K-Pop the Vote!

This is the last week of classes of the semester, which makes it election week at Young-il go-dung hagkyo. I brought my camera to school to capture the flavor of campaigning as students stream in through the gates in the morning:







The number is the candidate's ID number on the ballot sheet, determined earlier by a random drawing. In addition to enlisting their friends to cheer for them, the wannabe politicos are responsible for providing posters identifying their policy platforms to go on this bulletin board:






There are seven candidates for president, and only one for vice-president. Among the platform issues:

• toilet paper in all bathrooms
  
• no hair length requirement
  
• no boring sports events--everyone should get to participate
  
• I have no agenda, but I will listen to you and try to do what you want
  
• 8th period (after school program) should be optional
  
• classes during the week after exams should be 10 minutes shorter
  

Mr Hwang and I both celebrated the power of the vote, but lamented that we had no rights to vote in this election! Personally, I'm all for shorter classes...

Swine Flu, Crazy Cow and Other Animals

Mike Breen makes a very good point in his recent op-ed in the Korea Times, writing about the swine flu outbreak:

When the health ministry issued statistics last weekend showing swine flu cases were up to 286, Koreans took the news in stride.
Not so long ago, the media atmosphere would have been less cool, possibly even hysterical. The government would almost certainly have banned pork imports, as China, Russia and the Philippines have done.
But this time we are being calmly told that this flu is caught from other infected people, not from pigs, and advised, just in case, to thoroughly cook our pork.
The change is welcome progress and makes sense. Playing up foreign food scares and demonizing imports may have made popular sense in justifying agricultural protectionism. But the authorities have learned that food scares lead to fears about local produce and that it's better for consumer credibility, as well as international perception and trading partner relations, to treat such outbreaks as health, and not trade, issues.

Breen is the author of one of the main books I read about Korea, The Koreans: Who the are, what they want, where their future lies, and has lived here half-time for many years. The title of his piece is "Hope on Mad Cow Disease", and his overall point is that due to Koreans' xenophobia, they have failed to certify the safety of their own beef supply.

Since it is considered so well-known that BSE comes from American cows, there was little effort made to screen and protect Korean herds. Today, Korea still has not made the list of "negligible" or "controlled" risk countries.

A small galbitang (beef rib soup) restaurant opened in my neighborhood last month, and it had a really delicious version of the soup. Alas, I only managed to eat there twice before it closed last week. I asked Mr Hwang what the explanation could be.

He replied there were not enough customers. Thank you, Mr Obvious, I said (on the inside). I suspect the real reason to be they served (indubitably delicious) American beef--stores and restaurants here are required to publicly display the national origin of all the meats they serve. Despite the fact that American beef is verifiably safe and Korean beef is not.

It is this same attitude that infuses and dooms to failure the Korean AIDS policy: foreigners with the disease are deported. This is bad policy for numerous reasons, not least of which is that it is in direct conflict with international AIDS policy. Only a few other countries attempt to screen and deport foreigners, countries like Saudi Arabia and Singapore--most countries reject this method because it doesn't work, and probably makes the problem worse.

Just like with "Crazy Cow", it gives you an easy scapegoat and allows you to whistle past the graveyard when it comes to identifying and dealing with the problem. It gives you a false sense of security.

I think Mr Breen is correct to see "hope" in the rational response to A-H1N1; hopefully, it is a sign of things to come.

Bonus Photograph: On a lighter note, here is a bar sign near Dangsan Station. Drink up, you can't get AIDS from beer, even if it's ...

Brief Teef Update

1) I was biting into a pork meatball today at lunch when I encountered a bit of bone. Unfortunately, it was MY bone, a piece of an upper molar that has been irritating me for about a year now, since the filling fell out (I have two, total two, fillings, in this mouth).

While I was flossing after lunch another piece fell out, so now I have a tooth disintegrating bit by bit in my mouth. No, it's not painful at all, but obviously, I must go to a dentist. Hwang doesn't know an English speaking one, so I'm hoping Andy's recommendation of the dentist in the building next door to my officetel will work out (stay tuned for a full post on my first dental visit in umpteen years).

2) I was just bragging this weekend to Steve W and Gav that I am proactive in dealing with miscommunication issues since I always ask Mr Hwang on Friday as we walk to school about any schedule changes for the next week. He told me that:
A - Thursday, 1st period would be devoted to student government elections; and,
B - Friday, scheduled as the last day of term, would be a holiday.
Well, it turns out that he was "Mr Wrong" on the Friday holiday, as Constitution Day hasn't been a national holiday for two years. Ah-hah. Thursday's veracity is TBD.

3) Furthermore, he neglected to point out until today--that's Monday--that I would have no classes tomorrow--that's Tuesday--due to a national exam practice session. So, of three special events that I specifically asked about, he was wrong on two out of three. Now that gets you a million-dollar contract in the MLB, but for reading a calendar, it is pathetic.

