Indoctrination and a Rant

I didn't edit this so just deal with it.

There's this Grade 6 lesson titled "How do you say it in Korean" I really don't think its for the kids. It's for the ex-pats. The goal of the lesson is to know how to tell people about authentic Korean whatevers (word choice isn't a thing today, I'm hungover). In the confines of our textbook we expect are students to know the difference between a six stringed piece of crap and its eerily similar 12 stringed hunk of shit, and also Korean dresses. My CT has upped the ante though. We played a game where I ask them, "How do you say thingamadoo in Korean?" to which they respond "We say ting-a-moo-doo." You would think this would be easy but it never is. These were the five set questions I asked. 

1. How do you say seasoned vegetables in Korean?

2. How do you say steamed rice mixed with various other grains in Korean?

3. How do you say thin noodles mixed with seasoned vegetables in Korean?

4. How to you say unfiltered rice wine in Korean?

5. How d you say a Korean see-saw game in Korean?

First off, nobody got the first two questions right, nobody. A) no one knew what seasoned meant, or the idea of various grains. It really pissed me off that she but these kids through that. The other aggravating thing is that asking someone about how do you say a Korean thing in Korean. The CT has all of these "Korean" things that I assumed were all specific to Korea until I pulled my head out of the sand and realized she's got a big'ol pride boner for Korea. Example? Okay, Korean socks, what's so special about them? They are white and have a pattern (one stripe). These are not Korean socks. They're just regular fucking socks. The other things she programs these kids into thinking is important is all these archaic hunks of crap that no one uses. Fun fact a Korean "laundry machine" is a slab of concrete a foot off the ground and two wooden bats. Seriously, this is a MACHINE!!!???? I have no words to describe it but if I saw one in real life I'd ask the professor who took me back in time: "Professor, who put these sticks on this poorly made bench?" 

I'm sorry I love this place but I don't want to learn about everything that makes this place special dating back to whenever Moses was playing hacky-sack. I'm not totally involved in my history, as far as I'm concerned my family's history started with my grandfather and maybe that's why I have no inclination to learn about these really weird things with incredibly awkward definition (a Korean sedan chair??). I appreciate the effort of the editors trying to present Korea as this cultural beauty packed with tradition and hoopla but frankly I'd prefer teaching them about world culture. 

This country is physically and mentally isolated in the world. A peninsula of the mind if you will. We have this little section in each textbook called "Around the World" where they relate the lesson to something in America or Europe. Frankly that's not enough for me because it makes you believe that the world opens and closes on America. Nothing against Americans (but this happened) it's just I'm teaching the future and I think having a world's perspective is the best way to grow towards a better place to live in. I guess I've calmed down, thinking is still hard.    

One week without the sling/ Birthday Blog

On November 20th I went for my check-up and my clavicle was 100% healed. Now I just need to keep up with some exercises to increase my mobility.  It's a tough line to walk between having a stiff shoulder and a strained one. All in all, I feel great!

During the first couple of days whenever I was writing something on the board in class my left arm would just fold up as if it was still in the sling. Same thing with showering, eating and other things I got used to doing with my arm tied up. Now I'm finding excuses to use both hands: pulling bowls down for the top shelf, washing my hair and sleeping like a bendy Kamasutra cutout. These are all awesome but I wouldn't say I'm out of the woods yet. I can't put any weight on my left shoulder so backpacking is out of the question for the time being. My doctor told me I wouldn't be lifting anything major for a year. However, I'm testing it day by day just to regain the little coordination I use to have. I might be on par with Jepsen here. Still I can't lean on my left side without feeling like I'm going to wobble over. I've also realized that children and homeroom teachers alike are only starting to notice that I'm not in a sling. They all make this face like I'm super human for recovering. I've been so tempted to show them my scar but I feel like that would breach some sort of conduct code.

My doctor offered to get me into physiotherapy but the way my co-teachers handle me being out of the school on a bi-monthly basis I doubt they could handle me being gone every other day or whatever my schedule would be. Which is why I'll start it with Winter Camp and because February is a waste of class time I hope my CTs won't mind that I'm missing Monsters Inc or Toy Story 3. I'm still doing exercises that I've pulled off of medical websites and they seem to be helping and they offer great advice about the before and after physio to reduce pain. Like any forward thinking (fine, impatient) person I'm jumping the gun on some of these exercises. On Sunday morning I found out that I'm nowhere near doing reps with even teenie-weenie weights.

