What I Taught Today

A particularly ridiculous video I had to show my students today, featuring and outstanding performance by "Kevin". Check it out!

Something Surprised Me!

I've been here for 8 months now, so very little about Korea surprises me anymore. I'm used to walking down the street and seeing giant fish tanks filled with slithery eels, and old ladies on blankets peddling squid, acorn jelly, and other various treats! However, I saw something last week that really surprised me, so i thought I'd share it with my faithful readers.

I was eating dinner at a restaurant in my neighborhood. I live in a bustling part of town, right off campus of a major university, with alot of restaurants, cafes and bars near my apartment. That night was like any other, with college kids out having dinner and drinking, and people shopping in little boutiques I could see from outside the large window of the restaurant. All of a sudden, I spied a Buddhist Monk walking down the street solemnly, complete with the shaved head, the robe, etc. He was thumping lightly on a drum and humming. Before I knew it, he was wakling into the restaurant where I was eating. He opened the door and just stood in the doorway thumping his drum for about a minute. No one paid him any mind so he turned around and left. Puzzled as to what he was doing, I watched him through the window, realizing that he was going door to door to all the restaurants in the neighborhood. Finally, he entered a fried chicken place, and the worker promptly handed him a box of chicken. Then he left the neighborhood. The guy was going door to door begging for food in typical monk fashion, and was given fried chicken?? Talk about East meets West.

Yellow Dust

No, this picture is not something out of "The Day After Tomorrow," or "An Inconvenient Truth," though it has been considerably inconvenient. It is a springtime phenomenon in Korea known as "Yellow Dust," and it is vile.

Every spring, the dry sands of the Mongolian and Chinese deserts are blown across East Asia, where they end up in Korea, and consequently, my lungs. This is a huge environmental problem caused by deforestation, industrialization and unsustainable urbanization. According to "The Granite Tower," Korea University's English Magazine, this dust contains silicon, aluminum, copper, cadmium, and lead! Absolutely foul! Now I'm starting to understand why so many Koreans wear those protective masks...Luckily, Gwangju is far South so it been as "dusted" as badly as Seoul and other northern parts of the country, but it's still been noticeable, and I can't wait for "dust season" to be over! I guess it's true that April showers bring....YELLOW DUST!

My Family's Visit

As some of you know, my family came out to Korea a few weeks ago to pay me a visit! They stayed in Korea for a week (the 3rd week of February) and visited three cities: Gwangju, Jeonju, and Seoul. We had a great time, and they handled that sometimes overwhelming feeling of jetlag surprisingly well! Some highlights of the trip:

1) Our Afternoon In Downtown Gwangju



My family was treated like a novelty item in downtown Gwangju. Because the country is so homogenous, it's not everyday the average Korean runs into a white person, not to mention and entire FAMILY of them (this is especially true in a smaller city like Gwangju). This being said, my family ate it up. Middle school girls came up to my 13 year old brother and said, "You are handsome!" Meanwhile, my father had a constant fan club of Korean children at his side, and he kept quizzing them on their English. Late in the afternoon, my dad was quizzing a group of them on colors. One kid got the color of his shirt wrong, and his friend said to my dad matter-of-factly, "He is stupid."

2) Hiking up Mudeung Mountain



The weather was pleasant the week they came up. A little chilly, but sunny enough for us to go hiking! So we decided to go up Mudeung Mountain, a small mountain near my apartment. There was a nice Buddhist Temple at the base, and we hiked for about a half hour, until we reached a modest summit with a very nice view of Gwangju!

3) My Dad and Brother at the Restaurant After the Hike



My dad wasn't a fan of sitting on the floor, and he wasn't big into chopsticks. Also, my brother wasn't crazy about the food...but the waitress loved them anyway! She came over to our table hospitably, and prepared everyone an exotic meal. It was great because she would literally stuff the food down my brother's throat, unaware that he detested it. He didn't want to be rude, so he'd wait for her to turn around before spitting it out and hiding it under his plate! This must have happened about 4 times! Meanwhile, my dad kept trying to make smalltalk with her, which I don't think she understood too well, if at all...

