Umsa Festival

Yesterday and today have been my school's annual festival. It's a chance for the kids to show what they've been working on this year and just have fun. Some of the students' artwork is incredible. The paintings and cartoons look professionally done. There were skits yesterday from each foreign language club - english, german, french, arabic, chinese, japanese, and spanish. You can guess the only one I understood. My host sister made an introduction speech for the English play, she did very well. I hope her nervousness from that was what has been eating her the past few weeks. More on that later.

Also in the morning, there were performances by some kids, mostly dancing. The popular skits involved cross dressing, toy guns, and monsters. For some reason, boys dressing like girls was a hit. I was laughing a lot. I also tried to picture kids from my middle school doing that. I couldn't really see it happening, how about you? And American middle schools just aren't cool with the toy guns either.

At night, a stage was set up on the field outside school. One of my favorite students started off the night by doing a Michael Jackson routine, and he was pretty good. All the students who danced on stage were very good. The students practice their dance moves a lot before they perform. I did the Napoleon dynamite dance plus a few other moves to fill out the song, and I think the students liked it. I got a lot of "ohhhh ben! dance - good!" I was happy to do it for them. Then to close the night the 3rd grader rock band played. Chun Yong is the bassist and I know most of the members, so it was fun to see them, and they were good.

Today was the sports part of the festival. Our school played the rival middle school in soccer, and lost... then all the students had to complete a 3K 'marathon' which I ran too. At the end I did a little SGT Davis and tried to cheer on all the students who were almost finishing. There was also a 3 point shootout, class jump rump, and my favorite, the relay race. For some reason watching all the classes in each grade race was pretty exciting. I guess that's what happens when I don't watch football all season, I think middle school relay races are exciting.

So, the festival was two days without teaching, kids having fun at school and running around, not as much beating, and sports and dancing. Teaching won't be nearly as fun tomorrow.

Also, coming soon: blog layout redesign.

Some tidbits about everyday life

Tomorrow is my friend Amal's birthday! So happy birthday Amal. In her honor, I'm going to try to write this post in her style. (Let me know I do)

Dear friends,

Maybe you're curious about my everyday life. Maybe you're not. Here are some random observations about my life in Korea:

1. American Chinese food = Americanized. Korean Chinese food = Koreanized. Oh how I miss real Chinese food...

2. My host mom does my laundry, cleans the bathroom, and cooks for me. I'm not complaining.

3. But she won't let me do anything to help out. She even REMAKES my bed everyday! Come on I'm 22!

4. My host brother has the hardest time getting up in the morning. It takes 15 minutes of host mom yelling to get him up. He has to be at school in 20 minutes? Doesn't matter.

5. I teach a lot of kids (931!) so many so that last week I taught two classes for only the third time yet this semester due to scheduling conflicts. Do you think they missed me? I got a standing ovation when I walked in.

6. I finally was able to put MP3s on my cell phone. After a month and a half. It's still in Korean. Oh, joy.

7. It was my grandmother's 85th birthday yesterday! You go Grandma!

8. Next week my school has their annual festival. No class on Tuesday and Wednesday (or Friday). I will be doing the Napoleon Dynamite dance for the school (and the teachers and parents). Lovely.

That is all.

Love, Ben

The Seoul of Clones

A good article about why South Korea is the leader in stem cell research, with some highlights of differences between Korean and American society.

Seorak San Weekend with Michael Jeter

Last Friday I went to Seoul to see Mike Jeter, who is now a hagwon English teacher in South Korea. A hagwon is an extra academy that students can go to after regular school. So Mike has to teach until 9 on Friday nights, which makes my schedule seem pretty good. I took the high speed KTX train to Seoul for the first time, and it is fast. Also a little expensive. We met in a subway station near his apartment. Luckily it wasn't too hard for us to spot each other.

Saturday morning we went to Seorak san(mountain), a very popular mountain in Korea. We arrived in the afternoon and found a cheap motel. We were looking on some side streets for a motel, and found several abandoned places. We were walking by one with lots of overgrown grass on its front walkway, when a Korean guy with work gloves asked us how much we would pay. We said $30 and he then took us to a motel on the main street, but there was no one there. So he hopped behind the counter, got a key, and showed us a room. We weren't sure if he really worked there, but we decided to take the room anyway.

