Vacation Update

Hello everyone. Over the last week or so, I've been neglecting my self-imposed responsibilities to keep updating this site with fresh content. The reason for that is quite simple: I'm on vacation. This is the first real vacation I've had in Korea besides a couple long weekends. Unfortunately, due to some timing issues and other commitments, I can't use it to travel. So I've been hanging around locally and just relaxing. After my big "venting" post, it has certainly been helpful.

Over the next few posts, I'll put up a few groups of stories that I have found interesting and bookmarked, even though most of them are old news now. Then, I'll close it all off with a little update on dance, school and personal life. So check it all out!

Plane Crew Deported

Thailand officials will deport the 5-man crew of the plane that was held in Thailand after it stopped for refueling, enroute from North Korea. The Thai government says it's not in their interest to prosecute the men, and will let their home governments take care of it. The government of Thailand has dropped the charges.

Check out the video here.

Lunar New Year and Valentine's Day Sharing the Stage

This year, 설날 (Lunar New Year) and Valentine's Day both fall on the same day. I hate to say it, but I don't really remember what I did last Lunar New Year. I don't think I was with Vicky's family.

The reason I say that is because the Lunar New Year is one of the two big family gathering holidays here in Korea. The family's usually go to the home of the eldest brother of a family. Of course, it's just as common to go to the grandparents' house as well. Either way, they gather, do 세배 (a formal bow of respect to the elders), receive a little pocket money for that bow and then eat dinner with the family.

At the Bamboo Lunar New Year party, they had a pig's head set up on a table with 10,000 won bills stuffed in its face. The one girl who I currently love showed me how to do the bow. It's actually the first time in Korea I did an official 세배.

Valentine's Da y here is a bit different than back home. I'm sure I wrote about it last year, but I'm not sure where or when. Anyway, in Korea on Valentine's Day it's tradition for the girls to give gifts to the guys. Next month, on March 14, the guys give gifts to the girls.

I didn't expect anything this year, considering I'm single, but the kindness of my Bamboo friends came through again. Four of those beautiful girls brought in chocolates for the guys. Two of the girls gave homemade chocolate. Now I know to prepare for next month.

The row with my latest reprimand is blowing over. Thank goodness for that. Ridia and I vented together at the Hambak Welcome/Farewell teacher party. The food was good, and I rocked the singing room as usual. I brought in two 100s and four 99s. not too shabby, on a scoring system that doesn't actually mean a thing. Haha.

I'm going out drinking after dance tonight with some of my classmates. I'm so excited because the chick I currently love is coming. She speaks no English. I think I like her more because of that.

Fafa, one of the owners of Bamboo, invited me to his home on Saturday to celebrate the Lunar New Year. He mentioned it earlier in the week, but hasn't brought it up since then. It would certainly be fun to join him. It was a really nice gesture on his part.

I don't know I mentioned this already, but my first performance will be the last Saturday of this month. I'm super excited.

So even though the school thing sucked this week, all is continuing to go pretty well this year. Happy Valentine's Day and Lunar New Year to everyone!!!

Kim Yu-na Raking It In

It's no real surprise here, but an article on Yahoo Sports lists South Korean figure skater Kim Yu-na as tied for first in most money earned last year by Olympic athletes.

 

Any Korean who becomes the best at his or her respective sport has trememndous opportunities to make tons of cash considering the major corporations that are currently boosting this country.

So it makes perfect sense that she's rolling in green (That's dollars. I guess in won she'd be rolling in blue, green and yellow.). Anyway, it's an interesting article.

Big Time Venting

Yesterday, I was called into the English Dept. head's office for the third time this school year to be reprimanded. It was also the third time tha I was reprimanded WITHOUT ANY JUSTIFICATION.

A recap:

Number 1

The first time Julie (English Dept. head) called me into her office was less than a week after I arrived. Our former co-teacher, Grace, was quitting, and everyone was stressed to extreme capacity and taking it out on the native speakers. Welcome to Korea (1).

I was introduced during morning announcements with another new, Korean, male teacher. I didn't know who he was though. So at lunch, I pointed to him and asked Grace, "Who is he? Who's the new teacher that was introduced with me."