4) Our Day Trip to Jeonju



I took my family on a day trip about an hour outside of Gwangju to a city called Jeonju. To the avid followers of my blog, you'll remember that this is where I spent my week of training when I first arrived in Korea! Anyway, we explored a "folk village" and a hisoric (albeit small) palace. My dad was right when he said the village could be summed up as the "Olde Mystic Village" of Korea.

5) Seoul

We spent two nights in Korea's capital, Seoul. Here we went to the historic Gyungbogeoung Palace as well as a posh, artsy district called Insadong. However, I think everyone's favorite part of Seoul was the legendary Floor 19 of our luxurious hotel, which offered snacks all day, as well as a 3 hour open bar every night...

Anyway, we had a great time for the week. If any of my other friends/relatives want to come visit, let me know!

A Dirty Carnival

Over the past month, I've been watching a lot of Korean cinema. The movies have been really entertaining, and have also helped me learn the language (maybe). There's a great website called www.mysoju.com that has streaming Korean films with English subtitles. It's definitely worth checking out. Anyway, I just finished watching one called "A Dirty Carnival." It was so good that I decided to officially endorse it on my blog. It's a gritty Korean gangster/film-noir flick with a great plot and awesome action sequences. Many of you know that I'm a sucker for mob movies, but this one was especially cool because there were no guns! Most of the "hits" and fighting were done with Sashimi knives, baseball bats and spiked clubs! I'm used to mob movies where someone gets whacked with a revolver or gunned down by machine guns, but this was more like "Braveheart", with rival gangs engaging in hand to hand combat on the streets of some shabby Korean city.

I don't want to give away the plot, so head to www.mysoju.com and watch it yourself. You might even be able to rent it at the TLA.

My Favorite ESL Song

It's Good to be the King

One of the most interesting things about Thailand was "the King." His pictures were displayed all over the country! From giant billboards on the street to small framed pictures in every shop and restaurant, these pictures displayed the King in all kinds of poses, from a stoic stare to a shot of him and his wife on vacation!

Thailand

The Second half of my vacation was spent in Thailand, and pretty much comprised of me relaxing on the beach and indulging in the glorious Thai cuisine. Thai seafood is amazing, i wish Korean Seafood compared to it because I'd eat it every day. I also wish I hadn't run out of money by the time I got to the beach, because I didn't get to enjoy the freshly-caught tiger prawns or lobsters which were on display at almost every restaurant in southern Thailand.

Bangkok was extremely dirty, and I didn't like it nearly was much as Ho Chi Minh City. I saw rats crawling in the streets, and roaches on the floors of our hostel. We stayed on Kho Sanh Road, which is the backpacker's area, and I wasn't too impressed with it. It was overly touristy, and crawling with seedy westerners, Thai pimps, and cheap knicknacks. It probably didn't help that I got food poisoning on the second day...I'm sure there are nicer parts of Bangkok, I just didn't get to see them. I did go to a nice Temple, however, and ate some great Pad Thai!

The beaches in Thailand were amazing, especially one called Ko Samud. Located 3 hours south of Bangkok, it was here that my friend and I retreated for a night while the rest of our group remained in Bangkok. It was extremely rustic, and our accomodations comprised of a small cement room with a nasty odor and uncleaned sheets. However, it was only 15 dollars for the night and it was right on one of the most amazing beaches I've ever seen. Lined with palm trees, white sand and crystal clear water that felt like a warm bath, the beach was a complete paradise. I spent the day sipping coconut milk, catching a tan, and playing with the stray puppies that littered the coastline. Their weren't too many westerners on this beach, and it lacked the seediness of Phuket and the excess tourism of Kho Sanh Road. It was a place where Southeast Asians vacation on weekends, and I met some native Thai, Cambodian and Burmese people. The beach was lined with bars and restaurants, and for dinner I sampled Red Thai Curry with chicken, as well as an extremely spicy Seafood Basil dish. After dinner, we went bar-hopping down the beach, watched a fire-twirling show while sipping buckets of Mai Tais, and eventually met a crew of Cambodian B-Boys who, shortly thereafter, put on a killer breakdancing performance. All in all, it was an amazing experience, and I wish we'd stayed there the whole week because...