The closer we got to Seoraksan the more we noticed the leaves hadn't actually changed. Seeing mostly green was a little disappointing, but saturday and sunday were both beautiful weather-wise so it was okay. Sat afternoon we did some exploring of the rock basin at the bottom of Seoraksan and then had a nice little Korean dinner. There were other ETAs in Seoraksan but they didn't want to meet up with us. Pretty lame. Maybe they were afraid of two WM kids together.

On sunday we hiked part of the mountain and it was beautiful. After a post mountain meal of Chinese food (koreanized though, like Chinese food in America is amercanized) we said our goodbyes and each headed to our buses home. The weekend with Mike was a lot of fun. We of course reminisced about WM, but it was fun to experience Korea with someone else from back home. I'm sure it was the first of many weekends together.

The traffic was bad on the way back. I didn't get into Daejon until 10:30pm, so I just missed the last bus back to Gyeryong. I had to take a taxi. My host family called while I was waiting, and I told them. And they weren't worried! Sweet. I think my host family actually thinks of me as an adult.

Check out some pictures of Seoraksan:

Picnic

Yesterday our school had field trips. Each grade went somewhere different. I was told 1st grade was going to the science expo in Daejon, 2nd grade was going to a temple, and 3rd grade was going to a park to have a picnic. Not much of a field trip, I know, but I chose to go with the 3rd grade because this way I could sleep an hour later, and some third graders can speak enough English to communicate. I went to the park with my host brother, who couldn't get out of bed as usual so we were late. Every day, Host mom consistently yells at him off and on for at least 10 minutes before he gets up. "Ji-hyun-a!! Ji-hyun-a!!" That day I think it took a half hour! Maybe he shouldn't stay up so late watching... just an idea.

The picnic was nice. The kids were supposed to write 5 line acronym poems in Korean using the syllables from Umsa Middle School. Some did, some didn't. Basically the kids just got to hang out. There really wasn't anything to do so we came back early. But that didn't take away from the day. The weather was beautiful, and the kids got to wear normal clothes, run around, listen to music, the teachers weren't beating them, and the stress from studying every night for the midterm was gone. The atmosphere was carefree; things seemed right.

Also, my host sister got a haircut and a new hair style. I've recently been trying to see if my host brother and sister interact socially (I don't think they do), so I asked host brother what he thought. He had to think for a minute. Later I asked host sister if her brother liked her haircut. That's just one small example. New goal for the year: get host siblings to interact. This could be even tougher than learning Korean.

Not sure what I'm doing this weekend. Maybe Seoul, Seoraksan or Songnisan.

Jeter has landed

Mike Jeter (Pop ups) is now in Korea. It's only a matter of time before we hang out and show some Koreans what tribe pride is all about. He's over in South Korea teaching English (surprise surprise) at an academy. If only the karoake rooms had the alma mater song.

Busan Internation Film Festival

Last weekend most schools had midterm exams. In South Korea those are serious tests, and many students had been studying for them for a month. Yes, not just the night before the test, but weeks of staying up late studying. The midterms last three days at my middle school, and I didn't have to go into school! So I went to Busan to see a film festival.

I could have taken a train from Daejon to Busan, but I decided to go for the "excellent" bus. It takes longer than a train, sure, and it's slightly more expensive than a regular train, but I've become a big fan. The seats are about as big as first class airplane seats. And the bus is hardly ever even half full. So I get to read, study Korean, sleep, listen to music for 3 and a half hours. Not bad traveling.

When I got to Busan I met up with Rachel, Rose, Becky, Liz, Kathleen, and Linda. Side note about Linda - she's a W&M grad! She graduated in 2004 and was over here last year as an ETA and she liked it so much she decided to extend for another year. Friday night we saw Parzania, a movie inspired by true events, about a massacre in India in the mid nineties. At the center of the movie are the age old struggles between religions, extremism and reason, violence and peace, etc. If you have a chance to see this movie do it, it's that good. After the movie, the director and lead actress talked to the audience and took questions. We weren't expecting it but that made the event even sweeter.

