Last weekend, Ji Won and Soo took Brent and me to visit the APEC house in Haeundae, where some sort of an economic summit was held in 2005. The whole location is basically dedicated to the summit, with pictures of the different world leaders that were there and even a display of what they had for dinner. It seemed as though the place was built specifically for the summit. It honestly wasn't too interesting, aside from the fact that you could stand in places that these world leaders stood and see the room where they did business, and no doubt told each other jokes. I'm a nerd for stuff like that, so I had to take a picture where President Bush stood when they took a big group picture. Unfortunately the picture was taken with Ji Won's camera, so I don't have it to share right now, but eventually I'm sure I will.
After we visited the APEC house, we walked around Haeundae a little more before deciding to try out this place called Kraze Burger for dinner. Ji Won said this place was like the In-n-out of Korea, but not as good as the actual In-n-out. I'll have to agree. The burger I had was definitely good, but didn't even come close to an In-n-out burger. On the way back home, Brent and I needed to stop at Home Plus, so Soo and Ji Won decided to go with us. While we were on the subway talking, a man approached us and began talking to Soo and Ji Won, with most of his attention focused on Soo. He wasn't yelling at them, but definitely speaking sternly and it was enough for other passengers on the subway to stop what they were doing and turn their attention to him. Now, I had no idea what this guy was saying to them, but he was obviously upset about something. I was racking my brain as he was talking to them, trying to figure out if maybe we said something offensive before he came up to us, but I couldn't think of anything. Anyway, he finished scolding Soo and Ji Won and left us with about a minute or so of awkwardness on the now quiet subway train. Soo was reluctant to tell us what he was saying until he got off at the next stop. Basically, he was upset at them for speaking English. He told them that they were in Korea and they should be speaking Korean. Brent and I felt pretty bad needless to say, because if it wasn't for us, they obviously would have been speaking Korean. This was the first time anything like this happened to us, and Soo made sure to point out to me that not all Koreans are like him, which obviously I knew because we had ridden the subway and been many places where we're speaking English and it's never been a problem. It was just a sad situation to be a part of and like I said, I think we felt bad more than anything else, because his anger was directed towards Soo and Ji Won and not us. I told Soo that we have crazy people like that in America as well and not to feel bad about it. No matter where you go, I think there's going to be people who believe that their culture, language and traditions are sacred and any outside influence on those things is harmful. It's just a shame.
This week at school I taught my students about the phrase "bless you." In Korea, when you sneeze, not only do you not cover your mouth and nose, but no one says anything to you either. You just sneeze and that's it. Learning about "bless you" was completely new for these kids and I must say I had a pretty good time teaching them about it. I would actually fake sneeze and make certain students tell me "bless you," then I would make some students fake sneeze and I would say "bless you" and they would have to say "thank you" back to me. It was really a lot of fun and for the rest of the week I had students randomly fake sneezing in class so I would say "bless you" to them. Totally cool. I also introduced them to Google Earth this week. They absolutely LOVED getting to see famous landmarks from around the world, their homes, the school and even my old apartment in Anaheim. One class gave me a round of applause when I showed them my apartment. It was strange, but cool.
While I'm on the subject of school, I've officially instituted a "No I'm Fine" policy with the students. See, whenever you ask a Korean, adult or child, "How are you?", the answer is always, "I'm fine, how are you?" So to get them practicing other responses, I told them they can't say "I'm fine" anymore and it's actually worked out great so far. I'm pretty happy that they're actually thinking about other things to say and not just the standard "I'm fine" line. I get some pretty funny ones too, because they try to say something different every time. "I'm happy" seems to come up a lot.
I've mentioned before how some of my students watch WWE and are all into the different wrestlers. What I failed to realize, or remember from my own youth as a wrestling fan, is how much of an influence these athletes have on young children. For those of you who don't watch wrestling, there is a guy named Jeff Hardy who looks like a raver. He's got multi-colored hair, wears crazy neon and florescent face paint, torn up pants and shirts and strange sleeves that start at his wrist and end just above his elbows. Anyway, one of my male students one day shows up to school with his fingernails painted silver. Knowing I'm a wrestling fan, he runs up to me all excited to show me his fingernails and I said "Why?" His friend that was right there and speaks better English said to me, "Jeff Hardy." I just said "oh cool" and that was that. Like I mentioned, it was just a reminder of what an impact these guys can have on these moldable young minds. That student actually thinks wearing silver nail polish is cool. Oh boy.
