My Nemisis

Somehow, likely in a drunken state, Kristin or I managed to break her camera.  Still seemed like it worked, but it made weird noises when you turned the power on, and when took pictures.  Typically, I wouldn't care about noises, and would make lame excuses for them to avoid seeking help.  In this case we needed help because all the pictures you took also happened to come out blurry.  After tracking down a service center, we learned that the camera's lense was broken and would need to be repaired.  $95 for a new lense.  Not very exciting.  After a couple days, it was repaired, and we picked it up.  This is where the story gets a little more exciting. Not much though, so don't get your hopes up too high.

On our walk home, we decided to pick up some vegetables from the market.  We grab some tomatoes and some mushrooms and start walking home when Kristin comes up with a great idea.  Get a picture of the old battle axe that hand picked the rotten plums for me.  Great idea!  We decide that I'll take the picture of Kristin standing near the woman's vegetable stand, and I'll snap her pic while she's not expecting it.  As I set up, the old woman starts moving around all over the place. I quickly snap a pic but only get a bad side profile as she walks inside with a customer and doesn't reappear.  

Could this just be a coincidence that she went inside as I was taking a picture?  Did she even notice me taking the picture? If so, is she just one of those people that doesn't want their picture taken? Maybe, just maybe, she noticed it was me and feared for her life.  I doubt this though, I'm sporting a snazzy short hair cut these days and the day she ripped me off, I had my trademark max volume poofy style.  Here's the picture I did get though.  It's not great, but don't worry, I will get a better one.

......This isn't her.  I actually wrote this blog a few months ago after I had taken the photo. However, I was playing with the settings on the camera one day, and managed to delete the photo before I could upload it and share it with the world.  I comtemplated staging another photo op, and get the same picture that I described above, but I thought it wouldn't be a genuine.  I typed the blog up at school and was planning on adding the photo once I got home, but I couldn't because it no longer existed.  I saved the blog, waiting another day to finally release it to the public.  So, today is the day.  I know it's not the side profile pic that you were hoping for but don't fret. Here's a recent photo of her, and she looks as evil as ever.

I brought up the whole rotten plum situations to a group of Korean workers that I "voluntarily talk English" with and they were stunned.  They figured she was just a grumpy old bitch who thought she could rip off a foreigner with ease. They decided to write me a little note that I could hand deliver to the old bitty the next time she tried to lure me over to get some fresh produce.  It was written in Korean, but it translated nicely to this:

"Old woman, a while ago, you sold me 5 plums for 5000 won.  All 5 plums were rotten, and I'm pissed.  I will never buy anything from you again, don't try and get me to buy anything from you again.  Leave me alone.  I have many Korean friends!"

I'm not sure why it was important to state that I have many Korean friends. Maybe having many friends is intimidating in this culture.  Perhaps she'll think I'm affiliated with some Korean mobsters, and thats the kind of friends I have lots of.  Maybe I should have just asked. 

I have yet to deliver this note.  No, not because I'm a pussy.  I'm waiting for the perfect moment.  I don't think she remembers that I'm the one she ripped off. I do have a plan though....One day, I'll be looking around the market for some fruits or veggies, and she'll see me and think she's got another great opportunity to rip a foreigner off.  But not this day because it's payback time.  I plan on looking interested in her produce, ask about some prices, look like I'm about to pull out some cash, then BAM, read this note bitch. I ain't buying nothing from you!......Never ever!

Beijing

During our Chuseok (Korea Thanksgiving) holiday, we decided to go to Beijing for 5 days.  We did a ton of stuff, such as visit the Great Wall, Tiannenman Square, Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven and Olympic Park.  These were all memorable experiences, and great fun, but there was one day in particular that stood out among the rest. 

On our second day, we decided to take a different route downtown towards Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City.  Everything was going swell, and we ran into a couple of young Chinese men from Shanghai.  Oddly enough, they started up a conversation with us and told us a few places to check out in the area.  The invited us to walk with them to an old area of the town and we accepted the invite.  

(They're the two guys in white at the bottom of the picture)

The area was ancient, but had been rebuilt for the Olympics and was packed with tourists and Chinese as well.  We snapped a few pictures and continued on with our new friends.  Next, they showed us around an old neighborhood known as Hutongs.  These were really old, and looked really decrepid, but were actually homes of wealthy, and were in the process of being demolished to make way for new high rises.  It was interesting, but nothing spectacular.  At this point we had been walking for a couple hours, and my hips were getting sore.  This isn't a good thing at my age, I can only imagine the state I'll be in when I hit 60.  Luckily, one of the guys asks if we'd like to stop for a drink of tea.  Feeling like it was the cultural thing to do and the fact that I felt like I needed a hip replacement, I accepted.  This move would cost me in more ways then one.  

We step into a small one room tea house only big enough for one table and a few chairs.  This seemed pretty odd, seeing that you can't do great business if your building can only hold a couple people.  We proceeded to drink about 5 different types of tea, and had to do so in a traditional chinese manner, where you have to finish in three sips.  Sounds scary, considering its hot tea, but they were only small glasses about the size of a large shot glass.  Anyways, Kristin and I felt compelled to pay for the tea ceremony for everyone since the two guys were nice enough to be our tour guides for the morning.  Sure enough, this had to be the most expensive tea house in all of China.  I was told that China was cheap and couldn't picture this run down looking tea house as being all that expensive, but sure enough, it cost one hundred fucking dollars.  $100 for tea, and not even a lot of it.  The tea was great, I'll give them that, but it wasn't that great.  The two guys decide to buy us a box of tea from the shop as gift for us. That reduced my anger towards the situation a little.  On top of all this, we weren't even allowed to take pictures inside the shop because they had a Buddha there or something along those lines.  

(I don't think anyone in the world could have expected that this hole in the wall could cost you $100 for tea)

We continue on our journey and I'm beginning to wonder whether these guys had conned us into going to this specific tea shop.  Kristin is feeling the same way, and were wondering how we can lose them, because we can't afford to stick around them all day at this rate.  Luckily, the actually told us they were going somewhere else and we were able to get away.  Great news, but unfortunately its only the beginning of what ended up being a pretty shitty day.

