World Cup!!!!

The World Cup is upon us and as a soccer fan, I was/am pretty excited about it. Last night, we watched the Korea vs. Greece match, and the US vs. England match. The experience of both games was so different it’s hard to imagine they were related.


Those are Korean jerseys under the ponchos. You can buy them everywhere.

First, the wonder of the Korea game. We went to a place called the Coex. It’s basically a spot in Seoul where there are conventions and things. There’s a mall, theatres, and exhibition spaces (the definition of which eludes me). Anyway, during the World Cup they play the games outside and people gather to watch. Some of my friends have been going since they were kids, and they said we had to experience it.



I took one picture and then turned around and took the opposite direction. People are standing in a street that got blocked off.



They didn’t disappoint. It had rained all day, and as a rule that makes me miserable. But it was impossible to be unhappy there. One thing I’ve always admired about Korea is their uninhibited, deeply rooted patriotism. Every South Korean I’ve gotten to know, including my kids, has been really proud of his or her country. And to be perfectly frank, I envy that. Yes, Americans love their country. But patriotism is such a tricky thing for us. We have strange associations with what makes someone a patriot, not to mention all sorts of political and social ties mixed in. It’s hard to have the pure kind of pride and patriotism that I’ve seen.

Okay, that was a little bit of an aside. Anyway, the point is, South Korea takes such pride in their country that it doesn’t matter if you don’t care at all about soccer: you still go and cheer on the team. Everyone in Korea knows Park Jisung, regardless of how interested they are in soccer. (For those of you who don’t follow soccer and don’t live in Korea, Park Jisung is a South Korean midfielder who currently plays for DC United. He’s really good.) DC United fans sing a song when Park scores a goal for them, and people at the game knew and sang it. I’m kind of impressed that they sang it, because it’s all in English.

Park, Park, wherever you may be,
You eat dogs in your home country!
It could be worse, you could be Scouse,
Eating rats in your council house!

The final score was 2-0 in Korea’s favor, and the celebration was intense. I think I hugged more random strangers at the end of the game than I ever have any given family member. Oh, and one thing about being a foreigner in that crowd is that we kind of stood out (we weren’t the only foreigners, but white faces/height always stand out). As such, a friend and I got interviewed by a Korean news channel, and I think we posed in a couple dozen photos with strangers and their children. But the atmosphere was so contagious it made perfect sense when one of my Korean friends said “I feel dizzy.” The Roman candles, improvised marching bands, and costumes may have contributed.


That's H and me getting interviewed.

The Korea game was at 8:30 pm our time. Unfortunately, the US England game was at 3:30 am here. As you can imagine we got a little tired and cranky in the interim, plus we had to go to Itaewon to watch the game. I was excited, as I mentioned, because I actually care about soccer. I won’t pretend that I know everything about the US team, but I love the sport and felt pretty patriotic. Living in a foreign country does that to me. Anyway, we found a bar in Itaewon (that’s the foreigner area in Seoul, and it’s kind of like a Little US, or Americatown). One of my friends knew some Brits at this place, so the three Americans I was with (plus me) were prepared for some good natured insults ahead of time and intense competition during the game.

The shortest phrase I can think of to describe it is “powder keg.” England cares a lot about soccer, as anyone knows, but Americans are really good at loud, opinionated cheering. I saw two almost fights within a yard of me. Both of them were belligerent drunks. One of them was an argument with a bouncer. Which brings me up to another lovely part of my night; I got locked out of the bar. The crowd was kind of intense and I was a little hot, so I volunteered to make a convenience store run (Mentos, Combos, Kimbap etc). When I got back, I found out that they had decided no one could come in anymore because of the crowd. My phone had died during the Korea game, so I basically just stood out there until one of my friends, we’ll call him SC, went for a cigarette break. He argued (respectfully because that’s the way he is) with the bouncer for about ten minutes, until the guy tried to kick him out. I’d like to take the time to say that SC is Korean, and so is the bouncer, so there wasn’t any language barrier. At the point where the bouncer tried to push him out the door, I told him to just go upstairs and tell our friends. Eventually a couple people left the bar and I pushed my way back in.

