Hanging out with my friends

Last weekend, some friends of mine were visiting Korea, so I met up with them in Seoul and spent a day and a half with them, which was great. They weren't from Texas, so I haven't seen them in 2 or 3 years, so it was fun hanging out with them.

On Thursday night, we went to the Hongdae (the nightlife) district, which wasn't as big as I thought, but maybe we weren't in the main areas. We went to this spicy seafood stew place for dinner, which might've been a mistake because it was too spicy. In fact, we were dunking the red-coated shrimps and rice cakes into our water before eating it, and even then, our lips were on fire.



After breathing fire, we decided to hit up a nearby Noraebang (aka Korean Karaoke) for some singing fun, and even though I've been here for like 6 months plus, I haven't done it, so off we went. It was really fun, in fact! They had a TON of English songs as well, anything from oldies to pretty new stuff. We were singing old 90s pop songs like Spice Girls, TLC, and Savage Garden - it was so much fun!





We sang for quite awhile, and by the time we got back to their hotel, it was already 1, so we went to bed ready for another day.

The next day we were pretty lazy in the morning, but we did manage to hit up Insadong during the early afternoon. So after that, one of my friends' relatives came visiting from China, so we all went out for lunch, which was Bulgogi - two kinds in fact. One was grilled on the grill thing, and one was boiled in a soup, which later the broth was made into a noodle soup. The meat was tender and oh so delicious.








When our bellies were full, I wanted to show them Dr Fish, so we all went to that cafe where they bursted out laughing as soon as they put in their feet, since it was an oddly ticklish sensation. Still, we had a pretty good time.





The friend with the relatives left with them after that, so me and my other friend, we walked around the lights of Gangnam a little bit, before taking the subway to Dongdaemun, where they are supposedly some night markets. We didn't find too many stands, but there were some little stages with shows like belly dancers, and even a nausea-inducing looking ride. We stopped here for dinner, of which she had tofu stew and I had galbi (beef short rib) soup, delish! We just walked around the area and finally went back to the hotel.












The next day, I had to leave and come back to my apartment, and so that was my weekend. Click here to read more

Seoul Zoo

I know I've been overdue with new pictures and reports, so here they are finally.

On September 19 we went to Seoul Grand Park Zoo. The Grand Park itself consisted of the Zoo, an amusement park (Seoulland), as well as a Children's Zoo and Rose Garden, and it was HUGE. We only went to the zoo portion of the park. The zoo itself was decent, but it was lacking a bit on the variety of the animals, and I thought the insect building was quite a bit lacking. I felt like it was half PICTURES of insects and taxidermic insects rather than the real thing. But anyway, here are the pictures of Seoul Zoo:










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A Native English Teacher’s Declaration

I believe that the Korean education system is being deliberately abused by those who have the power to fix it. But who am I to say such things.

If I could recommend anything for any foreigner deciding to come to Korea -- Don’t, without great thought. Koreans have not figured out how to manage money, how to manage themselves, and how to manage foreigners. Money is usually spent making classrooms nicer, not making education standards better. Work standards do not exist and every job is a shot in the dark. Everything here is about eye candy and appeasing the voices of Koreans which demand English programs with no proven effectiveness. They don’t care the cost; they just want to hear and see their spoon-fed lies.

When you first come to Korea, you will be pretty willing to go along with most things because you don’t really understand what your duties are and who is trying to help you in your professional growth. But take my advice, very few Koreans truly want to help a foreigner, they want to use you as a way of furthering their own careers. The foreigner is a status symbol of progress, but it carries with it a big sign that says “use me.”

If you don’t believe me, then ask any foreigner about the teaching demonstration that everyone has to endure. It is a comical farce that will leave you scratching your head in bewilderment. It is the one time of the year you are judged from an outside perspective, but it is meaningless. The setup is rigged well ahead of time and everything is kept nicely scripted. Koreans use this as a way of one-upmanship to other schools, thereby showing their prized steed is worth its weight. Instead, a few internal checks and balances would be much better utilized. Koreans have an indifference to us and our teachings which are shown in their lack of effort and desire to integrate teaching methods, lesson plans, and shared responsibility in the classroom. As long as we are out of the way, and let them do nothing, they’re just fine letting us do what we do.