At this point, its around 1pm and were starting to feel the need for some food.  Were in the middle of Tiannanmen Square and assume that in the largest square in the world there would be somewhere to grab a bite, but theres not. We head downtown and got a nice little rice and noodle meal with surprisingly no problems.  We head back towards  The Forbidden City and decide to check it out.  Theres three gates, and we take the first one.  I had heard that this place was always packed with tourists, and yet there was no line.  We get inside, and we dont really see too much other than some big red walls and a park.  Were starting to realize that we probably took the wrong entrance, and this wasn't really where we were intending to go.  Upset about how the day is going, we take a little rest on a bench and relax.  

Before I could even get comfortable, a old man comes over asking if we want a rickshaw ride. No I don't want a damn rickshaw ride, give me a break.  He begins giving me prices anyways, even with me saying no thanks, and finally he gets the price fairly low and we decide to give it a go.  He says its about $20 for a half hour ride.  He points to his watch, and shows us the current time.  Seems like hes being honest.  We follow him for nearly 10 minutes to his rickshaw, and have now wasted a third of our time.  Not so honest.  We hop on his rickshaw, which was pretty pimp.  He shows us around some old neighborhoods, takes our picture a few times, and hes starting to seem like a good guy again.  Then, he sees a policecar ahead, whips the rickshaw around and starts pedalling as fast as he can the other way.  Great, nothing I want more than to be chased by cops in China on the back of a rickshaw.  I don't care how long this man has been doing this, but he can't out run the cops on his bike.  Sure he had some great calves, but he sure as fuck wasn't Lance Armstrong. Lucky for us, the cops didn't chase us.  After the half hour is up, our driver continues driving around.  I ask him when he will bring us back to The Forbidden City, and all of a sudden he can't understand me.  He was speaking decent English throughout the ride, but once I asked questions about it being over, he no longer knew any English.  Pretty sketchy, so we decide to bail.  We stayed about an extra 5 minutes, so I had to pay extra.  

(We look so happy don't we.  This was before the cops and the "I don't understand" routine)

We had to find our own way out of this old maze of a neighborhood on foot and then back to The Forbidden City.  This took longer than expected, as it didn't seem like we had went that far.  Perhaps old Chinese Lance travelled pretty far in his attempt to out run the local authorities.  Finally we made it back to where we had started.  We looked at a map and realized that we had in fact not made it into the The Forbidden City, but just a small park on the outside of it.  After some more walking, we finally make it there at 430pm. Great.  No, not great, sure enough more shit to upset me.  The ticket office closed at 415 and the City closes at 5.  So, as I stand there looking up at the giant red walls of this great chinese palace, all I can do is shake as I hold in the rage.  Kristin takes a lovely picture though.  Luckily it's from a distance and you can't see my veins bubbling from the fire burning inside me.

And this isn't even the end of the disappointment to the day.  Next, we continue to a small lake beside this area thats suppose to have row boats.  Perhaps a little rowing will ease my tension.  Maybe it would have, but I'll never know, because they just happened to close too.

I feel as though my day was doomed from the beginning.  My fate was set in motion the moment I chose to take a different route downtown where I'd meet those con artist tea guys from Shanghai, they'd drop me off at Tiannenmen Square knowing there was no food there.  I'd have to walk to Wangfuxing to find some food.  I'd be a stupid tourist and enter the wrong entrance to The Forbidden City.  I'd be fooled into thinking that I'd gained some bargaining abilities and got myself a great deal on a rickshaw ride and would be late for the entrance for the City and the paddle boats.  Just a perfect day of siteseeing.  

.....Beijing was really cool though, and the other 4 days we were there were amazing.

Sweet Sweet Stache

We went away to Gangwon Province during the long weekend with a few friends, did some hiking, drinking, eating, etc. We were there for three days, and I neglected to bring my razor with me, so I had a little bit of a beard once we came back.  Nothing special, but I thought what the hell, I'll let it grow for a little while.

Korean's in general have very little hair on their bodies, and I went to school with what I thought was mostly just some good stubble. Certainly nothing to write home about, but everyone at the school thought it was great.  All the people were saying I looked pretty tough, definitely not something I hear often.  So, I decided to leave it and let it grow for awhile.  After a few more days, it was really filling in, and I was starting to enjoy having it.  It actually became a way to teach kids some new words, like beard, goatee, sideburns, and mustache.  I was achieving a lot more then I had expected, and was feeling pretty good about it all.

Things were going swell until lunchtime on Thursday.  Right in the middle of the meal, one of my co-teachers pipes up and asks "When will you shave your beard?" I really had no beard timeline, but I didn't shaving it right away, so I said maybe this weekend, maybe next weekend, not sure.  "Well, the principal doesn't like it?" I didn't really know what to say, but knew this was likely the end of my "looking tough" days.  I eat lunch with about 8 women, and most of them know no English.  One of them asked what we were talking about, and after an explaination, she looked really upset.  I'm told that she thinks my beard looks really good, and many of the women tell me not to shave it.  I was in quite a dilemma.  I can keep all these older women happy and keep the beard or I can shave it and keep my principal happy.  Definitely a huge decision, and not one I was prepared to make at that point.  I went and sat in my office for a while after lunch and really thought about the decision at hand. What should I do?

Then, as if it was a sign by god, a chubby little 3rd grader came in to try and talk to me.  After a quick hello, he makes a motion with his hand rubbing his face.  He loves my beard! To double check, I point to my beard and give him the thumbs up.  Did he like it? Not quite.  He sticks out his tongue, says Yucky (a word I just taught the kids) and gives a shaving motion.  Just like that, my problem was solved. If this little fella didn't like my beard, there was no way I could continue to walk the halls of my school with it.  Just so it wouldn't seem like I was caving in right away to my principal, I decided to wait until the weekend to shave it.

We decided to go and watch some horse racing on Saturday, and I gave myself a nice shave for it.  Just to look nice and cool for the races, I decided to give myself a nice stache.  My first one ever.  I thought it was great, but oddly enough, Kristin didn't feel the same way.  Kristin, Richard and I all went to the races, and each of us actually won once. Oddly enough, the race track may be the only place in Korea where you can't buy beer.

