posters and chants…). So last night I decided to celebrate with a couple of G&Ts and some beer with dinner—Lisbeth left my apartment saying “when I turn my head like this you have four eyes”.



(Neel and I eating Galbi (Korean BBQ), one of our favorite meals in Seoul)

When I get to school, I find out we have to teach all the classes. The reason for this is that the homeroom teachers can choose to hold class elections during different time periods than the officially scheduled ones. Their incentive to do this is that they want the kids to have English class because when they have English class the homeroom teacher gets to leave the classroom and take a break. So they call up the English teachers and “ask” them to come in and teach English that day. I put on all my best powers of persuasion and told my co-teacher, Yong-eun, that I thought that was kind of mean. She managed to get us out of one class but the other one was taught by a male teacher who was in charge of overseeing her duties as coordinator of after school classes.

This is third period. So right before we’re supposed to go to class, Yong-eun tells me she has a meeting to go to, and she’ll meet me up there. When I get up there, the kids are in full swing craziness, screaming “hello teacher” as soon as I get in the room, up out of the seats, drawing on the board, etc. Yong-eun tells me she has to go back to the meeting because it started late and was taking longer than expected and could I please entertain the students until she got back? Here are some things you should know before I continue the story:

1.This class is a third grade class. Third grade is the first year students are officially introduced to English.

2.This is the first English lesson this class has ever had.

3.I’ve never taught a third grade class by myself.

4.The homeroom teacher of this class is male. As a general rule, classes taught by male teachers are usually not as well behaved.



Needless to say, I had a very hard time entertaining them for the thirty minutes she was gone. I searched for “funny animal videos” on youtube and put them up on the screen. Kids asked to go to the bathroom and I had to tell them know by forming an “x” with my hands and leading them back to their seats. It was a night mare.

This whole situation makes me upset not because I feel as if my co-teacher left me in the lurch, but because of the reasons behind why she had to go to the meeting.

She was meeting with her after school committee of teachers because, on top of her responsibilities as an English teacher, she’s also in charge of after school classes (which she doesn’t teach). Her committee consists of her, a head teacher (the homeroom teacher of the class I was currently suffering in) the vice principal and another sixth grade homeroom teacher that was assigned to help Yong-eun. There are several reasons why this meeting was ridiculous:

1.The meeting had to be held in the third period, a time when Yongeun had class. We had just had an hour break before that in which she could have had the meeting; however, the meeting was probably arbitrarily set up by the vice principal and to have it changed at the last minute would have been seen as disrespectful to the VP. Lame.

2.The meeting took longer than expected because the sixth grade homeroom teacher that was supposed to help Yongeun dared to complain about her added workload. This was unforeseen because no one is ever supposed to complain or have negative feedback about anything except the administration. The Vice Principal was angry about her disrespectfulness. Yongeun was mad about the sixth grade teacher not taking her share of the work. The head teacher was mad because the VP’s solution was to assign the head teacher more of the work.

Now, the sixth grade teacher is new to the school, which puts her at the bottom of the totem pole which is why she was assigned to sixth grade (the worst grade) and to extra after school program work. BUT, she is also an older lady, which earns her some respect and is probably why she felt she could talk back to the VP.

The head teacher is male which automatically puts him at the top of the totem pole. Also, head teachers and positions of higher authority generally have less responsibility than their underlings.

This leaves poor Yong-eun at the bottom of the totem pole, overseeing a program that she has no concern for and no experience with just because she’s young and female and, therefore, least likely to argue.

Also, this leaves poor me, overseeing a third grade class that does not have the slightest idea what I’m trying to tell them and whose first experience of English class is funny animal videos and poor classroom management.

There is one more thing I want to cover. In general, the number of male teachers in elementary schools is much lower than female teachers; however, they almost always occupy a position of authority. Principals are almost always male and VPs are like seventy percent male. Male teachers are usually head teachers of their grades or programs (like the after school one). Our current English head teacher is a male home room teacher who doesn’t speak a word of English. Further, most of the time classes that have male homeroom teachers generally tend to be less well behaved. The men don’t concentrate on their classes or teaching, rather they try to scale the administrative ladder. There are exceptions, of course. One male teacher in particular I like really well. He’s a good teacher and his classes both respect him and like him.

To conclude, here is a list of random happenings I thought you might find amusing:

1.Instead of trying to separate the fish meat from the bone, I have resigned myself to eating fish bones during school lunches.

2.When my third graders got their English names, most of them liked the names “Jennie, Abby, Hannah and Lisa” They didn’t like “Jade or Patrick”

3.I wanted someone to be named Bob, but in Korean it translates to “bap” which is the Korean word for “rice.” Yongeun said no one would go for that.

4.Today the kids followed me all the way down the hall saying “goodbye” and waving.

5.I had to sprint yesterday to make my bus home. When I finally got on the bus, the bus driver made some exclamatory comments which I didn’t understand, and when I didn’t respond, kept saying them louder and louder until I just ducked my head and pretended to text someone on the phone.