Read From the Beginning

Today begins the first week of real school for me.  Last week I was just going around introducing myself and not really doing a whole lot.  Today I actually had to teach something.  It has so far been quite easy.  The school wants me to teach pretty much directly out of their (somewhat sketchy) textbook.  So last week I learned what page we were on in order to read through the page we covered today.  The only tricky part proved to be that some of the questions are in Korean, which of course means nothing to me.  Ms Park, my co-teacher said, "it's okay you can guess what it means." Of course when I did that and determined the question to be "which statements are true" she informed me that I was wrong.  The question, it turns out, was which statement is false.  

Despite my inability to guess exactly, the lessons today have gone quite smoothly.  Monday and Tuesdays I have first years (seventh grade) with Miss Doo.  Miss Doo is definitely my favorite teacher.  She never leaves me standing awkwardly at the front of the class, she tells me what to do, she lets me leave early to go have a rest.  She just rushed in during lunch to turn the somewhat flimsy pictures I had prepared for class into a real, laminated teaching tool.  So I will feel extra prepared for this afternoon's class.  

The students were surprisingly quiet.  After my experiences last week, I was ready for the worst.  But they were quiet while we, the teachers, were talking and they dutifully repeated after me as I read through the lesson (Our Hopes and Dreams).  When it came time for the group work, some of them were more or less on task, or at least appeared to be when I walked by them (although I expect they had just grabbed the book and started saying the phrase we were working on, "what does your father do," in order to appear like they were busy).  Between Miss Doo and I we did eventually get them all to write down various hopes and dreams.  From my rounds it seems that most student's fathers are businessmen, while their mothers are housekeepers.  The students themselves ranged from wanting to be an astronaut to nothing, including a couple singers, a baseball manager, a fashion designer and an astronomer.  

I have one more class and then a conversation class this afternoon with a few "specially selected" students.  I haven't done this yet, so I'm not sure what to expect.  

So, this post is my best effort at summarizing my experience in Korea thus far without being too overly verbose. I'm afraid that it is destined to be no more than a collection of haphazard thoughts.

The Boring 101
First off, unlike Marisa, who goes by bus to and from the same school every day, I teach at two separate middle schools. Both of my middle schools are more rural and smaller than Marisa's downtown school: one is a 10-15 minute drive out to the edge of town, and the other about a 25 minute drive into the country (I'll try to get a map of Gunsan posted soon, with our various locations marked).

Both schools are in nice locations, with nice surroundings: trees, farmland, and a few of what they call mountains (meaning hills). The more distant school, Napo, is in an especially nice spot, in the heart of bird migration territory (people actually come from all over the world to witness the passing through of hundreds of thousands of migratory birds comprised of roughly 50 species, many of them ducks and geese--but I'll post more about that when the festival comes around).

Anyway, I am at Chayan Middle School Monday through Wednesday, and Napo Middle School Thursday and Friday; I have two coteachers, one at each school (Mr. Song, and "Mr. Sam," respectively--both very nice). My schedule is quite light, as I teach three classes two times each at Chayan, and four classes two times each at Napo. So on average I should be teaching about 14 forty-five minute classes per week, for a total of 10.5 hours teaching per week! I do have "special activities" scheduled every day at Chayan, though (don't know what they are yet--so far they've been canceled), and it is quite possible that I will end up teaching some conversation classes as well, so my load may increase.

I am generally picked up every morning by one or the other of my co-teachers (depending on what school I'm going to), which makes for a short and pleasant commute. Coming home from Napo I have to take the bus, because Mr. Sam has golf lessons (at a virtual golf course--more on those later), so a 25 minute drive by car turns into a 1.5 hour bus ride home.

Reception: Chayan
So Mr. Song took me to Chayan on my first day, and introduced me to the other teachers, principal and vice-principal. Lots of bowing (which comes as naturally to me as it does to Marisa--is it something in the air in Korea?), and everyone informing me--you guessed it--how tall I am, and how handsome I am (with an emphasis, I might add, on the later). I was plopped down at my desk, and everyone proceeded with the weekly faculty meeting. This meetings starts with everyone facing the Korean flag, putting their hands over their hearts, and mumbling something: my first dilemma; do I place my hand over my heart and risk intruding on a pledge reserved for True Koreans, or do I simply stand with my hands at my side and risk being seen as arrogant and impolite? I think I did something in between (while doing my best to look the opposite of arrogant and impolite), and plan to ask Mr. Song what to do in the future.

My second dilemma came halfway through the meeting, when Mr. Song stood up and motioned to me; everyone stares expectantly. I learned later that I was expected to give some sort of speech (had I had my wits about me I may have been able to guess as much at the time); instead I waived, smiled awkwardly, and sat down. This may have been a better course of action anyway, because my speech would definitely not have been as entertaining: everyone burst out with raucous laughter, as Koreans seem prone to do whenever an outsider does, well, just about anything.

As with Marisa, my first few "lessons" were spent mostly introducing myself, though I found that I was expected to teach about half a class period right off the bat. Fortunately I had my incredibly sharp wits, glowing personality, and dazzlingly good looks to cover over my poor presentation: everyone was delighted.

The first question, without fail, from every class except one (in which it was shockingly demoted to question number four) was "how tall are you?" When I told them I was almost 2 meters they were so amazed that you would have thought that they hadn't actually seen me in person already. The second question was generally "do you like StarCraft?" (computer games will get a later post); answering yes to this one basically got me a free pass for the rest of the period--maybe the rest of the year.

