Graduation

Today was the English Kindergarten Graduation ceremony, basically just one huge spectacle to impress the students’ parents. My kids in Duke Class had to do something like 15 different things up on stage, including acting out a play from memory, reciting a story from memory (with hand motions), performing a song as a percussion ensemble, playing the cello, reciting speeches...even yodeling. I wish I were kidding. Their graduation was more elaborate than any I've ever been to.

I had to write report cards for all of my kindergartners this week. The possible grades are E (exceeds standards) S (satisfies standards) P (progressing towards standards) and N (novice) across a number of different subjects and behavior points. The school emailed us out the template for the report cards, which conveniently already had the grades written in…of course, every student receives an E for every single grade. We were told that we could change the grades and give out “maybe one S” if a student was particularly bad. It was a little disheartening for me to have to write "exceeds standards" in the area of Maturity for one of my students who on consecutive days earlier this week, pooped his pants and vomited (as you can tell, the other students were not impressed). It’s such a joke…but anything to keep the parents happy I guess.

The past couple weeks have been a never-ending photo shoot. Each student receives a DVD to bring home for the parents, complete with all sorts of video footage from inside the classroom and other activities as well as a number of photographs. The students are filmed playing musical instruments, playing basketball, etc. Also, I had to pose individually with each student at a bunch of different places around the school. Now I assumed that these photos would just be used for the DVDs…but I was wrong. I walked outside of my classroom earlier this week and stumbled upon a pile of pillows…with my face on them.

Apparently my face is going to be on pillows in the homes of a bunch of Korean families from now on. I’m not sure if I should be flattered, or utterly creeped out by this. Maybe a little bit of both.

My hagwon classes in the afternoon had their bimonthly examinations today. I made the exams for my 4 classes – 15 questions each, all multiple choice, and we were told that we must make the exams easy enough that every student will score at least 13/15. Again, gotta keep the parents happy. It doesn’t matter if the students are learning or not, just that there is the illusion of them learning. That’s all that matters. Anyway, I took the questions straight from their books and even went so far as to tell the students which questions to study for earlier this week. I realized that no one really cares how much work gets done, so we’ve been playing a lot of scrabble lately. It’s kind of bizarre how my kindergartners have it much harder than the older students do. But that’s Korea for you…it doesn’t make much sense sometimes.

Duke Class has been really stressed out lately. It feels a bit wrong to think that six year olds could be stressed out...but apparently they had good reason to be. Here's a sampling of what they had to perform this morning, all from memory:

Percussion Ensemble

Synchronized Ballet Dancing

Gong Line

"Genie Puzzle". Still waiting to hear from the Academy on my original screenplay.

And finally...yodeling. Taken at dress rehearsal yesterday.

That's about it. I get a fresh batch of kids next week. Congratulations, Duke Class. It's been real.

Gwangju Biennale and Jung-oe Park

The weather has been much nicer the last few days, and all of the snow has pretty much melted. Today, I went across town to spend some time in Jung-oe Park. One of my hagwon students told me this is one of the coolest places in Gwangju. Which isn’t saying much...but I was bored and took the advice anyway. The park blew away my low expectations, and I inadvertently learned a lot about the history of Gwangju just by visiting. Established by the Biennale Foundation, the entire area is basically one huge art exhibition. The park is decorated with scattered sculptures and bas-reliefs, and is the home of the Gwangju Museum of Art, the Gwangju Folk Museum, and the Gwangju Biennale. Also the park was filled with a bunch of kids running around flying kites, elderly men in track suits playing badminton, etc. There’s even an amusement park with one of those rides that makes you sick just by watching it.

