Of Folklips and Chine

The first grade is in the midst of a unit on food, and at the end of this week's lesson, they get to spend fifteen minutes drawing (and labeling) their favorite Western-style meal. Here are a few pictures:




This leads me to a humorous moment that exemplifies how the Korean tongue makes learning English (and other languages) so difficult. Koreans exhibit considerable confusion over the 'l' sound and the 'r' sound; similarly the 'b' vs. the 'p' vs the'f' vs. the 'v'. Just as I have difficulty with ㅗ, ㅓ and ㅏ.

I am looking at student drawings, reading their labels, and one kid has called the lump of meat on his plate folklips. Read that again. Folklips. There was a time not so long ago when I would have been totally flummoxed. Oh, I would have known he didn't actually mean the labial organs of fellow humans, but I wouldn't have known where to go from there. Now, of course, it's patently obvious to me:

Folklips=Pork ribs

Speaking of pork, I went with my new friend Chris to a restaurant near the Gangseo Saggori where he introduced me to something called 가브리살 gabeurisal:


It is a cut of pork from near the shoulderblade end of the loin, just above the backbone, cf. chine. It is similar to samgyupsal, but much leaner and cut thicker; sweet, tender and delicious. 6,000 W a serving, with lettuce, sesame leaves, samjang and all the panchan, really outstanding!

Street Scenes VIII

Yes, that's a street vendor selling mixed drinks with full alcohol content. This city never ceases to amaze.

I caught that image on Sunday when I went to the Lock Museum. Turns out, this area beside Hyehwa station (Line 4) and Marronnier Park has quite an active nightlife, with live theatre, music and restaurants in abundance.




I decided to eat at this last restaurant below, Hobnob, because it was well-set-up for outdoor dining. The pizza was fair--the toppings were great but the crust just wasn't crispy. I should have gotten something off the (outdoor) grill, because what I saw of that looked and smelled great.

Lock Museum at Hyehwa

Sunday was not a great day to sit in the park, but I wanted to get out of the house, so I decided to visit the Lock Museum on a whim. It is located near Marronnier Park out Exit 2 of Hyewha station on Line 4.



The architecture of the building is really cool, with a neat courtyard/stairwell arrangement:



The Lock Museum is on 4F, and cost 3000 W to enter. It is not well-lit for photography but it does have a great many locks, latches, bolts and hinges from Korea and all over the world.


Above, part of the collection of ㄷ-shaped locks, mostly used in Jeolla province.


These are gate-latches, used to keep gates between sections of a house closed, but not locked.




Some animal-shaped locks from Korea. It was believed that fashioning the locks like the animals would invoke the talismanic power of the animal, both to ensure the safety of their property and to garner the particular blessings the animal's spirit was noted for. The turtle, for instance, symbolizes good fortune and longevity.



A nice lotus-shaped lock and below it, a few locks and latches from Africa.


A pair of locks from eighteenth century Nepal.


This is the workshop of a metal craftsman, designated "Important Intangible Cultural Properties No. 64", although it looks pretty tangible to me.

Finally, below is a letter from a museum curator in Germany who writes about how the architecture of the building and the collection of the museum impressed him so. He includes as a gift, a key made in his great-grandfather's workshop for the house in which he now lives.

Yeouido Cherry Blossom Festival 2010

The word got around that the Cherry Blossom Festival was cancelled this year in memoriam the sailors who perished in the Cheonan sinking. Technically, this is true, but all the trappings were still there--not least, the cherry trees in bloom.


When you turn left down Yunjungno, it is cordoned off to car traffic. The first thing you encounter is a series of artworks on display, the theme of which appears to be flowers and branches juxtaposed with stuff that doesn't go with flowers and branches, especially plastic. Remember you can click on any image to see it full size.