4) So the upshot of all this is that tomorrow I will walk to work as usual in order to get credit for the day's work and, as I have no responsibilities, immediately turn around and go to the dentist. Oh, BTW, I'm askeered!

5) On top of all that, 장 마 jang-ma has decided to act up and Seoul is expecting the worst downpour of the season tonight and tomorrow. Rain for the next two days!

Machinery at E-Mart

Prepackaged and instant foods are a relatively recent phenomenon to the Korean housewife--she grew up with outdoor markets and roadside vendors, which are of course still around today. The popular E-Mart supermarket/department store chain is only 15 years old.

And in order to make inroads with the adjumma, they must combine modern efficiencies with a flavor of traditional market freshness. One aspect of this strategy is a number of processing machines found right inside the store. Below is the red ginsing extractor, for example:


Here is the rice milling machine:

Brown rice goes in ...	...milled white rice comes out

Here is a squid-prep apparatus. The lady is frying up raw squid in the George Foreman, then it will go through the roller device to be scored for easy shredding. Yumm!



Finally, two mahines that weren't operating today when I was wandering through. First is a garlic press:



Above is a seaweed, um, cooker, I guess. Sheets of seaweed go in one side, and then come out the other side a little darker. I guess it's a sort of salamander. An adjumma feeds it at one end, and another stacks up the sheets that come out and slides them into packages.

There are in fact a few other devices like this in the store, preparing fresh processed foods, but they weren't out today, alas.

Fingerpointing in US-Korea Hacking Episode

Beginning on July 4th, and continuing until as recently as today, government and some other websites in both ROK and the US have been crippled by a distributed denial of service attack.

For the most part, my personal cyber-life was unaffected, except that washingtonpost.com was periodically unavailable--not that I go there that much anymore, since they fired Dan Froomkin at he beginning of the month, one of the few journalists left who pounds the accountability beat, for the media as well as for politicians and government. (Good news, he'll be starting at the Huff Post sometime soon.)

What's interesting is the way the virus seemed to succeed in an unexpected way by sending erstwhile allies into a bout of fingerpointing and friction. The attack was largely built from the MyDoom virus, first exposed in 2004, so presumably the cadre of infectable machines was low (some 50,000 to 65,000 machines were infected), and seem to be located mainly in China, Korea and Japan.

According to an article at Wired.com:

“The fact that it’s using older threats isn’t a terribly stealthy attack,” says Dean Turner, director of Symantec’s Global Intelligence Network. “And the fact that it’s re-using code could indicate that somebody put it together in a hurry or that, as with most DDoS attacks, their purpose is mostly nuisance. It didn’t require a degree in rocket science to pull that stuff together.”...
Denial-of-service attacks are one of the least sophisticated kinds of attacks a hacker can launch and have been around for nearly as long as e-commerce.

Conversely, over at Korea Herald, we get this:

Hong Min-pyo, CEO of a local security software firm Shiftworks yesterday raised the possibility of the "Distributed Denial of Service" virus originating from a locale in the United States, which also was hit by an attack that started as early as July 4.
Hong cited analyses conducted on the virus, saying the masterminds appeared to be "tech-savvy."

Yonhap News reported that Korea Information Security Agency along with the spy agency initially blamed the attack on North Korea or its sympathizers, pointing out that despite Pyongyang's decripit infrastructure, it has been training hackers for years now.

Korea's opposition Democratic Party then suggested the claim was political, motivated by a desire to pass a counter-terrorism bill. Korean politics is famously rough-and-tumble, but I think it's rare that they let it thwart counterterrorism and national security efforts--the party out of power is usually critical of the way the other party kowtows to the US military, but when they are in power, they do some pretty fine kowtowing themselves.

Anyway, fear not, Dear Readers, my computer was unaffected by the virus, and my blog is hosted by good ol' Google, who knows a thing or two about DOS. So you can be assured of uninterrupted grazing, or harvesting, or cultivating, or whatever-it-is-you-do here in the Seoul Patch. Whatever it is you do.

The Politics of the Unhinged

I could recap the latest news from our Scary Neighbor to the North, but most readers of this blog already know the basics of its recent activities. To the point, the ship which apparently carried weapons bound for Burma, aka Myanmar, the Kangnam 1, has done an abrupt aboutface and was just sighted returning to North Korean waters.

Now, the North is mum on exactly why, but tried to change the subject by firing off a few more missile tests--it is easy to calculate that this was a face-saving show of aggression, especially right after Kim Jong-un was appointed head of the National Defense Commission of DPRK (tacitly tapping him as next Worker's Party leader and government head).

Analysts agree that the turnabout of the Kangnam was almost certainly due to the fact that the ship was unable to find a friendly port for service and refueling, seen as proof that US efforts combined with UN sanctions had been 100% effective. No mean feat considering that the Dear Leader had called any attempt to board or search the vessel cause for war.

