Cigarettes and Whiskey

I'm nearing the end of my first week as a real life teacher. And I have to admit, I'm feeling pretty great. I'm still kind of waiting for the other hand to drop and nail me in the head with something crazy. Everyone I have talked to says that the honeymoon period will end soon and I'll hate it here, but most of the people over here who write about teaching seem like kind of angry little bastards, so...

But... Their points are semi-valid. I was speaking to someone the other day who told me a true horror story. They work at a Hagwon, a private study school that many Korean children go to AFTER they go to regular school. These places are super intensive and all the kids in my class that go hate it. They have a reputation as being really sketchy at times and even criminal at worst. I guess there is a real problem with children having to go to the hospital because their hair is falling out due to the overwhelming stress. This happens to kids as young as 4! It just makes me glad the I have a good school and great co-workers... So far...

I am still fascinated by the shirts with English phrases on them. Today a girl, probably 11 years old, walked into my classroom wearing a shirt that said in big red letters, "Cigarettes and Whiskey", I was kind of shocked at first but then I had to stop myself from laughing. I wonder if she, or anyone else in the school for that matter knows what it means? Probably not, it was like a little joke just for me. Another kid was wearing a shirt that said "NBA - Boston Feltics", yes, with an F. Also, when I was in Seoul, I saw a girl that was no more than 12 or 13 wearing a shirt that said "Rock out with your Cock out". Good stuff... And good advise. I really want to start my own line of clothing, at least shirts.

Some phrases would be:

"One in one's hand is appropriate for 2 in one's house"

"How can she play American cool football, with passion and fashion"

"It's a piece of cake to procure a severe tarter problem" ( This one's pretty clever I thought )

"How much for the alligator?"

"My viscosity will increase with honor and equivalence, Monkey Balls"

But I digress...

Because all the students and teachers have to take off their shoes inside the school, the floors are super nice. And because the students have to clean them for 1 period out of the 8 every day, they are super clean and slick. I just found out today that I can slide, Risky Business style, a good 15 feet (I wasn't wearing tighty whities). It's pretty fun. No children were in the room of course, I have to maintain some kind of professionalism.

But this got me thinking.

Were my teachers in the past really the boring, mundane people that most of them pretended to be? As Woody Allen once said, "My education was dismal. I went to a series of schools for mentally disturbed teachers."... Or were my previous teachers really super massive insane party animals that just put on a short sleeve shirt and pocket protector to give them something to do while the clubs were closed? Furthermore, this makes me wonder if all of my teachers in the past have been thinking some of the same things that I have been thinking this week.

For instance:

If all 35 of these kids attacked me, could I defend myself, and defeat them?

Could I jump from desk to desk, lilly pad style?


Just as I was writing the last paragraph my co-teacher came into my room and handed me an envelope, It contained my Alien Registration Card. I am now an official alien. And I got my passport back. I thought it was kind of sketch that they kept it. I would like to be able to dip out of this place if some crazy shit goes down, but I'm not anticipating any James Bond stuff to happen, I hope.

One question I have heard from multiple sources is, "Are you an announcer or a newscaster?" I guess my voice really carries and, compared to other voices here, I can project like that soccer announcer on the Mexican channel. "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL". So if this teaching thing doesn't work out, look for me on Korean TV!

First day on the job

Today I woke up at 7:20am, a new record for me. It was my first day at my new school. I was super excited. My school is about 2 blocks from my apartment and as I stepped out of my apartment around 8am it was already like 90 degrees, and it looked like rain.

As I walked up to the school there were 3 teachers wearing surgical masks and holding thermometers. Because of the Swine Flu "epidemic" they have to take everyone's temperature before they enter the school. They have those ear thermometers but they don't have any plastic protective covers for them... In a school of over a thousand kids and only 3 thermometers... Carry the 2... Thats over 300 kids ears that this thing has been in just today. Imagine sticking your finger in 300 kids ears and then sticking it in your ear, not what I wanted to do my first day. People are super afraid of Swine Flu here in Korea. Never mind the fact that they all use the same thermometer and eat out of the same soup bowl with their own spoon (talk about double dipping...)... There is a handy swine flu chart all over Korea.

I will translate as best I can...

1 - While washing your hands, gray faceless people may accumulate outside the bathroom.

2 - Little girls and boys should hold hands and sneeze directly into their surgical masks and handkerchiefs.

3 - While wearing a tuxedo, try not to think about the gray faceless people.

4 - Doctors and nurses in Korea have special powers that can be used to levitate huge horse pills.

5 - While camping, have 2 glasses of water right next to you.