I had pretty low expectations for the American sportsmanship at the bar. I went to the US Canada hockey game of the Olympics (another intense experience) and kind of figured what we’d be like. I was a little disappointed by the Brits, because they booed so loud during our national anthem (after we were quiet for theirs) that I couldn’t tell when the song started. During the actual game, people got a little more creative with their chants. I won’t share them because they’re pretty x-rated and my grandparents sometimes read this blog ;)

I have to say, the difference in play for the two games also reflected the situation. Korea vs. Greece was a pretty clean match. Korea looked good, and had possession most of the game. US vs. England was ugly. England’s early goal reflected how the US was playing (look before you pass and good first touches, dammit!) , and the US’s goal was… well it wasn’t a powerhouse and I feel for the keeper. I don’t think either team came out looking good, and the audience I was with reflected that perfectly.

Aish.

Well, there’s no doubting that in one day (okay, technically two) I had two unforgettable experiences. I’m still happy the US tied (especially after certain people said that the US team was a joke and England would kick our asses), and it was an interesting game to say the least (4 or 5 yellow cards and four minutes of overtime for injuries?). Thank goodness for Tim Howard.

So who’s going to watch the next game? Who’s got the Park Jisung song in their heads?

Okey Dokey

Wow, didn't write in all of April. Oops.

Koreans say okey dokey. Isn’t that weird? Today, I said “Okey Dokey” to my partner teacher, and she wanted to know where I learned that. All I could do was look at her funny and say, “Childhood?” It took us ten minutes to figure out that we say it in the US, but Koreans say it here too.

There’s nothing quite like living in a foreign speaking country to make you think about language. Most of you probably know that I like thinking about language anyway (my list of fun words to say for example). I’ve always loved the fun you can have with English words, too. When I was explaining the word “folks” to a friend, I told him that “The only folks I know who say ‘folks’ are my folks.” Isn’t it cool how versatile even a relatively unused (these days) word can be? Since I’ve been studying Korean, I’ve found Korean words with multiple meanings as well, but I’m not sure if it’s to the same extent.

*Sidebar: there are two sets of numbers Koreans use. One is a straight Hangul (Korean) set, and the other is a Chinese/Hangul set. If you say 18 in the Chinese/Hangul set, it sounds like a bad word. Essentially, it's like saying "I'm going to cut you into ten pieces." I'm not going to teach you, but you can look it up if you're really curious.

Talking to friends who have been studying English as a second language for years makes me grateful English is my first language. We all take it for granted so much! I mean, all airports have English in them. I can’t imagine trying to travel through, say, the Beijing airport if I only spoke Hindi. How do people do it? And even more, let’s say English is your second (or third or fourth) language, and you have to use it in an airport. Now you’ve got the confusion of another country, and you can’t quite remember if “departures” means coming or going.

Or texting. One of my friends (who has excellent English skills) wrote “You can be lazy.” I was a little offended. I wrote something slightly rude back (it is me after all), and then he was horrified. He didn’t know what he did wrong, and I didn’t know why he was so shocked when he’d been rude first… Then it dawned on me (you might have figured it out right away, but it took me a while) that he meant “You are able to be lazy if you want to” not, “you’re lazy.”

Dear God, I’m glad this is my first language. It’s hard enough to explain the differences between regular words, let alone the overt and covert meanings. So all of you out there that hated English class in high school, thank your lucky stars it was your first language. It’s a nightmare to learn, and really hard to explain why things are the way they are (my standard response is “Because the English hate you.”).

All's Well on the Eastern Front

The name pun is pretty lame, I know.

Let me get this out again: I'm not fond of blogs. It's so hard to avoid sounding pretentious or self-involved because you're talking about YOURSELF. As much as I like talking about myself, actual physical evidence of my pomposity makes me cringe. That's why I've failed with the DMZ.

The DMZ is an amazing, terrifically uncomfortable, and (for lack of a better term) eye-opening experience. But I haven't really been able to figure out how to do it justice. So I guess I'll have to table that posting for when I either gain talent or no longer feel so intimidated by the subject.

That said, the primary purpose of my blog is to keep folks from home updated on my life (as a substitute for the dreaded mass-email). That point has been an even greater failure, because I've not remotely done that. My last posting informed everyone (rather late, too) that I was unemployed. The next day, I got a job.

THE NEXT DAY.

