Koreans love tea made out things like black beans and corn. They're both really good. When I move away I will miss some ice cold black bean tea for sure.
Koreans love to exercise in strange ways, like walking up mountains backwards. I live by a man-made river which has a bunch of weird exercise machines. At 2 in the morn old ladies will be rockin these machines. Men in suits will stop, do some pull ups and walk away. I was told that I would see some old men kicking trees. I haven't seen this yet but I have seen a few kicking polls or the air. Koreans exercise. I see thousands of Koreans a day and maybe 1-4 of them are fat . I don't think this is a coincidence.
They also love spicy food. I talked to another teacher about it and asked if little kids ate spicy food too--she gave me an awkward glance and replied, "of course they do." I said that it was odd because kids have very sensitive taste buds, to which she replied, "well we force them to eat it, it's good for their health."
As much as I hate parents who force their kids to do thing they don't want to do, eating spicy food probably builds character. eh?
Often when I ask why they do something or don't do something I'm told it's because "this is good for health" or "this is bad for health." For example they never drink water when eating. They swear that it's bad for your digestion. I asked a very intelligent, educated Korean about this and she said it's been scientifically proven. Really? Maybe, but it's water.
They tell me that drinking ginseng drinks is "good for your stamina."
They eat dog here, but they love tiny lap dogs as pets. Women hold them like babies on the subway.
When I bump into another native English speakers that I know they often start the conversation like this-- "man I'm so tired. My co-teacher forced me to go out to drink soju and sing karaoke until 3am. I kept telling him I had to teach the next day and he kept saying 'so do I fool'. They drank me under the table and they're all like 50 years old."
I like my co teachers but none of them have offered to take me out on a drinking binge. I'm told this is a Christian school thing.
Probably better for me in the long run.
My dad keeps telling me about this thing called "Dr. Fish" where you drink a beer while fish eat the dead skin off your feet. I don't know if I like this idea.
He loves it.
I bought a bike and am very happy about this.
A science teacher who only knows a handful of English words took me out to buy it. He bikes to school and I asked him why he didn't drive a car. He said "I love the planet." It was nice, in a Disney movie sort of way.
Koreans love bikes, they bike around the Han river and then take breaks to smoke cigarettes, drink soju and eat noodles.
I taught the moms for the first time. They are all nice and many have kids that are my age. Only two of the nine have students that go to the school so I'm not really sure why I'm being paid to teach them. One asked me if I was single. Then she asked me if I wanted her to "match make." I didn't know what to say. I told her "maybe, give me some time"
Also, we found their coffee maker, another teacher stole it for his room. Now they don't hate me.
Students keep asking me if they can take my picture on their cell phones. I always say yes and give a big smile and cheesy, two-handed thumbs up. I'm not sure why they want to do this. The girls think I'm James Dean and the boys think I'm a cartoon character named wed-DING. I'm happy to play along. While I would not be happy about being a joke as a teacher if I were in the states, it seems to be OK for my role here. At least they're speaking English to this silly cartoon wed-DING guy, right. I might be on a lot of Korean myspace pages.
The drivers here are crazy. The cabbies are the worst, they never stop at red lights and regularly honk at other cars trying to get them to do illegal things.
Motorcyclist are crazy as well. They drive on the sidewalk or street, whichever suits them at the moment, and expect you to move out of the way regardless of the fact that you have the crosswalk signal or that you're on the sidewalk.
Despite the crazy drives, close lanes and massive amounts pedestrians, no one seems to get hit or into accidents.
The police drive around with their cherries on but never do anything. The cherries are always on, which seems to defeat their purpose.
There are two maintenance guys who work at my building. They are there 24/7, and there's only two of them. I'm not quit sure how they work such long hours without going insane. Actually I think on of them is insane. He was always yelling at me in Korean. Then my friend Daron's girlfriend's sister came by to give me some plates. Ever since then he's been very nice to me. I think the old man might have a crush on her.
The other guy is great. If I don't say "hello" he runs after me to say hi.
When I get the nets I'll post some pics of some of the above.
Cheers.
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6 comments:
Sounds fun, man. Of course let that mom "make match" for you. What are you thinking? You sound like a rockstar for a teacher, man.
You're much cooler than I am. Well except maybe on Saturday's. It's the only morning I work, so I slam coffee and get really loopy and give 30 year-old business men stars by their names for silly things like saying "hold your horses" or referencing videogames.
PS - I noticed your spelling got much better in this blog. You using a spell checker or paying one of your kids to proof read this? What kind of bike did you pick up? New, used?
glad to hear about the coffee maker...it was keeping me up at night. i can't stop laughing about the old guys kicking trees!!! I think I may start that over here in the states. It will be great to answer, "It's good for you, they do it in Korea." when people ask why I'm kicking a tree.
When reading this blog, a particular Simpson's quote came to mind, when Marge got a job at the nuclear power plant -- Homer had this to say as last minute advice:
"Now Marge, whenever anything goes wrong, just blame it on the guy who doesn't speak English. Ahh, Tibor, how many times you've saved my butt."
Now I have never been able to carry this wonderful life lesson out, but I'm glad to see one of my friends got to live the dream.
Good thinking planting that coffee maker in the other teacher's room, fingering him for the crime. I wouldn't have thought you had the moxy, but its good to know that when you get backed into the corner -- you are more than willing to pass the buck to some unsuspecting foreigner. I'm glad to see you've found your own special "Tibor" -- and might eventually get a sweet date out of it.
Keep up the good work *taps nose twice as if to signal something profound,*
Paul
the water thing is true. it flushes all the vitamins into yer intestines instead of letting yer stomach absorb them... or maybe it flushes them through yer intestines too fast. whatever the case, drinking water (or any liquid) with yer meal really isn't a good thing.
i want to see pictures.
J.A.S teachin idomatic language and slammin coffee. Wow. I love it.
Bradon, you would laugh really hard if you saw some of these exercises, maybe I'll find some video to post later.
Paul, I have not found my own Tibor, but I am Tibor, I'm sure they blame me for stuff constantly. You would really like the who stole the coffee machine. He is Korean (obviously) but he spent two years in England as a barista and has a brilliant British accent. Today I told him "I've only been here for a month and I hate the Japanese already" and he laughed so hard he hit coughed up his soup. Once of the funniest moments of my life. (I don't really hate anyone but they've done some terrible shit to Koreans over the years, some of it is really intersting. Hmmm maybe blog worthy.)
Escha- you're a knowledgeable women. Good call. I should be able to get some pics on in about a week.
Please stop blaming me for everything sirs.
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