Score one for international diplomacy, and Obama's willingness to work within the UN to forward an agenda of democracy and sensible restraint. Or so I thought until I clicked on a link from Google News - Korea (see the sidebar), to the "Headquarters of the Conservative Underground". If you thought the conservative "underground" would be a place of truth, sensibility and moderation as a counterpoint to the inane ramblings, hate-mongering and outright lies of the above-ground conservative movement in America today, you will be sadly disappointed.

It begins with a list of "egregious acts of aggression" from the North--fair enough, no one questions that. Then it goes on to describe the US and UN actions as "milquetoast"--despite the fact that they worked! The author, James Zumwalt, says this:

Most likely, Kang Nam’s course change was tied to Myanmar’s demand the ship not enter its waters. The junta, already in the international spotlight for mistreatment of jailed opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, had no interest in drawing further attention to itself by allowing Kang Nam entry, triggering diplomatic pressure for the vessel’s inspection. Accordingly, Pyongyang’s motivation for altering the ship’s course was not a voluntary act of responsible conduct but, as logic in dealing with North Korea suggests, an involuntary act prompted by Myanmar’s refusal to grant entry.

So, in other words, international pressure caused Myanmar to refuse entry to the ship, but this should not be seen as validation of international pressure. The greatest irony here is the title of the piece: "North Korea's Shocking Display of Logic". Uh-huh.

Not to pick on our fact-deprived conservative movement (okay, to pick on them), but my favorite comment below the piece is by a guy from my home state named George, from St Simons Island, a lovely coastal ecosystem with lots of rich people, who says:

Clinton and Bush tried to draw out Dear Leader into the community of nations, and sought diplomatic solutions. It didn't work. N. Korea has milked the US, Japan and S. Korea for aid, yet they still went nuclear. The Chinese don't seem to mind as long as N. Korea is still a buffer state.

Yes, you read it here first, "Bush sought diplomatic solutions" with North Korea. Well, either that or the Clinton policy verifiably prevented DPRK progress on nukes, but the Bush policy (or lack thereof) allowed the entry of the most unhinged nation on earth into the Nuclear Club. Yeah. One of those.

But let's blame Obama's milquetoast policy. Not like it worked in this case, anyway...

Nolboo and Heungboo

Today, I was invited to a little party of the "Soccer Club" which consists of faculty who get together to play soccer after school once a week. They met under the big banyan tree on the back patio for beer, soju, watermelon, dried squid and fried chicken.

As is usual at these things, I didn't understand a lot of what was being said, but Mr Pak seemed intent on getting me drunk, so it was okay. Of course, at the end, he was the one who was drunk. As usual, they spent a lot of time talking about the problems with the Korean educational system. They also reflected on the day's game.

Afterwards, we went for second round at a local billiard hall, where I played eight ball with Mr Wright, the school's best athlete, and beat him 2 - 0. At this point, the party died out, and I walked home with Mr Hwang. Well, not home, actually, to dinner in Blue Nine, the big new building in my neighborhood which has about thirty restaurants. Mr Hwang wanted bap, so we ate at Nolboo. Budae jjigae is always good by me.

And so it was here I learned the Korean fable of Nolboo and Heungboo. Although, honestly, truth be known, it's a curiosity why they chose Nolboo instead of Heungboo for their corporate character. You see, Nolboo and Heungboo were brothers, Heungboo poor and Nolboo very wealthy, having stolen his brother's stake in the family estate. Nolboo was a miser, but Heungboo was generous to a fault, always sharing with others even though there was barely enough for his own family.

One day, he happened across an injured sparrow with a broken wing. He mended its wing and nursed it back to health. When he released it, the sparrow, 제비 jebi in Korean, returned with a pumpkin seed. When Heungboo planted it, the the vine grew an enormous pumpkin. When Heungboo's family cut it open, the pumpkin was filled with gold and treasure.

Upon hearing of his brother's good fortune and how he came upon it, Nolboo tried to do the same. He captured a jebi and broke its wing intentionally before nursing it and then ordering it to return in the spring with a magic melon seed. Just like with his brother, the bird returned with a single seed, only when Nolboo cut open his giant gourd, monsters and goblins came out. They beat Nolboo and his wife, and stole all their wealth.

So Nolboo was forced to ask his brother for help, which Heungboo was only too happy to provide, even though his brother had treated him so badly before. So why do you name your Korean restaurant franchise for the jerk? I guess because he's wealthy for most of the story, and you could probably get a finer meal in his house than in his brother's. But, at the end of the story, it's Heungbu that has the wealth; and furthermore, I would expect half-portions from a scrooge like Nolboo, whereas his brother would likely go without so that his visitor was well-fed.

