Hemingway's old man meets Mr. Wonka

After a long afternoon of teaching I love going back to the quiet of my one room apartment, changing out of my nice clothes, eating a tasty snack, and relaxing with a good book. Although I must admit, some nights I flip on the TV and get sucked into an episode from an old season of Hell’s Kitchen or House playing on the English channels instead of picking up a book. I need those mind numbing nights on occasion, I mean, don’t we all?

Anyway, as I snooped through Kristen’s bookshelf one night, I spotted a copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. Realizing I had never read these books even though I am crazy about the original Willy Wonka movie with Gene Wilder, I figured it was about darn time I sat down and read the two. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was a quick and fun read that made me better appreciate (although I still think the older one is better) the newer Willy Wonka movie with Johnny Depp since it truly followed the book. While waiting to swap the Chocolate Factory book for the Great Glass Elevator from Kristen, I picked up Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea from the school’s bookshelf. I was on a Hemingway kick this summer before I left for Korea so I was excited to find it on the shelf. The Old Man and the Sea is short enough that I knew I could squeeze it in between the Charlie series so it was perfect.

Hemingway’s book could not have been any more in the opposite spectrum of books from Charlie’s adventures but both stories were wonderful and inspiring stories in their own, unique way. Ah, reading is great for that, isn’t it?

The Old Man and the Sea is this very realistic story of an old fisherman down on his luck who, by his lonesome, battles a giant fish out at sea. It seems a sad tale at first but in the end is an inspiring story of triumph in defeat. Here’s one of my favorite lines…
“Don’t think, old man,” he said aloud. “Sail on this course and take it when it comes.” Good life advice, eh?

Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator can officially be marked the most ridiculous story I’ve read in a long, long time. Trips to space, Wonka-Vites, Minusland, it all had me laughing. Among its ridiculousness I did find a great and inspiring passage that I think we all need to hear and take to heart…
“What if they capture us?” said Mrs. Bucket.
“What if they shoot us?” said Grandma Georgina.
“What if my beard were made of green spinach?” cried Mr. Wonka. “Bunkum and tummyrot! You’ll never get anywhere if you go about what-iffing like that. Would Columbus have discovered America if he’d said ‘What if I sink on the way over? What if I meet pirates? What if I never come back?’ He wouldn’t have even started! We want no what-iffers around here, right Charlie? Off we go, then.”

Now after some lovely reads, I am only left wondering what would happen if Hemingway’s old man were to encounter Mr. Wonka or have a run in at sea with Charlie in the glass elevator…hmmm….a story that needs to be written….

Teaching is going wonderfully, even the few trouble classes that I wrote about previously I no longer dread. I feel like I have finally figured out how to manage the difficult students and may even be teaching them some English. I’ve been able to reveal more and more of my personality as they start listening and behaving in class so I think now they see me less as a strict, frustrated, and angry teacher and more like a person who really does care about their learning.

Over the weekend I went to the infamous karaoke rooms for the first time with Amber, Chris, and Willy, a manager at the new E.L.C. school. What little joys they are! I’m not sure how I’ve survived thus far without that kind of joy in my life. The rooms were tiny, scattered with little sitting pillows on the floor, and hanging on one wall was a large, flat screen TV. Just a few push of some buttons and the music starts blaring while miscellaneous music videos are played in the background. We jammed to some Korean songs done by Willy and a lot of terrible American songs from our childhood like “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls and “I Believe I Can Fly” from the Space Jam movie.

I also attempted to buy a webcam but failed miserably since NOTHING seems to be Mac friendly in Ulsan. Boo! I was feeling pretty down about my failed webcam mission so Edwin and I found a restaurant serving a Korean dish that I’d never tried before but he assured me was delicious. Some cow meat, vegetable, rice cake, soupy, noodle, mix, he said. It was very tasty but the “cow meat” was definitely not “meat” it was most certainly intestine. And the purple “rice cakes” were definitely cow liver mixed with rice cake. After I found this out I just told myself that it had to be extremely healthy and kept eating. Ma-shit-da! Tasty! Oh the adventures with food….
Later that night Edwin took me for a ride on his moped up into the mountains behind the city. Looking down on the city lights was super sweet. Acting just like a nervous parent of a teenager, he let me drive for a brief period of time before turning back and heading home for the night.

The weekdays fly by in the classroom…the weekend is almost here! Saturday I am going to an orphanage in Busan with a group from church. I am super excited to go and will let you all know how it was next week!

Hugs from Korea!

When going green goes bad

“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” Psalms 8: 3-4

Tree-huggers, hippies, eco-freaks, green people, supporters of team Earth (my personal preference)…however you choose to label “those” people, count me in. The older I get, the more educated I become, and the more I travel, the more I find myself completely awed by the beauty on this planet and the majestic Creator of it all.

