Halloween in Korea

Last weekend, all the foreigners flooded Hongdae and Itaewon as usual, but this time, we were all in our Halloween costumes. Many of the natives stopped and stared--I even got my picture taken by some. If we were a bit more self-conscious, we would have felt strange on the subway in our bright wigs as everyone openly stared. But luckily, we just thought it was all pretty amusing. On Saturday afternoon, Kirsten, Liz, Dean, Andrea, Erica, and I took a bus out into the mountains (north of Seoul) to go to a pig roast. Some of Kirsten's co-workers had suggested it so we all went in a big group. We were there from 3 pm-8 pm, eating tons of delicious pork, having some beers, enjoying the bonfire, and just talking. We took the bus back to the subway station at 8 and ended up in Itaewon, then Hongdae. (Itaewon is the notorious foreigners district where almost everything is in English. On the weekends, it has some ignorant drunks and a lot of guys from the US army. Hongdae is Seoul's art university, and a really intense mix of bars, restaurants, dance clubs, and artsy boutiques draws an enormous crowd every weekend.) We had a great night, meeting up with Aerim, Chungsoo (part of TLBU's ISI staff, met him at the summer camp), Kevin (my boss from TLBU), Junior (friend from TLBU), and a lot of my SMOE friends.

Yesterday, I had to go do a dinner at this formal Korean fusion restaurant. I'd been there before about a month ago before Grace, one of my co-teachers, went to Canada for a training session, and just assumed it would be the same teachers. BUT it was big---there were maybe fifteen teachers there, including the principal and the vice principal, who sat across from me. The seats were on the floor and women in traditional Hanboks served us in our private room. It was beautiful but I couldn't help feeling out of the loop. Yunhee sat on one side of me and translated a lot for me. The principal is an elderly man who has been really great--he keeps asking (through Yunhee) if there is anything else I need for my apartment, my classroom, and how I'm adjusting. My vice principal is a very formal woman--the kind that wears a big emerald cocktail ring and pearls everyday. She's forever in tweed dress suits and heels, as well. But she speaks English fairly well (and so elegantly! This breed of woman--slightly cold, intelligent, old-fashioned, and conservative--is such a dying breed. She's probably in her 60s) and has also come to me to make sure that I have everything I need. Since so many foreign English teachers have complained of their schools being unsupportive or rude, I feel so grateful for the people at Munsung Middle School.

Since today is Halloween, some of us (that are relatively the same size as we were when we were high/middle school students) decided to borrow uniforms and dress up as our students. My co-teachers were so excited about the idea that they took me to the extra students' wardrobe and helped me pick a uniform a few days ago. So I walked to school this morning feeling INCREDIBLY awkward. Students were flat out staring as were adults. It was probably because students in Korea are not allowed to have dyed hair (many still do, but not as light as mine) or wear makeup to class. When I came to school, the teachers thought it was hysterical and the students FLIPPED out. They crowded around my desk continually, laughing and going, "Cutie cutie! So cute! Teacher is student!" Kids were doing double takes in the hallway all day, especially those that I don't have class with.

Me with my JA, taken after our extra class. (you can click on the pictures to see a bigger size.


Dean pulling the cork


Aerim, me (in a wig), and Chungsoo


Jason, Dean, and Colin at our pig roast.


For my pictures, as always, check out my flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/caligalux/collections/72157600864748555/

Here is a 26 second video of my kids with the blindfold. Oh, Jisu--you're the best.


