It's trite, but there's a reason cliches are cliche. What better image is there to describe extreme emotional highs and lows in a short period?
Two Fridays ago, I was happy and excited about my life here in Korea. Hapkido was going well, I had received an e-mail saying my book (Manga Studio for Dummies) would arrive within two days, and a new term was coming with a new schedule showing fewer hours and new classes, all of them late elementary to early middle school, the group of kids I seem, based on the past term, to get on with best. A friend told me she'd be arriving in Korea to teach not too far away by subway. I was thinking about my comic. Things looked good.
Then on Monday, we had a meeting, in which we were given yet another revision of the schedule, with my awesome classes going to a new teacher and me getting two classes of the second-lowest level and age they have at this school, as well as one each of the next two levels. Young children. Yikes. I've never really understood young children, and the youngest groups in my previous term were the ones I'd had the most trouble with. Surely my head instructor had noticed this when going over our CCTVs? Surely there was some mistake? But after some questioning and nagging and a promise he'd look into changes, I was told that it was too late and there was no way to revise the schedule.
Happiness and anticipation move out of the way. Dread settles in comfortably.
I had gotten into an absolute funk. No energy, except in hapkido class. My favourite classes felt like they were dragging. Even the new material I was teaching, which was actually exciting compared to the stuff we'd had, felt like suck. I was half-convinced I would hate it and not be able to get through the coming three months. It's amazing what one little twist can do. Ah, and also, Manga Studio for Dummies, though the e-mail had said it shipped, was not in my hands. All week.
A little over three hours ago I was still filled with dread. My first class was to be my youngest group. Couple that with the usual dread of having to make the first impression on a new pile of people, and things weren't feeling nice. But I tried to make the best of it, tried to convince myself that I'd have a good crop of students, and went in with as much energy as I could muster and as much smiliness and excitement as I could inject.
Damn, was I surprised.
Not only did the material not completely suck (a major problem I'd had with the level above this one last term), but the kids were (mostly) respectful and paid attention. They listened, they interacted, they laughed at my silly drawings, and it was actually, dare I say it... fun.
So to those who had to deal with my dread, my apologies.
I'm excited once again. Tomorrow I have another class of the same level of kids... hopefully, if I do things the same as today, the rest of the term will be good. The key, I've learned, is to start out strict, establish your rules, call them on it when they break 'em, and force the timid ones to interact... and at the same time, relate yourself to the kids. I opened the class with an attendance check in which I called the kids' names - then asked each one to talk about him or herself for a bit. I occasionally interjected some - like when a girl said she liked to draw dragons, I mentioned my own monster-drawing.
It was good.
Let's hope things go well tomorrow.
Ah, yes. My book had apparently delivered, but the ajosshi who "guards" the building had mistaken my room number on the package (1413). I looked into his office and saw a book-shaped box with 413 on it, and took some initiative and walked in. He was confused, but I pointed to my name on the box, pointed to myself a few times, and he seemed to get it. At least, I thought so, but then I got a buzz on my intercom saying, "Box - four-one-three, you one-four-one-three! Wrong box! Four-one-three! Four-one-three!" Happily, it was remedied easily enough once I had him put on his glasses.
Time to plan out some comic-drawing practice!
Monday, February 25, 2008
Friday, February 8, 2008
Bonus post!
Recently, news came out that MSG is a significant contributor to stomach cancer. Coincidentally, I saw in the subway today this advert:
If the resolution is too low to read the print at the bottom, it says: "Wellthy Food... Well-being+Healthy"
So what we have here is an advertisement promoting MSG as health food.
...
If the resolution is too low to read the print at the bottom, it says: "Wellthy Food... Well-being+Healthy"
So what we have here is an advertisement promoting MSG as health food.
...
How I Spent my Lunar New Year
Not having the scheduling-ahead abilities of some of my family (eg. aunt Karen), I'm stuck in Korea for the holiday. For the Lunar New Year, Seoul empties itself of a huge section of its population, so plane ticket prices skyrocket, ferries become overbooked, and basically, if you don't plan ahead, you can't go anywhere. On Wednesday the roads were completely congested. Thursday morning (the actual New Year Day), the eight-lane road that goes by my apartment had about twelve cars go by in twenty minutes.