And here my favorite (left) and least favorite, or dumbest, anyway:


There were also music acts, and I captured some of the sounds and put them in a little YouTube video, together with some pictures (it runs under three minutes):


But of course, the star of the show is the cherry blossoms. Last year, I attended at night, so I didn't really capture their natural beauty all that well. I hope to mmake up for that this time:

Latest Reading

Well, I made a trip to the bookstore today, which means I have polished off the latest stack of books. So, without further ado, here are some thoughts on what I've read recently:

• After Dark by Haruki Murakami - I previously read Kafka on the Shore and loved it, except for the ending, so I thought I would try some more Murakami. This book is hard to explain, but it weaves together the threads of several lives over an incident at a "love ho" in Tokyo (the kind of place where you rent rooms by the hour). The action takes place between the hours of 11:56 and 6:52 the next morning. The translation by Jay Rubin is excellent, and the prose is sparse and powerful. The story is mostly psychological, but in a way that feels natural and fulfilling. And the ending was just fine.
  
• Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith - Set in Stalin's Russia, this book is going to make a really good movie. Gripping reading, the plot intensifies with each twist until by the end I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. Leo Demidov is an investigator for State Security, the MGB, who stumbles upon what he believes is a string of child murders. He is strongly discouraged from the investigation--since no one could possibly murder children in the perfect society the Stalinists had created. Despite being a war hero, and highly successful investigator, Demidov learns that even the most trusted members of the security machinery are not trusted, when he is demoted and banished to Voualsk in the Urals, his wife Raisa accused of disloyalty. He finds himself unable to drop his search for the killer, and eventually convinces his wife and his new supervisor to help him as the number of missing children grows.
  
• No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith - Meet Mma Precious Ramotswe, the only lady private detective in Botswana, in this charming first of a series I plan to make my way through, now that I've been introduced. Ramotswe's father worked in the South African diamond mines all his life, shrewdly investing in cattle along the way, until he left her a tidy sum upon his death. She invests it in a home and in a small office at the foot of Kgale Hill in Gaborone where she sets up her detective agency. She solves big mysteries and small, with keen observation and gentle humor that make me reminisce about the days when I lived in southern Africa.
  
• Violin by Anne Rice - I loved each installment of Rice's Vampire series (though I haven't read Vampire Armand yet), but it's been quite a while since I picked up one of her novels. Violin starts off slowly, too slowly, so slowly I almost put it down. I'm glad I didn't, because after the first hundred pages it became more typical--lyrical, historical, supernatural in a way uniquely hers. Triana, chunky middle-aged widow, is visited upon her husband's death by a ghost who plays the violin of the title, a long Stradivarius he died for. The love-hate relationship they form, the human and the spirit, carries the story into the past, and also on a suspenseful round-the-world musical tour.
  
• How Koreans Talk by Sang-Hun Choe & Christopher Torchia - This is a collection of terms, expressions, and proverbs used in Korean culture. It's more of a reference than something to read right through, but I found it quite interesting and very helpful. It is broken into categories, like Animal Kingdom, Tough Talk, Slang and Seoul, etc. Each entry has the Hangeul, Romanization, the translation and a paragraph or two (or even a couple pages) of explanation, context or history. For example: 모순 mosun means contradiction. Literally it is "Spear and shield". The story is told of an armourer who claimed his spears were so well-made they would pierce on any shield. Further, his shields could block any spears. A bystander quipped: "Why don't you try breaking your shield with your spear?"
  

What's Going On

1) It's hard to believe it, but week SEVEN of the school year has already passed by! One more week, then it's midterm exams. The day after exams is Children's Day, before you know it it'll be Sports Day and the end of the semester just around the corner from that!

2) One of my co-workers gave me a good explanation for the pointless roadwork I mentioned a few days ago: Seoul City and district council elections are coming up on June 2nd. So this, and the new crosswalk I blogged about a couple of weeks ago, can best be seen as efforts of the incumbent to show his effectiveness as Gangseo voters head to the polls.

