To quote the dumbest album title ever (I'm talking to YOU, Pink):

I'm not dead.

Promise!

I've been busy like whoa.  And right now it's 10pm AND I'M ABOUT TO GO TO BED.  Yes.  This is a very fortuitous event!  Please check back later for more exciting news.  More exciting than my aliveness, that is.

(I'm alive!  See?)

Korean kids say the darndest things!

My first morning class is adorable.

After me they have Jake Teacher (known aliases: Roommate Jake, Jake Who Grew Up Only Four Miles from Me but Whom I Didn't Know Until Korea). In Jake's class, they've been learning how to write letters. Jake was just grading some of their assignments, and he read a couple to me. And....y'all. THESE KIDS ARE AMAZING. Have I mentioned that? Here are my favorites.

August 8th

Dear Jake,

I am writing this letter because you are great teacher. You are sick today. Why are you sick? Because of James or Jason? Don't be angry. I will make you happy. Have a nice day ~ [heart!]

I like you ~ [heart!]

Sincerely

Angela

(Those are Angela and James. HOW CUTE ARE THEY?)

Dear Goldilocks

Goldilocks I think you are bad child. you brake little bears chair and you mess mother bear and father bear bed. you have to good to your baby or your friend. ok? you are so bed. you have to promise me.

Good-bye

Stephanie

[Stephanie is the monkey-faced one in the first picture]

Dear Goldilocks,

I'm writing this letter because I am not happy with you. you messed three bears all things. you are so so so bad. How come??? You doesn't asked someone??

I said that's bad thing.

You have to respect someone's things. you have to learn this. Ok? ok? I want to make you better then that.

Good-Bye

Christine

[back right, pink shirt]

Christine, hon...you can't fight people's battles for them! Goldilocks will NEVER CHANGE. You need to cut her out of your life! :c)

Ooooh, the irony.... :c)

The first day of school
by Simon
August 12th

My first class is math I lik math teacher because I like math . I don't like English because spaling tast is herd

I MET A GERMAN!!!

Last night, I was highly spontaneous. It was a school night, but I hopped on the subway at 7:15 and headed across the city to see a couple of cool-looking free shows that were part of the Hi, Seoul festival that's going on this week. (More on the actual shows later; I don't have my pictures with me at school.)

To my chagrin, the park and stage weren't right near the subway stop, so I ended up having to look for them. In fact, the website told me the wrong subway stop! Thanks a LOT, website. But the evening still turned out fortuitously.

After asking a Korean man which way the river was, I was waiting to cross a busy street so I could catch a cab heading in the right direction. As I waited, though, I figured it'd be prudent to ask a second opinion. I spotted a white guy and went over to ask him--but I had a suspicion that he wasn't a native English speaker. (His shoes just loooked so....not-native-English-speaker. Or: not-native-English-sneaker! HA!) So I asked, and he answered with an accent. The rest of the conversation, which began in the crosswalk and finished on the other side of the street about five minutes later, can be summarized thusly.

--He was German.
--I was thrilled.
--We started speaking German, chatting about where we were from, why we were there, etc.
--I mentioned the festival events I was going to see.
--He looked interested.
--I asked if he wanted to tag along.
--He tagged along.

So we got into a cab, introduced ourselves (haha), and went to see the shows. It was SO GOOD to speak German! It'd been way too long--especially if you don't count talking to Margaret as "real German." We exchanged phone numbers, and I think we're going to hang out sometime soon. Yay for new friends!

I need help! What sounds like "Soo-sung?"

At the beginning of every class, I write all the kids' names on the left side of the board. Every time a kid talks or asks a question, I put a mark next to his or her name, and whomever has the most points at the end of the class gets to choose a "super-special sticker." (They're colorful and say things like "Way 2 go!" and "Awesome!" I got them in the States before I left for Korea.) The other kids get to choose a regular sticker, which are still pretty darn awesome, if I say so myself. The names/points/stickers system is used in some form by most of the teachers in the school, and the school has sheets of stickers for us to give out. They even have special sticker books! These stickers are highly valuable currency; they'll mug each other in the halls for them. Hence, my sweet American stickers are a pretty powerful motivator. I even brought my non-super-special stickers from the US, and there's quite an assortment. Because I am an awesome teacher. In case you didn't know.

Anyway!

I always start class by writing the kids' names on the board. In one of my classes a couple days ago, on a whim, I wrote "silly names" instead of their normal English names, and it was a HUGE HIT. To come up with a "silly name," I took their normal English names and expanded them to be the title of a movie, a character from a book, or whatever. It ended up being a creative lesson in American culture! I even employed YouTube and Google Image toward that end, because of COURSE the kids wanted to see pictures of their namesakes.