I could tell she didn't fully understand what I was asking, but I didn't realize how dumb she was. Even if she didn't know who he was, she could clearly see me pointing right at him and asking who this particular person was.

Well, Julie came to me later to ask me who told me about the new English teacher and about who told me Grace was quitting. I told her that Grace informed me she was quitting, and no one told me about an English teacher.

Julie then insisted I knew who the knew English teacher was (even though one had NOT yet been hired). She even went as far as to interrogate me about what other Korean teachers I've been speaking with lately.

Finally, I was able to convince her that I was asking about the man who turned out to be the volleyball coach.

Number 2

The second scolding is worse than the first, because I was doing something which I was actually instructed to do.

Julie forced Geoff and I to do a teacher's class. We went to the designated spot and waited. The teachers were not there, but Koreans are notoriously late. The day before, for the same class, they arrived 20 minutes late. Well, we were there for 30 minutes, and passing time by talking to Katie, who is another native speaker.

Well, Julie saw us sitting there and was furious. She asked why we didn't go back downstairs, and demanded to know what we were doing.

I told her we were waiting for the teachers. They were late the day before, so we were just waiting for them to come.

She told us that next time no one shows up, we should go back to our office.

But I'm willing to bet that if we went back to out office, we would get yelled at for not waiting for the teachers. It's a no-win situation. Welcome to Korea (2).

Third time's a charm

Once again, Julie asked me if I had time to chat. So yesterday, I went to her office and heard a laundry list of false statements and insults.

First, she said the head teacher told her I was always "hanging around" the classroom. I'm not even 100 percent sure what that means. She then informed Julie that I always left the classroom during class time to "Twitter." Yes, that's exactly what she said.

I angrily told her I was offended and insulted and that I NEVER leave the classroom for anything like that. The only reasons I leave the classroom is to make copies and get pencils and erasers. That's it.

To make this lie even worse, the head teacher has no way to even see me in the classroom. My classroom is connected to my office, but neither can be seen from the receptionist's desk. And she's never actually come into my classroom. So where did she even get this shit from? Welcome to Korea. (3)

Then, Julie brought up the fact that I'm now opting out of lunches. I was told from day one that I could opt out of our school lunches. I have to pay something like $44 equivalent/month to get a school lunch every day. And it's food I don't like. It's always rice, kimchi, a gross soup and some meat. Maybe once a month we'd get chicken. Other than that, I wasn't satisifed at all.

So after our winter camp, during which we brought out own lunch, I decided to opt out. It's cheaper for me to bring my own lunch and I can eat food I like.

Well, Julie said the principal asked why I haven't been at the cafeteria. She told him, rightfully so, that I don't like the food.

So yesterday, she said I should really think about getting the school lunch again. I told her that was absolutely not possible in any way.

She then said I shouldn't look so upset when I do go to the cafeteria. She told me that it's unprofessional to show my emotions. Maybe I could just give a fake smile, she suggested. Welcome to Korea (4).

She then went onto apologize about the classroom leaving accusation and say our talk is not a big deal.

I told her, at this point barely able to keep from screaming, that our talk was a big deal and I was incredibly insulted. I was called unprofessional and accused of being a poor teacher. At one point, she even said she was disappointed in me and that I had a great opportunity here and I shouldn't blow it. That's exactly what she said.

The fallout

I don't know fully yet what it will be. I'm in my fourth month at this school and I've been reprimanded three times for absolutely no reason except whatever fairy tale is in their heads.

To make matters worse, we have ANOTHER goddamn school dinner tonight. But for this one, we're forced to pay 20,000 won ($20) to attend. I told Ridia I would go but I wouldn't eat or drink. I have dance class tonight and I don't want to go anyway.

Well, Julie informed me that she paid 20,000 won for me. I told her there was absolutely no way I was accepting that. She kept insisting that I can't pay her back and that I could owe her a favor. As soon as I heard "favor," I went down, grabbed money and brought it back up to her.

As much as I don't want to pay to go to a dinner with bad food and terrible employers, the last thing in the world I want is Julie to hold a favor over me.

This is the big problem with Korea. I was having a pretty good time here so far this year. I obviously had some complaints about the shitty way this school is run, but I was able to brush it off.