The Gwangju Museum of Art is currently featuring an exhibit called Democracy, Human Rights, and Gwangju, which, according to the pamphlet, “shows the meaning of democracy, the importance of human rights, and the sublime Gwangju spirit”. The exhibition depicts the recent history of Gwangju, from Japanese imperialism to present. The vast array of subjects ranges from the human rights of Korean residents in Japan to American capitalism and military dictatorship. A large part of the exhibit depicts the Gwangju Massacre on May 18, 1980 (also known as 518, or the Gwangju Democratization Movement), in which a number of university students had an uprising against the military dictatorship in place at the time. The Korean Army killed more than 100 students, and the uprising was defeated. But 518 was the first in a series of uprisings across Korea and is seen as the basis of modern Korean democracy. Three artists collaborated on the project, each using a different technique: oil on canvas, woodcutting, and serigraphy. To the left is a serigraphy by Park Bul-dong satirizing American imperialism, and to the right is a series of woodcuts by Hong Sung-dam depicting the spirit of Gwangju.

I found the Gwangju Folk Museum a little bit less impressive, but offers a pretty nice glimpse of how Gwangju has evolved from a farming community to the industrial city it is today. I enjoyed this translation of the Summary of Exhibition: “You would appreciate the story of Gwangju, a district of light and a city where the life and hearts of Namdo people get joined together, streets possessing the history of sorrow and the tremor of excitement extends like a river, a big and strong Mt. Mudeung let go the weight of time like anchor with old photos.” Let’s ignore the grammar issues and the fact that it’s one long, rambling run-on sentence and appreciate the vivid imagery. I seriously wonder who translates these things…is there not ONE bilingual person in the city of 1.5 million who could have done a better job? But I digress.

Even though there’s barely a single word of English in the entire museum, I really enjoyed the Gwangju Biennale. The names and descriptions of the paintings were all in Korean…but art is all about using your imagination anyway, right? Right. I'll leave you here with a few of my favorite paintings from the Biennale, which I took the liberty to name myself:

Barcode Centaur

One Big Happy Family

Trippy Butterflies

Pocket Change. It doesn’t take much for something to be called art. This is literally just a coat hanging from the wall with an LCD screen sewn into the pocket that fills up with change and then empties. And a repetitive soundtrack of coins clanging together is playing from some speakers on the ground...genius.

Birthdays and Brainwashing

I'm back to teaching, and counting down my final days with Duke class. The English Kindergarten graduation is in less than two weeks, after which I will have a fresh batch of new students starting in March. But this month, two students in Duke class were celebrating birthdays, which I quickly found out is quite a big deal in kindergarten. One day each month, if there are birthdays to celebrate, there is an elaborate table set up in the classroom adorned with cake, fruit plates, flowers, teddy bears, etc. The birthday kids pose for several photos...first individually, then with the teachers, then with different combinations of other students. The whole ordeal takes about a half hour, with other students screaming the words of "Happy Birthday" and running around the classroom.

After the birthday photo shoot, we ate a special snack consisting of birthday cake and kimbap. Amazingly, the kids all wanted more kimbap, and barely anyone wanted extra cake. I'll just assume that they're all afraid of the gluten, too.

Finally, there's a lot of love in the classroom, so all of the other students write these little notes to the birthday kids. The kids give each other the notes and hug each other and everybody is happy. Aside from the birthdays, things at school have been pretty monotonous. Because graduation is approaching, we are almost constantly rehearsing a play called "Genie Puzzle" that the class will perform on stage in front of their parents. Now, some of my students can't even read, so I'm sure they have NO idea what the play is actually about. But being the parrots that they've been trained to be, they have memorized their lines and can deliver them on command nonetheless. Anyway, the play is basically a watered down, ripped off version of Aladdin...the kids find a lamp and a genie comes out and they have to solve a puzzle and then the genie will grant them a wish and blah blah blah. I never thought I could hate anything more than "Biscuit's New Trick", but I was wrong.

I'll leave you with a couple of highlights from the last few weeks. One morning my class was really misbehaving and I was feeling particularly evil, so I made them count out loud from 100 to 1000. This may or may not qualify as "cruel and unusual punishment". The kids started staring blankly into space at around 200, and by 300 a few heads were down on the tables. Around 350, I decided to do a little experiment, and I pulled out some chocolate and held it up so the kids could see it. Just as I expected, everyone became extremely attentive and began excitedly belting out the numbers. We made it to about 475, but then one of the students went comatose and I was forced to revive him. Just kidding. Another morning, we did a small project focusing on answering the question, "what do you want to be when you grow up?" and the kids gave some hilarious answers. In a class of twelve 6-year olds, four want to be dentists, one ambitious boy wants to be a "sports player and scientist and singer", and one girl simply answered "sweeping". I explained that "sweeping" is not a job and instead told her that the proper way to answer is, "I want to be a housewife". That's my job: corrupting young minds, one day at a time.