Today, I decided to make up silly names for my second morning intensive class. As is generally the case at my school, most kids have an English name they use in class, but some kids use their Korean name or an anglicized version of it. The ten kids in that class are:

Sabina
Zinna (pronounced ZEE-na)
Peter
Jason
Alice
Soo-Sung
Becky
Annie
Shone
Sarah

And with a little bit of creativity, I came up with these names:

Sab(r)ina the Teenage Witch
Xena, Warrior Princess (OBviously...thanks, YouTube!)
Peter and the Wolf
Jason and the Argonauts (explaining what an "argonaut" was = SUPER-easy! NOT.)
Alice in Wonderland
...
Aunt Becky (from Full House)
Little Orphan Annie
Shaun of the Dead (explaining "zombie" = also fun)
Sarah Brightman

Did you notice something in there? Namely (PUN!), a glaring hole right where Soo-Sung's silly name should be? Y'all. I couldn' think of a THING for Soo-Sung. Not even a slant rhyme! Not even something close, like I did for Sabina and Shone! It's understandably difficult to come up with an American cultural reference involving a Korean name...but surely there's SOMEthing! I ended up telling Soo-Sung that I'd think about it and give him a silly name tomorrow. Help please?!

[UPDATE: see the comments to find out what I decided!]

A good museum is like porn to me.

Yesterday I spent a few hours at the National Museum of Korea, and it was LOVELY.  I'd never really realized the extent of it before, but y'all: I LOVE MUSEUMS.  When I walked in, I felt this surge of excitement that kind of surprised me.  Apparently this sight makes me positively giddy:
Aaah...can't you just feel the cool air circulating?  And hear the murmuring echoes?  Simply WONDERFUL.  The museum moved into this big new space in 2003, and it's really well done.  It's got an archaeology section (there were Neanderthals in Korea...did you know that?  This place is OLD, dude.), plus art, history stuff, and religious exhibits.  More on that later.

I got my free ticket and some green tea ice cream--I'd been dying to try it--and set off!

I took a billion pictures, but I'll just show y'all my three favorite things.  The first was a super-old crown and matching belt-thingy found in the tomb of a queen.  It's from the 5th century (!!!), from the Silla kingdom, which was one of the dominant kingdoms in Korea at the time.  How fabulously ostentatious is this thing?

The second part I really liked was quite a surprise to me.  There was a whole room on the first floor devoted to maps, and I planned to walk right through it--but I ended up spending a good amount of time there.  It was surprisingly interesting!  Exhibit A: this printing block from the Joseon period (1861, to be exact).  It was for making a portion of a map of Korea.  Korean cartography, it turns out, was quite advanced.
I was also transfixed by the following 15th-century map of the world.  (Yes, the whole world.)  According to my handy audioguide--thanks, audioguide!--the peninsula on the right is modern-day Korea, and below it is Japan.  (Not too shabby!)  The giant phlub of land in the middle is China; its size and placement are quite telling of Koreans' opinions of China.  (It's in the middle, it's huge...basically, at that time they looked favorably upon their big brother and trading buddy.)  And over on the left there are Europe and Africa.  Hehe!  The Americas and Australia are missing, of course.  How interesting: a graphical representation of the Joseon dynasty's worldview.  Who knew maps could be so interesting?  [Except for Holly McWegglestein, of course; she knew.  Hehe.]
Finally, I visited the part of the museum I was looking forward to the most: the Buddhist sculpture section.  I took a class on Buddhism during my last term in undergrad, so the room full of buddha and bodhisattva statues was my favorite.
Notice the scale of the buddhas.  My favorite was the huge one on the left in the picture above; I estimate that it was about seven feet high.  Quite imposing!
There was also a really cool, almost European-looking 14th century statue of a bodhisattva named Avalokitesvara.  Avalokitesvara is probably the best-known bodhisattva, especially in Korea.  Knowing a little bit about the religion made the statue so much more meaningful...as did my trusty audioguide.  :c)
A bodhisattva starts out as a human who has lived a completely righteous life.  Through that life, they earn the opportunity to become a buddha, which would be their ticket out of the material world and its angst-filled cycle of rebirth.  But rather than taking that opportunity, a bodhisattva chooses to stay behind in the human world and help other people reach enlightenment.  So as buddhist figures go, a bodhisattva is like a hero that runs back into a burning building to save other people, rather than staying clear of the danger.
His thoughtful pose was really striking to me; the audioguide pointed out that it's a similar pose to that of Rodin's The Thinker, which I'm sure you've all seen pictures of.  What better way to depict such a noble character as Avalokitesvara?  I can think of none.