There it is in all its glory.

The day after the races, I actually ran into my vice-principal while I was getting groceries for Thanksgiving Dinner (which was delicious, thank you Kristin) with the stache and she looked pretty surprised to see me.  She was actually speechless.  I'm not sure if she was speechless because she thought it was that beautiful or because she can hardly speak English.  Either way, she didn't say much.  I knew she would come to school and tell the principal about the stache.  If he didn't like the beard, there was no way he'd like this, so I shaved it off Sunday night and I'm back to smooth skin.

Suwon English Play Competition

On the first day of the new semester, I'm informed that our vice principal wants us to enter into the Suwon English Play competition.  As you can imagine, I'm not overly thrilled about this, but consider that there is a possibility that this could be entertaining. Clearly, with all competitions, there are rules and guidelines.  For this competiton, there's only a couple of rules.  First, the play must be between five and eight minutes.  Pretty simple, and I'm thrilled, because this would involve much less work.  The second rule, and by far the most difficult, is that the play must be about Hwaseong Fortress and it's history. 

For those of you who have no idea what this is, its a large stone fortress in Suwon, that surrounds a large part of the city, and a palace.  It's nearly 6 km in length, and was built by a King Jeongjo to house his father's tomb.  It's also been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Thats about as much information as I know about it, so I'm clearly not thrilled that I've been asked to put on a play with this topic.  That's not enough information to write a play about it's history.  I'd surely mess up and offend their culture. To my surprise, my co teacher offers to write the play, and would like me to merely edit it and ensure that it makes sense.  Huge relief.

Next step, is auditions.  These were about as ass backwards as you could get for auditions.  First off, the day of the auditions (Friday), students are told over the loud speaker, that there will be auditions for the english play after school.  Without any notice and considering it was Friday, I assumed that we would not have many auditoners (not really sure if that's a word).  My school has roughly 1500 kids between Grade 1 and 6, and I believe that only Grades 4-6 could enter.  Out of an estimated 750 students, only 10 should up for the audition.  Pretty weak, but easier for me, because its less to watch, but certainly a smaller talent pool.  I assumed that it would only be my coteachers and I that would judge the auditions.  However, they asked two other teachers, along with a head teacher and my vice principal.  The VP can hardly speak english, so it made a ton of sense to ask her to judge the auditions.  This was the most mathematical audition in history.  Students were to be graded on five aspects, worth twenty points each for a score out of 100.  Then, they would get all the judges scores, calculate the average, and then chose the students who made the play. A shit load of effort for 5 minutes of acting.  The students are given a small part of the script to review, and after three minutes, are asked to audition.  Clearly this isn't enough time to prepare, and after one student butchers their audition, my vice-principal, to my utter amazement says, in Korean obviously, that they need more time to prepare.  So, the students get 15 minutes this time, and then we do the auditions.  After all the calculations are complete, five students are chosen.  Practice starts the following week.

I didn't have to watch over the practice often, possibly only five days out of probably fifteen, but editing the script certainly took up enough of my time.  My co-teacher wanted to make the play a comedy, drama, and musical all in one.  Quite a goal to achieve within such a short time frame and considering the limited level of character development.  I must have read and editted the script ten times, not because I missed so many mistakes everytime, but because my co-teacher decided to change the script so many times.  After three weeks of practice, numerous songs, scenes, and dialog added and deleted from the script, it was time for the big competition.  

The play required five actors, and for some stage hands....... three teachers.  There were three roles.  Director, who would stand and wave their hands and pretend they were conducting an orchestra, as well as scroll through some powerpoint slides which would be shown in the background.  This was seemingly the most important of the roles, and was taken by the co-teacher who wrote and managed the play.  Second, was music.  I took this role first, and it invovled pushing play on a CD player when the singing was about to begin.  I felt this was an easy role, and one suited for me.  However, I got bumped out of this position, and it went to my other co-teacher.  My new role was special effects.  They only involved creating a smoky effect using dry ice.  I have no experience with dry ice, and was told it was a simple effect. All I would need to do was wave a piece of cardboard blowing the mist across the stage.  Sounds simple, yet during the last few rehearsals, I was asked to practice the timing of my fanning.  I nearly shit my pants, considering anyone can easily wave a piece of cardboard on cue.  There's no need to practice it numerous times.

The big day finally arrives and we drive to another school to perform.  Twenty four other schools enter the competition, and only a panel of three Koreans and one foreigner would watch and judge.  None of the schools could watch the other performances, because there was a fear of plagiarism.  No idea how anyone could change there play around to copy someone elses in such limited time, but they considered it a serious possibility  We are chosen to perform 15th, so we wait around for about an hour and a half.  The moment finally arrives and we go one stage.  I'm given a styrofoam box filled with dry ice and a thermos with water.  Before the play begins, they tell me to pour all the water in with the ice, and place the cover on the box.  Once the water was added, the box begins to billow out loads of fog.  I shove the lid on, and wait for my moment.  The play is going great, the kids are remembering all their lines and my moment arrives.  I open the box, begin to wave my cardboard, and realize that the dry ice and water have mixed and formed a gigantic block of ice, and there is no fog effect occuring. Somehow, I managed to fuck up my only role.  The play finished, and the other teachers decide that it was their mistake because it was in a styrofoam box, and that is why it turned to ice. I have no idea if that makes any sense, but I didn't really give a shit at the time.  They're decided that it's their fault and not mine. Special effect weren't needed for a five minutes elementary school comedy/drama/musical.

Out of the twenty four schools, we placed second.  We were informed of this almost a week after the performance, and I'm really pleased with the result.  The rest of the teachers are not, and are upset that we didn't get first.  No cause for celebration or happiness.  Some of the teachers are talking about it in Korean, and I hear my younger co-teacher say something about the dry ice and make a shrug of her shoulders.  Clearly, they were thinking that if I didn't mess up this dry ice; the role that I didn't want in the first place, and the role that wasn't required for the play, that they would have won the competition.  All the other teachers nod solemnly in agreement and glance toward me.  I just let it go, because it makes no sense whatsoever to fight about it.  I'm sure that wasn't the reason we lost.  What kinda judge looks at a teacher trying to help out at a play and says "Wow, he really fucked up bad. If they would have had some fog for the about five seconds, they would have won first place. Let's blame him, and make the kids lose out because he couldn't get that amazing special effect to operate properly." 