So even though I knew my contract would end a month in advance, I only spent two weeks unemployed. For those of you who were concerned about my well-being but didn't talk to my parents, sorry about the lack of info. This new job is amazing. It's at a public school, which is kind of the promised land for foreign teachers in Seoul. Good hours, job stability, good pay, and most importantly: lower expectations. My previous employers had kind of insane expectations for teachers who had no experience. They didn't train us or tell us how to do anything. Instead, they'd say things like "You need to make your class more fun, but push them."

Sounds good. HOW???

"Don't play games with them." One week. Next week, "Make sure they have fun!"

You get the idea. My current job is so much better. I actually have a partner teacher I discuss lesson plans with. I don't have to do evaluations or monthly plans every month (during my free time and without pay). I'm allowed to play games and talk with my students. I only teach between 1:00 and 6:00pm.

Overall, it's a nearly ideal situation. I'd continue, but I have to stop before I go on a greater tangent. But there's more to the story. I need to tame the Korean rental market. AISH...

Um... yeah.

I’m afraid I’ve been pretty off about writing in the blog lately. It’s not that I haven’t been doing interesting things, or haven’t had the time to write them down, but that I haven’t had much luck figuring out how to say them. My school laid me off last month, and I’m still trying to work out what I’m going to do about it. I’ve been job hunting in Korea because I don’t feel like I’m ready to leave. But I’m also uncertain if I’m ready to commit to a whole extra year when I’ve been here eight months already.

So you can imagine the conundrum. It seems like such a commitment either way (should I stay or should I go?) even though the reality is that either decision won’t kill me. I’ve never been laid off from a job before. It’s a curious feeling, and I can’t help wondering how real adults deal with it. I’m just a single twenty-something with student loans. I’m not married, I don’t have children (I don’t even have a pet fish), or house or car payments… How do people cope with that? How does someone ignore the panic that maybe they won’t have a job soon enough to keep up with bills? My insides get fluttery at the concept and I have savings now. Aish. Times like these make me miss childhood. I don’t want to make tough decisions or stick up for myself. I want to remain in the familiar, if slightly miserable job I had before.

You’ll have to forgive the self indulgence of those two paragraphs. It’s not actually hard to find an English teaching job in Korea, and I’ve got many friends helping me out. I'm staying with someone, so I won't be dropped on the street or anything. I've got money saved up, too. So unemployment is more of a short vacation while I decide what to do next. Everybody loves a vacation, right?

Speaking of that, you take trips on vacation. I took one of those trips last week, and I have to say it was really interesting. I visited the one main landmark that every tourist in Korea should see: the DMZ. It’s still kind of difficult to wrap my head around everything there, so I’ll just stop now with the promise of telling about that soon. Very soon.

Flour Playground?

Last week our school went to this really cool flour...um... playground? It's hard to describe in two words or less, but it was awesome.

It started with us getting out of our shoes and socks, and rolling up our pants. Then we walked through a pathway of four inches of flour. Do you have any idea what it's like to walk through flour? It's awesome! It squishes through your toes and (for me anyway) tickles a little, but doesn't get your feet really messy the way other products (jello, pudding) might.

After that, they let the kids play with these mounds of flour. They'd take sifters and write things in the flour on the floor. Overall, pretty cool.

Then we were led into another room, which was all white with only black tape decorating it (just like the previous room). Here, the kids made pieces of dough into shapes. We decorated them like sugar cookies and they cooked them. For those of you interested in knowing, I made a Hello Kitty head. The girls liked it.

We walked down this white ramp and went into another all white room (this one had pillars). One of my coworkers said that he felt like we were in a video game and we'd gotten to the third level. I wish I'd thought of that because he was spot on about it. In this room, there were giant blobs of dough sitting on the floor. When I say giant, I mean about six blobs of dough the size of one of my kids. We could have made six Kevins out of them. (Anyone a Sabrina the Teenage Witch fan? Cause I just thought of the Man-Dough episode.) Anyway, this is when things got interesting. We were able to do almost anything with them. It started out tame; they made some shapes and put them on straws. Then someone threw a ball of dough at the ground and everyone had to try that. While you might expect us to have a giant dough fight, you would be wrong. But they did get creative. One of the boys covered his foot with dough and shouted, "Teacher! Shoe!" I played dough baseball with a couple children, complete with dough ball, catcher, pitcher, and two out of four bases. They had dough mitts but we never actually could hit the ball since a bat made out of dough is more likely to break than swing.