6 - If you are sick, only sneeze on the elderly and pregnant women.

...

So I rushed past the thermometer people without using the community thermometer and quickly ran to the shoe cubbys. In Korea, all children and teachers take their shoes off indoors and wear either socks or slippers. I have to do the same. I have a pair of shitty black plastic sandals that I was given, they are the largest size available in Korea without a special order and my feet hang over the edge a good inch. I look like a German who just hit a mean growth spurt. Socks and sandals isn't really my forte but it turned out to be pretty cool. It brings a more homey, less formal vibe to everything. All the female teachers have plastic sandals with heels in them... I even saw a guy today on the street today wearing heeled sandals... He was still like 5'6''.

My first class started around 9:10am. The bell to signal classes is some soundtrack from a video game, it's pretty cool, I feel like I'm about to save the princess. About 35 kids came running into the classroom and now I know what an animal at the zoo feels like. They were all staring at me with a look of wonder in their eyes. So they sat down and the teacher said something in Korean and they all OOhed and AAhed at the new foreigner. They asked me to prepare an introductory PowerPoint presentation about where I come from and about my family. The ppt I made was super stereotypical. I showed some pictures of the fam and of my college that I took. I made a few pages about some popular cities in America. For the New York page I had taxis, the statue of liberty, a hot dog stand and a shot of the skyline. For Dallas, Texas I had a picture of J.R. Ewing, some guy rasseling a rattle snake and a pic of some delicious looking BBQ. For Los Angeles I had Brad Pitt, the Hollywood sign and a picture of bumper to bumper traffic. For San Francisco I had a pic of the Golden Gate bridge, and a skyline shot. I wanted to put a gay guy but didn't think it was appropriate and didn't really want to explain that on the first day to a bunch of fifth graders...

All the kids were super nice and all bowed to me at the end and said "Bye Teacher!"... Holy shit, I'm a teacher, the tables have finally turned. I'm about to be paid back for all the pain and suffering I have inflected on countless teachers over the past some-odd years. I think I'm going to do what countless creepy guys and the witch in Hansel and Gretel did, give them candy until they like me. That always works.

I only worked a half day today. I left school after lunch to go to the immigration office in Inchon to get my Alien Registration Card. I am now a registered alien. Sweet. Tomorrow I jump into the mix and work a full day, definitely going to drink more coffee tomorrow morning.

Anyoung Haseyo Korea

Over the past few days I have begun to settle into my new home and have been pleasantly surprised by the general attitude and style of this place. I've begun to see that in order to truly appreciate life one must take time to stop and smell the flowers.

Before I came to Korea, my view, and I believe the typical American view of Korea is that of a nation of Kim-Chi eating people who all work in rice patties or fireworks factories. Although there are a lot of rice fields and they do serve Kim-Chi with every meal, that's not really the mood that is produced over here. I haven't found any cool fireworks yet, probably for the best.

Korea is VERY clean, sometimes fanatically. Everywhere you go there is someone cleaning something. Old ladies cleaning the subway steps, old men cleaning the sidewalks and bus stops... But why is it only old people? I haven't seen anyone under 60 cleaning now that I think about it...

I was in Seoul today and found it hard to find a piece of trash on the ground, anywhere. I also only saw like 2 bums the entire 2 days I was there (And they seemed pretty calm and zen, unlike the insane bastards that we have back home). I was comparing Seoul to San Francisco the entire time and found Frisco to be an angry, rushed shit-hole in comparison.

Speaking of shit-holes, one thing I don't really appreciate about Korea are the toilets in public places, literally a hole. Really? I'll wait til I get home...


But other than that I've been super stoked the entire week. I'm nearing the end of my "Quarantine" week and am sad that I can't have another. I've had a great week and have had ample time to embrace my new home. I even took the time to strike a traditional Korean pose. (I think the chick on my right appreciates it)

I've also been cooking all of my meals Korean style, which is no easy task. They've mainly consisted of rice, meat, soy sauce and wasabi. I threw in a red pepper yesterday to switch things up. But they've all been super awesome so far. Going shopping is kind of difficult, everything is in Korean! I can buy fruit (Super expensive, $13 for a bunch of grapes) and meat and stuff like that, but the packaged stuff is a crap shoot, literally. But everyone is pleasantly surprised to see me as I'm one of the only westerners in my town. Some people even know a few Engrish words and try to communicate with me. I answer them back with my few Korean words and we proceed to completely confuse each other.