Thailand

I just got back from Beijing, and figure that before I wrote anything about that, I would say something about my previous trip.  I went to Phuket, Thailand for 10 days at the beginning of August, and felt that I should acknowledge this. I'm not going to go into a huge amount of detail because 10 days is a lot to write about, but I'll try to my best to include the most important things.

We flew into Phuket and had to get a taxi from the airport to our resort.  We were told to avoid taking buses because they make you stop at tons of tourist traps along the way.  To cut cost, we talked to another couple from Quebec, Francois and Julie, and took a taxi with them.  They were pretty cool, and we hung out with them a few other times during our trip.



Our resort was called the Tropical Garden, and the grounds looked pretty tropical, with lush green forest/jungle surrounding you.  Our room wasn't spectacular, but we hardly used it.  The staff was great, as were all the Thai people in general.  They always had a smile on their faces, and it seemed like a geniune smile, not a fake one.  

While we were there we went on two day trips and also learned to surf.  We took surfing lessons one of the first days we were there.  

This was one of our surf instructors.  He had a much better tan than me, but he was there much longer.  He was really good, and managed to get Kristin and I both up on our boards in a no time on at all.  Surfing proved to be a little dangerous though, and although I was a pro after my 2 hour lesson, I managed to hit Kristin and give this lovely bruise.  I'm only to blame for the one on the arm though.

The first trip we went on was a day trip throughout the island of Phuket.  We visted a rubber tree plantation, monkey show, snake show, buddhist temple, museum, waterfall, and went kayaking in a river and elephant trekking.  Since it was low season, we got lucky and had our own personal tour.

Although it just looks like me wearing a backpack, I'm actually riding an elephant.  However, they won't let you take a picture of yourself while your on the elephant. Instead, they take one, and then develop the picture quickly and get you to buy it. So, if you would like to see the picture of us on the elephant, you'll have to fly to Korea and have a glance at it, or you can take my word for it.

Snake show, obviously.


Monkey show...Obviously.  Although it was a little funny, this wasn't the greatest because the monkeys were on leash's and the trainers seemed to be a little rough with them.  

The next trip we went on was to Phi Phi Island, where the movie The Beach was filmed.  It was a fairly retarded movie, but the island where it was filmed was incredible.  We actually weren't allowed to go to the beach because we took a large boat trip and they said the waves were to strong to get out at the beach.  


This was the closest we got to it.  Everyone else in their speed boats were able to get out, but we were on a big mammoth of a bit so we couldn't.  It wasn't that big of a deal though, because the entire area was pretty amazing.  

All in all it was a pretty great trip.  Probably the nicest place I've ever been.  Not everything was perfect though.   I had some difficulties dealing with some of the street vendors.  It's common to see hundreds of vendors when you visit these countries, and for some reason, I don't deal well with them.  In particular, the Thailand Tailors.  There were hundreds of them, and every time I walked by, they would try to strike up a conversation with me.  At first, I thought they were just that friendly, and carried on a conversation with them for a short while.  Then, after a few days, after finally realizing they didn't want to be my friend, I had to start looking at the ground to avoid making eye contact with them.  Somehow I still managed to get suckered into their shops, where they would try to sell me an Armani, Prada, or Gucci suit.  They were a good price, but they weren't real.  They just told me they would make the same model suit that was in the catalogue.  I couldn't care less about having a suit, I'm not going to be wearing it at school teaching.  I hardly wear dress pants to start with, there's not way in hell I'm going to start wearing a hot monkey suit to school.

On our way home, we had a stop over for 7 hours in Hong Kong, and went into the city for 3 hours.  It's definitely the coolest city I've been to.  It was really clean, plus most people seemed to speak fluent english and it had an amazing skyline.  I'd definitely like to go back again.  I actually got to meet Yao Ming when I was there.  Jealous?



Reading this post probably wasn't that exciting, but it did include pictures, a first for me, so I hope you found some interest in that.  There's tons more pictures on Kristin's facebook if you care to look there.

Beijing Olympics

Leading up to the Beijing Olympics, I was getting fairly excited.  Although I would rarely ever watch swimming, diving, rowing, or many track and field events on a regular basis, I seem to have difficulty pulling myself away from the TV while they are on during the Olympics.  Watching the Olympics in Korea proved to be an entirely different experience.

95% of the events that are televised have Korean's competing in the events.  This seems normal enough, but for the most part, Korean's don't compete in the most thrilling of sports.  The first few days of the Olympics, the only thing you could see on TV was archery, air pistol and judo.  Korea won a bunch of medals in these events, and the TV stations made it their goal to remind everybody about this by airing replays of the events, and creating "exciting" commercials.  The commercials were incredibly cheesy, and usually had theme music such as Celine Dion and Faith Hill.  There's only two reasons to choose this music.  One, they randomly selected some English tracks, and happen to stumble upon some of the worst music ever, or two, this kind of music gets everyone here pumped up (obviously excluding me).  At first the commercials seemed like a nice idea, despite their obvious faults, but after a few days, and seeing the same commercial aired every 10 minutes, I began to despise them.  I don't believe I ever seen commercials like this in Canada, but if there is, please leave a comment and update me on it.  I would hope we aren't airing Celine Dion themed tributes to our medalists.

Luckily I was able to watch the Michael Phelps show, as there was a strong Korean swimmer named Park Tae Hwan.  He actually won a gold medal, but not in the same race as Phelps. Obviously that was impossible.  Other than swimming, and the finals of the 100m mens and womens sprints, I was left watching sports I had never seen aired in Canada such as table tennis, tae kwon do, judo, archery, badminton, fencing and weight lifting.  Well maybe I've seen weight lifting, but the rest of them I'm certain I haven't.  When your limited to these sports, the olympics aren't quite as exciting, and your actually forced to get into these sports.  Not an easy task, because I had no idea how the hell scoring worked in judo, tae kwon do, and fencing, so I had to google it.  Too much effort for me.