3) The salvage operation o the ROKS Cheonan has now lifted the stern segment, and led to the discovery of the bodies 38 of the missing sailors. I must say I think the Herald's reportage here is a case of TMI:

After finding the missing sailors, the Navy moved them onto the nearby amphibious landing ship Dokdo and identified them through their identification tags and other belongings.
After the identification process, the bodies were washed with alcohol, covered and wrapped with the national flags before being transported via helicopter to the Navy’s Second Fleet Command in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, the home port of the ill-fated ship.
Upon their arrival, military doctors examined the bodies and placed them in a temporary mortuary at the naval base.

4) The sky now is bright and clear, even if it's still a little chilly (10 C or 57 F), so we may have the first nice weekend of Spring. Soon, the tables and chairs of all the restaurants will move back out onto the sidewalk. At last!

Bonus Photograph: Seen at the local Daiso store.

The wored filled with sweet dreams

Fun and (MMORPG) Games

I do a lesson about online gaming with the first graders, so a pair of stories in the Seoul paps caught my eye. The first article concerns a (doomed) government attempt to make teenagers stop playing MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games) at the stroke of midnight.

According to the ministry [of Culture, Sports and Tourism], underaged users will be forced out of gaming sessions when online access automatically shuts down as soon as the clock strikes midnight.
The policy also includes a "slowdown" system in which internet connection speeds will be stifled dramatically if underaged users are logged on for a lengthy period of time.

The slowdown scheme will be applied to 19 RPGs, making up 79% of the Korean market. Betcha some heavy-duty "lobbying" went on in that decision-making process. And indeed the very popular Korean-built "Lineage II" game is not included in the plan, even though it is famous for having loads of illegal servers. It is also featured in the typically weird graphic that the Herald placed on the story:


Article #2 comes from today's Dong-A Ilbo, headed Fraud Scandal Rocks Pro Starcraft Gaming, which pretty much says it all. The article explains:

Fabricating wins and losses of online games are conducted through illegal Web sites called “playgrounds.” These sites are operated by overseas-based servers and are known to a small number of exclusive members through online game cafes and other routes. The sites operate on an ad hoc basis by informing Web addresses to members via mobile phones after switching to other servers if a criminal probe is suspected. This makes it difficult to trace their operators. The stakes reportedly range from dozens to thousands of dollars. ...
Pro gamers usually debut in their mid to late teens, and are forced to retire in their mid-20s. Notably, minors on pro gaming teams earn little salary, and find bribes hard to resist. A retired pro gamer who is now a game commentator said, “If young players in their 20s who once lived like a hero start to lose to younger players, they can hardly resist the temptation to make one big bet.”

Roadwork

The last two days, the Powers-That-Be have decided to do some very loud roadwork directly outside the windows of my classroom--it is literally 15 meters away, and has mainly involved ripping up 8 inches of asphalt, and breaking the big chunks into smaller pieces using the shovel end of a backhoe.

It is, to say the least, quite loud. And timed to overlap with anything I have to say in class. Then late this afternoon, I saw the reason they were doing this: after scraping away the asphalt, they began spreading new asphalt.

They did not lay new pipes. They did not work on the sewage system. They did not regrade the area, at least not in a way that involved a sextant or any observable measuring device. They did not change the contour, since it is simply a one lane L-corner bordered by a building and the brick fencing of the school.

No, all they did was rip out the old asphalt and put in new asphalt. Period.

This is the kind of thing you do, if you're a governmental agency, in November, say--when you've done everything you can usefully do with your budget, but you have to spend it all up before the end of the fiscal year.

So either they're getting a record head start on the end-of-year government budget spending spree or the Gangseo-gu government believes asphalt must be kept up-to-date. Last winter, they resurfaced the road at the Deungchon Market (excuse me, that's the Mok-dong-sam Market). So maybe this is just a part of the masterplan to resurface the entire district, kind of how they repaint the Golden Gate Bridge: once you finish up over at the west end, you go back to the east end and start over.

Or, for my Dear Readers from Albion, like painting the Forth Bridge, eh?

Hillside Flowers

I posted up a couple of photos showing the very first spring blossoms back on March 16. For the last three weeks, I've been watching their progress, until finally the hillside is covered in blooms:


The yellow flowers, as I mentioned, are Yellow Bell, or cornel dogwood, 개나리 kaenari in Korean.