Seoul, as I have previously reported is awesome. One would think that because it's a major international city that it would be kind of global and lose some of it's roots, not at all. There are some English speakers and a few Western establishments,
but the vast majority of the city is very "Korean" and remains awesome. Walking down the street there are tons of street vendors selling some stuff that looks... Different. Giant smoked squid tentacles and flattened grilled stingray's that I didn't try. Hot dog shishkabobs and red stuff with white stuff floating in it that is actually pretty good.
(What is that?)

So I start school on Monday and will definitely have some great stories. I guess a kid at our school tested positive for swine flu so all the teachers have to wear surgical masks throughout the day. Between that and my indoor slippers I'm going to look like a doctor that just got out of the shower, I'll get a picture and you'll see what I'll have to deal with, should be an interesting week...

An Oily Substance?

I think my apartment has been vacant for a while. I looked in the cabinet and the few items left in there from the previous tenant expired in like 07. Even the soy sauce, doesn't that stuff last forever? I was hella about to use it too, that would have been bad...

Today I awoke feeling like an adventure. So I decided to go to the store about 20 minutes away. But then I decided that was boring so I decided to go to Seoul, about 2 hours away. 1 bus and 2 trains away. Pretty ambitious for someone who knows nothing about the language or the transportation system. I went to the local bodega and bought a t-card, a card that you can use to ride the buses and trains in Korea. I told the women working "Bus" and showed her my college id card. She pulled out the t-card but said something and didn't want to give it to me. She talked for like a minute while I looked at her with a blank look. I think she might have said "Son of Sam"! Or, this card takes you straight to hell sir! But she finally handed it over and I was on my way. I got on the bus and "BEEP BEEP". The card didn't work. OH, she was telling me that I needed to put money on the card I guess. So the bus driver let me ride for free to the subway station. There, they have little ATM looking machines that let you put money on the cards. Travel here is super cheap. Like $2 for 1 bus and 2 trains, there and back! I downloaded a Metro map to my itouch and I managed to make it to Seoul station. The doors opened and a flood of people rushed onto the train. Like a salmon I went against the flow and barely made it out before the doors closed. I was in super tourist mode, Lonely Planet Seoul in one hand and a camera in the other. There were millions of people everywhere. I thought this guy was following me but it turned out to be like 5 different people... People were wearing shirts with random English word on them. My favorites were: "An Oily Substance", "Open one's Mouth", and "Fashion Clothes". It makes me wonder what those stupid tattoos people get in America of Chinese characters really mean.

My first stop was Gyeongbokgung, The Palace of Shining Happiness.
It was pretty shiny and fairly happy... I made it just in time for the changing of the guards ceremony, I was standing in the corner and the new guards were walking right towards me, I was pretty scared that I was in the wrong place so I braced myself for battle, but they saw I was ready and turned about 5 feet from me. After the palace, I walked around for hours. I saw so much cool stuff. I was kind of hungry so I went in search of Sushi, since I don't speak or read Korean, I only went on the pictures of food that restaurants had outside. There were a lot of American restaurants, I saw like 5 Bennigans and McDonalds has their own 30 story building right in Downtown. But I was in no mood for that stuff, I wanted sushi. Some other restaurant choices were Nut's Dogs Coffee, The Gruel Shop,
and the Ho Bar (I went in but it wasn't what I thought...)

Seoul was a very busy city. If you stand in the same place for even a second someone will run into you, either on foot or on motorcycle. The motorcycles can go anywhere a person can. There was this super crowded little sidewalk and a guy came flying down on a bike weaving in and out of people, it seems dangerous. Down every little alley way there were stores stacked sometimes 6 stories high. Unlike other countries, they weren't just selling a bunch of crap, this stuff actually was cool and usable. I'm not sure what I'd do with a garbage bag full of dried peppers but at least there weren't a bunch of little kids trying to sell me a plastic guitar. Seoul reminded me a lot of San Francisco, but much cleaner. Everywhere in the city there were older Korean women cleaning stuff, in the subway, everywhere. They had Louis Vuitton pattern garbage bags, I didn't know they made garbage bags...

I walked by this arcade and saw these kids playing the Korean version of Guitar Hero, Drum Hero. I wanted to try it but thought I would look odd.

So around 4pm, after walking over 5 miles, I was in dire need of food. I found a place that a a picture of sushi outside, so I went in. The Sushi chef greeted me with a loud "Aye!" like the do in America. I ordered by pointing at a menu with no pictures, I could have ordered something crazy, but when he brought it out it looked really good. One thing though... The sushi chef's hands I noticed had a greenish tint, like he had run them across a freshly cut lawn... I decided to forget this fact... They kept bringing out side dishes and he kept putting more sushi on my plate whenever it got low. I ended up with a bunch of stuff. A bomb salad, some grilled mushroom that were amazing, an egg thing that was pretty good, and soup veggies (Including a huge whole pepper) and other stuff that I didn't know what it was, it was good though. In the end this feast cost $11. Epic.