To top off the Olympics, Korea won the gold medal in baseball.  Along their path to gold, they defeated Canada 1-0.  A very close game, but one that both the children and some of the teachers reminded me of on numerous occasions.  I tried to let them know that Canadians playing in the MLB were not allowed to participate, but they weren't listening.  Another thing I was told about during most of the Olympics was the Korean medal total.  For the first while, it was a hard subject, considering Canada didn't get a medal for ages.  In the end, Korea ended up with 31 medals (13 gold) and Canada had 18 (3 gold). 5 less golds then Michael Phelps.

Living the Dream

Like I've mentioned before, students in Korea typically attend private lessons after their regular public schooling.  While editing some journals I received from one of my grade 6 classes, I received this:

"It’s always same!
I went to school and came home.
Next, I did my academy homework and studied words.
At 5:45pm, I went to academy and came home late.
It will be same tomorrow!!"

Its unfortunate that these kids actually do more work harder than a sweat shop worker, and they don't get any money.  Just a little bit better of an education than the next kid.  Not really how you would want to spend your childhood.

Using the Dumptruck

Not that anyone probably cares whether or not the kids have to pay for the summer camps, but it turns out that they actually have to. Apparently its a pretty small fee, and much cheaper than the private academies.  

I've got one day of classes left with the summer camp.  Normally I would be upset, because the summer camp has been a lot more fun than the regular classes, and I get to go home early.  This week though, I have a few shit disturbers, and Im not really in the mood for it.  They're in grade 6, and think they are way too cool to be in school.  The first day of classes, they said they had to leave 20 minutes early (around 11:45 am) because they had to go to an academy.  I thought it seemed a little suspicious, but my co-teacher said alright, and we let them go.  After they left, one of the girls in class told me that they didn't go to any academies.  My instincts were right!  I went outside to play baseball with a few of the kids after I finished work and who do I see out there, but the two little jerks who left early (around 1pm).  They're outside kicking a soccer ball around.  They started to run, but then came back because they wanted to play baseball with us.  If your going to skip school, its probably not a good idea to sit in the school yard after you leave.  I called them out on it. "No, no, no, we go Tae Kwon Do, chin cha (Korean version of "really").  Sounded like a crock of shit to me.

The next day, they're loud and obnoxious in class, and while everyone else is working on a group project together, they were going around bothering.  At one point, a girl got up to get some markers, and the two boys went and sat in her chair.  She asked them to move, but they just laughed at her.  I went over and asked them to move and they said no. I gave them to the count of  five to move, or I'd move them myself.  Sure enough they didn't move, and I implemented Brian Mann's dumptruck maneuver .The dumptruck involves lifting the back of the chair up, so the kids slide out like a dump truck.  They fell on the ground harmlessly and moved back to their tables. Problem solved.  Well the problem was just postponed for 10 minutes, when they decided they would try the same thing with another student.  I thought about taking a different approach to it this time, embarrassment.  The two boys won't go anywhere's without each other, and in this instance, one was sitting on the others lap in a chair.  I asked one of the boys if him and his girlfriend would please get out of the chair because your slowing down everyone else.  After a laugh from the rest of the class, I thought I had won, but they didn't budge.  Plan B...."Get outta the chair or your getting the dumptruck and its not going to be a nice landing". They give a little chuckle, I whip the chair out from under them, they have both hit the floor hard and after laying around for a few minutes on the floor, finally go back to their chairs and shut up for the rest of the day.  Likely your thinking I'm a cruel bastard, but it wasn't as bad as it sounds.  Were in a Grade 3 classroom, and the chairs are tiny, maybe a foot from the seat to the floor, so they were fine. I promise.

Both boys are very weak in English, and after asking for some translation from the other students, they come up to me and drop what they think is a bomb on me. 
"Teacher John, we tell someone". 
"What are you going to tell them?"
"You take chair, we fall"
"Who's chair?"
"Ummm, Yoo Jin's", pointing at the girl who's chair they were sitting in.
"Yes, Yoo Jin's chair, not your chair. So, you tell someone I took Yoo Jin's chair. Tonight I'll tell your mom about the chair too".  They quietly go back to their chairs and keep quiet.

Game over, I finally win.  No little brat wants his Oma (Korean Mom) to find out that hes been a little shit at school.  I never actually called the parents, obviously my Korean couldn't get me through a lengthy conversation.  Since then, they haven't been perfect, but things have been much better, but I'll certainly be happy to not be with them for 3 hours a day once all the students return next week.

School Pet

Many areas in Korea are fairly dirty, espcially Suwon, where I'm living.  I've actually been told that Suwon is the dirtiest city in all of Korea.  Quite an honor.  Despite there being areas that look like no one has cleaned in 50 years, heaps of garbage around, or lovely old women hocking loogies, you don't see too many rodents.  Actually, I hadn't seen any rodents.  I thought I saw one when I was living in Yeongtong before, but that may have just been a cat.  I'll never know.  

One morning as I was entering school, I noticed a small animal running up the stairs ahead of me, and then it turned and began running down the second floor hallway.  I couldn't really see what it was, but it was pretty big, and had a long tail.  So, I assumed it was a rat.  I work on the third floor, and I think that rats are utterly disgusting, so I ran up the rest of the steps pretty quick and went to my classroom, closing the door behind me.  Our school usually keeps some of the doors on the ground floor open.  After a few days of not seeing the rat, I thought he probably ran outside to play with some of his rat friends and leave me alone.  Wrong.  I was eating lunch one day with the other teachers, of whom none really speak english, and who do I see but that filthy old rat again, running through the teachers lounge.  Before I could point him out to the other teachers, he was gone out the door.  I didn't tell the other teachers about it, not because I dont think they can handle the news that our beloved school has a rat, but because it would probably be pretty hard to explain and I didn't feel like putting in the effort.  

It's been a week since I saw him. My orignal thought about him running out of the school on his on will, doesn't seem very likely.  It's clear that a rat would have a very small brain, but I think that he would be able to realize that our school, being air conditioned would provide him with a better home than the hot, humid, and smoggy outdoor air. It's almost a guarentee that I'll see him again.