The breathtaking beauty in both people and nature inspires me to everyday do my best in preserving all its glory. Therefore, I’m a firm believer in the 3 R’s. We all learned them in elementary school…REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE, remember? Following the 3 R’s is not only good for the environment but, in the long run, good for your pocketbook and good for your health…or so I thought…

Upon my arrival in Korea I noticed bottled water being served at several restaurants, an excessive number of plastic bottles thrown along the streets and trashcans overflowing with water bottle debris. I was a bit disgusted. The environmental activist spirit in me immediately reacted by vowing to reuse like crazy in this country. So the bottle of water I purchased in the airport after I stepped off the plane in Ulsan I faithfully refilled over and over again from my tap (totaling a LOT of refills especially during those hot, humid August days)…until last weekend. As I was riding the bus and chatting with Kristen I pull out my bottle’o’tap water, take a big gulp and casually mention my refilling and reusing obsession. I make some crack about the water smelling funny at times to look up and find Kristen making a disgusted face. She informs me of the reason Koreans drink bottle water and have water dispensers everywhere…not because they are earth-haters as I had so easily assumed but because there are TOXINS in the tap water! Toxins that, in some cases, cannot even be boiled out. YIIIIKES!

Instantly hunched over and convinced I have every kind of cancer known to man Kristen tries to reassure me by saying she knew of some guy who drank it for over a year without knowing and seems to be doing fine. So surely a month would not affect me, right? Let’s hope so. If not I’m going to write Al Gore, explain the situation, my good “green” intentions, and request that he pay for all my medical bills.

So that, my friends, is how just like the corn beef at Happy Chef (that one’s for you mom), going green can go bad.

In other nontoxic and far less dramatic news I have been using my weekends to run from the cityscape as much as possible and enjoy the marvelous mountainous landscape that Korea truly is. Ulsan Grand Park (comparable to Central Park in NYC) is a lovely and surprisingly huge oasis in the middle of the city where Kristen and I rented bikes and spent an afternoon cruising about two weekends back. My first time on a bike in nearly a month (even though it was nothing like the Swinn) did miraculous things for my spirits. This past Sunday afternoon (which was also the Korean holiday called Chuseok) was spent at Mt. Sinbul, home to Ulsan’s biggest and most famous temple. The air was so fresh, the temples so serene, the mountains so exotic, and the company (Edwin and Lauren) so enjoyable that I didn’t want the day to end. We even met a Korean congressman at the temple who shook our hands and took a picture with Lauren and I, making us feel pretty darn lucky to say the least. On our way back to the city we stopped for a pricey (but delicious) Chuseok meal at a well-known bulgogi beef restaurant that was well worth the splurge…even the staple kimchi side dish (fermented cabbage in red pepper paste) that’s not all that tasty had a better flavor.

Sidenote on Chuseok: Chuseok is similar to our American Thanksgiving. Families gather together for a big meal and bow at their ancestors graves to pay respect to them. Gifts of basic household goods (like soap, toothpaste, cooking oil, etc) are given to friends and family. Our director dressed in the traditional Korean outfit and delivered to all the teachers a large set of shampoo and toothpaste on Friday...it was super adorable. :)

And after sitting down with my Teach Yourself Korean book on a rainy Saturday afternoon I’ve finally learned the Korean alphabet. It’s exciting to be able to read words (even if I have not the slightest idea what those words mean) but I’m sure super obnoxious especially for Edwin, my brother from an Asian mother, as I now attempt to read everything in sight and often request his help with pronunciation.

The foreigner festival on Monday was all fun and games until the free giveaway where after a string of Pilipino and Vietnamese names were drawn for the prizes an angry Sri Lankan accused the host of rigging the name selection, started a mini revolution, and convinced all the Sri Lankans to throw up their arms and walk out of the theater. All over a few large boxes of ramen and some space heaters! Then they (the Sri Lankans) were all still waiting outside the theater when the evening concluded, looking tough, and waiting to pick a fight. I didn’t stick around to see how it all ended but I have a feeling some fists were probably swinging. Pretty ridiculous if you ask me.


I am savoring every last minute of this long holiday weekend as I won't have a break like this again until New Year's...*groan*