The fuschia flowers are from the 진다래 jindalae, the Korean azalea, L.: Rhododendron mucronulatum. It is rather large for an azalea, but the flowers are quite pretty.


It's that time of year, so I'll be trying to post more flowers in the near future--however, it seems Blogger/Picasa doesn't like flowers, as it has taken a full day to get it to load these four pictures! So you better enjoy them.

A Few Photos For Today

1) Upon arrival at school this AM, we found this banner had been put up:


It reads something like: "Seoul City International Exchange and English Education Leadng School Designation". The "International Exchange" thing has to do with our school forming a "sister relationship" with a school in Singapore. The "English Education" thing, obviously, is all about me.

Well, maybe not, but I am told to expect visitors or observers in my classroom more frequently. I say what I always say: "Bring 'em on, but tell 'em they can't make too much noise."

2) Following up on a post from our mutual friend Literaryhero, I took a snap of some of the plants I keep in my classroom at school. One thing I miss about 150 Boone is the growing of green things, if not the cutting of grass. So I have over time turned the classroom into a little hothouse--I started with two or three, and now have eight different plants. I added the one far right to the collection a few days ago when one of the boys who clean my classroom every morning knocked over and broke one of the planters.


The plant was fine, but I had to buy a new pot--the yellow one far left in the photo--and picked up a new plant while I was at it. I do think the classroom is at its limit now, though.

3) For most of the last year, I have been watering my plants using a coffee cup. A few weeks ago, I saw this item at Daiso and I screamed in my head: "Why didn't I invent this? It's pure genius--cheap, simple and practical!"


Its name is fairly Konglishy, "Spray & Watering Pot", though it's not a pot. Underneath that, it says: Shall we travel together into the fresh nature? I wish I return to the nature.

English Tea

Chapter 2 of the second grade book (that's HS juniors to you and me) is mainly about Tea, for some reason. So this week we are playing Running Dictation with a little piece of prose I wrote up about the inventor of the tea bag.

The story goes that a New York tea merchant got tired of giving away part of his profits in the form of tin boxes that tea samples were packaged in, so as a cost cutting measure he started using little silk bags. He expected his customers to snip open the little sachets and brew the tea as usual, but they misunderstood and used them as if they were mesh balls. People loved the convenience, and replacing the silk with gauze made them cheaper still--a new product was born.

Running Dictation: You tape up copies of your document in strategic locations (my classroom has two doors on a largely empty hallway, so I post mine outside each door), and the teams of students have to copy the document word-for-word. The problem is that only one of them is allowed to write, and he must stay seated at the table. The others must take turns running to the hallway, memorizing what they can, and then repeating it to the Recorder. When one Runner comes back in, the next Runner may go out. They have to alternate until they "download" the entire document in this manner.

Ordinarily, I do not believe in bribes or prizes for high school students, but in this case, it seemed obvious--and appropriate--to give each member of the winning team a green tea bag. I also took their picture for posting on the bulletin board. Here are a few smiling faces:




Runnning Dictation is a very good activity for my classes, which always run the gamut of ability levels. Everyone has to speak--and speak clearly. A more advanced speaker can memorize and repeat an entire line, while a poor student can be successful by getting down three or four words at a time. Plus it's fun, and they enjoy being competitive. Got to watch for cheating, though: today I took away two cell phones from students who tried to take a picture of the document.

Education Policy News

The college admissions process has been in flux since the Lee Myung-bak administration came to power in February, 2008 with a promise to do something about private education costs of high school students.

A great many of the foreign English teachers in Korea work in hagwons, private academies, a main purpose being to provide an advantage to students preparing for the college entrance exam given in November every year. A wealthier family can afford more of this after-school contact time, thereby "gaming the system", in one interpretation. Or learning more and being better prepared.