Exploding TV's

Summer camp is running smoothly for the most part, and I've only got one week left until we start regular classes.  As can be expected with most things I'm involved with, they don't usually turn out as well as expected.  Surprisingly though, I don't often get blamed for things that go wrong.

Instead of using a projector screen like in Canada at schools, the classrooms have big screen projection TV's (well the English classrooms do) and LCD and Plasma Flat Screens (all the other classrooms).  My first week of classes, on the third day, in the middle of a lesson using the TV, it just shut off.  I figured I somehow did it, so I attempted to turn it back on numerous times, to no avail.  The majority of my lesson invloves using multimedia materials such as videos, powerpoints, etc. so I wasn't too thrilled about this.  However, due to my amazing problem solving skills, I gave the kids huge word searches with about 25 words to find.  That managed to hold me over, until maintenance was able to get another TV installed in my class.  A big screen projection TV.  Two days later, while in the middle of a lesson again.  I hear what sounds like firecrackers.  I nearly crap my pants, and have a little rage build up inside of me, thinking its some little jerk trying to be funny.  I turn around and realize its the TV making the noise.  Before I can even shut it off, it flashes a couple of times, then goes black.  It starts chirping like a cricket, but the screen is black. I try to shut it off but that won't work. The light is on indicating power, but it won't work.  The chirping continues, and is driving everyone nuts, so I save the day by doing what any hero would do. I unplug the TV from the wall.  You can't really expect to have two major set backs involving TV's in the run of a week so I dont have any emergency TV breakdown word search's left.  Luckily its the last day, so we just play some games and eat junk food for the remainder of class.  Everyone was happy because everybody loves junk food and games, including me.

We start up again with the camp a couple weeks later, and have to move to another classroom because of the TV problem.  The school believes its because of wiring in the classroom.  I accept it, but I certainly do anything to break them. Everything went smoothly for the first day, and then the second day, that god awful firecracker noise starts up again.  I know exactly whats happening, and sure enough, the damn TV is broke again.  I had the same word search on hand so I whipped these out to keep them occupied while I tried to figure out what the hell to do now.  My co-teacher leaves, and returns with the principal, vice principal, maintenence, and a bunch of other people who figured they could repair this TV. They all try to work there stuff.  None of them had any luck, and there were no more of these projection TV's remaining, so I moved to another room.  The staff is convinced now that the TV's I was using were old, so thats why they all broke. Good reasoning, because TV's definetely have an expiry date, and once they pass this date, firecrackers explode on the inside of them, and they never work again. Pretty logical.

I moved to a Korean home teacher's room, equipped with a beautiful new LG LCD TV.  Since then, everything has went smoothly.  I'm certain that if the firecrackers start going off in this TV, they'll have to conclude that I am cursed, and I'll never be allowed to use the TV's in the school again.  On a good note though, my English rooms will need to get new TV's to replace the ones that have "expired", and I'm sure I'll get one of these nice LG LCD's.

Summer Camp

I'm currently running an English Camp at my school.  It has nothing to do with camping, just English classes that run during the Korean summer holidays.  I had the luck of only having to do it for 3 weeks. Kristin gets to do it for 4, but others that we know have not had to do the camp at all or just done one week of it. 

Koreans think highly of education.  In addition to attending public school for 5 or 6 days a week, parents pay a lot of money, and enrole their children in various private acadamies that include English, Math, Science, Music and even Art.  Many students don't get home until around 9pm, and then have to work on homework all night.  In my opinion, it's an awful way to spend your childhood.  However, their society believes that since they don't have any natural resources, they need to educate themselves to the fullest.  I believe that a lot of them actually just send their children to these academies to either keep up with the Jones' or to get the children off their hands. I'm sure there's not much need to send your kids to Math and Science acamadies during elementary school.  Your not exactly working on Calculus or Quantum Physics when your 10.

Back to discussing summer camp.  Many public schools offer English summer and winter camps.  They run for much of the duration of the vacation period.  Thus, many students actually have to go to school during their summer and winter vacations.  It is the choice of the students and parents whether or not to attend these camps.  Since they are free, I'm sure that the parents view this as quite the opportunity for free time during the summer break. Well, since I'm the native English speaker at my school, that also means that, with the exception of about a week during both vacation periods, I get the priveledge of working.  Quite a bit different from Canadian schools. Although it sounds like I'm just rambling on end about having to work all year round like most others in the world, there are some bright points about the summer camps.  I was allowed to make my own lessons, and not have to follow an incredibly boring curriculum which I do the remainder of the year.  I'm also allowed to leave early many of the days, rather then sit in my office and do "Internet Research".  Furthermore, the other Korean teachers, of which there are generally only two in the school during the vacation period because they don't work the summer camps (they get around 35-40 days off per period), will always buy me lunch.  Everyday I offer to pay, but they will never let me.  Even if I try and say that I'll buy the meal for everyone, they tell me no.  I was going to continue about the summer camps and talk about rodents and exploding TVs but that'll have to wait because I'm hungry and was bored of this meaningless post long ago.

The Day I Left the Nut House

Way back in March, I was forced into an early resignation from my job at ILS.  I was working a lot of overtime, and not getting paid for it.  I checked out my contract, which stated that any time I spend at the school, whether it's for classroom teaching, marking, administrative, it all counted toward the calculation of hours worked.  The only thing that didn't was one hour of preparation daily.  The contract stated that if I worked more that 30 hours a week, that I would be paid overtime.  At the time I had read this, I was working about 10 hours a week overtime, 40 hours a month, but wasn't seeing a nickel for that extra work.

The director at the school was quite crazy, as was her husband, the owner.  I brought up my situation with them, and they told me that I had misinterpreted the contract.  Once I brought the contract out, with the Employee Duties and Hours Worked section highlighted, they were blown away.  They informed me that they had not read the contract yet (5 months into my employment) and they would get back to me later.  I also pointed out in the contract, that since Kristin and I are a couple, that we are entitled to a two bedroom apartment, and that at no time should two people share a bachelor apartment.  I dont have any problems with living with Kristin, but a bachelor apartment isn't meant for two people. 