Silly sights in Korea

-banana puff chips
Craving a salty snack after classes I went to the market and picked out what I thought to be cheesy imitation Cheeto puffs sitting in the aisle among the salty snacks. Turns out they were indeed puffs, but sweet banana flavored puffs…
-paper pockets of water
Instead of drinking fountains at school we have hot and cold water dispensers. And instead of Dixie cups we have little paper pockets to drink out of that can hold only a gulp of water. I find them very funny…
-cheese on cake
On another after school snack mission, this time craving sweets, I browsed small the cookie and snack cake section. I found a box of small little Debbie-ish cakes reading (in English) cheese and honey cakes. My mind automatically assuming cream cheese I think “Yummm” and sealed the purchase. The box didn’t lie, I opened the package to find a sweet cake covered in actual yellow cheese. And by actual cheese I mean the unnatural, processed, I-can-sit-on-a-shelf-for-weeks cheese…very interesting and only slightly tasty…
-sugar on corn dogs
Students and the Korean teachers alike often snack between classes on corn dogs purchased from the snack shop on the first floor. Normal corn dogs as we know them with ketchup but also sprinkled with sugar. For a country that doesn’t consume many sweets, sugar is a surprise addition to several seemingly odd things…like garlic toast and corn dogs.
-men carrying their lady’s purse
Man bags (aka purses) are very common in Korea and are carried with absolutely no shame. This is not particularly silly to me, in fact I find it quite endearing, but what I cannot help but giggle at is the sight of guys carrying their ladies’ very girly purses as well. Such gentlemen!
-fully clothed swimmers at the beach
For no other explanation except perhaps their fear of the sun’s harmful rays, you will very rarely see a Korean swimming in just their swimwear. Rather they choose to swim fully clothed with shorts and a t-shirt over their swimsuits or full body swimwear.
-banana boats
The mere sight of banana boats bring me endless joy and I WILL ride one before I leave this country.
-the American flag without stars
At the foreigners talent contest/concert a few weeks back a large banner displayed the flags of all the countries participating in the contest. Several flags were wrong including the U.S. flag…it had everything except the stars, making for a very silly sight. After a sincere apology to the crowd of foreigners the organizers assured these mistakes would not happen again…
-bubble machines at concerts
At the very same talent contest/concert in the middle of certain acts a bubble machine would start up sending bubbles into the crowd and up on stage. Vicki, one of the girls from church who was singing and playing guitar, starting laughing during her performance when the abrupt bubbles caught her off guard.
-couples t-shirts and lingerie
To let everyone know you are a couple the latest rage is to dress in couples outfits. This means matching t-shirts or coordinating t-shirts, matching shoes, even lingerie. You see it everywhere…
-socks with sandals
Everyone does it.
-sweet potato and mustard pizza
Surprisingly delicious.
-heels at the beach
I don’t know how they do it. I am amazed at the women in this country…
-eating cake with chopsticks
A beautiful cake was mauled by chopsticks on Ester’s birthday at school a few weeks ago quickly destroying its charm.
-square track
At the university there is a SQUARE outdoor track that I go to in the mornings for a jog. This being silly enough, there is apparently a right and wrong direction to run around it as well because this morning a man stopped me and motioned for me to change directions…so strange.

That’s it for now, more to come I’m sure….

Monthlies

August has drawn to a close and the cool September air has quietly slipped in, marking my time in Korea to be nearly one month (hard to believe). With the end of this month came several added responsibilities and changes at school.

One added responsibility was report cards. Foreign teachers rotate report card duties every month with the Korean teachers to get a mix of comments for the parents to read. Go figure, this month I just happened to be handed reports cards for nearly all of my 16 classes…totaling a lot of freakin’ grade giving and comment writing. It seemed every time I finished one stack I’d go to class only to find two more stacks on my desk when I returned.

Now report cards are a funny thing because before writing we are gently (but sternly) told to keep in mind that the school is also a business…this means no failing students (nothing below a C) and no harsh or severe comments. It’s frustrating to not even be able to hold a bad grade over a few students’ heads to get them to focus more in class…but it is what it is. As I worked through the stack I was reminded how many really great students I do have. I spend so much time thinking about the few bad ones that it’s easy to forget that the majority are sweet and fun to teach.

The end of the month also brings new books and monthly tests for the students; a big test over all the units covered in that month. That made for a very somber mood among the students towards the end of the week. The somber mood from the students must have wore off on me because by the end of class on Friday I was not my usually TGIF cheery self. I just wanted to go home and sleep.

But I knew I couldn’t because I had been looking forward to Friday all week. To celebrate the opening of our director’s new E.L.C. school in a different district of town all the teachers were invited out to the new school for an after work, late night celebration. From what I have heard about Korean celebrations (more or less Korean drinking habits) I was curious as to what the night would hold.

Nothing can cure a somber mood faster than what was waiting for us at the new school. A huge buffet with Korean, Western, and Japanese food, drinks, cake, friendly co-workers, Korean music videos, toasts, drunken hugs from your director, and karaoke.

Knowing we had to get up early in the morning to catch a bus to Busan with two couples from church, Kristen and I were relieved that the night did not last until daybreak and were able to catch a free ride home with Willy, an employee at the new school who lives in our area of town. Saturday’s trip to Busan (Korea’s 2nd largest city) took only an hour by bus and held an afternoon of browsing the street markets, Krispy Kreme donuts, the world famous fish market (eww), beach, and a delicious traditional dinner.

Sunday I enjoyed the company of friends after church, learned Chinese traditional writing from a woman on the street, and had my first moped scooter tour of the city. Woo!

Coming soon...silly sights in Korea and lessons I am learning (yes, learning) in the classroom...