Stupid Signs and Shirts

For anyone who has never experienced the wonderland that is English in Asia, here is a glimpse into the wonderful world of Konglish....or Chinglish...depending on where you are. Believe it or not, there is a a lot of English here, even in Wonju. There are a couple problems however: a) nobody here can read it or speak it and b) most of the time it is tragically wrong, hilarious, or revolting. They only use it because they think English is cool. The idolization of things western is kinda sad. More on that later though...this is a lighthearted post. They have these expensive shirts that are the just the dumbest slogans...we have fun laughing at the people we see on the street. Here is a picture Amy took from our very own Wonju. For more go to http://www.engrish.com

Followed by a few other amusing examples......

<-- Those commiting suicide will be severely punished

<--But the occasional mishap is ok.....

<--Yaaarrrrr Yoga Pirates

The Creepy Theme Park and Matt the Victorious

I vanquished the hornets, just in case any of you were holding your breath.

So this morning I went in search of the rumoured zoo, Chiaksan Dreamland, to try out my massive lens and get some exploring out of my system. I ended up five km from where I intended, but managed to make my way there with directions from a few strangers (my Korean is improving). It was a haunting scene. If you've seen Shrek, you know the part with the big empty theme park? Well that was me, complete with cheesy Korean amusement park music. Empty- Not a soul. I found someone to pay, asked him if they had animals (more Korean) and set off on my search. Empty theme parks are creepy just so you know. Eventually I found the animals, all kinds of deer, bears, lions and tigers. All in really cramped stinky cages. I felt bad for them. Even worse the fencing was really tight so you could barely take a picture. I managed a couple worth keeping - but that's about it. Not the biggest hit of the year.

Matt vs the Hornets

Much to my chagrin I discovered a hornets nest inside my window...between the screen and the window. I had a heart attack and now its hot because there's no airflow....

Hornets 1 Matt 0

But I have the upper hand...the window is keeping them out while I randomly open it to fire bleach salvos. (I don't have any raid) I also have a badminton racquet for backup.

Alas, after 24hrs of battle, so far the bleach has killed only two hornets and I think one was already dead. Matt 1 Hornets 1.

After one more bleach attack, I'm heading to the store to look for raid. Stay tuned.

Dang, first store didn't appear to have any, so I buzzed at the lady and stung myself....she didn't get it.....Moving on, I did the same at the next store. Same look. So I drew a bee hive with some insect things. "OOh" she says. Still didn't have any. Same goes for store three.

Stalemate...an uneasy calm settles over the land. I'm reminded that I should look up the korean words before I go to the store.

Orangey, Attila the Hans & teaching lessons.

Friday afternoon now, third week of teaching. Cause for celebration: summer is over, so we can go outside again without passing out and sleep without air conditioning (two days in a row!) On top of that bonus, summer classes are over so my teaching days get shorter by two hours a couple days a week. I like that. Less work, same money. Good deal :)

Attila the Hans has replaced Evil Jack on the top of the bad list now that Jack was banished from the kingdom. He is my greatest challenge. Doesn't pay attention. Talks and doesn't listen to the other students when they're speaking. Sets off the other boys. If you talk to him, he'll talk back to you in Korean and say something cheeky and everyone will laugh. What do you do with a kid like that? Tried being nice, tried being mean. And who chooses Hans for a name anyway when they could have their pick of all the English names that there are?

I also have a couple students who give me pictures and presents... one girl whose name I forgot, and started to call Orangey (because she was in all orange, including orange glasses)

has embraced her new name and writes it all over her books and everything. And I got Tim Horton's coffee from a boy whose Mom just came back from Canada. He wanted a Toonie to complete his collection so I obliged. This guy in the picture chose Harry Potter for his English name when he joined my class last week. Easy to remember I guess.

So far my biggest challenge as a teacher is not taking things personally, and not making it about me. Like when they don't pay attention/aren't learning/don't care about English its hard not to take that as some personal criticism - i.e. that you're a bad teacher (which now that I think of it...they actually do say...like every day...to all of us) ...because after all it is you that they're ignoring/not paying attention to...but I guess I need to learn that I'm not in control of their motivation, attention spans, moods, if they care, or any of those things....

