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."