Not that I expected an answer, but I went to the Nolboo corporate website to see what they had, and found some interesting Konglish, but it left me unconvinced:

...So we think that Heungboo stands for virtue and Nolboo for evil. But we need to understand implied meaning shown in 'Nolboo'... There are various attempts to reinterpret the meaning of Nolboo. You can see that he is a very creative person if you look at him out of conventional fixed idea.
First, Nolboo is a living person with vigor and practical. ...
Fourth, Nolboo is a puncy person without desperation.
He experienced all kinds of calamities when he cut gourds but he cut them all without yielding. There is a saying that there is a great man in a crisis. This type of person plans future and has capability to challenge again in crises.

I quote this for its humor value, but also because of a larger point: the writer obviously was chosen because he did well in English at school. He knows the plural of 'crisis' is 'crises', but cannot construct a paragraph using the words effectively.

Art Can Be Scary

Got to give the curators of the Seoul Museum of Art some credit--who indeed would run a show like 'Dissonant Visions' at the same time they were presenting an important retrospective on Pierre-Auguste Renoir? And who would go to see the one without looking at the other?

They would, and I would. I may pop in on the Renoir later (it leaves at the end of August), but it costs 10,000 W and the lines are ever so long. Meanwhile, I read a piece about the other show at the Korea Herald, and it sounded way more interesting for 700 W (about four or five bits, USD).

After being veritably scalped at the Well-Being Hair Salon today (no, no pictures), I eventally made my way to Seoul's City Hall metro station (lines 1 and 2, also a stone's throw from Seodaemun, line 5), the stop nearest to the art museum. As it happened I arrived just as the crowds were gathering in front of Daehanmun for the changing of the guard ceremony at Deoksugung, so I decided to stick around and wait for it.

I've seen it before, here at Deoksugung, when Ben came to visit, as well as at Gyeongbokgung back in February when I saw it twice. Still, it's such a colorful ceremony, here are a few more photos:

Can you spot the American brands in the photos below?

And a video:


Anyway, let's move on to the exhibit I came to see, shall we?

Well, I found the exhibition 'Dissonant Visions' both gross and engrossing, as I suspect the curators intended. Images ranged from the silly to the nifty to the disturbing. One of the first ones to strike you as you go through is this:


A giant womb excreted a crocodile, who barfed a lot of tinsel. Did nothing for me. However, next were a series of dragon-type creatures sculpted from automobile tires--these, I liked a lot:


The tread of the tires, and the way they are cut and placed, created organisms lithe, sinewy and--being black--automatically threatening.

This series of busts whose outer decoration seems to evoke their inner lives seemed rather pat, but I like soccer, so I took a photo:


In this multi-level piece (there is a shadow cast against the third wall, also) it appears as if life is supported by a super-complex machinery devised by madmen. OR life supports a super-madman-like machinery with even the simplest plant fronting a bizarre apparatus as shown.


Possibly the most disturbing vista of the exhibition was a multimedia installation in which Dr Moreau-evoking sculptures fronted goliath paintings of multiated faces. To wit:


So, okay, that's strange. Still, you study it the same way you can't look away from a car crash--and I think that's part of the point.

The next room had a series called "Flowers" (#2, #3, etc)...


...and just as I was about to get a close-up of the most interesting one, a docent--actually a minimum wage art student--told me photos were not allowed. So, you'll have to guess what it looked like, but it was more extreme, and also more organic, than these.

Fortunately, I was nearing the end of the tour when this happened, and other than one other artist's work, I wasn't all that impressed, so I made my way out. While looking around the plaza in front of the museum, I noticed some familiar figures on top of the light poles, which I think are sculptures by Jeong Guk-taek (click here and scroll to the bottom):

Here is my photo of Jeong's sculpture in front of the Somerset in Insa-dong:

Call Me

We had an English Dept "meeting" today, held in Sky Onn Food at Gimpo Airport, where we had met previously, and which I blogged here. This one was exactly the same, except for the part about how it was payback for listening to the presentations about the technology in our new English Only Zone.

No, today was payback for not inviting me to the last English Dept "meeting". You see, here is what happened: Miss Lee had her demonstration lesson last Monday, which is traditionally followed by a celebratory get-together called a department meeting. While walking to school that day, I asked Hwang about it, and he said he didn't know the specifics, but 이금천 would let me know. Anyway, long story short, I heard no more about it and assumed it was postponed until later. So I trekked home at the end of a long Monday.

So on Tuesday, Miss Lee (이정현) spilled the beans, and I asked Mr Hur (허준영) why he didn't tell or call me--turns out, they had had a meeting (beef galbi no less, plus second round) Monday evening, and everyone thought someone else had told me, but no one did.

This is a little story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody.
There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it.
Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.
Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody's job.
Everybody thought that Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it.
It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.