As a sidenote: a wonderful book I read a few years ago compared Christ to a bodhisattva.  The book was a fanciful (and at times irreverent) account of Jesus' teenage years, and it has him going on a grand quest to figure out how to be the Messiah.  One of his teachers on the quest is a Buddhist monk who tells Jesus that he will be a great bodhisattva.  It was quite thought-provoking when I read the book, and this arresting sculpture made the comparison even richer for me.

The museum staff kicked me out at 7pm, and I left contentedly.  It was a lovely afternoon of reflection.  My stomach, however, was not so content.  Luckily, there was a nice lady with a food stand in the subway station.  :c)  In exchange for $1, she took a waffle, spread half of it with three kinds of ice cream, folded it in half, and presented me with a delicious ice-cream-waffle-taco-thing.  YUM.

A perfect end to the perfect afternoon!

Your daily Engrish

Mysterious as the dark side of the moooon!

During the twenty-minute break between morning classes, many of the kids congregate in the auditorium/gym.  (It's really just a biggish classroom.)  One of the teachers puts on the Disney movie du jour, and the kids sit on their heels and watch and giggle.  I teach in the gym just after the break, so at first it was a bit of a nuisance to have to wade through a sea of wee-wahs in the dark while trying to set up.  But this week I've found a new perspective.

Have y'all ever seen Mulan?  If not, go out and rent it right now.  It's a fabulous movie--no, seriously.  And if you can get ahold of some, I'd recommend watching it with about forty Korean six-year-olds.

Y'all, these kids pull on my heartstrings.  Last week they watched Aladdin, and they loved it....but Mulan is seriously their kind of hero.  She's an Asian chick!  Kicking butt!  In an AMERICAN MOVIE!  Today while I was setting up, I looked around at their faces and got such a spark of joy from it.  And their giggling....oh man.  It's easy to become overwhelmed with the constant amount of noise when you teach kids, but this morning, hearing the choruses of laughter brightened my whole day.  Kids are kind of awesome.

All this was kind of an incoherent string of thoughts, but there you go.  Little kids laughing = melodious and beautiful.  Mulan = awesome movie.  And me = now much more observant and content during that lovely twenty-minute slice of morning.

A charming summary...and a valuable lesson.

One of the most important lessons I've learned from teaching the Koree-wahs is always to keep in mind that they are, in fact, children.  Who are learning a foreign language.  One which is very, very different from their own.  For example: Korean doesn't have any plurals, nor does it have articles (articles are "a," "an," and "the," by the way, for the less grammatically nerdy people).  Understandably, forming a sentence with correct syntax, content, and pronunciation takes a bit of brainpower.

Given those circumstances, I'm learning how to speak simply, give one direction at a time, and not expect eloquent prose out of them.  Buuuuut....I wasn't always so keenly aware of the challenges my students face.  To wit: on my fifth day of teaching, I asked them to write summaries of the book we had just read, but I didn't give them much direction.  (Well....I wrote out instructions, but now I realize that they might as well have been in Elizabethan English.)

The summaries were full of errors.  FULL of them.  A good portion of that was my fault; I know now that asking them to free-write full paragraphs was too ambitious for their level.  But one summary in particular was such a good effort and so ridiculously charming that I just had to share it with you all.

The title of this book is "The Big Balloon Race."

The Author's name is "Eleanor Coerr."

The setting is outside.

The character a Carlotta, Ariel, Bernard the Brave, Mr. Myers and a mayor.

One day I was the big balloon Race.

On that Race carlotta and Mr. Myers are went on the Race.

But carlotta's daughter Ariel sleep at the air balloon.

So she go to Race too.

Carlotta and Ariel arrived.

When they arrived where the race is starting, there was many crowd.

Soon the race start.

Ariel and carlotta Solved many problem.

So they won the race.

I think carlottar and Ariel are brave.

And the thing is, Carlotta and Ariel DID solve many problems!  (Granted, they were plural problems, but...baby steps.)  They dodged a bumpy raincloud, a church steeple, a town, and a farm.  And this little girl pulled all that together into one sentence--and she said it in a way that I hadn't taught her.  Well done, Grasshopper!  Way to be in the right ballpark despite your teacher's inexperience and vague directions.   :c)

The Koree-wahs who cried wolf

When I teach, I hear a constant chirp of "TeachUH!  TeachUH!  TeachUH!" in the background--especially when I turn my back.  No classes at my school have more than ten students; my kids may be few in number, but they're mighty in persistence.  The chirping gets louder when I turn my back, to write on the board or whatever.  And in every case, the pleading peals never end up being anything important.  An example.