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Munsung's fall festival

This Wednesday was Munsung's annual fall festival. It was a pretty big deal--the children were planning for weeks. Each class (there are 10 classes in each grade) had to plan activities for their classroom, so that meant cooking, designing games, decorating the room, creating fliers and posters, etc. Two or three of the 9th grade classes did movie viewings--you paid 500 won (about 50 cents) and you got to watch a movie (they were showing American horror films) with popcorn and a drink. Many classes had games like darts or other throwing games. Some classes were turned into cafes where they were making healthy shakes, spaghetti, dumplings, cotton candy, and so on. The class to make the most amount of money won some sort of prize. Since I am pretty much the only teacher not to have a homeroom class, I got to walk around from 9:30-12:00, checking out all the classes. The kids were DESPERATE to make money, resorting to physically pulling me in a classroom so I could play a game.
At 1:00, we moved locations to a high school about a block away, since Munsung doesn't have its own auditorium. From 1:30-5:00, we watched performances by the kids. There were many singing and dancing acts, plus some skits and a traditional drumming performance. In the last hour, the head PE teacher had to basically bar the doors to prevent students from leaving--they were all queuing up, trying to get home. It was fun, but after a while, it was so tiring and we just wanted to leave. Kids kept lying, saying they needed to use the bathroom, and would jump ship.

The kids lounging in a classroom before the festivities began. Just liked the lighting here.


Some of the 9th graders in front of a colorful fruit tree...? I don't exactly know what the object of their activity was.


Making carrot health drinks--was too afraid to try.


Here is a reason why I have less pictures of my female students--whenever I put the camera on them, they tend to run.


And I'll end this post with a 45 second video of some of my students in their dance performance. GOLDEN.
How are they so awkward in class and like this on stage?

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Crazy students

Here is a video to accompany the post below.

Celebrity Skin

Every other Saturday, the students have to come to school and study/participate in activities. Earlier this week, one of my co-teachers informed me that all of Munsung will go to Olympic Park and do a big walk for two hours or so, instead of coming to school. I'm never required to come in for these special Saturdays, even though all of the other teachers are. Anyway, I had wanted to visit Olympic Park and I stated that I would go, too. My co-teachers were pleasantly surprised and very excited, especially when I said that Dean would come with me. "Sally", my head co-teacher, had met Dean at a teacher's workshop for the district a few weeks before, and had told all the other teachers that he was very handsome and friendly.

Let me just say that Dean has a LOT of the desired traits for Korean males--tall, clear skin, low voice, nice eyes, and a sharp nose. I can't take him anywhere without people asking if he's a model.

Anyway, we stayed out with our friends very late the evening before, so we got started a lot later than we had planned. The subway ride took about an hour and by the time we got there, most of the students were finishing up the walk. So we decided to go to Lotteria (a Korean-style burger joint), which was close to the meeting point for the kids. As the students finished up, many began migrating towards Lotteria to grab something to eat, and it was then that the madness began. At a public school, a foreign teacher is often treated as a celebrity figure. Being the youngest teacher by about a decade has also fueled this for me--I'm closer in age to my kids than I am to my co-workers. So I always have the students that come up to my desk just to say, "Pretty!" or "You think I handsome? I smart and handsome!" and occasionally take a picture with their cellphone camera when they think I'm not looking. But the incident at Olympic Park was INSANE. Students, hearing that Dean and I were at Lotteria, began arriving in huge groups just to stare through the windows and basically freak out the students from another middle school that was also visiting. When we left, we were basically followed everywhere. Cameras and phones with cameras were appeared in the hands of hundreds of students (there were 1,000 students from my school there), we were trapped, the kids were giggling and screaming, shaking our hands, and basically being insane.

Dean teaches at a middle school fairly close to mine, and many of my students have friends at his school. So somehow, they got wind that I had a boyfriend at Seil Middle School, and the students there told my students that Dean was really handsome. The students had been pestering me about my "boy-pu-ren-du" (boyfriend) all semester, and so they were really, really excited. The other teachers didn't come up and talk to me, except for Yunhee and Sally. The rest hung back and looked extremely amused as Dean and I tried to break through a circle of snapping photos only to become trapped in another. It was a crazy morning.