Also, for the first time since I've been here, I actually saw my co-teacher hit one of the students. We were warned about this during training, but until now I hadn't seen it actually in practice. Apparently, just like the old Catholic school days in America, teachers here used to be able to hit students when they were misbehaving. Well, officially they're not supposed to anymore, but it is still widely practiced and not really challenged by the parents. It was so weird to see my co-teacher hit the kid. And she didn't just hit him, she took the knuckle of her middle finger and punched him hard right on top of the head. Needless to say, he didn't say a peep for the rest of class.
I've been meaning to mention this next little bit of information for a while, but keep forgetting. Koreans talking on cell phones has got to be one of the funniest things about this place. They communicate with a series of grunts, nays and yays, making for a very difficult time to not laugh every time you hear someone answer the phone and say "uh." Really, a lot of their communication in general is handled in this manner, but on the phone it's especially funny. I've even started a little routine that has become kind of popular at my school now with the teachers where I imitate a Korean phone conversation. Basically it goes like this. Phone rings. "Yuposayo? Nay. Uh. Uh. Uh. Nay. Uh. Nay. Uh Uh. Yay. Yay. Yay. Yaaaaaaaaay." End of conversation. Not even joking. They don't say the Korean equivalent of goodbye, instead using a series of "yays" or sometimes just hanging up. It's the funniest thing to hear in person and Brent and I get some pretty good laughs out of this.
On Wednesday, Brent and I were invited to a fashion show by one of the people we met at Ji Won's house a few weeks ago. It was one half of the couple that invited us to the Chinese restaurant for dinner a couple weeks ago. Anyway, Brent and I were both up for it, since it was something we've never done or even thought about doing actually, and the tickets were free. It was kind of an interesting experience. First off, some scary creature comes out to get things going. This beast-looking thing just walks out slowly, stops halfway down the runway, turns around and walks back. It was pretty weird and creepy. I'm surprised Brent didn't run for his life. After the beast left, "Tom's Diner" hit and the models started coming out. Those models just walk out with a serious, "Don't mess with me" look, that you almost have to laugh. After the show was over, there were a couple girls that mistook Brent and I for celebrities and asked to take a picture with us. Who are we to deny the public? We happily smiled for the camera and enjoyed our literal 15 seconds of fame. After the fashion show, we walked across the street to the largest mall in Asia, where we went all the way to the top floor and then all the way back down. It wasn't too exciting, but I did take a super cool picture out in front of the mall, which you'll see below.
Soo took Brent and I to a Turkish restaurant that night, which was her first time there too. According to Soo it's a popular place to dine, but when we arrived it was in kind of a deserted area and was completely empty. The three of us had the awkward opportunity to be the only ones in the restaurant with one waitress and one cook, so we took that by the horns and had us some Turkish food. The food itself turned out to be okay. I would say it's nothing to write home about, but that would be pretty stupid wouldn't it, because I'm blogging about it right now. I think you get the idea though.
Last night, all the teachers at my school were invited to my Principal's house for dinner. We left school around 2:30 p.m. and headed out to his place, which is up in the mountains somewhere outside of Busan. He basically lives in a cabin. I really wasn't all that impressed by it, but I'm not one for country life either. I think people who enjoy living that lifestyle would have loved his place. It's totally secluded, has a couple huge gardens where his wife grows all kinds of flowers and vegetables and has a pretty cool view. We had pork for dinner, which was a nice treat, because usually I'm working on side dishes all night to make up for whatever seafood main course is being served. I probably drank more last night than I have the entire time I've been here, and to be honest it kind of worked in my favor as far as the teachers go. Now, obviously I'm not a big drinker, but for some reason a lot more of the Korean give-and-take thing was going on last night, so I had more than my fare share of soju. I think this is the first time I've been out with my teachers where it seemed as if every one of them got drunk, except for the drivers. Drivers here, I've noticed, are pretty good about staying away from drinking. Anyway, surprise, surprise, with everyone a little tipsy the environment was very fun. I don't think I've bonded with any of them more than I did last night, so that was kind of cool. I think as time goes by, I'm becoming more and more of just another teacher at the school, as opposed to "the foreign English teacher." It's understandable, because this is their first time working with a foreign teacher, so I think they are just as apprehensive about how to approach me as I am with some of them sometimes. Anyway, we all had a good time last night and it was a nice way to kick off my long weekend.
This Tuesday is Children's Day here in Korea, so we have Monday and Tuesday off of school, which is awesome. Like I mentioned in the last post, Brent, Soo and I are heading off to Seoul later today and coming back on Tuesday evening. This will be our first trip there and our first time on the KTX (bullet train), so we're pretty excited. Soo has taken the honors of planning out our whole trip for us for two reasons: 1) She's Korean and knows the area much better than we do, 2) She's super cool.
So hopefully I'll come back with some fun and interesting stories from Korea's capital. Take care everyone!
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