Seoul is known for its crowded subways. So here's a station on New Year day:
Another station shot:
And waiting for the #2 train, the busiest line in the city in the middle of the afternoon, when normally you can't move for the crowds:
The reason I was on the subway, if you're curious, is that I was on my way out of Seoul to Namyangju, the home base of Matthew, a fellow former CDI trainee from the American South. I figured since I couldn't go away for the holiday, I might as well do something fun - and he lives a four thousand won cab ride away from a ski resort.
The last time I went skiing I believe I was still in elementary school, but it's amazing how quickly things come back to you. And it's a surprising happy feeling to rediscover that you enjoy doing things you used to enjoy doing. After two spills, I was weaving down the hills like I never took a twelve-year break from skiing.
It was a tremendously fun experience, but was marred slightly by the bloody idiots flooding the slopes that night. I guess during the holiday is when people decide to try skiing for the first time, or maybe it's just a coincidence that the majority of people who came to the resort that night were jerks, but all down the hills, scattered randomly, were people sitting and taking a break or standing around even smoking, while people going down had to veer and fly off jumps and into fences trying to avoid them. Amazing.
Still, it was fun. And today, although we didn't get to see Sweeney Todd as we'd planned (sold out), I got myself an mp3/video player at a steep discount and bootleg DVDs of my favourite television shows. I'm pleased with myself.
Of course, I'm completely exhausted now, having only just gotten home at about 8:00 pm. Tonight I think I'll just watch a couple of episodes of Doctor Who, sleep, and try to do something interesting tomorrow.
Happy Year of the Rat, all.
Seoul is known for its crowded subways. So here's a station on New Year day:
Another station shot:
And waiting for the #2 train, the busiest line in the city in the middle of the afternoon, when normally you can't move for the crowds:
The reason I was on the subway, if you're curious, is that I was on my way out of Seoul to Namyangju, the home base of Matthew, a fellow former CDI trainee from the American South. I figured since I couldn't go away for the holiday, I might as well do something fun - and he lives a four thousand won cab ride away from a ski resort.
The last time I went skiing I believe I was still in elementary school, but it's amazing how quickly things come back to you. And it's a surprising happy feeling to rediscover that you enjoy doing things you used to enjoy doing. After two spills, I was weaving down the hills like I never took a twelve-year break from skiing.
It was a tremendously fun experience, but was marred slightly by the bloody idiots flooding the slopes that night. I guess during the holiday is when people decide to try skiing for the first time, or maybe it's just a coincidence that the majority of people who came to the resort that night were jerks, but all down the hills, scattered randomly, were people sitting and taking a break or standing around even smoking, while people going down had to veer and fly off jumps and into fences trying to avoid them. Amazing.
Still, it was fun. And today, although we didn't get to see Sweeney Todd as we'd planned (sold out), I got myself an mp3/video player at a steep discount and bootleg DVDs of my favourite television shows. I'm pleased with myself.
Of course, I'm completely exhausted now, having only just gotten home at about 8:00 pm. Tonight I think I'll just watch a couple of episodes of Doctor Who, sleep, and try to do something interesting tomorrow.
Happy Year of the Rat, all.
Lunar New Year
Christmas isn't a big deal in Korea, but the New Year is important enough that it's one of two times in the bloody year the poor suckers who signed on for work at my company get off. In preparation for the holiday, all the grocery stores become high-end, selling incredibly expensive gift boxes of various products (remember, 1,000 won is about $1.00): old ginseng roots for 250,000 won, 175,000 won mushrooms, ridiculously overpriced booze, and of course, these:
Sometimes, the Korean War influence of the USA is blindingly obvious. Brand-name Spam, rather than being the only meat poor people can afford, is a luxury food.
Tastes vary so much between cultures.
I actually got a gift from my school, which was nice, and it was obviously expensive and high-end, judging by the packaging:
I'm grateful for the consideration it shows, but I find the items I've tried so far unpalatable.
Next: How I Spent my Holiday.
Sometimes, the Korean War influence of the USA is blindingly obvious. Brand-name Spam, rather than being the only meat poor people can afford, is a luxury food.
Tastes vary so much between cultures.
I actually got a gift from my school, which was nice, and it was obviously expensive and high-end, judging by the packaging:
I'm grateful for the consideration it shows, but I find the items I've tried so far unpalatable.