I did get to introduce Dean to some of my favorite students--I have some boys and a big group of girls that speak very well and that are genuinely fun teens. It was great conversing to them outside of the school environment. Many were dressed fantastically, and the teachers explained that--since they wear uniforms all the time--this is one of their few times to show off in front of each other. I saw some girls in 3-inch heels and skirts--apparently, they walked the entire 1-2 hour course in them. Even many of my boys were decked out in their snazziest dressy-casual wear, making them all seem so different from when they are in their wrinkled and stained uniforms.

Oh, and Olympic Park is really pretty. After the kids had finally said their goodbyes, Dean and I planned on walking around the area but it was SO COLD and windy that we had to leave.

Dean shaking his head in amusement at the crazy fandom that is Munsung Middle School.


Some of my first year students. The girl in the pink and the two on her right are in my "JA" after-school class--they are fantastic.


Me with some more of my first year students. The girl in the red-tangerine jacket is also one of my students from the "JA."


Stalker camera phone students. The boy in the background is also one of my favorite students. He goes to an English-language academy after school, so his English is quite advanced. He hopes to get into one of Seoul's prestigious foreign language high schools next year.


The mob.

Late Update!!

So I realize that this entry is long overdue--my apologies. I would update at work on my off-periods, but blogger.com is a blocked site at my school.

There is always so much to report! Last weekend, Dean and I were invited down to the Pusan International Film Festival by Jong-Man, one of the friends I made at TLBU. Jong-Man was part of the temporary camp staff and was the head camera man. He works at a film company in Daejon, which is about 45 minutes from Seoul, and we've kept in touch fairly well since camp ended. Since he goes down to Pusan (a port city in south-east Seoul, second largest city in Korea) for the festival every year, he wanted us to come along. So Dean and I took the KTX (a high-speed train) down to Pusan and spent the weekend there with Jong-Man and his fellow filmmakers. Pusan has a really different feel from Seoul--the subway system is a LOT smaller and the city feels less rushed and claustrophobic. But honestly, I was a bit relieved to come back to Seoul on Sunday evening. We've all become pretty Seoul-savvy in the past few months, so it was a great to know where we were going (Pusan is really, really spread out).

My students had their midterm exams Monday-Wednesday, so I had to come into work but I was allowed to leave at noon and I didn't teach anything! Basically, I just sat at my desk in the teacher's office and went on thefacebook or my gmail account. Very chill. One of my co-teachers, "Grace", went to Canada for a month to attend special English-teaching seminars and so I have a new one. Grace's desk is practically attached to mine, so I had a good relationship with her. But the substitute, Sunhee, or "Sunny", is fantastic! She's only two years older than me and she just graduated. Her English is great and it's just makes things a lot more fun and interesting having someone my age working with me.

Oh, I started Korean lessons! Aerim (part of temporary camp staff at TLBU, goes to university in Seoul) helped me find someone. She's a law student at Kongguk University and one of her fellow students offered to teach me for free. His name is Young-San and he speaks English quite well--he spent his obligatory two years of military service with the American GI's. He left the military a year ago and is a junior at Kongguk (but he's a year older than us). We have lessons only once a week this month because he has his midterms coming up. At our first meeting, we bought a textbook for me and I've been studying on my own. I can already read/write in Korean, so he was immensely relieved. Right now, we're just trying to build up my vocabulary and help me with some simple grammer and sentence forming. In the past two weeks, I've boosted my Korean vocabulary by about forty words, so that's encouraging! It's also just great to have Korean friends.


Here are some pictures from the past few weeks!

Me at Haeundae beach.

Dean and Jong-Man (on the phone--he was the coordinator for his group so his cell was ringing non-stop). We were high up by some tower and a really old bell??

During Chuseok holiday, a huge group of us from SMOE went to Lotte World, an amusement park in Seoul. Here's James (from Britain), Dean, me, and Rory (also from Britain) with some classy accessories.

Dean, Andrea, Liz, Kirsten, Erica, and I went to a big palace in downtown Seoul and took some great photos.


Aerim, me, and Liz out in Hongdae with a bunch of friends.