On Good Looks
I have never been told how handsome I am so many times in so few days as my first few days in Korea; I'm a little worried that it might go to my head--could that be why I'm smiling more often when I look in the mirror these days? Seriously, every supervisor, every principal, every vice principal, many of the teachers, and many of the students, upon first seeing me cannot help but declare "YOU SO HANDSOME!" In fact, one Supervisor informed me that I was both handsome and gentle, and that for these reasons he liked me a lot. This is sort of a perfect example, or analogy, of what we are coming to learn regarding image in Korea: it is everything.

When we had dinner with some other foreign English teachers the night we got to Korea, their advice was unanimously this: "wear a nice suit on your first day, be clean shaven and professional, and it won't matter what you do for the rest of the year; how you teach is not important--that you teach, and that you look good, that's what the Koreans care about." (I was slightly nervous about the image my Spiderman bag might present, but I decided that if wearing a suit to work couldn't earn me the right to also wear a Spiderman bag the, well, life just wasn't worth living.)

I am certainly not wanting to put any individual in a box here, but the basic emphasis on image in Korea has been impressed on us again and again.

Reception: Napo
The Napo reception was, to a large extent, similar to Chayan's, though I was a bit more prepared for my introductions this time around (I put a bunch of images on a USB stick to show off my family and history), and managed to take up the whole period of every class. Napo is a very small school, with thirty-two students and 13 faculty members, making for a whoppingly good student to teacher ratio: most of my classes there are six or seven students large. Because of their size and rural location the level of English at Nap is not as good as at Chayan, and is not expected to be as good; they are less worried about curriculum, and I am basically given a free reign to teach whatever and however I want. This is mostly a good thing, though it does lead to a bit more work, as the need to be creative is more looming (at Chayan, I could be as boring as cold in the winter and I would be playing at par--"recite from the textbook, now repeat").

Again because of the size, my superstar status at Napo is a bit more extreme than at Chayan: you would have thought that I really was Michael Jordan or Harrison Ford (who, incidentally, everyone decided that my dad looks like). The principal absolutely adores me for some reason, and, I think, would like to spend all day every day talking with me (though he doesn't speak English, and I, of course, do not speak Korean). When he took me by the arm and led me into the office for some one-on-one time I felt a bit awkward at our lack of common language, but he didn't seem phased in the least. He apparently loves geography (he whipped out a world atlas as soon as we sat down), and had a ball learning about the various locations I had lived (my co-teacher did eventually come in, which helped the advanced of communication). Before leaving the principal's office I was given--well, forced to eat really--a variety of Korean delicacies, and was loaded down with food and drink when I left for my own office (at Napo I share an office with Mr. Sam and no one else -- at Chayan there is a common teacher's office room).

Karaoke Lunch Extreme
Lunch at Napo was a Spectacular Spectacular beyond what I had imagined. The food was tasty as usual (and as usual everyone was impressed when I cleaned the spicy items off my tray), but afterward I was invited to the gym by some of the middle schoolers, and the real craziness began: badminton extreme, with spectators extreme, with karaoke extreme in the background. Maybe I'll take my camera one of these days; for now, I'll let you paint your own picture of this one.

More Details
If I've left off any details you're interested in, just leave a comment, and I'll do my best to inform.

So for the last couple of days Marisa and I have been explaining the American election system to Korean middle schoolers. Earlier today I spent a full class period explicating democracy, election, the military, the draft, our two-party system, types of government, and more. The students (all 6 of them--this is one of my smaller Napo classes) were actually riveted, and came up with fine examples of monarchies, dictatorships, and democratic governments. We started out by watching and analyzing the first few minutes of Obama's acceptance speech on YouTube, and proceeded on from there.

I've held mock elections in most of my classes, and all except two of my students preferred Obama to McCain (though all could identify both candidates by name and picture). They all wanted to know whom I had voted for, but I made sure to make them state their own opinions before giving mine (students here tend to be none too subtle about brown-nosing their teachers--when I ask their favorite subject they all without fail tell me it's English. Right...).

Anyway, last night Marisa and I decided we should have an election party, and do American things, such as have a hamburger and declare that we have the right to do things. Of course, the only place in town that serves hamburgers is Lotteria, the Korean fast-food chain.

Marisa Adds:

The consensus was pretty much the same when I took the vote in my class.  Although, a few girls wanted to know who was the more handsome candidate and voted for him (but since I told them that Obama was more handsome, McCain gained no votes).  

As for our election party,  I have to say that American fast food definetly kicks butt.  I didn't even know it was possible for me to dislike fast food, but I have to say that if Lotteria is our only option for a hamburger, I will more likely be giving it up than partaking of the Korean version again.  Although I would have to say that Korean nationalism is probably stronger than American because I would definietly not choose to eat at Lotteria just because it's Korean when it's clearly inferior to the American version.  (Korea used to have McDonald's, but went through an anti-American phase when everyone refused to eat there.  So now we have Lotteria)

At long last we have attained our alien registration cards. First we needed our medical checkup results (a full medical checkup including blood tests, x-rays, dental check, vision and hearing tests, etc. costs less than $50 by the way); we had our checkups the day we arrived (Friday, Oct. 24), and it took them about a week to get our results back to us; it then took another week to actually get our alien cards processed. Without an alien card you get no bank account, no phone, and no internet; with an alien card, you receive all these things and more. Needless to say, we are very happy to have ours.

In case you're interested, mobile phones are incredibly expensive here for foreigners (I was told the cheapest one I could get was $400); fortunately I was able to get in on one of those cousin-brother's-uncle deals thanks to my co-teacher (who set us up as Koreans), and so I got ours for $50. Once you have the phones, the plans are more reasonable than in the US: we get 200 minutes a month for $10. Also, internet service is faster and cheaper here: our modem/router and install were "free," and we pay about $30 a month for the service. The bank book is, well, a bank book; we also got a check card with that--woohoo!