So Much Seoul

The Korea Party Tour continued this weekend, despite us literally losing a member in Daegu. Long story. But nevertheless, sans Blake, on Friday night we arrived in Seoul, the capital of South Korea, and the biggest city that I have ever been to. And when I say big, I don't only mean in terms of population...everything about Seoul is just on a grand scale. The Seoul Metro is one of the most extensive, and confusing, in the world. There are 15 color-coded lines, including a dark blue line, a light blue line, and a medium blue line. And there are about 1000 different stations, many with very similar sounding names. Looking at the map for too long will cause your head to spin.

Seoul has five royal palaces that were built during the Joseon Dynasty between 1392 and 1910. I went to see the oldest of these palaces, Gyeongbokgung Palace, which was built in 1394 by King Taejo and is said to be the grandest of all of the palaces. Nearby Gyeongbokgung is Cheong Wa Dae, which is the presidential residence of the Republic of Korea. There aren’t any snipers on the roof like there are at the White House, but there’s still a fair amount of security. I tried to walk up to the gate to take a better photo and three armed guards started chastising me in Korean. And the residence is also known as the “Blue House”…same-same, but different.

One of my favorite places in Seoul was Insa-dong, which is a large street market in the heart of the city. The street itself is closed to vehicle traffic, so the place is swarming with people, and full of traditional Korean culture. There are street performers, traditional tea houses, restaurants, craft stands – really anything you could imagine. Insa-dong is known for its many art galleries, which are scattered down a number of narrow alleyways that line the street. There are more than 70 galleries, so it would take a very long time to experience all that Insa-dong has to offer. But I enjoyed the Kyung-In art house, which has three stories of indoor and outdoor exhibition halls, as well as a garden and tea house that are all elaborately decorated.

The street food in Insa-dong all looked really good. As usual, it was mostly gluten. But I did find a vendor who was making and packaging chap sai yu gwa, these little bite-sized snacks made out rice, honey, and nuts. The man spoke some English, and it turns out that in addition to being sold at his little pushcart on the street, the snacks are also available at www.koreasnack.com. Of course, he had never heard of gluten, but I tried few of the snacks anyway and felt fine afterward.

Just after dusk I headed to Namsan Park, where N Seoul Tower sits atop of Mount Namsan. I rode a cable car up to the base of the Tower and then took an elevator to the observatory, 479 meters up. It was pretty stunning to see a panoramic view of Seoul, and get a sense of just how massive the city is. There are skyscrapers stretching off into the distance in nearly every direction. There’s also a good deal of smog in Seoul, so the further away you look, the bright lights sort of fade to black. I’m not saying the smog is a good thing, but standing at the top of the tower, this effect makes you feel a little bit like you’re in the center of the world and beyond the city limits is just nothingness.

We stayed in a guesthouse in Hongdae, the area near Hongik University, which is Korea’s major art college. There’s a lot of culture in the area, with a seemingly endless amount of theaters, jazz bars and street art galleries, along with some amazing graffiti on the walls of buildings. Mostly though, the area is known for its great restaurants and nightlife. Seoul has some of the best clubs in the world, and many of these are within walking distance of one another in Hongdae. You can buy a bracelet that will get you into most of the clubs in the area. Once inside, the sheer size of the places is incredible, and there’s just an insane amount of LCD screens, smoke machines, laser lights, etc. This club had three floors and a stage in front of the DJs, all packed with people dancing all night into the morning. After one of our nights out, my friend Worth unloaded an entire fire extinguisher in the hallway outside of our room. Poor decisions. It looked like it had snowed and about a half inch of snow had collected on the floor down the entire hallway. I think it’s pretty safe to say that they won’t be welcoming us back to the guesthouse any time soon.