Phuket (another beach located off the Southwest coast) is where we stayed at the end of our trip. The beach itself was glorious, but the island was extremely touristy, tacky and seedy. I had also run out of money so that didn't help things; I couldn't go on any tours or day trips to neighboring islands. At this point I was just relaxing at the beach and living off two helpings of fried rice a day! One night I went to the main strip of bars and restaurants near our beach, and it was at this point that I realized Phuket was a hotbed for the Thai "sex tourism" industry. There were "lady boy" hookers everywhere, soliciting themselves out in the open, and even right next door to the police station. There were also throngs of creepy old men accompanied by beautiful, young Thai women. I saw other things that are not fit to print, so if you want to know you can ask me in person, but they are extremely disturbing...

Anyway, I learned posthumously that there are better islands to venture to in Thailand, primarily those located off the Southeast Coast. If I ever go back, I won't go to Phuket or Bangkok. Either way, Thailand was still a great experience, and my night on Ko Samud will go down as one of my most memorable experiences in Asia.

Vietnam

The past few months have been winter break in Korea, which is the the equivalent of the American summer vacation. Students move onto the next grade, and the break itself is 2 months long. This being said, I took a two week backpacking excursion to Vietnam and Thailand. The experience was amazing! I saw some amazing sights, got a nice tan at the beach, had some of the best food I've ever tasted, and learned about a part of the world that has always intrigued me: Southeast Asia.


I really had no idea what to expect from Vietnam. I knew it was a country that is in the midst of rapid economic development, and I also knew that it was not a democracy. In fact, I had to get a special visa to enter the "Socialist Republic of Vietnam." I had never been to a non-democracy before, not to mention a "Socialist Republic," and it was very interesting to see all of the Soviet-era red flags and other various references to Communism that scatter the country.

Ho Chi Minh and I

I stayed in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) for the 5 days I was in Vietnam, and never have I seen a more fascinating city! It is extremely vibrant, with beautiful French architecture (Vietnam is a former colony of France) and amazing nightlife. The streets are lined with cafes, bars and restaurants, and most of the places are open-air with outdoor seating that stretches all the way to the end of the sidewalk. Food and drinks are EXTREMELY cheap, and the cuisine is amazing. By the end of my stay in Vietnam, I was used to sipping on $0.70 cent beers and eating a feast for under $3.00

Pho Noodles, My Favorite Vietnamese Dish

One of the most interesting things about Ho Chi Minh City is how westernized it is. There are more English television channels in Vietnam than there are in Korea, and most menus are in English and Vietnamese. Most restaurants I went to had Western as well Vietnamese food. On a side note, there were even a few Korean channels on our TV at the hotel, which is a testament to how influential Korean pop culture has become in the region.

For all its merits, Ho Chi Minh City is also home to both infrastructure problems and heartbreaking poverty. For one, traffic is a MAJOR issue. Saigon is a massive city of 8 million people, and yet there is only one public bus line and no subway system. There are also very few cars due to the lack of an auto manufacturing sector of the economy. Thus, everyone rides motorbikes. Secondly, traffic laws either don't exist or aren't enforced. It's very rare to see a traffic light, a stop sign or even a cross walk when you're walking around the city. So in order for a pedestrian to cross the street, he literally has to weave through traffic, dodging numerous motorbikes. When I first arrived in Vietnam, I was pretty nervous about crossing the street. By the end, however, I was a pro, casually bobbing and weaving through oncoming traffic like I was in a real-life game of Frogger.

Poverty is another issue in Vietnam. Every night I was constantly being harassed by peddlers trying to sell whatever products they could. The worst was the 8 year old kids trying to sell flowers into the early hours of the morning. It was like something out of a Charles Dickens novel. These kids probably don't go to school, and I watched some of them report to an older man, who probably exploits them and takes a big chunk of everything they earn.

While the Vietnamese people are all very friendly and nice, there is some obvious left over animosity towards America held by the government due to the Vietnam War. For example, the Vietnam War Museum is a showcase of "American atrocity" towards innocent Vietnamese people. Some of the things I saw there were really disturbing, such as pictures of Agent Orange victims, and pictures of US troops massacring innocent civilians. What the museum left out, however, was the horrible things that the Vietcong did during the war. I know the US isn't innocent, that certain platoons did unspeakable things, such as the Mai Lai Massacre. However, if I recall correctly, the Vietcong used to store weapons and military apparatus under civilian villages, effectively using innocent people as human shields. This side of the story was completely left out of every Vietnamese historical site we saw, which I assume is a product of the "Socialist Republic."