One new policy is being touted as a "Korean-style" university admissions officer system. Today new guidelines were announced so that "TOEFL, TOEIC and other English test scores will not be used as major elements in the [admissions] process". For example:

Lee Bae-yong, head of the council and also president of Ewha Womans University, said they will no longer count language certification test scores in the admission process, along with verbal English interviews and extracurricular awards from schools.

This according to a story in today's Korea Times. However, the lede in the coverage over at the Korea Herald says students will not be given extra credit for "achievements in private education."

There is a significant disparity between these two descriptions of the new policy. The Herald quotes a Korean Council for University Education official as saying:

The admissions officer system should keep a balanced view when evaluating students, considering all factors including academic achievements, creativeness, sincerity and others.

"Creativity" is certainly a valued commodity in the university applicant--less clear is how this trait is to be measured, especially since it's generally not part of the public education core curriculum and extracurriculars are to be discounted ...

But the elephant in the room is the supremacy of the SAT score--while it is laudable for this new process to look at students' other qualities, like leadership, etc., the fact remains that this single score, the result ultimately of one day's work in mid-November of the senior year, remains the be-all-and-end-all of college placement in Korea.

Tuttle News Wrap

1) Went to the FC Seoul vs Suwon match on Sunday; the weather started ot quite nice but had got a bit chilly by the end. Still, it warmed me up to see the home team win in convincing fashion after their last minute loss to Jeonbuk my last time out.

They won with three goals to one, in dramatic fashion beginning in the 24th minute, when Dejan tapped a back-heel to brand new foreigner Estevez. This was followed up three minutes later when the Bluewings keeper mishit his distribution ball and the left striker Jung polished it off with some interplay from Dejan, for the winner. Insurance was added in another four minutes, allowing the Reds to take a 3 - nil score to halftime.

Suwon, who had a large blue contingent in the stands, did not give up, and sparked to life with a goal in the third minute of the second half. This was mishandled by keeper Kim Yong Dae, bounced around before finally being tucked in. The thing to take away, of course, is that three of the four scores were Big Five.

2) Just when Federal Court Judge Vaughn Walker has ruled that the NSA broke the law with its "warrantless wiretapping activities", the Korea Times reports in a story headed "Behold: Somebody is Watching You" that clandestine eavesdropping by the Korean government are increasing at an alarming rate.

Though the article makes no claim the listening in violates Korean law, which requires court approval, the increase is astounding, jumping from 236,782 in the second half of 2008, to 15.77 million in the same period last year. That's a 6,600% increase.

Unfortunately, the article is so poorly reported that it's impossible to know what's really going on. The government officer quoted says that the increase is due to "the emergence of new types of crimes using telecommunications and the Internet." That's a hard-sell, unless they're referring to new laws cracking down on internet speech, such as the Minerva case.

Civil rights advocates say "investigators have often ignored the law for 'arbitrary and extensive' monitoring of targeted individuals or groups," but the only case they cite lacks any evidence that this is so. The group in question has been monitored through parts of three Korean administrations, so it's hard to call it pure politics.

3) Alas, the military has officially ended the attempt to rescue sailors who went down nine days ago when the ROKS Cheonan sank under mysterious circumstances, and will now focus on finding the cause of the tragedy.

The Navy halted the rescue operations on Saturday night upon the request of the family members of the missing sailors.
The request came after the body of one of the 46 missing sailors was found in the stern of the ship and a fishing vessel carrying nine sailors was apparently hit by a Cambodian-registered ship and sank after helping in the search operations.

Sad news indeed.

4) So, let us end on a happier note. I recently discovered, thanks to YouTube, a British TV program called QI, hosted by the inimitable Stephen Fry. It is a panel show wherein various British comedians and TV personalities attempt to answer quizmaster--or make that schoolmaster--Fry's impossible questions about anything and everything. He doesn't award points for being correct so much as for being Quite Interesting (that's what QI stands for, you see).