On Sunday we took the train back to Gwangju, and today we are back to school. I had to work during the Super Bowl, which started at 8:30 AM local time, so I ignored my kindergartners for half of the morning while following the game on ESPN.com. And now my Packers are the Super Bowl XLV champions. Can’t wait to watch the full game on tape delay after work. But for now, congratulations Eliot, you just won the Super Bowl, wear that ring proudly.

Tour de Korea

It’s Chinese New Year right now, which means I don’t have to work again until Monday. So a few English teachers from my hagwon and two others in Gwangju are taking a five day, three city tour of the country. The first stop on our tour was Busan, which is the second largest city in Korea behind Seoul.

On Wednesday morning, five of us boarded a bus in Gwangju. We expected there to be a lot of traffic because basically the entire country is on holiday right now as well, but we were lucky and didn’t hit any at all. On the way to Busan, we stopped at a rest stop where the vendors were selling everything from illegal DVDs to neon ties, along with a bunch of (mostly glutenous) food options. I bought some roasted potatoes called tong gamja gui that were pretty delicious, and more importantly, didn’t make me sick.

Busan is much more westernized than Gwangju. There are many foreigners living in the city, and a lot more of the locals can speak some English. The city is right on the water, but is also built around several mountains. Gambling is legal in Busan, but not for Koreans…only for foreign nationals. The casino wasn’t very crowded, and we were the only Americans; the other gamblers were mostly Japanese businessmen. There weren’t flashing lights and loads of electronic slot machines making noise, just a few blackjack tables, poker tables, and roulette tables. So it didn’t really feel the same as being in a casino in America. It was almost like we were secretly gambling in somebody’s basement. But we played roulette for a few hours while getting served complimentary drinks. And most of us ended up winning money. Can’t complain.

We stayed with another English teacher, Neil, who taught with some of my friends last year at a public school. Six guys sleeping in a one bedroom apartment is not exactly the definition of comfort.

My favorite place in Busan was Haeundae Beach, which has a boardwalk extending along the beach with many hotels, restaurants, and casinos just off the beach. It felt kind of like Atlantic City, just not as trashy. It’s been much warmer the last couple of days, but it was still only about 50 degrees today. Even so, there were large crowds of people hanging out on the beach and boardwalk. And when I say “hanging out”, I have to point out one Korean dude who took this to the extreme. This guy was wearing a nut-hugger, jumping rope on the boardwalk as if he were in his living room…completely ignoring the cold weather, and general decency. Pretty hilarious if you ask me. He even smiled for the picture. It felt a bit strange to be at the beach wearing a winter coat. Even so, I enjoyed Busan; it had a very different atmosphere from what I’ve experienced so far in Gwangju. I can only imagine how fun the place would be in the summer.

Anyway, we spent a little too much time chilling near the beach, then got stuck in some brutal traffic, and somehow managed to miss our train from Busan to Daegu. Luckily, the trains run every 30 minutes and tickets were still available for a later train. We got into Daegu pretty late, booked some cheap rooms in a "love motel", threw our stuff down and had showers, then went out for the night. Daegu is Korea's third largest city. There are three American Military bases in Daegu, so with soldiers here along with the English teachers, the expat community is significantly bigger than that of Gwangju. The nightlife was pretty fun...it seemed like every bar we were in had a beirut table, and Club Frog was playing late 90s hip-hop. There's a lot of great street food in Daegu, including "pizza in a cup", which I had to enjoy vicariously through my friends. But it looked delicious.

It feels nice to be traveling again, and even nicer to not be teaching for a few days. I was ready for a break from the Korean kids. We're taking a KTX high-speed train to Seoul in a couple of hours, where we'll spend the rest of the weekend. Busan and Daegu have been cool, but I'm pretty excited to get to Seoul, which has the second largest metropolitan area in the world behind Tokyo. Happy Chinese New Year, 春节快乐, etc, etc. And of course, go Packers.