Yeah. Like that. I understand completely. Really. There are at least four people responsible for different aspects of my tenure at Young-il High School, and I can easily see how something like this slips through the cracks. But what actually did hurt my feelings, a little bit anyway, was this: Once they realized, why did Nobody call? Everybody has my phone number, I'm sure Somebody thought of it, and Anybody could've called. But Nobody did!

I know where you're coming from
Call me on the line
Call me call me any anytime
Call me my love you can call me any day or night
Call me
Cover me with kisses, baby Oops...nevermind

So anyway, practically every member of the English Dept, certainly all those listed above, alerted me to the particulars of today's meeting. After all, its whole purpose was a make-up for the previous one. Nobody said anything about all that, except for 허준영, who sidled up to me at the "live dish" pasta (where you select the ingredients for a ragu and the chef cooks them while you wait) and explained to me how bad everyone felt, and how much they hoped I would enjoy the meal today.

Well, I certanly did.

Vacation, Time to Get Away

So, in the midst of the contract renewal, the summer camp program, and exams, I have been planning my vacation. This has gone though several iterations as my summer camp program of three weeks was on, then off, then on again. Grrrr!

My initial thoughts were two weeks in New York City, including meeting up with my Dad when he goes to bagpipe school in August, which became one week when I looked at prices. Still something I want to do.

Then I looked at a couple of weeks on the beach in a dirt-cheap locale here in east Asia like Thailand or Vietnam, but decided it will be too boiling hot in August. Maybe I will do this in the fall, during Chuseok/Class Trip Week or winter vacation in February.

Then I thought about visiting TB and Nancy in the City of Angels. A big plus would be free lodging on what is described to me as a "great fold-out couch." Downsides: hot there too, need a car to get around, and hopefully they'll both be employed, thereby leaving me on my own except for evenings.

Final decision: New Zealand. I was so enthusiastic about it that I talked Andy into going--he whipped up a few websites on his own and was immediately sold! So, we set the dates according to his schedule, since my summer camp classes were cancelled due to lack of participation, and I was therefore more flexible (though I only get two weeks outside Korea).

So, I turned in my flight plan to my coteacher at school to forward to the SMOE office, and she informed me that my dates were wrong--I had to teach summer camp during part of this time. Apparently, despite our "understanding" that I would not teach three classes to a grand total of five students, and so was going to be allowed to "work at home" during three weeks between semesters, someone had consolidated those students into one class, and added two more students.

Long story short, after making our broad arrangements, my school threw a major wrench into the works. I was furious. Andy is being really cool about it--way cooler than I am--despite the fact I'm screwing him out of some costs we should be splitting. So he plans to do some winter sports probably with his brother along, which I'm not all that interested in (winter sports, I mean--I don't even know his brother) before I arrive.

Why New Zealand? you ask. Well, some really cool geology, like geothermal vents, glaciers, volcanoes, gold deposits, the Craters of the Moon. Culture, like antiquarian colonial villages, aboriginal sites, Steinlager, rugby. Lord of the Rings: we are both fans of the books and the movie series filmed here, and there is a tourism industry devoted to it--Mt Doom, Hobbiton, Edoras, etc. So, how much does it cost to spend the night in Bag End? I don't know, but I hope to find out.

Semester Exams

Yes, it's that time again. Of course, the testing culture here is so strong that it's almost always either that time, or nearly that time--mid-terms, norm-referenced testing, national exam practice tests, national exams, semester exams. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I can't complain, though: in my job, I don't write exams, grade them, proctor them, prepare them, fold, spindle or mutilate them. But I do have to show up for work and sit around for three hours every day during them. And even at that I have no complaint: my contract says my workday ends at 4:30--some schools make people sit there every day just on general principle.

Exams will run tomorrow through next Wednesday, so I'll use this week's lesson plan for two weeks. I went to a really great website called BrainFood at http://www.rinkworks.com/brainfood/ and chose some of the word puzzles and logic puzzles. These I put into a powerpoint with appropriate explanation and some graphics to spiff it all up.

I introduced the concept by explaining to the students that with exams coming, I wanted to help them stimulate what Poirot called "ze little gray cells" and exercise their brains. Most classes have been quite eager and competitive--I think puzzlers are inherently motivating: only one student has asked for candy.

I guess next week, I'll have to tell them I want to relax their brains after all the cramming they did for exams. But still no candy ...

News Tidbits

A round-up of the day's news from the Land of the Morning Calm:

1) Well, first of all, the morning wasn't all that calm, as I arose at something before four AM to watch the final of the Confederations Cup, in which the USA appeared, against all odds, to face off with Brazil, arguably the strongest international on the scene. The game started well for the US, scoring twice in the first ten minutes to take a 2 - 0 lead to halftime.

When is the last time someone was up two goals on Brazil? Well, I don't know either, but I bet it was a long time ago. I was elated, but realistic--that score would not hold. I dunno what the coach said to his squad at halftime, but it worked--Brazil scored in the first minute of the second half, and ended up winning 3 - 2. Well, it was really 4 - 2, since one goal didn't count as the linesman, er, assistant referee, was out of position. The game ended before 5:30 and I caught a few winks until my usual wake-up time of 6:05 (6:00 is just too early).

