I'm Foreign, not Stupid!

You know how when you're around a foreigner, like an exchange student, someone on vacation or maybe a co-worker that only speaks so much English, and you notice many of the ways he/she does things is weird? You see what they eat/how they eat and think, "Yuck!" or "That's strange!" You don't totally trust them to do certain things, because you think they just don't understand or know how to do certain things. Basically, you almost treat them like a child. Well, I now understand how it feels to be on the other side of that coin. There are so many instances when I just want to yell at people and say, "I'm foreign, not stupid!" It's almost like they have forgotten that I'm 26 years old. In fact, I'm 28 in Korea! Here are two examples of what I mean: 1) It was raining the other day, so of course I brought my umbrella to school to keep from getting wet when walking from the car to the school building. When I got into the school with my co-teacher, she says to me, "You need to open your umbrella and set it down on the ground so it will dry." Oooohhhhhhhhh! So that's how you do it! I've gone my whole life with wet umbrellas and never knew what to do. Thank goodness I came to Korea. 2) Brent was shopping a while ago with his fellow English teacher, Lucy. Upon picking up a carton of orange juice to purchase, she said to him, "You need to shake this before drinking." C'mon!!! These are just two examples of many incidents that occur here. It really does make me think about how I treated foreigners when I interacted with them back home. I think the natural instinct is to just treat them like children, because we see them doing things differently, so obviously, they don't know what they're doing. It's a shame, because it really does make you feel like a little person sometimes and that's just plain frustrating. I think my co-teacher is a special case here too, because she really does act motherly toward me, which makes the situation worse. Anyway, it's just one of those things I'm still adjusting to.

I'm beginning to learn a lot about the Korean culture that is helping me understand why many Asian immigrants act the way they do when they get to America. I've discussed the driving situation here before, so I won't go over that again, but there's many other things as well. Many times, the way Koreans interact publicly would be considered rude in America. This includes bumping each other on the subway without apologizing, actually moving people out of the way to walk past them, pushing you with their shopping cart in the store to get you out of the way and smiling or laughing when they have done something considered rude. Have you ever been in a situation where an Asian person has done one of these things, or maybe almost hit you with their car and then they smiled? As frustrating as this can be, this is their culture. When they are embarrassed by committing a rude act, they smile or laugh. It really is hard to get used to, because like I said, it's very frustrating when someone has just done something really rude and you look at them and they're smiling. My co-teacher actually laughs all the time when she's speaking to me in English and she can't think of the word or how to say what she wants to say. Let me tell you, that gets real old. Anyway, it's just interesting to see how they interact here and then think about how they act back home. It's eye-opening for sure.

This past Monday, I was officially evaluated on my teaching skills by the Principal, Vice Principal and all the teachers at my school. I had to prepare a lesson plan for them to review and they then watched one of my classes to observe my teaching methods. Leading up to this class, my co-teacher was very nervous, but I honestly wasn't. I really didn't think it would be a big deal and now that it's over, I can tell you it wasn't. My Principal didn't even show up until about three-fourths of the way through the class and when it was over, he gave me a perfect score. In fact, when I asked my co-teacher later when we'll find out the results of the evaluation, she asked me if I wanted the highest score to submit to the Board of Education. See, if I get one of the top scores, then I would be evaluated again by the superintendent and other education officials and have an opportunity to receive a monetary bonus for being such a good teacher. Anyway, her asking me if I wanted the highest score just proved to me that the evaluation was a crock. I told her to just have the Principal submit a good enough score, so we don't have to be evaluated again. I honestly could care less about the bonus and I'd rather not deal with the stress of my co-teacher freaking out about another evaluation, especially since this one would include the superintendent. I actually made a little video for the evaluation class, where the students had to watch it and explain to me what I was doing, because the whole lesson was on talking about your daily schedule. Anyway, I've included it below if you'd like to check it out.

Speaking of teaching, I really have to say that Korean students are not as well behaved as American students are in elementary school. They may be a little more advanced in math, but as far as behavior is concerned, I think American students are a little more disciplined than Korean students. It's amazing how much talking goes on in class. Students just talk out loud like it's an involuntary action. There always seems to be this chatter going on, and it's nearly impossible to determine who is talking. I'm not kidding. I look out into the class and I can't see lips moving, but I can hear little rumblings. It's like some crazy ninja talking thing they developed. I know ninjas are from Japan, but still! Anyway, I'm just always amazed at how much talking these students get away with. For the most part, I let my co-teacher handle the disciplinary stuff, however, I step in when it gets to be too much or if she is not doing anything. But, like I said, talking seems to be almost involuntary. I don't know if they even realize they're talking sometimes!