The next morning we got up pretty early and stood in line to see if we could get tickets to some films that were almost sold out. We got tickets to Paradise Now, a film about suicide bombers in the Palestinian Israeli conflict. Also a great movie, one that I had to think about. Again highly recommended. We couldn't get tickets to Broken Flowers, so we went to Nine Emotions. Not bad, but pretty weird. I feel asleep during the movie so after that it was naptime.

Our night movie was called Queens. It was a Spanish comedy about five gay guys about to be married and their mothers. It was pretty funny and I'd recommend it. I had wanted to see the Hamburg Cell about the 9/11 terrorists but everyone else wanted a comedy. It was probably better that way, I ended the film festival on a high note instead of after another intense movie. We met up with another ETA named Jason for that movie, so after the movie we went to hang out and drink at a "Mexican" restaurant. It was pretty Korean though. The decor Mexican, and there was one nacho dish, but NO TACOS! or quesadillas, burritos, etc. It was fun hanging out and comparing experiences.

Some people got up early the next morning to check out the fish market. If you're ever in Busan, they recommend it. I chose to sleep in. The "excellent" bus back to Daejon was even more excellent than the first one - the bus televised the England vs Austria soccer match.

Hot links: dancing and campaigning

By popular demand, here are some entertaining links:

The video of me doing the Napoleon Dynamite dance during orientation. It's a large file, 200MB, so you should have broadband if you want to see it...

The website for the famous Baldwin Devereaux 2004 campaign for the presidency and vice presidency of W&M, which shook William and Mary to its core. Not really, but it was fun. And the explanation about why we dropped out of the race. Can you guess which reason is the real one? Number 3.

Long post about ETA Fall Conference!

Last weekend was the ETA fall conference, so I saw all the ETA's for the first time since we left in August. It was a chance to see everyone, talk about our experiences, and compare notes on teaching. It was fun from beginning to end. Sarah and I met in Daejon to take an express bus to Gyeongju, and it was a good thing I met her in Daejon because the bus I was taking to Daejon got stuck in traffic and she had to hold the express bus a minute or two for me.

The hotel we stayed at was very nice. There were four twin beds in every room so we didn't have to share, a real shower, western food at breakfast, and random live jazz music at night sometimes. We were right next to a lake so we could hang out by the water at night.

Saturday started too early with some talks by fellow ETAs. Some were interesting, but were often too long to keep the majority of people's interest because everyone's teaching situation is so different. I led a little discussion about teaching low level students, and we had a few good ideas. I think we managed to avoid people feeling too futile about teaching low level students. I think one of the keys is extraordinary patience, which is possible to develop over time... Saturday was kind of a long day, but I'm sure our students feel like that every day.

Some quote highlights:
"If you can stomach it, picking up smoking is a great way to bond with the male teachers. They smoke in between classes all day long." - Roger
"What do you do if your host family has a 5 foot long statue of a bloody jesus on the cross hanging above your bed??" - Shoni (who happens to be Jewish)

On Sunday we went sightseeing. We had to get up early, and I admit I fell victim to the seen-one-temple-seen-them-all mentality for the first stop. But at our second site, something incredible happened. When we walked through the entrance, another ETA named David said he wanted to introduce me to a friend. I knew all the ETAs so I'm wondering what's going on. David brings me over to Jae! our friend from orientation in Chuncheon. We hadn't seen each other since orientation and had no idea the other was going to be here. He was on a rollerblading trip around Korea, camping out in the forest overnight. And he happened to rollerblade to the exact same spot that we were going to at the same time! The next day he was going to rollerblade for 13 hours on the way to another city!

So it was interesting to see some of the Gyeongju sights, especially watching the pottery making. The potter starts with a small block of clay, shapes it and thins it out while spinning it a circular table that he's moving with his leg, and after about 10 minutes has a pot. I can now see why one of the ETAs, Beth, said hanging out with the potter in her town is fun.

Monday morning I said goodbye to the other ETAs and then took a bus back to Gyeryong. I feel energized and ready to be a better teacher. The motivation is back in full force... so watch out kids.