Koreans are quite content “forcing” foreigners to do the entire lesson planning when it states implicitly in the contract that you are supposed to be working together on them. In all actuality, what is work when it comes to education? It’s not standing there and spouting a few rare words like most Korean co-teachers. It is the lesson plan, the bulk of what you are doing, and for the most part, they care not. I can easily see how one could stand back and go, “oh, they’re doing it just fine without me.” They are content to watch us dance, and play the fool – untrained, unfocused, un-helped, and irrelevant. We are experimenting with the future youth of Korea and we don’t even get a few tips to get us started. But alas, watch what happens when you say the equality is unbalanced… they huff and puff and blow miserly in your direction, how dare you say anything against them, you are the outsider, they hired you and we should be so lucky.

I once asked a middle-aged Korean co-teacher how long she had been a teacher, because she was arguing with me over who should make the lesson plan (although we get paid the same for after school class and I did it all myself for the first semester). With a tearful gleam in her eye, she asked me why I asked, I asked because after all these years, if they still don’t know how to make an English lesson plan, I thought, what hope do they have for the future. She told me that her English was poor and I said, “You should set an example and try to speak even though you cannot speak well.” If some untrained idiot from across the sea can make a lesson plan that defies and astounds the educational standards of Korea's well respected and highly coveted teaching positions, then there is something very amiss. The Korean English teachers will not change because there is no incentive for them to change or make a difference.

We are progressive, we symbolize change, and yet, foreigners are composed of the most ragtag group of people I have ever met. We come from all walks of life – all educational and work experience backgrounds. Some have mentioned there is some instability among our ranks, but that is expected. We are hired with no thought to our ability, no thought to the culture clash that might ensue.

Our contracts are to most, worthless and devoid of value. The MOE (Ministry of Education) likes to dangle them in front of foreigners to show them an idealistic job, when really, there is little truth to them and a lot of societal pressure to not follow certain aspects of it. Recruiters are full of the same lies and half-truths; they only want to get as many people over here as they can. Koreans at your workplace will use the line “but, the other schools do it this way” as if that one excuse could nullify any validity in your contract.

Watch out for the vague terms that they use that mean nothing in reality, words such as assistant teacher (what we are supposed to be), together (lesson planning), paid sick days (we have 15, which are frowned upon heavily).

What about the foreigner, what happens to them in this world of deceit? Half of the people that work in Korea are survivors, and the other half has somehow found a semi-decent patch of work (I suspect more people of this regard to fall into the elementary teaching category). I do wonder what the rate of turnover is in various places around Korea. As if the MOE would release that data, it would scare off potential candidates. Potential candidates is something they seem to have too much of these days, so much so that they can nullify contracts, at will, even if you have packed up, left your native life, and crossed the point of no return.

The foreign teacher is a peon – A lowly servant and treated as such. Human rights, I daresay we have none, none that are clear enough for us to understand and access easily. It’s not like the schools would want to empower those that it wants to use for their ill gain. We are tucked away from high management, and our only outlet is our co-teacher whom has questionable motives of their own. They will stifle your attempts to complain, muffle your attempts to fix the corruption. Their excuse, that is commonly used, is cultural differences, because people aren’t people anymore in the ROK (Republic of Korea). We just don’t understand how teachers are so respected for caring so little.

Feedback, a word that is thrown around a lot in management, yet never exists in this part of the world. Do not act as though you have a voice in Korea, because your views are not welcome here. Who are we to understand the intricacies of Korean education? Who are we, to speak our minds to the face of failure?

The discontented voices of thousands of foreigners are meaningless to the Korean education machine. In the Korean ladder to success, the foreigner is just another rung.

I believe there are two truths, the ideal Korea and the reality that is. I remember watching a documentary of an escaped North Korean, he spoke about the time when he was in an adjustment camp and saw many happy and smiling people on television. Then, when he had a chance to see the real South Koreans, there were none. Click here to read more

Back to School

Well, I haven't updated in awhile because, well, nothing interesting has been happening.