I can be a creeper now

So I've been here three weeks already....went by pretty fast so far. I still have a lot of moments when I forget and I'm like "whoooa....I'm in Korea" Mostly when I'm with Kyle and Amy or at some Western seeming place - you can forget where you are. We went to Seoul again on the weekend, went to a huge market called Namdaemun....lots of everything for sale....food, ginseng, traditional Korean stuff, cloth, clothes, kitchen wares, everything....we were mostly interested in camera stuff and we were not disappointed. Kyle and Amy got a new DSLR and (after much cogitation) I got a crazy long zoom lens. (50-500, which on my camera means 100-1000.)

I can be the biggest creeper now. From the top of my apartment I can spy on pretty much anything. People walking a few blocks away, the North Koreans in the hills, you know. I feel like a sniper when I'm on the roof surveying the surroundings.

I'm going to have to head to the Zoo for wildlife though, because besides crazy insects there's not much around here. Luckily there's one nearby.

Here's a sample image I shot with it of Kyle from like three light years away.

What else is new? A new coffee shop opened by Kyle and Amys house that is so nice. Big open garage doors, so the evening cool air comes in. Nice music, cushy chairs. Feels like home. Too bad its not by my house, but whatever. So we've been two nights in a row. A new one opened today by my house too so I'll check it out. It's an Italian Restaurant/Espresso Lounge hopefully its nice.

The kids are still bratty....but evil Jack has been banished from the academy, so that is nice for me anyway. If we kick a few more out I'd be ok with that. Starting next week summer's over so my teaching days will get shorter by 2hours....that will be very nice. Then I'll teach 4 1/2 hours a day.

Last thing, I have to post this picture because its amazing....we've been playing a lot of badminton because that's the thing to do over here....and this picture of Kyle is pretty sweet....makes me giggle every time....its an authentic action shot...and not a pose...

PS if you want to be told when I post something new, just click on the RSS/Subsribe button on the bottom of the page to set it up and then you'll get email notifications.... :)

Topless Fun with the Nun

I was playing basketball and badminton with Kyle in the sweltering (35c) heat. It was an epic match, and irrespective of the heat, I was reticent to remove my shirt because it's just not done all that often over here apparently...and usually not with girls around. So I waited until all the girls were gone. And when I could take it no longer, I took off the offending item. No one appeared instantly to chastise me, so I figured I was in the clear.

After a more few minutes of epic badminton had passed.....who should show up but a Nun. Seriously. A Korean Nun. And she walks over, and asks Kyle if she can play. So he gives her his racquet, and I'm playing badminton (sans shirt) with this Nun. She was actually ok at it. Kyle was just enjoying the spectacle. I guess it was kind of funny. She left and we went back to playing. When we were heading in, Kyle started laughing for some reason I couldn't figure out and, shaking his head, said, "I can't believe you just played badminton with a Nun".

Makes a good story I guess.

I-suh Copy, E-mart-uh, one week finished, and Amy the tour guide

So I walked into a western looking coffee shop trying to escape the horrible heat and pick up some iced coffee. Aside from no barista appearing for a good twenty minutes, it was a nice enough coffee shop. And ah, what luck, there on the menu (in English) was iced coffee. I triumphantly made my order only to have the cashier blink twice with an empty look on his face. So I sighed, and said "I-suh copy" which, of course, was immediately understood. Same with Emart, the superstore type store here in Wonju. If you tell the taxi driver "emart" he stares blankly. So you begrudgingly spit out "e-mart-uh" and he goes "ooooooh.......e-mart-uh!" And you shake your head. In case you were wanting the analysis, they rarely finish syllables with consonants, especially not at the end of words...

I'm now an officially registered Alien. Haha. And I have a cell phone and a bank account now too. I'm set. And I'm finished a week of teaching. I found it tiring, trying to control the boys especially. Kids here do so much school! Normal school, piano school, math school, and english school. It doesn't seem like they have much time to just be kids, so that dynamic comes out in the classroom too. Its especially challenging controlling the manic kids in a different culture, with them all speaking a different langauge too. The first couple weeks were probably always going to be tiring - making the adjustment anyway - so I'm not really concerned about feeling so tired at the moment. Amy said the first couple weeks were pretty draining.

Speaking of Amy, its been good having her (and Kyle too) around to show me the ropes a little bit. What to tell the taxi drivers, where to eat, where to get different groceries, which hot dogs are gross, when to hold your breath walking down the street. You know. All that good stuff. I think its been fun for her to be the one in the know and pass on some of that knowledge instead of being the newbie. Here's some pictures of my school and my classroom.

