Read From the Beginning
So the week has come to a close. I just watched the beginning of High School Musical for the sixth time. Next week I'll get to watch the middle six times and then the end six times. And then I might show it at my other school. I guess it doesn't matter what country you're in, middle schoolers everywhere love it. And why not? There's singing, there's dancing and there's high school romance. And I'm showing it to them during school. What more could they want?
After watching some Wallace and Gromit the past couple of weeks, I'm settling into a nice routine out here in the country of basing all my lessons around movies. Thanks to the fancy new English rooms, I can keep my students blissfully entertained while perhaps learning a little English. But now the questions becomes, what movie should I watch next? What else will the Middle Schoolers love? I'm trying to remember what movies I loved in Middle School. What movies did you love?
This morning I needed to stop at the hospital to pick up the results of some tests I had for renewing my contract. So I thought I would ride a new bus there. I had noticed on my previous trips that bus 58 stopped outside the hospital. So I got on, but soon realized that it was going the wrong direction, out towards the country. Since at some point I needed to get to school this morning, I gestured to the bus driver that I wanted to go the other way and he gestured the way he was going. So I got off and got on another bus which included a short walk to the hospital. As I was walking, who should drive by and wave at me than bus #58, which I guess goes the other way to get to the hospital. But then, after I finished my business and took a short taxi ride to school, who should wave to me as I got out of the cab than the driver of bus #58! He must think I am quite crazy to ever haven gotten off his bus in the first place...But at least I have one more Korean friend who will wave at me now whenever he sees me.
Word just in while I was looking for a photo. Tomorrow when I get to school I get to pose for a picture with the English teachers who were supposed to have started an English club (with me as their teacher), but didn't have time, but have to take the picture anyway. I <3 Korea.
Yep, Korea beats out Italy and every country in North Africa and the Middle East to be the world's largest consumer of garlic. They eat it by the chunks here (generally they cut each clove in half--once), and they eat lots of chunks.
Sources:
http://facts.trendstoday.info/food-and-drink/garlic
http://www.squidoo.com/seoul-korea-information-and-travel-guide
Jordan and I spent the last week traveling in and around Busan, Korea's second largest city (with a population of about three million). We spent the first day visiting Jordan's old friend Ben in Ulsan, a town about an hour away from Busan (home to Hyundai) and his wife Na-Young and their son. They were nice enough to show us around the city and take us to a temple out in the country. We had a very enoyable day with them.
In Busan highlights included pointing to things in the fish market I would not eat:
Watching the other tourists enthusiastially point at the things they wanted to eat:
We also went to famous Haeundae beach and swam with thousands of our friends.
The big aquarium on the beach was also great, it was more impressive than our guide book led us to believe and some of the tanks had creative embellishments.
We also enjoyed lots of great shopping in the neighborhood around our hotel.
In the end I didn't want to leave Busan as it reminded me of Hong Kong with the large ships sailing in the distance, the lush, forested mountains coming down to meet the beach and the busy streets filled with people and market stalls. Back home in the Dream Hub things are quiet and hot. Jordan has finally gotten a video game to work after a month of trying, but hopefully he'll pull himself away to post video of the hip hop festival we saw one evening at the beach in the rain. And I'll spend the next week or so working on a scrapbook of our trip. You can see the rest of our pictures here.
Korea is fairly new to the world hip hop scene. But when Koreans started b-boying they did it in typical Korean fashion: without reserve, determined to become the best. And now they are. The best. "Battle of the Year," a tournament often called the World Cup of break dancing, takes place annually in Germany. Out of the past seven years Korea has won four times. The other three years they were runner up. America, the mother of hip hop, has by contrast won the tournament twice in nineteen years.
This is all a lead in to say that while we were in Busan this last week we stumbled upon an international hip hop competition taken place on the beach. At one point it was raining pretty hard, so it was like seeing Step Up 2 live; the Koreans were ready with ponchos for everyone, so the show went on unfazed. One thing that surprised me about the competition was the number of girls involved, including an all-female Korean crew, which I thought was great (hopefully their parents think the same). Here's a little highlights video:
Does anyone know where Croacia is? For the life of me I couldn't find it on the map...
For more about break dancing, hip-hop, and Korea's dominance, I would highly recommend the film Planet B-Boy.
I love vacation school because I love to make my students write. Then I get to read the pearls that they've writtten. They use English so differently that everything they write sounds like magical poetry to me.
You can see I've tried to make some corrections to this, but to speak honestly, what can I really say to this? And this student also told me after class that she would pay better attention tomorrow.
Today we watched Star Wars IV. Everyone loved R2D2. They thought he was so cute, so loyal and the star of the movie. C3PO was not so impressive, but "unnatural." Luke was "handsome", Leia was "ugly", Luke's uncle was "wisdom". Everyone said, "this movie is famous" and one student wrote about its effect on America: "for example, American children have had dream that they will grow great scientists after they watched the movie."
To sum up the first half of Star Wars we have this summary:
"I have never seen the movie Star Wars. I saw star wars for the first time first. The Star Wars is very funny movie. R2D2 is apperance the movie so he is character. He has a memory from the princess Leia. Then he is give this memory to Obi won Kenobi. At that time, One man his name Luke Skywalker is help them too. but enemy Darth vader afflict them and will catch the robbot R2D2 and C3PO. indeed they protect the peace or they obey the evil...?? I feel wonder at the result."
I feel wonder too.
"Yesterday, I watched half of star wars. And I waited watching movie time all day! Today's movie contents were very exciting. Luke and Solo save Princess Leia and Ben died. Finally Princess Leia's team started to attack. Also they won the war. I was little bored about light sword. He didn't use the light sword. But it's okay. He defeat Darth Vader! He is our hero!!!! And R2D2 is very cute ><!!!!"
"The movie was really thrilling. Because, yesterday then computer graphic very natural. And thrill very very good. Tomorrow more thrill more. Do you think so too? Oh! I was so amazing to hear that movie was made in 1977. Very good!! These movie showed teacher thank you ~~ I love teacher!! >_<"
"The movie is interesting, specially gun fight a merry time of it."
So last week I had vacation school here at Seoheung. We watched Star Wars and Ratatouille and made posters and played some games. The Koreans love to document things, and so my coteacher took lots of pictures, which you can view. I think this is good since a few of you seem to have the impression that I am just a big slacker who does nothing. These photos I think prove that I do in fact teach some students some of the time.
I would check out the rest of the photos, as my students made some very exciting aliens...with interesting names...
Take 1:
Obi met luke. Obi is friend of Luke's father and he was warrier. R2-D2 showed Leia's message to him. Then he has to go Altaran. He suggest Luke to go with him. At first Luke regjected. They went back home. But empire's army ruined Luke's home. And Luke's uncle and aunt were dead. So Luke determined to go with Obi. So they went to city to find pilot.
Take 2:
Luke's uncle and aunt dead because bad people fire Luke house so, Luke want to be like his father, so he went to pilot in the bar he learn art.
Take 3:
Ruke get lightsword and he's uncle and aunt died. He went somewhere because he need a pilot and he get a pilot.
Take 4:
Um... robot cut leg (because sand jock) once day. Obi and Luke father Jack. Obi is Luke.
Take 5:
He is go learn force he mother father uncle die he is angry. He want to go learn to force in Jedie.
Take 6:
Most of you guessed 2nd, which would have been extremely surprising given that Korea's economy is only ranks 11th in the world, but still, you weren't far off (and the Koreans often do extremely surprising things).
Source: Michael Breen's The Koreans: Who They Are, What They Want, Where Their Future Lies.