So I felt it was time to go home, exactly when all the 10million people in Seoul got off work. I had to stand the entire 2 hour trip home, it was ok though, there were these women in 6 inch heels that were standing in the middle of the train and not even holding onto anything... It was cool, I'm sure I couldn't do that.

I made it home safe, what a day.

Running round the old Patty

Sunday was a chill day, I rested. At night I emerged from my apartment for some exercise. I walked to the park and jogged past that toward the rice patties. There were so many people exercising. In the park, instead of things like merry-go-rounds and jungle jims, they have fitness equipment like in a gym. They're made of metal and look like gym equipment from the 50's. They have an apparatus for every major muscle group. There were ton's of older Korean women doing pushups and situps in the park and whole families were exercising together. This is very different from the US! The rice patties are so cool! They're freaking huge. In between the patties and the highway are little gardens where people are growing peppers, beans and a bunch of other stuff. Even under the overpass there are people gardening. I wonder if you can just start a garden anywhere because they're in like a dried out river bed and right on the side of the highway, within inches of the road.

Ahhh, Gentleman!

Today was full day#1 in Korea. It still feels like a dream, I can't believe I'm here. I woke up this morning and had to tell myself I'm in another country. My 2 co-teachers came over at around 10am to take me to the store, as I have no freaking idea where it is, it could be right in front of me and I'd have no idea. This place was huge. It was 4 stories. It had Sushi bars and clothing stores on the first floor. Second floor was a grocery store and a huge perfume store. Third and fourth floor was electronics. My co-teacher handed me a pair of cheap plastic slippers and asked me if I liked them, because I would be wearing them every day... WHat? In Korea, the teachers and students take off their shoes and wear slippers into the classroom and throughout the interior of the school, I'm glad I brought all those nice shoes! These things look like bootleg plastic karachis. It'll give a weird vibe in the classroom, like i'm getting ready to take a shower or something.

After I got back to the apartment I went for a walk around the neighborhood. This place has a very cool vibe. Everyone seems really mellow and peaceful. They just do their own thing and seem really de-stressed. I walked into the little Korean bodega on the corner of my block and these guys outside drinking all saluted me with their beers in plastic bottles and said, "Ahhh, Gentlemen!" and smiled. It made me laugh. Oh ya, drinking in public is legal here. You can get on a bus with a 40 or walk into a store drinking a bottle of jack and no one really cares.

Later in the night I met up with some westerners to enjoy the Ansan night life. It was pretty awesome. It was like freaky freaky all night long. We ended up at this sports bar and they had a life sized Michael Jordan manikin, but his bulls jersey had the number 32 instead of the famous 23, what the hell? After some Kiwi soju and Gabi I was ready for sleep... Oh ya, it's raining, well past midnight and freaking hot...

Korea Day 1

Stepping off the plane at Incheon airport,
my first thought was
"What am I getting myself into?" and felt
like turning around and getting
back on the plane.  But my second
thought was that I could never think like
that again, because this is going to be
awesome!  The plane ride was
pretty good for an 11 hour flight.
Aside from the budget
airline kimchi and the cramped seat it was as
good as could be.
I had to ride an hour and a half with this guy
from my recruiter's office.
He asked me if it was OK if he rolled down the
window to "change the air"...
I guess I was a little ripe after the plane...
So I took an
Irish shower in the parking lot before I met my
co-teacher and recruiter.
At my recruiter's house there were about 25
people from his family and there were
Korean women buzzing around the kitchen cooking
stuff that smelled pretty delicious.
I ate either dog or donkey... Doesn't that
sound like a German game show,
"Dog or Donkey".  His family were all really
nice and I met my co-teacher.
She is my age and is very nice and kind.  I
really took for granted being able
to speak at my normal pace and have people
understand me.  On my first night
I went for a walk around my neighborhood.
I didn't want to go to far and
get lost because I would be pretty screwed
at that point.  Sleeping in the
park on my first night would be quite a
welcome!  There was this restaurant
who's symbol was a swastika, Third Reich
Pizza maybe?  Also, the fire escapes
here are huge, colorful slides like on
a playground, some 7 stories high!
I hella want to try one out.  I haven't
slept since Wednesday night and it's
Friday night, I thought all the free beer
and wine on the plane would knock me
out but it just made me want to get out
of that plane even faster.  My co-teacher
is coming back tomorrow at 10am to take
me to the market, so now I'm going to
sleep, finally.