But it's getting closer to the last straw for me. I'm an adult. I'm the best teacher that they have. I work very hard to make sure the students have a good in-class experience.

I refuse to be treated like a child. And I won't accept they're excuse of: "This is just Korea culture." I don't care if it's culture. It's childish and it's petty and it's illogical.

If the people of this country ever hope to be taken seriously by the rest of the world, they'd better change their fucking culture. I do my very best to fit into Korea and accept things. But the way they treat native speakers, whom they desperately need at this point in time, is totally unacceptable.

Check Out Asadal

A very friendly and well-informed K-Blogger, who runs the blog 'Asadal Thought,' added some comments to my post about the decrease in honorific word usage. He allowed me to pick out some of his comments to post on here as a follow-up. Instead of picking random things out, however, I'll be posting most of it.

So here's what he had to say:

As for the judge example, I think they were wrong to translate “beoreuteopda (버릇없다)” as "rude," because it's actually stronger than that. A "beoreut" is actually a habit, or a manner, which makes it more similar to saying "you've got no manners," which I think is more a comment on a person's character than simply a comment on someone's actions at a certain point in time.

That said, I agree with you that a certain level of manners and politeness should be required in court. It's interesting the article never actually mentions who the guy was. When I read it first I got the impression he was the defendant, but looking back over it it never actually says this. Surely the actual defendant would have better sense than to be rude to a judge. But still, rude is rude, and I also agree that the judge seemed to be well within his rights to reprimand him. Perhaps there would have been a better way of doing it though, as it's not very becoming of someone in such an official position as a judge to be telling people they have no manners. Maybe a good old "such behaviour is not acceptable in court. I will have to ask you to refrain," would have been better.

It's true that recently officials have got a bit of a reputation for unnecessary rudeness, and as an outsider I might be inclined to put that down to an abuse of the authority and respect bestowed upon them by their position in a Confucian context. I've written about the altered nature of Confucianism in the Korean education system before in this post, and I think a lot of it's relevant in a wider Korean context as well.

As for judges, I think they should really use the most formal, neutral words. After all, the principle requirement for their job is to be impartial, and it's hard to do so if you're speaking to people in a way in which you know can be considered rude.

He followed that up, as well, with a better explanation of "imnida" (입니다) an "yo" (요):

Neither is more polite than the other. Therefore, a student using the "yo" form to a teacher is not being rude. They are being informal but polite, and this is considered appropriate. The other form you mentioned, that drops the "yo," is known as the impolite informal, but it's important to note that if it's used in the appropriate situation - such as to a friend or someone close but younger - it is also not rude or improper. Then you have the honourific forms, which involve using the honourific infix, shi (시), which is irregular in the "yo" form. This means that the verb to do (하다), becomes in the honourific forms of each form: 하십니다 (honourific polite formal), 하세요 (honourific polite informal), 하셔 (honourific impolite informal).

Use of the first set of forms depends on the situation - who you are talking to, where you are, etc. Use of the second set, the ones with the honourific infix, is determined by who is doing the action as well as the situation. So, if I was talking to a close friend, asking them when their parents are coming, I could say "언제 오셔?" I've dropped the "yo" because I'm talking to my friend - the situation doesn't require it, but because it's their parents who are doing the action I'm inquiring about, I also include the honourific infix.
So as you can see, he knows what he's talking about. His blog has a lot of really great cultural posts that are definitely worth checking out. I've added him to my blogroll, on the left, so you can get in on his thoughts, as well.

South Korea Warm Up Against Ivory Coast

South Korea will face the Ivory Coast next month in London as a warm up to the World Cup. This is certainly a good test for the Taegeuk Warriors.

Ivory Coast is one of the strongest teams in Africa. Even though they famously flamed out at this year's Africa Cup of Nations, they're still considered by many to be a darkhorse as the first possible African World Cup champions. At the veyr least, I've read at least one soccer writer who pegged them to get to the finals.

Ivory Coast matches up well against any team in the world (except maybe Spain) with the fire power they have up front in Didier Drogba. But the rest of the squad leaves a lot to be desired. If the Koreans can control the midfield -- which they should be able to do -- they could easily sneak a 1-0 win on this one.

However, if they let balls get up front to Drogba, they won't have much of a chance.