2) About 30 seconds after I left the building for my walk to school, a slight patter of raindrops began. In five minutes, it was a downpour that continued all the way to school and for a good three hours. The sky outside my window was positively black. By lunchtime it had blown by us, and the sun was beating down hotly by the time I walked home--you could see the humidity jumping from the ground into the air.

3) Two stories in today's Korea Times combine to send signals even more mixed than usual from the government. In Story A, the Korean Education Research Institute unveiled a plan to reduce costs for Korean families crunched by private academy tuition that would force 'hagwons' to close by 10 PM.

In Story B, "More Teachers Hone English at Private Institutes", also known as hagwons ... wait for it ... with subsidies from the government. Since, obviously, the best way to make something go away is to throw government money at it.

Many teachers say they are feeling growing pressure to strengthen their proficiency, as they are required to conduct English-only classes by 2012 as part of government-led programs to boost English classes at public schools.

Good luck. I can't even have English-only classes in the English Only Zone with an English-only teacher ...

Street Scenes IV: Seouldae

That's what you see when you come out Exit 3 at Seouldae, or Seoul National University Station, a popular spot for university students and people that live within a few subway stops on Line 2.



The area immediately by the exit is populated with the world's smallest 7-11 and Seoul's largest collection of pojangmacha, the vendor carts that are tiny, mobile restaurants vending traditional Korean foods. Here is a sneak look from behind a stall, followed by the frontal view, with, among other items, massive grilled octopus tentacles!



Subway exits are a logical place to place your vendor cart or pojangmacha--here's the view looking down from the raised platform at Dangsan Station, also on line 2:


I went to Seouldae to dine on pig's feet with Andy and his squeeze Jisun. Only a short walk from the main intersection, the streets begin to look less cosmopolitan and more folksy:




Here is a shot of our delicious Korean-style pig's feet:


What do Andy and Jisun think of Korean-style pig's feet?


They ♥ them, of course!

Twixt Twelve and Twenty

I must confess, there were a few unanticipated problems with the Murder in Whitechapel lesson. Mainly, these issues evolved from students who cannot count. In English. For instance, I was not counting on (get it?) students to confuse the numbers twelve and 20.

As I mentioned earlier, cards are labelled with digits, instructions are given in written out form. I knew this would create some discrepant events, but I was unprepared for confusion of twelve and 20, Pat Boone's advice notwithstanding: card 20 directs you to card twelve. If you think 20 and twelve are the same number, you are stuck in a neverending loop! More than one team was flummoxed and frustrated by this.

Numerical challenge #2 involved exactly the same thing, only different. If 12 and 20 can be confused, so can thirteen and thirty-one. The problem being that 13 is about ten steps from the solution, whereas #31 actually identifies the criminal and leaves only three stations to go. So if you leap ahead, you technically solve the mystery, but you don't understand the story.

For you young folks, the title of the post comes from a book by Pat Boone, vanilla rock'n'roller of the 50s and 60s, a mix of autobiography and advice to teenagers.

Murder in Whitechapel

This is what my students see when they come into the English Only Zone this week. Their job, to find the culprit! The year, 1891. The location, London. Outside The Rose and Crown Pub, Whitechapel.

Inside the classroom are various locations in London, and students move from station to station playing a "choose your own adventure" murder mystery. The Whitechapel Killer is on the loose, loosely based on Jack the Ripper--and our murderer turns out to be named Jack. Just not that one! Leaves it open for a sequel next year ...


In order to begin, students must pair up and receive the handout, which describes the initial situation. You are Mycroft Pound, famous detective, and your associate is Dr. Browning. A knock at your door introduces an Inspector from Scotland Yard who asks for your assistance. Students must answer two or three simple questions from me about the opening paragraph in order to enter the classroom and begin sleuthing.






Based on their choices after reading a card, students may get closer to finding the killer, or they may go off on red herrings. When hot on his trail, they may choose the wrong course of action and lose the scent. Failed attempts get directed to station #22, where they begin again, so there is a chance for everyone to succeed.

Never having done this before, I am pleased to see the level of success--most teams take twenty-five or thirty minutes to find the criminal, then they get to go across the hall and watch a Jeremy Brett Holmes video, as mentioned below. A few groups take all period (well, once they get inside) and a few don't actually succeed in solving the crime. Still, even from that group, I have heard how funny it is--which is Konglish for fun!

Jeremy Brett--Gotta Miss Him

In preparing for my Murder Mystery in London lesson this week, I got worried about what to do with students who finish solving the crime in, say, fifteen minutes, leaving them a half hour to create mischief. So I started looking around for appropriate videos to keep them quiet, at least, until the end of class.