Well, it's effing brill, is all I can say. Someone named mikeyman211 has downloaded all of them in their entirety, but don't start watching until you've got some hours and hours free--it's Quite Interesting, and Utterly Addictive. Here's part 1 of Episode 1 of Season 1 to get you started:

An Assessment, Part 3

What's the quality of life like in Seoul? Seoul is an internationsl city at this point, having been dragged forward by it's own desire for economic prosperity; the forces working against this forward motion are mainly based on the ingrained xenophobia of a culture that has spent too many years under the control of others--China and Japan, specifically. Koreans have been taught for generations now that the homogeneity of their culture was a good thing.

Some foreigners here feel oppressed by the xenophobic attitude they find in Korean people. While this sometimes extends to Westerners, I think it is most strongly felt by southern Asians and people of dark skins like Middle Easterners and Africans, or African-Americans. If you think that makes Korea unacceptible, you should not come here. You should also never go to the United States.

And even this is more common in the very young or the very old. I personally have had very little of this. One day recently, I took the subway home because the weather was miserable and I was very tired. An older gentleman stood up and offered me his seat. He said I looked unwell, or upset.

After we talked for a few minuttes, I learned he was concerned; he heard English teachers did not make much money (about two million won, he said--the right ballpark for the beginning teacher, I think), and he worried that I was too poor or hungry.

A few days later, I was in a nearly empty line 9 car, nose buried in a book, when I noticed two young girls notice me. Little cuties. They first moved to the far end of the bench across from me, then shot across to the far end of my bench. There was no one between us. They were whispering to each other. Finally, the younger one, about four, coached by her big sister, about seven, said, "Hello!" She was flushed with embarrassment (even at that age, the can't-speak-English bug is active), but still looked right at me.

I said Hello back, and they giggled mightily as they backed up into the corner of the seat. They were trying to work out what to say next, but my stop came up, and we had to just wave at each other as I left. (Have I mentioned the public transport here is really, really great?)

I suppose those stories could be taken to show how annoying it is to be a foreigner here--kids stare, people practice their English on you--but at this point I've no complaints. And I'm not trying to make light of the problems foreigners can face in this area; just recently, a foreign man and his Korean girlfriend were verbally harassed by some asshole, so they took him to court. And they won, which is something.

My point is that some people are going to be assholes, wherever you go--whenever someone bumps into me in the street, or pulls up short right in front of me, or barges into my queue, it's tempting to think, Jeez, these Koreans are such jerks!. In reality, I think there's no difference in the assclown ratio here compared to back home.

I'm fortunate to have made a couple of Korean friends here, as well as some foreign friends, because that definitely makes a difference in one's quality of life. And it is kind of a safety net--I haven't yet felt terribly homesick, or horribly upset by anything that's happened to me, but it's good to know there are people I can talk to if I need it.

If there were a medical emergency, I am reasonably confident in the ability of medical services here, and thankful too that Korea's socialized medical insurance program covers many common problems I might have. The sewage system here is sufficient, and the tapwater is potable--try that in Beijing and see how far you get.

I have mentioned before how grateful I am that the city planners have taken care to provide some little green spaces, and also some really big ones. If the weather is nice this weekend, I'll resume my habit of going for a long stroll then settling onto a park bench at Yeouido kongwon for a nice read. That's quality of life, in my book.

An Assessment, Part 2

I would not describe myself as someone who believes in luck, but I must say I have been very fortunate in my experience in Korea. It was purely the "luck of the draw" that I found myself in a great school with a contingent of very dedicated and professional English teachers. I hasten to add that I'm not trying to indicate that other schools in Seoul suck by any means. Still, there must be some reason my school was just chosen as SMOE's model school for English.

My co-teachers are all involved and engaged in class--and I understand from other teachers this is quite frequently not the case--and we seem to get along well. We go out for dinner and/or drinks regularly, thus keeping the lines of communication open and any grievances aired out.

I am repeatedly told by the administrators what a great job I am doing, how well the students respond to me, etc. Now, this is still pretty tricky, because the work culture here is different in some ways. Things are going along quite swimmingly, it's true, BUT: it takes only one negative to erase a lot of positives in the mind of a Korean boss.