Next: How I Spent my Holiday.
Many things! First, hapkido
After spending almost three months believing others when they say they'll help me out, I finally took it upon myself to arrange my hapkido class on my own, or at least, with only help I knew I could rely upon.
Last week, I realized that behind our building is a big sign saying (in Hangul, of course), "Hap ki do" with a phone number. I dutifully recorded the number, wrote it down, and at school dug out my phrasebook and wrote, in Korean, "Hap ki do, [phone number], timetable, cost, foreigners okay?, thank you," and passed it to our secretaries. After they finished giggling, one of them got on the phone. Eventually, it was all arranged: mornings at 11:30, a private one-hour session five days a week for just me and Nick, 100,000 won per month.
Huzzah!
After a mishap on Monday in which we went to the wrong building (the school had moved about two buildings down), on Tuesday we found our class and our master.
Our master (and I have no idea what his name is) is wonderful - one of those very old men who looks perpetually happy because he's completely at peace with the world and the fact that he could kick your arse in about four seconds but he has no reason to want to. He has no English at all except a hearty "Oooh-kaaay!" when we do something well. The introduction involved a lot of talk in Korean about breathing, energy, the body, and various places where energy rests, which we did our best to understand but really went right over our heads. Then it was falling drills and the basic block-attack drills. After a time he brought in a second instructor, younger, but very qualified, who is very modest about his English, which is actually quite good.
So we've got two instructors taking care of us, five days a week for the rest of the year. I'm very excited about this. I only had one class so far (New Year means no class), but already I can feel the onrush of energy that tends to come with me practicing martial arts.
The remainder of the winter is going to suck a lot less.
Last week, I realized that behind our building is a big sign saying (in Hangul, of course), "Hap ki do" with a phone number. I dutifully recorded the number, wrote it down, and at school dug out my phrasebook and wrote, in Korean, "Hap ki do, [phone number], timetable, cost, foreigners okay?, thank you," and passed it to our secretaries. After they finished giggling, one of them got on the phone. Eventually, it was all arranged: mornings at 11:30, a private one-hour session five days a week for just me and Nick, 100,000 won per month.
Huzzah!
After a mishap on Monday in which we went to the wrong building (the school had moved about two buildings down), on Tuesday we found our class and our master.
Our master (and I have no idea what his name is) is wonderful - one of those very old men who looks perpetually happy because he's completely at peace with the world and the fact that he could kick your arse in about four seconds but he has no reason to want to. He has no English at all except a hearty "Oooh-kaaay!" when we do something well. The introduction involved a lot of talk in Korean about breathing, energy, the body, and various places where energy rests, which we did our best to understand but really went right over our heads. Then it was falling drills and the basic block-attack drills. After a time he brought in a second instructor, younger, but very qualified, who is very modest about his English, which is actually quite good.
So we've got two instructors taking care of us, five days a week for the rest of the year. I'm very excited about this. I only had one class so far (New Year means no class), but already I can feel the onrush of energy that tends to come with me practicing martial arts.
The remainder of the winter is going to suck a lot less.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Art
In addition to wasting time on the Interent and weekend journeys into Seoul and the rare drunken night with coworkers, I've been trying to get back into my former creative self. It's been going slower than I'd like, but it's happening, so that's relatively pleasing.
I'm working on a comic book (I came up with the concept for the series and the characters and wrote and finished issue 1 inside a month, and still haven't finished issue 2 since I started on it in August), the writing of which has been suffering and ignored and put off because of my usual winter creative drought (I'm trying, but it's hard), but since Bryan delayed so much on the character drawings, I've decided to try sketching them on my own. This has led to a sort of rediscovery of my love of drawing, and I've been sketching and even drawing in fountain pen in my sketchbook on my breaks from work. The kids are all very impressed by my drawings and many demanded photocopies since I wouldn't give up the originals. Makes me feel good. But I feel especially good that I'm starting to figure out some good approaches to drawing my comic characters, and if Bryan persists in being too busy with other things to work on the comic, I may eventually be able to draw it all myself.