Of course, the obvious choice is some Sherlock Holmes, upon whom the story for the class is more or less based. No fewer than two dozen actors have played the iconic character on film, so which one to choose?

Well, for me, there is no question on this matter--the Granada Televsion series which starred Jeremy Brett is incomparable. Brett's quirky, multi-faceted, chisel-nosed Holmes seems drawn directly from the text, as are the Granada scripts. Production values were emphasized and it appeared the entire canon would finally receive top-notch filmic treatment. Baker Street Irregulars and Victoriana buffs the world over were psyched!



Alas, Mr. Brett (who played Freddie Eynsford-Hill in the film version of 'My Fair Lady' though his singing voice was dubbed--along with Miss Hepburn's) had a heart attack in 1995, leaving about 15 or so of the original stories yet to be made.

While looking around, I noted there is a new Holmes movie coming out, scheduled for release at Christmas. I'm surprised it's taken this long, since the thing hit public domain several years ago.

장 마 is Coming ...

... or maybe it's already here. It rained persistently today, causing me to cancel plans to go to the FC Seoul game tonight. I love soccer, of course, but going to a game is supposed to be fun, which in my opinion sitting for two hours in the rain isn't.

장 마 Jangma is the Korean name for the East Asian monsoon which delivers the Korean peninsula about 50% of its average annual rainfall in about a one month period. Miss Lee assured me on Friday that I need not worry about it--thanks to global warming, jangma is no more! Which is certainly big news to the meteorologically inclined.

Be that as it may, Jangma, if it arrives, typically arrives with the first days of summer, which equinox-wise isn't actually until tomorrow, so perhaps I am being premature. OTOH, I don't think so, as the monsoon is precipitated by the broad temperature differences between the large Asian landmass and the Pacific Ocean. As the land warms up in the summer, southwesterly winds drop water over the continental margins, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the coastal lands. There's no cut-off date.

In the winter, things reverse, with the line moving east and carrying dry aeolian dust from the Loess Plateau of China in what Koreans call Yellow Wind.

Anyway, I didn't go to the soccer game, but I watched it on TV. This was the first K-League game in two weeks, as the season went on hiatus for the last of the national team's WC qualifying. The visitor to Sangam was Jeju, who went ahead in the first six minutes. Strangely reminiscent of the game I attended two weeks ago. Just like in that game, Seoul stayed on the attack, drawing even late in the second half and scoring the go ahead goal on a very sweet header with about two minutes to go. The win moves them into first place in the league standings--with the bulk of the season still to come.

And Now for Something Completely Different

... we go to LA and the Times thereof for this story about "HappyHappy", an installation being prepared for a major show at the LA County Museum of Art titled Your Bright Future: 12 Contemporary Artists from Korea, slated to open June 28. Hopefully, my friends in LA will find time to get over there and take some pics for me.

The artist is Choi Jeong-hwa, "an internationally recognized figure known as the father of South Korea's Pop art movement," who apparently scoured the local 99 Cent Only Store to find enough bowls, strainers, funnels and containers to create his colorful, plastic artwork. The article explains that a "champion of recycling and inexpensive, mass-produced goods, Choi draws much of his inspiration from the daily lives of ordinary folks in South Korea. But for commissions far from home, he likes to gather materials close to the installation sites."

I'll leave it at that.

Speaking of the 99 Cent Only Store, do go visit the 99 Cent Chef, one of my favorite blogs, about a dude who creates recipes using 99 Cent Only products. He's got some great videos, BTW.

Isu is Cool

The news from the ROK tonight, or at least the Seoul Patch, is perhaps unexciting. Today was a national exam practice day at school, which means I didn't have any classes, but still had to go in to work--until 11:00 anyway. I mostly surfed the web and slept. God forbid I save myself the walk to school and do that at home...

Which actually was a bit of an issue, the napping part at least, since I met up with a group of fellow waygookin at Isu for food and drinks last night. The ostensible purpose was to welcome back to Korea a guy named Jerry who is a friend of Andy. I didn't know this bloke, but never having been to Isu (line 4 or 7, just north of Sadang), it sounded good to me. We ended up with quite a crew, and I stayed much later than intended. No, I didn't get kicked off at Sindorim, but I did miss the last bus at Hapjong and had to take a taxi.

I met some new faces, which is always nice, and ate some delicious chee-tato-dalk-galbi, spicy chicken stir fry with cheese and potatoes, for the first time. I'll definitely be having that again! After a brief stint at Jijimi Bar, the entire crew was assembled at Garten Bier. I have mentioned this awesome place before: it's a chain which has refrigerated wells in the tables to hold your beer--which comes in single, double or triple sized beer vases.

So, in essence, Isu is a more refined Sillim, and another locale to add to my list of party districts in Seoul--this city lives for the night-time.