I don't think I've mentioned this yet, but I've officially stopped playing volleyball here. It's been at least a month or so since I last played and I don't miss it one bit. After playing for fun for a while, things started getting just too intense for me. I found myself taking part in these drills, practices and scrimmages, of course all aimed at improving my skills in a sport I could care less about. Finally I just stopped showing up, because they were getting a little too serious for me. In fact, both the men's and women's teams have had their first official games over the last two weeks and you'd think these were the Olympics or something. It's intense! The games have all kinds of people watching, cheering, chanting and singing. Players argue with the officials and they argue with each other. Elementary school volleyball is dead serious here in Busan. The teachers at my school actually end their classes early on game days, usually Wednesdays, so they can get in a practice before the official games that night. Unbelievable! It's actually more important to win at volleyball than to conduct a full day's worth of teaching for the students. Also of great importance is the need for all of the school teachers and staff to attend the games to cheer. I've tried both times now to not be in attendance, because frankly it's quite boring for me. Like I said, I don't care one bit about volleyball. Anyway, in their eyes, not attending your school's volleyball game is like not attending the birth of your first child. I actually talked to another EPIK teacher at the men's game this past Wednesday and we discussed how intense volleyball is, and he pretty much shared my views on the whole thing, both of us hoping that our schools would just lose quickly so we wouldn't have to go to anymore games. There is one benefit of going to these games, and it's that I get to hear a lot of funny English phrases they use while playing. One big one is the word "fighting." This is like a Korean war call. They say this all the time during competitive events. The funny thing is though, they pronounce it "high-ting." So, let's say Jin Hoo is getting ready to serve the ball. No doubt you will hear someone yell, "Jin Hoo high-ting" at the top of his/her lungs. This is like saying, "Let's go Jin Hoo!" Hilarious. In volleyball, you're not allowed to touch the net, so when someone does, the official and/or the fans will say, "net touchy." When someone does something good, like a good serve, you will hear, "nigh-sa" instead of "nice." Finally, when they want someone to jump up and try and block a spike, you will hear, "blocking!" These few things keep me entertained during the long, boring games.

The weather is really starting to warm up now and I can already tell that this summer is not going to be pleasant. We're barely into the 70s and I'm already annoyed by the little bit of humidity that comes along with it. Luckily, I have a nice little a.c. unit in my apartment, but I don't want to be locked up in my apartment all summer because of how unbearable it is outside. Hopefully, either I'll just get used to it and/or the buildings here also have nice little a.c. units to keep things cool.

This past Wednesday, Brent and I officially said goodbye to Soo for the next six months. She actually leaves today for Canada, in what was originally supposed to be a year-long trip. Apparently there were some issues with her work visa, so they are only allowing her to be gone for six months. That's good news for us, because that means she'll be back when we're still here. Anyway, we played some pool and went to a nice little Italian restaurant that night. It was a fun evening and a nice way to say goodbye to someone who really helped us a lot in settling in to Korean life. Because of her, we met so many cool people and experienced so much, of which we're truly grateful.

Yesterday was Field Day at my school, which consisted of students participating in various athletic events outside. This included relay races, hula hoops and lots of dancing. It was really a lot of fun. Many parents came to watch and participate in events as well. I even found myself in a race, in which a student and I had to hold hands and run around the track. We won, which was awesome for her, because it got her team some points. It was awesome for me, because it raised my self-esteem. I also took part in two huge tugs of war between all of the adults, in which I was the recipient of an instant blister. I couldn't believe when I looked down at my hand and saw part of my skin folded over. It was worth it though, because my side won both rounds, which again lifted my self-esteem. By the end of this day, I was actually pretty tired, because I spent a good part of the day running up and down three flights of stairs to check the score of the Lakers game. I'd help with the activities, then when I got a break, run up the stairs to watch the game for a few minutes, then run back down to help/participate, then run back up the next chance I had. I actually found out later that at one point when I was up watching the game, the Vice Principal was calling me over the loud speaker to participate in a relay race, but obviously I didn't hear. Woops. Anyway, it was overall a pretty fun day which ended with another Korean style dinner with my fellow teachers at a local restaurant.

I've officially been here for over three months now. Time is flying!