Also, drum roll please:

Today is my BIRTHDAY and I've opened some packages and read some wall posts filled with nicknames and love. It really makes me feel thankful, and special, for all the friends and family I have around me, especially after this whole crazy collarbone thing support was like oxygen.

Fun fact:

Thiis is the same day Jimi Hendrix and Bruce Lee were born today along with other celebrities, most notably Bill Nye the Science Guy!

     

G-Star

Reasoning

Like everywhere in the world, teenage boys love video games. This is why G-Star exists here in Korea. I'm starting to realize I'm a dinosaur when I talk about video games because, to me, nothing compares to a solid six-hour bender of FF7. More and more games are getting more universal ever since the Wii, no ten year-old has experienced organizing their materia or the speed burst button. Now everyone plays games on their phones or tablets and honestly they seem like modern Gameboys with reinventions of Angry Birds and Donkey Kong except the animals and premises have changed.

Here's an really good article to help explain why I'm upset with the path of video games. I've never been a "good" gamer and obviously never became that committed (the newest game I own is Chel '12) but I have realized that I'm in need of some upgrades. That's why I'm heading to G-Star:

The Adventure

The wrist band to get inside was 6,000 won and was pretty worth it for someone with patience to wait in line to test out these new games. I wasn't surprised at all by the lack of controllers. Everything was either on a phone or a computer. Some games needed a controller to play, but they were about as complicated as an SNES game: flat background, run and jump to the left, collect coins, don't fall in the hole, level complete. A lot of games seemed like variations of WOW or better versions of Runescape with more violence or sex appeal. Having post-its on the computers listing the controls in Korean didn't real inspire me to play.

G-Star appeals to a general audience: teenage boys, and young men. Somehow, these young men manage to convince their significant others to come with them. All the women I saw were collapsing from the inside. Even mothers taking their husbands and children were off daydreaming about things that didn't involve a hit points, coins, and hot keys. Of course I saw some of my kids there, BEXCO is two subway stops away, and it was the sixth graders that don't talk to girls, now I know why.

The disturbing highlight of this expo was the objectification of women. Obviously CGI boobs aren't enough for these pimple-faced teens and college students but the game industry has gotten some real-life Koreans to dress up like video game characters, or rock a tube top with their brand name. My favorite part of it all is these video game junkies bring stools with them so they can stand above the crowds and take pictures of these fantastic pin-ups. This is what happens when you outlaw pornography in a country.

This was typical for all costumed-girl displays.
Note the baked panda on that kids' hoodie too.

This was the best photo I could get of this antlered dragon-tailed character brought to life... who is friends with Princess
Peach?

To further my point, there's a game called Princess Maker, where you, a retired knight, has to build the perfect Princess in order for her to find a suitable mate. Maybe it's targeted to girls as an electronic Barbie, or maybe it's just a way to for people to spend more money on plastic surgery.

There was a section I did not expect to find at G-Star and that was the board game area. Then I realized that Magic is still really popular here. They also had variations of Hungry-Hungry Hippos with chopsticks and fruit which is soooo Asian. A variation of chess where you build walls around the board to protect the only movable piece on the board. Some seemed really interesting but others bothered me: there were a bunch of games with numbered tiles which obviously could be replaced by cards, and cards are just way better than tiles for so many reasons, in my opinion. I bought an English game for my English  Library which is a much less challenging version of scrabble.  

I've had a couple days to digest what I saw and the future is bright with new forms of technology and life-altering games, in which a game becomes your life. Here are a collection of photos from Korean is costume, some weird words, random stuff, and upcoming mobile games. Apologies for the blurriness.

Hunt Monster, look handsome.

THIS IS MOST INTENSE GAME IN THE WORLD!! PUTT,
SCREAM, AND FIST-PUMP ALL FUCKING DAY!!

I just liked the artwork of this poster.

Premise: President Tankington has been assisinated by
those Red Commie tanks, and as a brave righteous Korean
tank you must infiltrate and avenge President Tankington.