At this point, after three full semesters (and three camps) of trying, discarding, improving, simplifying, I have built up a pretty solid repertoire of lessons that I think are effective, interesting, and enjoyable. I am the first to admit that in many cases I am not their unique creator--I borrow from any source I can, and am always on the lookout for ideas. I have a director friend from my theatre days who once told me, "I never saw a play so bad I couldn't steal something from it!"

The boys at my school are mostly quite good at reading English, but only fair at listening, so I have to constantly remind myself to slow down. What they are worst at, of course, is speaking. That, after all, is why SMOE has hired me, and hundreds of others like me, to come here.

The number one key to improving their speaking is to improve their confidence--or at least lower the bar of success far enough that they don't fear failure. Effective ways to get students to speak, I have found, involve giving them a reason. Provide lots of examples, give them a template, model what you want--then give them a reason: I will use your ideas to make the class rules, I am curious about you, your team is competing against the other tables, or even class is not finished until everyone has shared a sentence.

It's also a good idea to appeal to their other skills and interests--Koreans love music, so hardly a week goes by without a song or two in the lesson. Math and logic are interesting to many Young-il boys, so the occasional puzzler or math problem draws them into the lesson.

Atmosphere matters, too--while I am relatively older, and look a bit severe and stuffy, I don't mind being goofy and having a laugh. Just this week we listened and moved along to "YMCA" by the Village People. Humor is useful to me, but it is a two-edged sword--good classroom managers know how to be silly or funny, then redirect the class back to the subject at hand quickly and with no fuss. Students readily learn when they are expected to look at me vs. when they need to do some activity. I won't say they're perfect, but they're pretty good.

My classroom is practically brand new, and I like to keep it clean; I have some plants to make it "mine", and they look quite pretty right now, along the window ledge with the sun shining through the leaves. It's a bright, welcoming environment, which matters even to high school boys, I think.

My biggest complaints in this area have to do with my overall effectiveness--I meet classes once a week at best, and I have 36 or more in a class (typical for SMOE, I understand). Typical or not, it is difficult to get to know students, except for the few high speakers in a class, or the class clowns; it is difficult to objectively evaluate your impact, too.

I'll finish this up in Part 3.

An Assessment, Part 1

Well, here we are, a solid month into my fourth semester teaching English to high school students in Seoul, South Korea. I am tempted to say, "What a long, strange trip it's been" ... but it hasn't, really.

For all the business of being in a different country, a foreign culture, eating strange food, etc., I just haven't had that much difficulty in adapting. Of course, being set in my ways after 20-odd years of living in the same ZIP code in semi-rural Georgia, that was my biggest fear. Being away from the countryside, the scenic stretches of trees and green grass, and prowling a concrete jungle crowded with foreigners, was my second biggest fear.

But the fact is that Seoul is a perfectly modern city with an excellent infrastructure, public transportation that's hard to beat, a plethora of great areas to socialize with your friends, awareness of green space, loads of things to do on a weekend ... in short, a quality of life (at least for the middle class) that rivals any society I know of. It is safe, orderly, and fun.

Have there been difficulties? Of course. Mainly I am frustrated by my lack of Korean language, but at this point that's largely my own fault--I could speak much better than I do, had I really buckled down to it. Hangeul was simple enough to pick up, but it's no panacea--ask three people how to say something, you'll get three different answers.

One of my earliest encounters with this was "I'm hungry." Young Mr Lee: pae ga go peyo; Mr Hwang: pae go peyo; my cellphone dictionary: pae go pun. You see there, the extra syllable, the different ending? Yeah, that kind of thing constantly hampers my attempts at Korean.

Every time I order the bulgogi dolsot bap in the E-Mart food court, the order lady has no idea what I'm saying. What you do is, you look at this glass case that has models of the food offerings from the different stalls in the food court, and tell this central cashier what you want, by its number. I say, sa ship chil, literally, 4-10-7, aka 47. I know I'm saying it correctly, but they always look at me like I've asked for Green Martian Casserole.