The most interesting piece of propoganda I saw was after we toured the Vietcong Cu-Chi tunnels. At the end of the tour, the guide brought us into a video room, which was draped in red flags, with a statue of Ho Chi Minh above a small TV which must have been from the 1980s. He then proceeded to play a movie which he said dated back to 1968. It was in black and white, and was obviously made by the North Vietnamese to rally around the cause of the war. It referred to the US as "devils," and displayed young women wielding machine guns, claiming the title of "American killer number 1!"

HIGHLIGHTS OF MY TRIP:

1) VIETCONG TUNNELS

I crawled through 100 meters of dark Vietcong tunnels! These things were tiny, and they had been enlarged twice since the end of the war to allow for the fat Western tourists! I could barely fit; I even had to get on my stomach and crawl through the end because it kept getting smaller. The tour guide said that because the Vietnamese were so starving during the war, they could maneuver easily through these things! He also said that whole villages lived in tunnels through most of the war in order to protect themselves from all the bombings. There were bedrooms, kitchens, etc!

2) FIRING AN AK-47

They let us fire off machine guns at the end of the tour, which was amazing. I've never fired anything before, not to mention an automatic weapon. An example of how lawless Vietnam is: they sold beer at the firing range, which kinda freaked me out...I also heard that in North Vietnam, they have tours where you can fire a rocket launcher. We didn't make it up there though...unfortunately

3) RIVER TOUR DOWN THE MEKONG DELTA

This was a truly awesome tour. We went down the Mekong River on a small boat, explored an island on the river, and ate an amazing seafood lunch.

All in all, Vietnam was an amazing time. I highly recommend travelling there to anyone who wants to see amazing sights, live like a king while spending little money, eat the greatest food ever, drink 70 cent beers that are actually delicious, and see the world from a completely unique perspective. It's by far the greatest place I've ever been to!

EIC Camp

For the last few weeks, I have been instructing English Immersion Camp (EIC) to 4th and 5th graders. This has been a great experience, and has allowed me to teach some subjects other than English!

The whole premise of the EIC camp is exactly as the name describes, to "immerse" the students in the English language. No actual "English" classes are taught, but all of the classes are taught in English. Thus, for the last two weeks I been teaching: music, culture, roleplays and phys ed (and no, I'm not making another joke about how I'm bad at sports because I dominated those 4th graders in dodgeball last week). The goal of the camp is to get the students speaking and learning English while having fun!



Here is a video of a relay race I had the 4th graders do during PE class.

Some of the students are extremely funny, others are really strange, but most are extremely shy, especially about speaking English. Also, not all of the students have the same English ability. Some have advanced conversational skills, while others don't even know how to read. This is a particular challenge to me, because I have to walk a fine line between boring the advanced students, and leaving behind the beginners.

The most interesting part of the camp for me has been observing the behavioral differences between the male and female students, especially when it comes to arts and crafts. For example, the other day I was teaching the kids about Christmas in the US, and one of my activities was to have them design a new sleigh for Santa. They could make the sleigh look however they wanted. Now, all the girls spent alot of time coloring elaborate pink and yellow sleighs with cute flowers and catchphrases such as, "Lovely Christmas." The boys, however, almost always drew Santa either weilding some sort of weapon, or riding in a rocket jet engine sleigh. Usually, it was both. One kid just dismissed the whole idea of a sleigh, and instead drew Santa riding a tank dressed in camoulflage with a machine gun.

I'm Back!

My apologies to everyone for not updating my blog for the last month and a half. Sorry to leave you all on the edge of your seats, wondering what was going on in the mystic land of Gwangju, South Korea. My mother had me for dead when I failed to call her for a week and half, so I can't even imagine what you all thought had become of me!

The truth is, I've had a bit of writer's block. About a month ago, I was in the middle of writing my greatest blog yet, in which I exposed many of the subtle discrepancies of Eastern and Western culture in a funny yet insightful way, when all of a sudden the power at my school went out, and my computer crashed. The entire entry was lost, and since then I haven't been able to think of a single decent post.

The future is looking brighter, however, because in a few days I will embarking on a two week excursion to Vietnam and Thailand, so you can certainly expect some mouthwatering blogs upon my return!