Does he bust the wild? Or is he just a wild buster?

Real Cart Game, race around a grocery store.

Satisfying your hunger  for game before you dinner. 

I feel this Woong-Ca Woong-Ca farts every time he moves,
or he's an old disgruntle pink bear. possibly wearing a cape.

Behold! The best looking girls of the convention!

A Father's Decision

Today was the first day of the school's story telling contest. We kicked off we Grade 3 students and ended with fifth graders. Tomorrow we'll have the fourth and six graders present their stories. These are like speech competitions where you are obligated to memorize your story and present to the English co-teachers as a preliminary round. Each student provides the teachers with a copy of their story to follow along while they present it. To be frank, most of them are Korean Folktales that pull out very interesting morals. Some were traditional, others were opinionated and then there stories I had never heard of before. Which brings we to "A Father's Decision" typed verbatim: (try to imagine a child reading this to you)

A Father's Decision

Some random school

A grade 5 student

After a day long tour in Switzerland, we were on our way back to hotel on a tour bus. 

Everybody was tired, but glad to be on a vacation like this. 

The bus driver was a nice, gentleman, too. Soon, many of us started to fall asleep because we were tired from touring.

I wasn't sure if we were going downhill, but the bus seems to be gaining speed. 

The sleeping passengers began to wake up one by one.

Everyone panicked.

The bus was going too fast!

"Ladies and gentlemen, please stay calm and remain seated! The brakes are out of order, but we will be all right. Please, don't panic. Hold on to the handrails," the bus driver told us calmly. 

Then, the anxious passengers calmed down and were seated. They held tightly onto handrails. 

"Five curves from here we have to go uphill. Then, we can stop the bus, and we will be safe."

The bus driver continued to calm the passengers down. But, we could not breathe easily, yet.

"Oh, no! Look out!" people shouted each time the bus driver made a curve. 

After the last curve, people were overwhelmed with joy.

"Thank you, you saved us all!"

Just then, we saw children playing soccer in the street in front of us.

The bus driver was distraught.

He honked repeatedly at the children.

The children started to run off the road quickly, one by one.  

But, there was a child left in the street.
He didn't know where to go.
Then, it was too late.

Our bus driver had to choose between our lives and the life of that small child.
"Oh my God!" We heard a thud. Then, the bus began moving uphill and came to a stop.
Everybody on the bus was safe.

The bus driver hurried out of the bus.
The people on the bus heaved a sign of relief, then, began to wonder if the child was okay.
"The boy is dead!"
"Oh, God! No! The child was hit by our bus!" one of the passengers shouted.

The bus driver had saved our lives instead of that child's.
"Quiet everyone! Look! The dead child is the bus driver's son!" someone yelled out.
We were speechless.
It became very quiet.
The bus driver had sacrificed the life of his own son to save us all from certain death.

The bus driver valued the lives of his passengers.
He thought that we were special and important people to our own families, just as his son was a special and important to him and to his family.

I can't imagine how terrible the driver felt  when he had to hit his own son to save the passengers on the bus.
But, his son probably understood the choice his father made.

Don't you agree?

Digest that.

This sent chills up my spine listening to it and retyping it just now. Maybe it's the format its written in reminds me of A Million Little Pieces which was a very raw and direct book. Sign should have been written sigh, but I didn't want to take away this boy's poetic licence. There are lots of things you can say about this story and where it was presented but all I could say after was a soft, "'the fuck?" 

   

It's a Great Day for Football

I have had an excellent day thus far. I woke up at 2:45 this morning and headed off to a friends house to watch some NFL football. Now that day light savings is on in the West games start at 3am as opposed to 2am because Koreans don't abide by those crazy farmer laws. Schedule-wise this works out really well because when 7am rolls around I can get out and walk to school from my friend's place. So now I'm at school well rested and it feels like 11am instead of the crack of dawn. I even beat my super keen co-teacher to work today.