The next day, they get back to me.  First they ask which matter I think is most important.  Obviously, I stated that the overtime was of more importance than the apartment. At this point, I'm thinking I have a chance of getting one or the other.  Just when you think things are starting to look much brighter, I get their cliche phrase.... I'm sorry, but you don't understand the contract, it's your misinterpretation. Clearly, since I am a native english speaker, and both my director and her husband, who need a translator for every discussion we have since they're english is so weak, I am the one that doesn't understand the English version of the contract. So, we have some words, and I'm told that there is no way that they will pay me for the overtime, because that is just asking too much out of them.  After discussing the matter with my recruiter, he is informed that the school is planning on firing both Kristin and I, because we are asking for way too much from the school. We would have to leave within a couple of weeks.

I decide I'll ask the director about their plans to fire us, and am told that they have no such plans. However, I get an ultimatum.  I get the choice to stay at the school, where nothing will change.  I will still work 9-7, not receive any overtime, and can't discuss the matter any further, OR, I can quit.  Kristin and I talk about this, not for long though. We've hated the school for quite some time, so we decided that we would leave the school.  We were hoping on being able to leave within two weeks because obviously there would be an incredible amount of tension in the air having to work around these lunatics.  Just as we get our hopes up though, we are told that we must stay at the school for another two months while they search for replacement teachers.  If we don't stay for that long, they will not release us from our work visa, and we will be unable to legally work anywhere else in Korea.  Greasy, just greasy. We stick around for the next two months. Meanwhile, they beg us to stay for another few weeks because they're having difficulty finding new workers.  Oh, it was just so sad. Really broke my heart.  Since I'm such an emotional guy, and had so much sympathy for the school, I agreed to help them out...Hahahahah, No, I'm full of shit, I wouldn't do that. We left, and never returned.

We left near the end of March, and since that time, our replacements at the school arrived, decided within two weeks of working there that the school was ass backwards, and there was something clearly wrong with the directors head, so they decided to quit as well.  They had to stay at the school for two months, and then were informed that they wouldn't get released from their visa.  Within a year of opening the school, I believe there have been 6 foreign teachers leave, and probably about 10 or more Korean teachers leave.  The school only employs 5 to 6 teachers at a time.  With an employee turnover  around 300%, they rival the likes of McDonalds.  Probably not the company you want to mimic though if your running a school.

A Friendly Old Woman

Yes, if your reading this, your probably in a complete state of shock since this is the first post I've made in ages.  But, times are changing, and I have to spend 4 days at school this week with absolutely nothing to do, so I'll attempt to make a few posts.

Last Friday, I get off work early at 230, and figure I'll try to be productive for the remainder of the day.  As soon as I get out of the school, I realize that I should probably just go straight home because its about 36 degrees and humid as all hell, but I continue on with my plans.  First I stop at the bank, pay some bills, yadda yadda yadda.  Then, I visit the local market beside my apartment. I first stop at a little supermarket and pick up some lettuce ($1 for a big bag), cherry tomatoes ($1.50 for big bag), red and yellow peppers ($3) and go back outside to the outdoor market.  I see a big bowl of peaches, maybe about 15 of them ($5) and am starting to think that I'm doing pretty good shopping.  Im just about to head home, when I notice an old woman, maybe 60-80, hard to tell because most people in Korea look much younger than they really are.  She could have been 100 for all I know.  She has a bunch of giant plums, so I decide to get $5 worth.  Looking like a kind lady, she starts checking the plums, feeling them first and then putting them into a bag for me.  She continues until she has 5 plums in the bag.  I'm kind of shocked that I've only been able to get 5 plums for this price, but I figure that shes been nice enough to me by inspecting the plums first and continue home.

Around 10, Kristin decides maybe she'll have one of these plums. To my amazement, she tells me that one of the plums happens to be rotten. Thats ok, I guess the old woman isn't perfect. Then, after a closer inspection of the rest of the plums, it became apparent that this old woman is far from friendly.  She's sold me 5 rotten plums.  She went through the trouble of searching through her large basket to specifically find me 5 rotten plums.  She may as well of just took my money, yelled and me in Korean, and not given me anything at all.  It's Monday now, and I'm still quite bitter about the whole matter. I don't know how I'm going to do it, but one of these days, that woman is going to get some payback from me.

Gym

Obviously you've read the title, and if you know me, you understand that I'm not the greatest at going to a gym regularly.  However, I manage to go regularly now, three to four times a week.  

In Canada, most of the time you go to the gym and at first you'll try to work really hard because you feel you need to impress people.  In Korea, if you go the gym and actually do any sort of workout, your doing more exercise than 75% of the people there.  Most of the people that go, just stand around, maybe hop on a machine for a couple minutes, and then walk around some more.  Maybe go on a bike, but not actually bike, just sit on it.  I think they feel good to say that they are a member of a gym.

Next, I shower at the gym, and there are no stalls just a bunch of shower heads on the wall. Just a big shower room.  I don't really have a problem with this.  You may think it was only a stereotype about asians and their manhood, but I guarentee it most certainly is not.  As I've told you they stare a lot in public at white people, but it doesn't compare to the amount you get stared at when you walk around naked in the shower and locker room.  I feel like a peice of meat.   To some extent its flattering, but when 50 and 60 year old men are looking at you, its a little awkard. 

I could write a blog entry on here everytime I go to the gym about the weird stuff you experience there.  Just the other day, some old man stood about a foot in front of me, just staring at me while I was stretching.  I figured he would leave, but he just continued to stare.  I said hi, and he got all excited and shook my hand, and asked where I was from.  Then, he tells me that he thinks I'm handsome.  It started out weird as hell with him staring at me, and now it appears we have crossed the line.  I'm obviously stunned by this and I'm really uncertain of an answer, and all the comes out is thanks.  Smooth, way to let a guy whos really creeping you out feel ok about it by accepting his compliments.  Thankfully, I manage to say "have a good night" and he leaves me alone. But we meet again.....In the shower room, and from across the room, I hear him yelling saying HI to me.  He's waving like were long, lost friends.  At this point we have definetly went way over the line, so I shower as quickly as possible and get the fuck out of there before I have to deal anymore of his creepiness.  If I didn't, who knows what might have happened, he may have wanted to play swords with me.