Lately, I've been following that up with bulgogi dolsot, chuseyo, and it seems to work a little better. Don't know why; but language is one of the biggest difficulties, as I was saying.

Still, it's obvious I can get myself well-fed and liquored up, and make my way back home with the limited command I have, or else I wouldn't still be here.

And the food--this too was something I worried about back in July and August of 2008, as I made my plans, because eating well is important to me. Turns out, there's very little in the Korean cookbook that I dislike, and a great deal that I adore. But before you talk about the food itself, there is the manner of its presentation.

Many Korean restaurants have kitchens populated mainly by what we'd call back home "prep cooks" who chop and dice and portion--in other words, prepare the food for cooking. This raw, prepared food is then brought to your table, and you (or sometimes a server/chef) cook it yourself on a grill or hot plate right there at your table.

Your meal will always come with panchan, side dishes inevitably including kimchi, a spiced up green like spinach or mugwort, maybe some bean sprouts, or pickled quails eggs, egg custard, baby blue crabs, tofu, fried tofu, zuchini slices, and on and on.

A lot of Korean food is spicy, most commonly with a red pepper paste called gochu jang, and it usually contains some meat--pork predominates, or maybe chicken. Beef is expensive, and is usually sliced paper-thin. Even a medium steak is rare here.

If you have a sensitive stomach or are vegetarian, I think life here would be challenging--though it could be done. But growing up in Thailand and Zim, I have a cast-iron tum, myself.

Fish is very popular, as you might expect, Korea being surrounded on three sides by the ocean, but it is almost never served filleted, and removing bones with chopsticks is fiddly and time-consuming. Koreans love squid and octopus and all manner of sea creatures--mostly boiled, so it's too much like eating a rubber band to suit me. They also have something called odeng, which rival blogger Andy describes as "fish SPAM", seasoned, mechanically-separated fish flesh, pressed and desiccated. It's not my favorite. That's okay though, there's still plenty to eat.

Next time: Part 2

ROKS Cheonan Summary

A South Korean naval vessel cruising the Yellow Sea near the NLL (Northern Limit Line), the sea boundary with North Korea, exploded and sank under mysterious circumstances last Friday night around 9:30, taking 46 crewmen with it.

But for the rest of the ROK, life goes on. The next day was the KBO's opening day, and all games proceeded as normal, without even, near as I could tell, a moment of silence or remembrance of any kind for the missing sailors. (Though perhaps the charye table I photographed was for them.)

In part, Southerners' equanimity may be due to the fact that the cause of the blast which sunk the ship is unknown, and according to a Dong-A Ilbo story could forever remain a mystery. But it is also because this kind of thing is old hat to them. Even if it turns out DPRK military was somehow involved, very little will happen as a result.

Right now, speculation tying the North to the sinking centers mainly on two possibilities: left-over mines in the area from the 1950-1953 action; or "two-manned torpedoes":

North Korea has two-manned torpedoes, citing "former North Korean navy men who defected" to the South.
The two-manned submarines are fitted with two torpedoes or a mine and move underwater at a pace slower than two kilometers per hour to avoid detection.

Still, while NK is quite often sneaky and underhanded, their aggression up near the NLL and Baeknyeong Island has usually been quite open--why, as recently as January, one of their ships spent the better part of the day firing rounds into the empty ocean. More serious skirmishes, even deadly ones, occured in the area in 2009, 2002 and 1999.

The ROKS Cheonan, commissioned in 1989, was a Pohang-class corvette cruiser with a crew of 104, a maximum speed of 32 knots, combined diesel or gas propulsion, and a displacement of 1200 tonnes. It spent most of its time patrolling the waters of the Yellow Sea, or the West Sea as it is called here, and was considerably off its usual course when the blast occured. This may be because it was trying to avoid high waves and rough waters that evening.

Of course, March and April marks the Foal Eagle/Key Resolve joint training excercise, so 22 vessels were speedily on hand to assist in the rescue and salvage efforts. Alas, no survivors beyond the 58 crew rescued at the time of sinking have been found. A diver was killed earlier today during rescue attempts, as well.