As for the football games they all went my way. The Eagles, my team, staved off the Professional Washington Football team in the fourth quarter after giving up sixteen unanswered points. The Raiders and Texans had a B+ shootout. The Lions blew the game in a back-alley, running a fake field goal when they were up by four. Then the Steelers put some salt in the wound throwing a lob into the end-zone for a 37-27 win courtesy of Jim Schwartz egregious play-calling and the Steelers defense triple teaming Calvin Johnson. Oh yeah, Bobby Rainey torched Atlanta on several occasions giving the Buccaneers a big win. Geno Smith shit the bed against Buffalo, whose defense took over the game. Arizona beat Jacksonville... who cares? Finally, Vontaze "Perfect" Burfict not only ran through some unfortunate athlete who plays for the Browns, but recovered his own forced fumble and took it to the house! Cleveland never recovered, in fact they haven't recovered since Lebron. It was my first time experiencing NFL Redzone and it's target audience is anyone with ADD. I do miss hearing those little announcer stories about all of the athletes and, of course, all those trivia worthy stats.

Fantasy wise I couldn't be happier. Megatron had a great game bring in a whopping 29.9 points. Harry Douglas got 19 and change thanks to garbage time. That made up for Bush's measly 3.3. I had Luck and Fleener playing the Thursday game and they both delivered too. Boldin's playing great (for now) and Hauschka kicked a 50-yarder before I left. This all covers my butt if Peyton torches the Chiefs' D. Still 106 points makes me a happy camper  

This beats watching the ticker on Yahoo! at school. Now I'll definitely do this again if I can stay up until 9 tonight and go back to a regular sleeping pattern. That's my prayer up to the NFL gods. Make it happen.

I really like writing this blog so I'll probably start writing more of them too if the opportunity presents itself. 

The Bullets of Wednesday, November 13th 2013: Culture Day

Yesterday was an awfully long day here are the bullets:

• Woke up late booked it out of my apartment.
• Got on the subway. Two stops later a horde of wild children come onto the subway, it was a log jam. A very loud remedial log jam.
• I made it to school only to remember that I had to be in early for a broadcasting program. Thankfully my co-host saved my ass with a back-up plan that didn't involve me.
• Thrown immediately into my first class feeling like shit about how my day has started.
• The second class was the worst class I have this month and they weren't any different, maybe even worse. I was mentally drained and strained after that.
• To calm down I just caught up on marking my afternoon classes notebooks after my classes were done.
• I sent out my first Korean message to let the students in my afternoon class know it was cancelled because the entire staff is going hiking.
• Lunch was good but could have been better if went earlier.
• After that I lesson planned for today and Friday's afternoon classes.
• Out the door and off to our hiking destination.
• I got a ride with my space cadet teacher, which is always a nervous ride when the driver changes the volume of the radio frequently with her foot on the pedal, as well as the heat settings.
• We drove eastwards to a beautiful hilly area (specific I know).
• I walked up to this set of temples with some other teachers, and admired the artwork and scenery.
• I went to the bathroom and went up to another path to a break in the trees.
• When I got back to temples everyone was gone...
• Luckily, another group of teachers came up less than a minute after and showed me how to get back down. Everyone was shocked by my footwear too.
• Once I was down my co-teacher told me to check out some of the main temples on the other side of the parking lot. 
• We piled four people into a backseat of a luxury sedan made by Samsung (!?) and drove off to dinner in a restaurant off of the highway.
• We ate copious amounts of duck meat, various types of kimchi, salads, spicy fish soup and pickled root vegetables.
• The principal was fashionably late and toasted "Let's do better." and then said, "You do better too." Everyone laughed except me. Learning Korean is starting... soon.
• Then came the drinks.
• I was sitting next to the Grade 5 teachers and got to chat with some of them they were all soft-spokenexcept for the one who was pouring drinks like a cocktail waitress and drinking hers twice as fast.  
• Shuttled home in a teacher's backseat and walked home along the beach.
• Got home, watched two great episodes of The Shield while doing laundry.
• Read Nothing to Envy and passed the hell out.    

Here are pictures of the scenery and temples as well as a candid shot of half of the school's staff.

The staff: Drinks McGee is in the knit cap in front.

Dude on a door.

Hiking in slip-ons!

Everybody's favorite Golden Boy this side of the Pacific.

Junior Jams

There's some musical thing-a-ma-jig happening one room over. Right now there are two groups of jams happening 4 feet apart. It gets a little annoying because there's no chemistry just practicing but it makes me forget how insanely cold I am. AND how much I want to start bringing my guitar to school to pass these ever-so boring afternoons. Its the same picking and business over and over again but its growing on me like every pop song I hear more than once in a day or Colbie Calliat songs.