[I turn around]

--TeachUH!

--Hang on a second, Jason.

--TeachUH! TeachUH!  TEEEACHUUUUUUUUH!!!!!!

--What?  What what what?

--What page are we on?

Dear lord.

So today, I'm pointing something out on the overhead projector.  "Explain," I say.  "Talky talky.  Important things.  Wisdom, platitudes, et al."  And then it starts.

--TeachUH!

--Just a second.  So if the big hand is on the twelve...

--TeachUH!  [a second voice joins in]  TeachUUUH!

--Just a minute!  Please don't interrupt.  If the big hand is on the twelve, and the little hand is on the three, we say "It's three o'clock."  Okay, what is it, Moon?

And then I saw the blood.

Turns out Moon had a bloody nose.  And in the time it took me to finish making my point, he'd managed to bleed all over his shorts, the floor, his hands, and his face.  Awesome!  So I sent him running to the "counter teachers" (the three Korean ladies who rule the roost and purvey books, Post-It notes, and--occasionally--emergency medical supplies).  And after class I had to wipe up the trail of blood leading down the hall.

What was that story about that...boy?  Who cried....fox?  Or something?     :c)

I'm not caught up yet, buuuuut.....

....check out this fabulous website that Lizzypants sent me.  It's fabulous.  :c)

http://www.oddee.com/item_96156.aspx 

The Seoul Museum of Art: quite well done!

On Wednesday of this glorious week of vacation, I set out early to get my alien resident card (ARC).  This involved an hour-plus subway trip, plus all the number-taking and waiting-room-waiting and paperwork-filling-outing and passport-surrendering that my little heart could handle.  But I was done with that little chore early (woohoo!), so I hopped back on the subway--I am SO cosmopolitan--and rode over to the Seoul Museum of Art.

SeMA, as it likes to be known, was small but pretty cool.  And it cost just W700; in case you haven't learned the conversion yet, that's 70 cents.  Hot dang!  All the art on display was modern, which suits me well.  And the special exhibit going on right now has the theme of optical illusions, which was really cool.  (They didn't call it that, but that's essentially what it was: art that your brain interprets differently than what your eyes literally see.)

Some of my favorites include a room filled with mesh orbs and mirrors:

...a wall full of carefully-arranged Post-It notes (click on the pictures to enlarge them):

...and a huge, wall-sized piece with tons of little shelves which were piled with tea leaves.  The first picture is the whole wall; the second picture is a close-up.  The dark parts of the artwork are just clusters of tea leaves on the shelves; I hope that makes sense!

I also really enjoyed this piece, which was made of thousands of little white pegs facing different directions.  There were also lights placed all around the piece, which faded on and off in succession, highlighting different pegs--and thus, different shapes.  Quite a clever concept.

I wasn't such a fan of the permanent collection, unfortunately.  And for some reason I don't understand (maybe it's a Korean thing?), most of the paintings came in sets of two.  There'd be a reddish one and a similar bluish one, or whatever.  Hmm.

Another excellent part of the museum--though it probably sounds ridiculous to say this--was its umbrella stand outside.  Seoul is in the middle of its monsoon season, so every time you leave the house you need to carry an umbrella.  (Unless you're Roommate Jake, of course, in which case you are a total idiot and NEVER bring an umbrella.  Despite the advice of your sweet, kindhearted roommate.)

As you can see, the umbrellas are locked up in their own little compartments.  There was even a little attendant man to help you out!  And when you lock up your umbrella, you take a little key-tab thing with you (you can see it in slot number 366) and use it as your claim ticket to get your umbrella back.  Brilliant!  Korea's been full of clever little innovations like that, and they fill my little heart with glee.   :c)

Gongju: an interesting town. For about three hours.

First of all: sorry I'm so abysmally behind on my updates!  And this week is my summer vacation, too, so I've been doing lots of blog-worthy things.  Of course, that also means I've been too busy having adventures to update you guys.  Sorry.  :c)

Backing up to Tuesday now!  As I mentioned earlier, I went to Gongju for the day.  (Which is not to be confused with Gwangju, a much cooler-sounding town.  Gwangju used to be the capital of the ancient Silla kingdom, and it's got a bunch of super-old and super-awesome stuff.  Or so it sounds.)  I called 1330, a wonderful Seoul phone number which foreigners can call to ask any question about anything: bus schedules, museum hours, restaurant recommendations, or whatever.  In this case, my inquiry regarded the express bus system.  The helpful lady on the other end told me a list of bus stations I could use, and off I went.