Tonight was the final night of Asian World Cup qualifying on the Korean side, and the Reds hosted Iran--the country with the contested election a few days ago--across the river from my place, at Sangam World Cup Stadium. I didn't go because it looked like rain and I had some sleeping to get in. Besides, Korea is already assured of a spot in South Africa.

So, I watched the game in my chicken hof, where I was the sole customer inside (there were a few tables on the front patio outside) at the beginning. By halftime, two-thirds of the tables were occupied, cheering on the squad. I like the feeling this gives me, of sharing something in common with the Koreans around me. They came from one down to tie it up on a goal by Pak Ji-seong, the Man U winger and National Team captain, and the crowd went wild.

It ended with the 1 - 1 score, so Korea goes to South Africa without a single loss in WC qualifying--the kind of thing Italy and Brazil do. Still, I doubt they'll make the Final Four, as they did in 2002.

And yes, I did go to the gym today before daring to eat fried chicken!

This Week's Lessons

For the benefit of the two or two-point-five people who read this blog with an eye to expanding their ESL lesson portfolio, here is a brief description of this week's lessons for first (10th) and second (11th) graders.

First of all, I decided to give the PPT/touch-screen presentation a rest. I have been very academic and demanding lately, especially of first grade, so this is fun week--even though I hope next week will be really cool (stay tuned).

Second, first grade: I am starting by introducing them to the game "I Spy": you know, I spy, with my little eye, something (color). My classroom is actually pretty colorful due to all the different stuff I have in it, like my plants and their pots, coffee mugs, calendar, the decor, etc, etc.

The key teaching point is the construction, "Is it the _____?" They must phrase the question correctly and use the English term for the object. Very basic, but I'm not really trying to teach anything new this week.

So, whoever guesses my object gets to go next. We do this for about 20 minutes then switch to game #2, "Who Am I?" This is a variation on "20 Questions" whereby the object is always a famous person. I have created a bunch of chits and put them in a coffee mug from which someone (me first) draws a name. Then each table, rotating around the room, asks a Yes/No question to hone in on my identity.

I rearranged the desks to make six tables of six instead of 10 tables of four to give them more chances for their group. And when I'm It, I coach them on how to ask questions that narrow the field rather than eliminate only a small group. In other words, "Are you a Korean singer?" is a poor question, since I could be a Korean or a singer and you didn't eliminate either one.

And again, the language key is phrasing a proper question to get a Yes or No answer. "What's your job?" is a clear violation. Next team. "Are you England?" gets a No where "Are you English?" or "Are you from England?" would be a Yes. "Are you fly?" is a No, unless the target is Offspring, while a better question might be "Can you fly?" if you're a superhero.

Third, second grade: the new unit for this class is titled "The First Australians." Desks are in the usual groups of four. In the warm-up, students try to make as many words as possible from the letters in A-B-O-R-I-G-I-N-A-L; today's winner was 16 in both classes. Turns out, ling is a word, who'da thunk it?

But the main activity is one I took from a Dave Deubbelbeiss "Lesson in a Can" called Running Dictation (scroll to #105 at the bottom) in which students memorize a snippet of the information posted on a document, report it back to the base, taking turns, and repeat until they have "downloaded" the entire document. The first team to complete the task are the winners. This is a really good idea.

However, my students are the world's worst CHEATERS, so Mr Hur and I had to continuously modify placement of the document copies and monitor student behavior until we were no longer posting four copies for their convenience, but only two copies, one located in the hallway outside each door to the classroom.

Since the lesson is about indigenous peoples, I used related texts, for example:

The government of Brazil has recently published photographs of an isolated community of indigenous people living in the Amazon rainforest. It is the first time the world has seen this tribe and the first time for the tribe to see the outside world.
The newly-found tribe is surely one of the last remaining peoples on Earth never to have had contact with modern life. The name of the tribe and its exact location are being kept a secret. We only know that the tribe lives in a remote part of the rainforest near the Brazil-Peru border.

One final note I would make is that while I truly appreciate Dave's ESL Classroom 2.0, it is hideously difficult to find anything because the navigation is so poorly organized. Granted, part of that is because of the huge volume of content, but it's moreso because of his idiosyncratic filing-relational-labelling system, for want of a better word. I also dislike having to join a website, even a free one, but this one is worth it for me--if you teach ESL, it's worth it for you, too. One of the best resources.

One more final note I would make is that Mr Hur kept suggesting that students wanted to earn candy for being the winners. These are seventeen year olds. I have used Starburst and Jolly Ranchers before in my career, but only with elementary or middle schoolers. High school students, I explained, should have internalized their motivation for learning and performance by now. Their prize is knowing they won--bragging rights. He agreed, but still suggested they expect something for winning.

That agree/persist thing may be nunchi, the Korean inability to say what they mean, but too bad--we are simply not going to treat high school juniors like ten-year-olds. Grow up.