Fourth Level: The bean room. Or wheat. I'm not sure what it was, but it was awesome. The room had about three or four inches of seeds and was basically an awesome playground. They had balls that ranged from small nerf balls to those giant Pilates balls. They hurt a litle if you got smacked by one. Only a couple kids got hit, but there were many dodgeball fights. Overall, it was incredible.

When I got home, I discovered that much of my underclothing had stored some AWOL wheat. Oops.

While I still have no idea what that place really was (and thus can't google search it), I have to say it would be an amazing place to have a birthday party. Thank God I don't have children of my own, because I know exactly where I would take them every weekend.

Are there any places like this in the States? If so, where? If not, we've got to do it! It's just to wonderful to miss out on!

Wood Sprite

My decision to write something (however small) at least once a week has failed yet again. It’s not because I don’t have anything to say, it’s more like I haven’t used my down time properly.

Plus some of the things that’ve been going on at my school aren’t really blogable (how do you spell a made up word? blogible?).

For instance, there was some drama with one of our foreign teachers who got in a fight with a Korean teacher. Not fistfight (though that’d be interesting), but more of the screaming variety. It’d be pretty awful of me to go into details about just how *ahem* extreme this foreign teacher got that day, but it sure made for an interesting week.

We also had our “New Year’s Show.” This is a very big deal at our school, and the kids had to prepare for a play, several songs, and speeches. We rented costumes that fit with our plays and had props and songs in the middle. There was even a costume change for the “speeches,” which were a reprisal of the Halloween stories they memorized months ago. The kids sang, danced, and acted. If you think this was a little much for a bunch of six year olds, you're right. But my kids were happy through all of it. They had the best attitudes, and I hardly had to bribe them with candy or anything (until the last day).

My class did “Shepherd Boy,” which is the story of the boy who cried wolf. I didn’t pick the play or the parts (I wasn’t teaching them yet). But I can tell you, the child who played the Shepherd Boy was typecast. He said his lines with such glee, there was no doubt in my mind about what he’d be doing if he were in charge of sheep. Unfortunately, he’s the biggest child in the class, and the wolf was played by the smallest. However, the wolf was so adorable it didn’t matter at all.

Plus the Shepherd Boy wasn’t exactly wearing an intimidating costume. I picked out a shepherd costume for him, but my partner teacher didn’t think it was cute enough (no comment). So this poor kid had to wear what I could only describe as a wood sprite costume. I.e: Brown spandex with a tiny grass skirt. He wasn’t pleased, and I couldn’t blame him. I can only imagine the look on his face when they pulled out the brown spandex suit. He’s a big kid, and that was a tiny jumper.

Anyway, I guess I did have something to talk about. The show went off with a couple hitches, but nothing disastrous. Plus now I can just relax with my kids and do art and science, etc in the afternoons. Yea! We’re teaching instead of rehearsing!

Home is where the food is

I don't usually get homesick here, but yesterday I got news that a friend is going to have a baby (congratulations!). It made me think about all the things I miss out on by being in a different country.

On the plus side, baby clothes and such are really cute and really cheap here. So she has no idea what can of worms she opened by telling me.

The great thing about Seoul is that when you feel like something from home, you can usually find it or a close facsimile. I mean, I live a block away from TGIFridays. Outback steakhouse is a five minute cab ride in either direction, and Dunkin Donuts is everywhere. I don't actually go to those places, but they are an option. There's also Costco, which can be a source of those hard to find items. A foreign food market is in Itaewan, not to mention a plethora of foreign restaurants.

So in short, I have a lot of food from home available to me. Food is a big factor in how homesick I feel, so that's helpful. Granted no amount of McDonalds can make up for the fact that I can't have my mom's homemade cinnamon rolls or turkey tetrazzini. I can make some of those things here (but let's be honest, it always tastes better when she does it). Then there are always those kind of disgusting items that you crave but can't find as easily. My parents remedied that by bringing me candy corn for Christmas. Mom was a little concerned about it being old, but it's candy corn after all. It was probably already a year old when she bought it. I think it was available around Halloween, but I had trouble finding it. Now I'm holding my breath for Easter jelly beans.

Though in a funny twist of fate, I got homesick for Korean food when I was in China. I'm not sure what that means for me when I get home because I'm not sure South Dakota has any Korean Restaurants.