To this end (and also because I wanted 'em), I ended up in Hongdae yesterday, the area around Hongik University, which is full of art shops. I bought myself a mannakin and a wooden hand for reference purposes. Here they are saying hello:
Hopefully they'll be useful. Now if only the next 8 to 12 weeks would pass so I could get my Manga Studio for Dummies book...
I'm working on a comic book (I came up with the concept for the series and the characters and wrote and finished issue 1 inside a month, and still haven't finished issue 2 since I started on it in August), the writing of which has been suffering and ignored and put off because of my usual winter creative drought (I'm trying, but it's hard), but since Bryan delayed so much on the character drawings, I've decided to try sketching them on my own. This has led to a sort of rediscovery of my love of drawing, and I've been sketching and even drawing in fountain pen in my sketchbook on my breaks from work. The kids are all very impressed by my drawings and many demanded photocopies since I wouldn't give up the originals. Makes me feel good. But I feel especially good that I'm starting to figure out some good approaches to drawing my comic characters, and if Bryan persists in being too busy with other things to work on the comic, I may eventually be able to draw it all myself.
To this end (and also because I wanted 'em), I ended up in Hongdae yesterday, the area around Hongik University, which is full of art shops. I bought myself a mannakin and a wooden hand for reference purposes. Here they are saying hello:
Hopefully they'll be useful. Now if only the next 8 to 12 weeks would pass so I could get my Manga Studio for Dummies book...
Being a minority
If nothing else, being a white foreigner in Korea is teaching me a lot about discrimination and racism. I've been white all my life, but I've only been white in western countries, which is very different from being white here. Here you stand out a lot, and sometimes that can be a bad thing.
Aside from the country's own rules (including restrictions on banking for foreigners) and shops overcharging us (example: in Insadong I asked the price of an instrument, the guy asked his boss, who told him, in Korean, 80,000 won, and the guy turned back to me and said, "100,000."), there have been occasional examples of extreme, pure, individual straight-out racism, which I will now recount.
Emart has started to really annoy me. I'd been grudgingly accepting the little things, like cashiers failing to give me the sale price of some items or charging me the extra 50 won for a plastic bag after I said "anyo" ("no") to the bag question and then not giving me the plastic bag (presumably pocketing that extra five cents and feeling smug about putting one over on the waeguk... I tried pointing this out with a combination of English and my non-existent Korean to one cashier who tried it on me, who got upset and acted angry and frustrated, so I gave up). But on my last excursion it was overt racism, and that got to me somewhat..
Emart, like many other grocers, regularly has staff manning stands giving out samples of various foods. The staff are uniformly polite, using the higher form of politeness ("ni-da" endings rather than "yo") and bowing to the customers who ignore them. I've always been polite to these people, giving them a smile, an "anyang ha-seh-yo" when I approach and a "kam sahm ni da" when I leave (that means "thank you"), so I guess I'm not really acclimatised to the standard way of shopping, but that's not the point. I'd sampled a few things, but I was obviously not just there to nick free food as I was carrying a basket full of groceries.
In the seafood area, a woman was manning a stand offering small pieces of sashimi, which is quite possibly my favourite thing in the world. She was bowing and smiling at every Korean who walked up, picked up a toothpick, stabbed a piece of fish or five and ate it and walked away. There was plenty of fish left there as I approached. I gave her a smile and a greeting and reached for a toothpick, and she gave me the dirtiest look I'd ever seen from a grocery store employee, leaned over, covering the fish with her arms and hands, and shouted, "No!" at me.
I was rather surprised.
Looking back, there she was happily serving more Koreans their sashimi samples.
...
Of course, it's not all bad here, and many Koreans are very nice. Even in the Emart, which seems to be worse than other shops, I've met a couple of employees who were extremely friendly, smiling surprisedly when they see me buying kimchi, and one who even tried to talk my ear off about Canada when I got a bag of ginseng from her.
An example of Korean niceness:
I have a bike, a hand me down from Jen, which has not seen any use at all so far because it suffers from a myriad of problems, the worst of which being that both tires cannot be inflated - the valves don't close. It having been too cold to do any biking anyway and me being timid about the whole language barrier thing, I hadn't done anything about it, until today, when I decided I shouldn't be spending so much time indoors.