Boracay, Philippines

As I mentioned, I managed to get one week off of school, and we decided to go to Boracay.  A tiny island in the Philippines, thats said to have one of the best beaches in the world.  

In order to get to this island, I had to take two buses, two planes, and a ferry, and it took nearly 12 hours to do it all.  The last part of it was super sketchy too.  After taking a bus from what may possibly be the smallest airport ever, we drove for two hours through the countryside, and finally got to a dock.  As soon as we arrive, the power went out.  We are directed toward a boat, have to walk across a plank to get on it (at this point you should realize this wasn't a fancy boat), and then take a 10 minute boat ride.  We dock the boat, get escorted to a little truck.  At this point I have no sweet clue if any of these people have anything to do with my hotel, but since I don't have any other choices at the moment, I go along with it.  Luckily, someone must have known what the hell was going on and who we were, and we made it to our resort.

The trip was pretty sweet.  We were there for 6 days, but really only four because we didn't get in until late on the first night, and we left at 7am on the last day.  We only managed to get 2 days of sun and the rest was overcast and rainy.  Yet, it was still a pretty good time.  The people there were nice and extremely polite, always calling you sir or maam.  The transportation system (if thats what you want to call it) was made up of guys driving dirt bikes or scooters with a big metal sidecar attached to the side.  The bikes hardly had enough power to get up the hills, and we were told that one person actually had to get out and push theirs up a hill. I thought they were pretty sweet though; sketchy as hell, but fun nonetheless.  The beach was awesome, it was about 4km long of white sand and you could get anything you could imagine on the beach, from massages, fresh fruit, drinks or maybe even a Philippino hooker.  This seemed to be pretty popular among the old creepy man crowd.

We were there over New Years, and ended up going on a sailboat/island hopping/snorkling trip on New Years Eve (during the day).  It was only Kris and I, and we had to sit on netting attached to the side of the sailboat.  It wasn't your normal sailboat.  We ended up whipping through huge waves because it was a stormy day, so that was pretty sweet.   We were gone for about 4 and half hours and it cost around $80.We were intially told it would be much cheaper, but at the end of the trip that was the cost I was told, and I was too lazy and tired to argue with the guy.  

There were big dinners all along the beach that night, so we went to one and had a bunch of seafood.  After we went and had some drinks, and watched the fireworks, which seemed to go on all night long.  Although I'm not certain it was from the dinner that night, the next day, I was sick.  Your obviously thinking it was from the drinking but it wasn't.  I felt like ass all day, and then after supper that night, I felt even worse.  Fell asleep around 8ish, and woke up for a nice barf around 1030, which was then accompanied by a fever and some chills.  This was obviously my favorite night of the trip.  Other than that though, the trip went well, and I don't have any complaints, except that I wish we could have stayed longer, and it didn't take an entire day to get to the resort.

Christmas 07

Yup, its mid January and I am making a post about Christmas.  Although this whole blogging thing only takes a couple of minutes, its appears as though I'm too lazy to move my fingers and type a message, and that's why I don't have too many posts.  Perhaps my New Years resolution can be making an attempt at keeping up with this.

At first, Christmas looked like it would actually really suck.  First off, we were initially told that we would not get any time off for Christmas, but then after doing some nagging, we managed to get a week off, after Christmas. We also got Christmas Day off.  Likely only because its a national holiday and we have to be given it off. Thus, I worked Christmas Eve, and Boxing Day.  Quite similar to my days at Casino Nova Scotia, but less depressing because I wasn't swiping peoples money, and Christmas isn't that big of a deal here.  It did suck that I wasn't able to call in "sick" to work on Boxing Day, like at the Casino and attend the Capitol for Middleton's one and only exciting night of the year. Christmas Eve involved getting drunk, and Christmas Day involved laying around hungover and opening a couple gifts.  

Did I have a Turkey Dinner?  Fuck no.  First off, we don't have an oven at our apartment.  We have a small stove, with two gas burners.  Second, I don't know how the hell to cook a turkey or anything that goes with it, and third, I don't know that you could even buy a turkey here.  All my students laughed at me when I asked them if they were going to be eating turkey.  Sooo, what did I have for Christmas Dinner?  I made a trip to the Homeplus food court, and had some spaghetti, chicken, salad, corn and cream soup.  This may sound fancy, but its far from it.  You would think that the place would be dead or not even open considering it was Christmas, but it was packed with families.  Nothing like a beautiful food court meal for you and your family on Christmas.

Mold

We finally decided after two months of waiting for our director to buy us a couch, that we would just get our own.  It was getting pretty shitty to only be able to sit on your bed.  The day we order it, our directors husband tells us he just happened to find a couch that day.  Obviously, I don't think it was a coincidence that he finds a couch the same time we buy one.  I think he was insulted that we went ahead and got it ourselves.  So we end up getting two couches for our little apartment the same day.   We have no idea what our house address is, and we weren't able to leave work when the couch was being delivered, so we had to get it dropped off at the school.  Most normal people would offer to help you get it home, especially if they have a large van.  But not this day.  We got to carry it home from school.

In order to fit both couches into our apartment we needed to do some rearranging.  We moved a dresser and found a huge pile of mold growing on the wall behind it.  From the ground up, probably about 3 feet worth of the green stuff.  We scrubbed the wall, but there was still a huge stain.  I told my director the next day about it, and she basically just laughed and thought it was funny.  Makes sense, there is nothing funnier that a bunch of mold growing in your apartment.  I wasn't overly thrilled about this, so we took a picture of it, and showed them.  After seeing the picture, they believed it was a big problem.  No shit.  

Our landlord came over about a week or so later to fix it.  The remedy, put a big white sticker like thing over it.  I'm pretty certain this probably isn't going to help much, and once some moisture builds up again, it will be the return of the mold.  The only thing I can really do, is buy a dehumidifier.  And obviously, it will come out of my pocket, because here, everyone thinks mold is funny, and not a problem, so there is not much need to take any actions in preventing or fixing it.