I guess that means the main source of my homesickness is going to be when people I love and care about have positive or negative news. So far, I haven't been able to be home for a wedding, the baby news, or a friend with serious medical worries. Maybe it doesn't make a HUGE difference to them, but when I can't even call someone to say "OH MY GOD! YOU'RE HAVING A BABY!" without planning the time days in advance, it kinda sucks.

Stupid fifteen hour time difference.

Beijing Again

It's been really busy since I've come back, and the knowledge that I have to report an entire vacation trip was daunting.

So I'm not going to go in depth. Let's be honest, how many of you are interested in hearing about how beautiful the Great Wall is? Again?

My vacation started with a Christmas Eve dinner/Yankee swap at S and D's. I made crescent rolls, which went over well. Crescent rolls have to be the most magical recipe in history. I've never met someone who didn't like Mom's fresh crescent rolls. They're practically a legend in our family (as some of you family members may attest), and they certainly were popular at the party.

Anyway, the next morning I flew to Shanghai. I met my friend Erika there, and we had a whole lot of fun. Practically everything was closed or under construction, though. Lonely Planet also led us astray with a "History of Sex" museum that we thought sounded interesting. It turns out that museum hasn't existed for a while. So we basically asked a whole bunch of strangers where the "Sex Museum" was for no reason. Oops. Most people just laughed and shook their heads anyway. Crazy foreigners!

I planned on taking an overnight train to Beijing, but as apparently was the theme of my trip, I missed it. There were a few tense hours where I envisioned my parents wandering the airport, worried that some disaster had befallen me. Luckily, my sister was able to text Mom’s cell while they were on a layover in Vancouver. You’ve got to love modern technology (email and text equals disaster averted! Okay, maybe not a disaster, but a whole lot of worry and waffling was averted. Nobody likes wafflers. Though waffles are universally loved.)

Sorry.

We met at the hostel (by the way, Mom and Dad are cool enough to want to stay in a hostel in China) and had Peking duck our first night. We hit all the major sights (Tienenman Square, Forbidden City, Night Market, Lama Temple, GREAT WALL, etc). Mom and Dad were really game. That’s something, considering I was kind of inconsiderate when I was making arrangements. As a good example, I didn’t book the overnight train to Xi-an in advance, partly because I couldn’t figure out the website. So when I had the hostel book the beds, I just jumped on whatever was available. “Whatever was available” turned out to be the top bunks in a hard sleeper. Top bunks of triple bunk beds, that is. Now, that’s not a big deal for me, but Mom and Dad aren’t in their twenties anymore. To top it off, I may have laughed at them when they hoisted themselves up into their bunks. Just a little.

Yeah. They love me (or else I’d be dead long ago).

Naturally top bunks were the only things available on the way back, as well.

Mom and Dad were infinitely good natured about the fact that we went to and from Xi-an in twenty-four hours, not to mention hard sleepers and my crabbiness about being in charge. (We’ve established that I’m not a planner, right?) But the fact is, they got off 15 hour flight, slept one night in good beds, and then took a hard sleeper to and from Xi-an. Dad and my brother figured out that doing Xi-an like that would be about like going to and from the Grand Canyon from Sioux Falls in a day.

So basically insane.

But they were good. If my daughter put me through that (in thirty years or so), I’d probably want to smack her. They may have felt the same way, but they hid such feelings very well.

We proceeded to take in the Great Wall at Mutianyu and an acrobatics show. We also toured a few temples and a bell tower. Our toes got cold, and my parents embarrassed me a little. If you guys know my dad, you can’t imagine it’s a stretch. If you don’t, let me describe him as succinctly as possible (by the way, I love you Dad): He’s a big, booming man with a big booming voice. He stood one or two heads taller than most of the people in the subways, has a beard and mustache, and wore a fedora.

A fedora.

Yes. He may have stood out a little. That didn’t bother him in the least, but I’m kind of used to being the lone Caucasian and most people avoiding eye contact.

Going home was as problematic as getting in to Beijing (I got snowed in and almost didn’t get home.) but that’s a story for another time. No one needs to hear about my heels getting frostbite right now.

Overall, I think it was a successful trip. I wasn’t as patient or nice to my parents as I should have been. I’m sorry about that. But they’re stuck with me, and I doubt they expected perfection from me. Lord knows, I’m probably the least good natured of the family and that was never a secret. But they CLAIMED they liked the trip, and I hope this will just be an indication of more international travel for them in the future!