Two Days Down

Got my first day under my belt and one more to boot.
Forget about anything you heard about Asian students being respectful and wanting to learn. Don't know who made that up, but they were just like any other students, except worse, because they can all speak in code and "teacher" won't understand. The boys in particular were crazy and hard to control.

Back to the respect thing, there is a lot of it here, like you have to bow to everyone, especially the older ones and say a polite form of greeting. The have a big chain of command that governs how they act (and speak for that matter - the verb endings all change depending on who you're talking to) The Confucian "five relationships" are still a big part of society. (Ruler and subject, Father and son, Husband and wife, Oldest son and younger brothers, and Friends (elders, and juniors)). I read about all this before which was helpful in understanding it.

I think cause we're foreign we don't fit into their chain of respect. They definitely don't act the same around the Korean Teachers as they do around us. Its the same at the store too, the guy who pushes his way in front of you doesn't think anything of it, but if you were introduced and he knew your name, he wouldn't even think of it. But as it is you don't fit into his hierarchy. Similarily, I think the kids don't know what to do with us. But anyway, back to the classroom

I found the first day very tiring. The kids, especially the boys, were loud and hard to control. I already named one student Evil Jack. The fact that you don't speak Korean makes the job much harder too. They can say whatever they want and you can't understand. Most of them don't seem to want to be there either. I think there's a lot of parents wanting their kids to succeed and enrolling them in English. So, most of them seem to be reluctant learners too, which makes things difficult. If they get too bad I just get one of the Koreans to come in and yell at them. :)

Day two was better than day one, and I think day three should be better as well. So far I've taught 6 classes a day, Classes are 40 minutes. I have between 1 and 10 students. Today I teach 7 classes ( I teach an adult one in the evening) and tommorow I teach 8.

The Dark Knight comes out in Korea today, so we are going to the Midnight showing....Kyle is super pumped!

Seoul Sojourn - Chaos in Costco

On Saturday we headed to the big city (Seoul) It is a massive city, over ten million and according to their current advertising campaign is the "soul of Asia". Oh such wit.

Kyle and Amy were super excited to go to Costco. They've kinda hit the 3 month wall that everyone talks about, where they can't take it and just really really wanna be home. So some western groceries were a big draw. We took the bus (with big hiking backpacks in tow) it took about an hour and half to the city. The bus was so nice....like the chairs were all leather lazyboys....and the bus fare was only 9,000 won.... $9.

We met Laura, a girl from Prov, and checked out one electronics district that was just ridiculous. Think like 8 malls put together, just electronics. I think there was like 50 camera stores. I didn't find a ton of stuff for my camera, though I did get a very good deal on a lens that was on my wish list. (If you're interested its the 18-180 super zoom that is just super versatile). If you owned a Canon or a Nikon you would have been in heaven!

Then we met another girl from Prov, Krista, and headed to Costco. We were supposed to meet up with 5 or 6 more Prov people but a dead cell phone prevented that. We took some subway trains which was kinda cool....they play classical music when they're getting close to a stop. We were wondering if it was like classical for the classy areas and rap for the ghetto, maybe techno for downtown.

Costco was similar, except, as you might expect in Asia, it was built up with several floors instead of one big one. There were so many people. Welcome to Asia I guess, but seriously, it was awful. You could not move, you could not turn around without crashing into someone. And people are pushy. Oh and Koreans haven't quite mastered the shopping thing yet either, like the up one side, down the other, that sort of thing...its just mass chaos. And there was a lot of "Oh look, Kimchi! I think I'll let my moving cart drift off wherever it may while I wander in a daze" going on. Enough to make an introvert cry. Before I started crying though I had a hotdog, which was the same as home and made me feel better.

The best part was yet to come though. We got to fill the 80litre backpack with 10,000 lbs of groceries and being the trek back. I was glad I took a pass on the bulk cranberry juice, lets just say that. We all survived the long hot sticky trek back and I had a long cold shower and collapsed into bed.

Aliens, out with the Boss and my first Korean Concert

After my boss and her husband had finished taking me to give blood and urine samples to alien registration (fun!) we were invited out with them for the evening. In Korea there are rules which govern these sorts of occasions....whoever does the inviting, or is the most senior in status or age does the paying (score!) and if you're out with your boss then you can't refuse drinks that they put in front of you. I've heard soju horror stories, and Kyle's experience with his boss was not a good one. So I feared the worst. But my boss drove us out into the boonies to this ritzy golf club where there was an open air concert. Korean actually makes a decent sounding singing language oddly enough. We had a great time, the food was great, the temperature was perfect, and the music was good too. Clearly my boss has good taste. And they were very pleased that we liked their outing. That is, we liked it until the last act, where this crazy Korean pop star girl unleashed a barrage of ear splitting shrieks that had even my boss and her husband covering their ears. We had fun laughing at her and yelling "batman!" when her song went "dada dada dada dada". We were supposed to yell something else, but whatever.