So I walked my bike on its floppy tires down to a bike shop, where I saw, as I was approaching, the shopkeeper leaving the place and locking the door. I glanced at my watch, which told me it was 4:45, a very unusual time for a shop to close. So I walked around a bit hoping that by the time I came back he might have returned. After meeting one of my students (one of my bad students) leaving a store, I came back and saw the shopkeeper with a heat fan set three inches from his body and watching television.
I went in and asked him if he spoke English, which got me a laugh and a "No English", so I found the words for "to repair" in my phrasebook ("suri haeyo"), which he seemed to understand. He got up, motioned for me to bring the bike over, I pointed to the tires, and he inflated them, discovering for himself that the valves leaked. So he pulled them out, fiddled with them, replaced something, and fixed them up, on both tires, then waved me away as he closed the door. Didn't even give me a chance to ask how much. I was ready and willing to pay, but he wasn't interested.
That was nice.
Aside from the country's own rules (including restrictions on banking for foreigners) and shops overcharging us (example: in Insadong I asked the price of an instrument, the guy asked his boss, who told him, in Korean, 80,000 won, and the guy turned back to me and said, "100,000."), there have been occasional examples of extreme, pure, individual straight-out racism, which I will now recount.
Emart has started to really annoy me. I'd been grudgingly accepting the little things, like cashiers failing to give me the sale price of some items or charging me the extra 50 won for a plastic bag after I said "anyo" ("no") to the bag question and then not giving me the plastic bag (presumably pocketing that extra five cents and feeling smug about putting one over on the waeguk... I tried pointing this out with a combination of English and my non-existent Korean to one cashier who tried it on me, who got upset and acted angry and frustrated, so I gave up). But on my last excursion it was overt racism, and that got to me somewhat..
Emart, like many other grocers, regularly has staff manning stands giving out samples of various foods. The staff are uniformly polite, using the higher form of politeness ("ni-da" endings rather than "yo") and bowing to the customers who ignore them. I've always been polite to these people, giving them a smile, an "anyang ha-seh-yo" when I approach and a "kam sahm ni da" when I leave (that means "thank you"), so I guess I'm not really acclimatised to the standard way of shopping, but that's not the point. I'd sampled a few things, but I was obviously not just there to nick free food as I was carrying a basket full of groceries.
In the seafood area, a woman was manning a stand offering small pieces of sashimi, which is quite possibly my favourite thing in the world. She was bowing and smiling at every Korean who walked up, picked up a toothpick, stabbed a piece of fish or five and ate it and walked away. There was plenty of fish left there as I approached. I gave her a smile and a greeting and reached for a toothpick, and she gave me the dirtiest look I'd ever seen from a grocery store employee, leaned over, covering the fish with her arms and hands, and shouted, "No!" at me.
I was rather surprised.
Looking back, there she was happily serving more Koreans their sashimi samples.
...
Of course, it's not all bad here, and many Koreans are very nice. Even in the Emart, which seems to be worse than other shops, I've met a couple of employees who were extremely friendly, smiling surprisedly when they see me buying kimchi, and one who even tried to talk my ear off about Canada when I got a bag of ginseng from her.
An example of Korean niceness:
I have a bike, a hand me down from Jen, which has not seen any use at all so far because it suffers from a myriad of problems, the worst of which being that both tires cannot be inflated - the valves don't close. It having been too cold to do any biking anyway and me being timid about the whole language barrier thing, I hadn't done anything about it, until today, when I decided I shouldn't be spending so much time indoors.
So I walked my bike on its floppy tires down to a bike shop, where I saw, as I was approaching, the shopkeeper leaving the place and locking the door. I glanced at my watch, which told me it was 4:45, a very unusual time for a shop to close. So I walked around a bit hoping that by the time I came back he might have returned. After meeting one of my students (one of my bad students) leaving a store, I came back and saw the shopkeeper with a heat fan set three inches from his body and watching television.
I went in and asked him if he spoke English, which got me a laugh and a "No English", so I found the words for "to repair" in my phrasebook ("suri haeyo"), which he seemed to understand. He got up, motioned for me to bring the bike over, I pointed to the tires, and he inflated them, discovering for himself that the valves leaked. So he pulled them out, fiddled with them, replaced something, and fixed them up, on both tires, then waved me away as he closed the door. Didn't even give me a chance to ask how much. I was ready and willing to pay, but he wasn't interested.
That was nice.
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