The express bus terminal (on the orange line--my line--about 8 stops from me) was a wonder to behold.  It looked more like an airport than a bus station.  In what I'm coming to recognize as the uniquely Korean kind of vigor, there were buses scheduled to depart for Gongju every thirty minutes throughout the day.  Keep in mind that a) Gongju isn't very big, b) there are at least two other bus terminals in Seoul also sending regular buses to Gongju, and c) these buses were direct, even though there are a couple big cities that are closer to Gongju than Seoul is.  Such a schedule seemed a wee bit like overkill, but...oh man.  I reaped the benefits.

My ticket cost W7600 ($7.60) each way, and for that measly price I was treated to nice air conditioning and seats that rivaled those in first class air travel.  (They reclined waaaay back and had kick-out footrests, and there were only one-and-two seats in each row, allowing for a wider aisle and wider seats than the standard two-and-two bus seat arrangement.)  And, thanks to the frequency of the bus routes, there were only about four of us on the bus!  So I dozed comfortably for the 1.5-hour ride, occasionally stirring and marveling at the beautiful Korean landscape.

Once I got to Gongju, I took a taxi to a little hotel Lonely Planet recommended.  I got my room key and went upstairs to check out the room.  To my shock/delight/disgust, the upstairs hallway contained a vending machine stocked with supplies (for only W1,000!) to make your stay more pleasant.  Obviously I took pictures...but I'll spare y'all the close-up.  (However, if you're curious, you can click on the picture--or any of these pictures--to make it bigger.)
I took my key and headed off to "Gongsangseong Fortress, shrouded by the silky waters of the Geumgang River!!" (according to my map of said fortress).  I hoofed it up the mountain.

Then, I saw a bunch of interesting little pagodas, like the one that was built to commemorate King Injo's brief stay duing an invasion.  There were also four gates and a handful of other structures, almost all of which had been reconstructed sometime in the last 100 years or so (even though the fortress was first built about 1500 years ago...if I remember correctly).  They all were in the Joseon dynasty style of architecture.  And unfortunately for me....they all looked almost exactly alike.

Cool, yes.  But after clomping all over a mountain in the 95-degree heat and billion-percent humidity, I was in no mood to appreciate the subtle differences in their stories and structure.  Sorry, Gongsangseong.

Grouchy as I was, I was determined to make Gongju worth my while.  I consulted the brochure that Madame Gatekeeper had given me and found out that the tomb of King Muryeong was located in Gongju.  Thinking that sounded pretty spiffy, I hailed a taxi.  (Sidenote: my ten-minute ride cost $2.  I love this country.)

The tombs ended up being pretty cool.  In the 1970s, an excavation of a couple tombs in this burial ground accidentally found a king's tomb, and there were over two thousand objects in it that have been really interesting to historians and archaeologists.  (The find was especially important because the other tombs had already been robbed.)  King Muryeong died in 523 AD, so it was a slightly big find.  It's still inconceivable to me how old this country is.

The burial grounds had a nifty little museum built into one of the hills, as you'll see above.  Seven of the 13 (I think?) tombs have been excavated, but you can't actually go into any of them.  There are exact replicas, though, which are built into the museum.  And you can look through glass at portions of the real tombs.

A diorama in the museum showed workers arduously building the king's tomb.  So arduous, those workers!  Plus, who doesn't love a good diorama?  (Tip: click on the picture to enlarge it and get a good view of the dude working/doing the running man dance in the front.)
This is the replica of tomb number five, but it looked nearly identical to King Muryeong's tomb.  Not a bad place to chill for eternity.
This picture is from the king's tomb.  The little alcove is one of five; they originally held lamps, which were lit in the hopes that the dearly departed would be reincarnated before the lamps went out.  (After all, wouldn't it suck to be reincarnated and wake up in the dark?)  You can also see little lotus flower symbols in the bricks; those represent....something.  Heaven, I think.  Dang....I knew I should have been taking notes!

So the tombs were pretty cool, actually, and the museum was well done.  That said, you KNOW I didn't go walking around the burial grounds; I'd already gotten enough sweaty beflipflopped exercise for one day.

At that point, I'd been in Gongju for about three hours.....and decided I'd had enough.  So I cabbed it back to my hotel, gave the key and an apologetic smile to the man there (I hadn't yet paid), and went back to the bus terminal.  (In Korean: "bosu toh-mee-nol."  Awesome.)

I ended up eating both lunch and dinner in Seoul, so it was a short trip, but any longer and I think I might have wrung someone's neck.  Gongju was interesting, although I'm not sure I would recommend it to someone--unless they were in Korea long enough to see Gongju in addition to the cooler/more important places, such as Gwangju.  Or unless they really, really like tombs.  Or humidity.  Or x-rated vending machines.