The Defeat of Chiaksan (Chiak Mountain)

On Thursday we headed out to Chiaksan National Park, which is what this corner of the country is best known for. It is about 30mins in a taxi, a little longer on the bus - from my place.
The first part of the park is a rebuilt temple, and then a picturesque river...It is gorgeous, not powerful, but very peaceful with delicate falls and japanese maples overhanging. Green deep pools abound as well. I didn't have time to really cover it with my camera, I'll have to come back. But you'll get the idea from the pictures.

You walk past the temple and meander along the river past many photo worthy mini waterfalls - you can also camp if you so desire, and many Korean families were. . After a while the trail stops at a formidable looking set of stairs. The hike up was so much harder than I thought it would be. I had been led to believe it was pretty easy...but it was probably the hardest hike I've done. I ended up going to the top alone because the others didn't feel up to it. It was just so steep and never let up. Picture going up 1288 metres up in a 4km span....steep trail! But it felt good to be out in natural beauty with peace and quiet again. And the views were spectacular. Mt Finlayson and Mt Work and Jocelyn Hill are all about 500m if you want some perspective.

That's Wonju you can see under the red patch of cloud in the above picture, and its in the valley in the mist in the second picture. Anyway, the park was beautiful... the stone says "Chiaksan - Birobong" (the name of the peak) I think I made a good choice being outside of Seoul. But more on Seoul in tommorows blog.

PS This peak was supposedly of strategic importance in the Korean War for any history buffs out there.

First Impressionist Thoughts & some pictures.

I like Korea. So far, of all the places I've been - Korea reminds me of Israel the most. Not Jerusalem, but Haifa where I was staying a couple summers back. If I had to give it a ratio I'd say 8 parts Israel, 1 part Holland and 1 part Mexico.

I think its the plethora of apartments, the superfluity of taxi trips, the cornucopia of corner stores, the smell of the apartment staircases, the heat and humidity, my love affair with the a/c unit, the foreign script on everything in sight, and my lack of local language skills that makes it feel like Israel. I never really felt all that foreign, or completely reliant on pointing and waving and hoping people understood me in Europe or Mexico....

It's very green here, as I said before...you can see in the photo (from the top of my apartment) that I'm at the edge of the city, close to the forest. Behind that green fence is the highway, and after that is forest. My school is about a ten minute walk away (its not in the picture, but its off to the right where the city starts again)

The part that reminds me of Holland is how there is a little park in every neighbourhood with a basketball hoop etc. No soccer goals though. Dang. And here there's random workout equipment everywhere....like chin up bars and stuff, but also like (non-electric) stairmasters and hip machines in every park too...its strange. I'll try and subtly get a video of one of the old ladies who's always swinging wildly back and forth in the park by my house....

What else? Everyone here smokes which is weird...and if you walk around at night there's always drunk Korean businessmen in suits stumbling out of the bars.

The are restaurants and food vendors everywhere, and its much cheaper to eat out than at home. That picture is us (Kyle, Amy and I) eating Galbi. In this case it was beef. A plate of good beef, that we roast ourselves on that hot coal grill in the middle of the table. If you want more pictures and stuff of the food, you can check out Amy's blog or my facebook. I'll post more on the food later I'm sure. So far so good on that front.

Oh, and I climbed the tallest apartment in Wonju to get some night shots, past the random motorcycle blocking the staircase, the creepy dark stairs, the roof of doom, ladder of death (complete with Shelob). Anyways, here's some views of Wonju at night from the air as well as from the street.

Wrapping up with some more first impressionistic thoughts: the sinks and showerheads were designed for hobbits I've decided, they have no organized garbage system, so you throw it on the street and they pick it up...it stinks especially in the heat...so you have to hold your breath a lot of times...everyone either stares at me or says hello, and there are no white people. Stay tuned for pictures and stories from Chiaksan National Park/Birobong Peak (downloading now) and a Seoul sojourn tommorow. Cheers -Matt