June 25, 1950

Today is the anniversary of the invasion of South Korea and the start of the Korean War. When I mentioned this to a few people, they all knew it, but had a non-response. There was nothing in the paper, the president didn't give a speech, there were no memorials.
Hm.

Last afternoon class

Yesterday was our last afternoon class. There are seven or eight students who come regularly. Four of the regulars go to Muryang Elementary school. Sometimes they get to class on time. If they are late, it's because they have to stop and buy candy and junk. Often they are rude, especially to some of the other students. Sometimes I don't like them. They don't speak English well. A few actually do try to learn. But most don't seem to try at all. Dae-han I call Talky Boy and have taped his mouth twice.
But then other times they are pleasant and cooperative. They listen and participate. They even seem interested in the lesson.
We gave them an evaluation test at the beginning of classes 10 weeks ago. They did very poorly. At the last class we gave them the same evaluation test. They all improved quite a bit, which surprised me completely. They were also asked to fill out an evaluation of the class and me. They gave both the class and me a good grade. This also surprised me. Seul more than once said to me, "Teacher, you are the devil." Or "Teacher, you are bad." I guess that is her expression of affection to me? Yesterday she said she would miss me. That was sweet.
I'll miss them, too. hahahahahahahahaha!

The Ballgame

Sonja wanted to go to a ballgame before she left Korea. She's not a fan of baseball, but she felt she had to experience Korean baseball. About a month ago, Sharon, Sonja and I took ourselves down to the ballpark. It was quiet there. Too quiet. There was no game. We had used a not too reliable source to find out when games times were. This time we made sure there actually was a game before we went to the ballpark.

Michael, Jeff, Sharon and Sonja
Sonja had LASIK eye surgery recently. Now she wears sunglasses. She's cool. Jeff is the resident sports fanatic. He knows all the teams of every sport, how they're doing, when they were good, and who all the players are. He kept us up-to-date on all the players both for Kia Tigers (the hometeam) and SK Wyverns (the devils in red).


We ate fried chicken. We didn't want any dried squid, although we did see a businessman climbing up to his seat, bringing his squid with him.

Yes, that is a fried chicken foot.
I'm going to let you make your own comments on that.
Jeff failed to catch any fly balls for us. I was outraged at his incompetence. The Tigers lost. I was outraged that the umpires called a fair game. The Tigers have been playing really bad, according to Jeff.
Even so, it was a fun, social night out.

Civic Theatre

Hyeon-suk invited me to see a play with her. It was staged in a small theatre in Gwangju. We had some trouble finding it. The front door was just a door with a sign near it on the street. The theatre was in the basement and seated about 50. It was intimate. It reminded me of the Blue Door Theatre in Spokane.
The play was about 4 women who are in the hospital for hemmoroids and share their life stories with each other. The cast included the 4 women, the nurse, and a man who played about 5 parts. He was the man in each of their lives. The women were different ages: a 20 year old who had turned to prostitution after she got into debt, (apparently common in Seoul) and her pimp. A 50 year old who had done everything for her family, (also common), but was then forgotton, a 70 year old who had married a womanizing man who was chronically unemployed. A 40 year old who thought she was much better than everyone else. She had been a single mother. She left her daughter at day care and someone took her. The 20 year old patient was about her daughter's age.
All the women's parts were played by women about 25-35 years old. The makeup was sort of good. It would have looked better if we hadn't been so close. All the parts were well done. I don't know what they were saying, although Hyeon-suk would translate some of the jokes for me, but the emotion of the women could be felt.
At first the 50 year old and 70 year old were shocked when the 20 year old told her what her profession was, but later they defended her in a funny slow motion attack on her pimp.
The 40 year old was well-to-do, had dyed hair and spoke with a Seoul accent, indicating she was pretty hoity-toity. The Jeollonamdo accent is rough, I'm told, and makes the speaker sound like he's mad at somebody. The other women used the Jeollonamdo accent and slang. She was an outsider. But she missed her daughter and the young girl reminded her of her daughter. In the end, she paid off the young girl's debt. As the pimp was leaving, the 50 year old quips, "He looks familiar."
Hyeon-suk had wanted to see it because she said it was "fresh." I'm not sure what that means, but it was a good play. Maybe they don't have many plays so sympathetic to women?? It was a nice was to spend the afternoon.

Trouble is brewing

It's not about North Korea. It's about the foreign English teachers and the news media, as well as the Ministry of Education. The Yonhap news agency has yet again reported that MOST foreign English teachers are a threat to Korean children, if not all of Korean civilization. Bloggers are up in arms. For another view, check out this link. A lawsuit has been filed by Korean lawyers on behalf of English teachers claiming the E-2 visa requirements are discriminatory. Here's a link to the paper Benjamin Wagner wrote up. This paper, which is the basis for the lawsuit, includes statistics on both Korean and foreign crime.
There are apparently 19,000 teachers in Korea. The majority are being responsible. But people believe what is written in the paper. So when a major publication like Yonhap publishes negative news about foreigners, Koreans don't question it. Most Koreans are xenophobic. Foreigners in 우리 나라 is a fairly new phenomenom and we're kinda scary.
In addition to 19,000 teachers, there are 981,000 foreign workers. This includes the people who do manual labor as well as diplomats, employees of multinational corporations, and white collar workers. They don't get bad press because they don't work with children.
While I have had a very positive experience, due no doubt to my sparking personality, other teachers have not had a good experience. One point made by one of the bloggers is that this negative publicity about foreign teachers is actually negative publicity for Korea. Those disgruntled teachers go back to their country, tell everyone how bad it is, then the world gets a more negative view of South Korea. In light of how hard South Korea is promoting tourism, it seems they would do something about more realistic reporting. But the media here is notorious for scandal mongering (remember the mad cow protests? Caused by a TV show's false report.) and is not likely to change anytime soon. That's why some bloggers are encouraging E-2 visa holders to take action. They're tired of reading newspaper articles disparaging ALL English teachers as drunk, unfit, pedophiles who just want to make money.
Photo credit to ZenKimchi.

Really beautiful day

Yesterday was a really beautiful day. The sky was cloudless, there was not haze, everything was crystal clear, the temperature was warm and a slight breeze was blowing. Great! This is how the day started out:



There's a truck you can't see spewing forth death to mosquitos. I saw a couple of kids walk into the fog... I never saw them come out. I have mixed feelings about spraying for mosquitos. I'm glad that Yeonggwang county is concerned we don't get malaria but this is poison they're spraying.
I guess no one has died from mosquito poison. Yet.

Breaking Bricks at Midnight

Ok, they weren't actual bricks and I didn't break them. They were pieces of plastic that were arranged so they could be "broken" when you hit them. Basically I paid 10,000 won for a teddy bear, which I would never have done if someone asked me to. But ask me to break bricks and win a teddy bear for 10,000 won and I'm all over that!
After having a wonderful time downtown with friends singing, eating and drinking coffee, the coffee shop owner kicked us out because he wanted to close the store. It was midnight. This vendor had set up in the street a short distance from the coffee shop.
And now Linus the bear sits on my couch.