The cast includes some popular Grade 6 boys with some singers and two guitars then three third graders just picking away at their ukuleles. All of them are pretty well dressed, after all it is a performance. The sixth graders have matching powder blue baseball hats they're wearing backwards.

Now one of the awesome teacher has walked in and simply grabbed a guitar off of one of these Grade 6 kids and is acting like he knows how to play more than one song. I'm so tempted to go over and play and indirectly show him up. I'd have to take my gloves off though. I retract what I previously said this Teachah has got some finger-picking skill.

PS I'm cleared to start physio and get on the ol'guit-box. And I'm off to play if I can get my hands on one.

"It's Obama!"

We played this guessing game my co-teacher gave me as a warm up for an open class. The students would get five hints and had to guess the right person.

First person:
"I am American"
Everyone begins shouting at the top of their lungs, "Obama!, Teacher Obama!"
They were right.
The rest of the questions were a little tougher but this one stood out to me for a lot of reasons.

It made me realize that Obama (who doesn't even have a first name in this country) is the face of one of the most powerful countries in the world. At the same time, and this is the sad part, all black people are type cast as Obama. Al Rocker, Samuel Jackson, Michael Jordan, Bill Cosby, and even Lebron James are all Obama in the eyes of my students and the rest of their generation so my colleagues say.

This is stereotyping at its finest. Koreans and probably other nations too that aren't obsessed with the NFL or NBA can't name another successful person of African descent. There were always jokes that every Asian guy was Jackie Chan and every white guy was either Tom Hanks or Hans Gruber, now when this joke becomes a reality the world loses a little bit of its dignity.

Since February is a write-off month at school for reasons that I'll explain in February, I feel obligated to honour black history month and talk about a different accomplished man or woman of African descent in order to broaden the horizons of my students. Even if I talk about this for 5 minutes it'll be worth it.

Even though some jokes are deeply seeded in racism I can't resist sharing this one:
On student whose family name is Oh told me his first child will have the given name Ba-Ma so that his child's name will be Oh Ba-Ma. No pressure for that kid to change the world.

Through the Eyes of the Waygook: The F Floor

I'll let it be known that on a Friday the 13th a couple years ago I walked by three black cats on the way to a friends place. I had a feeling everything was going to suck because my day was already in the drain and this triple cat sighting made me feel like the real shit-storm was coming. Not the case. I got to my friend's place and we had duck cassoulet (one of top ten meals of my life) while watching one of the most exciting hockey games I've ever seen. Then of course we had some top notch beers then drunk-food from the Burger Shack. Overall it was a great night and I've never cared about that calendar day anymore unless I'm teaching to raise awareness about how karma and the cosmos can mess you up.

We all know that in most apartment buildings and some hotels in the Western world the thirteenth floor is marked as the fourteenth because of superstition and all that voodoo-jazz. After coming to Korea and stepping into my elevator for the first time it was novel to see the thirteenth floor. I just assumed the number thirteen wasn't an unlucky one. Eventually it just became another floor to get off on. Now in hindsight I  can't believe that Koreans aren't superstitious because they knit-pick a lot things. Example being people don't buy black dogs or cats because there is a "darkness" in them. Maybe they'd classify this is paranoia over superstition but still it's bizarre.

Recently I went over to a friend's place for a potluck. She lived on the sixth floor and it had been a long day so we decided to take the elevator. The panel was pretty standard for a small apartment except there was an "F" floor. We had no idea but I'm sure you can think of what an F can stand for. The weirdest thing is the F sound isn't even a sound in Korea. Come on up! I'm on the Ep-puh ploor. My Korean friend explained that the number 4 is also a sign of death in Korea. Spoooky. Looking back there wasn't a fourth floor in my hospital which makes complete sense now. This is an Asian-wide belief. In fact some buildings will go from 39 right to fifty. Did Samsung and Nokia users have to settle for 3G until 5G came out? This supstition can spread all over from train serial numbers to a an elevator omitting the number.  

Maybe it's another reason to yell, "Fore!" in golf because death could be on its way.