Today is the first day of the fall semester, so in essence we are halfway done now. Teaching in korea has been quite a journey, with both ups and downs, so don't think it's all fun and games.

During the summer, the 3 weeks after Bali, I had summer camp. At first I was really into planning lessons and games, but near the end, the last week, I was like blah and just let them watch Spongebob and Tom and Jerry streaming from the Internet. The very last day I showed a
movie, Flushed Away, which was actually pretty good. One of the reasons I got less into it is because less people would come to class, like only a few per class, so I was like why bother with lessons I planned when I can just use it in the normal classes in the semester. After all, my coteacher isn't even there most of the time, so it's not like she can complain about it. (Although she did a little bit the very last day since it was one of the 3 days she was there). Other
than that, summer school was a bit annoying in the fact that I only taught until noon, but I had to stay until 4:40 all 3 weeks, which was very annoying. Aaron could go home at his lunch time, but I never get to.

We'll see what this semester holds I suppose.

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Bali, Day 9: Ubud

At our last full day in Bali, so after breakfast we dropped our luggage in the office and set off to explore Ubud. We walked around a bit, there was a lot of souvenir stores and art stores and other types of little boutique stores all over the street.

For lunch, we went to the famous Oka Ibu to get suckling pig. It was pretty cheap too, only about $2.50 for a plate of rice and pork. It was very tender and delicious, and the skin was salty and crisp. It was so delicious, we had to get an extra plate. They also had this soup with chunks of pork and veggies in it, and the broth was flavorful and delicious. The area was pretty crowded, since it was so popular, but we managed to find a table in the corner and stuff ourselves.

After our yummy lunch, we walked around more, buying some souvenirs, ducking into stores, checking out restaurants. We found a little restaurant where we tried Indonesia oxtail soup. It was quite delish as well, spicier than the Korean type, but very good. One of our drinks was a a mint coconut drink, which was very refreshing and delicious.

After walking a lot more, we finally decided to do a massage (our first one in Bali, can you believe?). The place we picked wasn't the best but the massage was good. I got a pedicure (almost not sure if I should've) and Aaron just go a massage and a shorter massage. As I said, the massage was very relaxing and good, and it was in this little curtained area where they had massage beds, but some of the other parts, like the cleaniness and the ambiance, was a bit lacking. However, it was still pretty good, and it was cheap, so I don't have to much other complaints.

For dinner we found this other organic looking restaurant, so we went there for our last meal. We ordered some hummus (won't be getting any hummus in Korea!), a tempeh burger, a veggie burger, mango juice (my last one!).

Finishing up our last yummy meal that doesn't break the bank and saying goodbye to fresh fruit juices, we headed back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and meet our driver.

Extra Entry: The flight back

The flight back wasn't too eventful. We made it to the airport and apparently there is a departure tax for leaving Bali, about $15/person. Luckily we found that out before and we actually managed to spend every cent of our Indonesian money, so we didn't have to convert anything.

The airport in Bali was very dinky, and quite small, but luckly we didn't have to spend too much time there. Since our flight is from midnight to 5, both of us zoinked out the entire flight. At Hong Kong, where we had to wait a few hours, we took short naps here and there as we waited for our next flight.

At this flight, we were actually awake most of the time, and watched Monsters Vs Aliens on the screen. We had a little interesting scenario happen when we landed, because apparently the Quarantine people want to come up and visit the plane. We think there's some "suspicious" sick person on board or something and of course Koreans are uber paranoid about swine flu, so we landed and got the gate and had to sit around for like 45 min or so while the quarantine people came on board and went to the back.

FINALLY they let us go and that was that. By the time we got the luggage carousel our luggage was already there, of course. So we picked them up, and took the long buses back home. And then next day was work, of course.

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Bali, Day 8: C Bali Daytrip to Lake Batur and Local Villages

It was a daytrip today. We booked a tour with C Bali, which does a canoe and biking tour of the Mt Batur/Batur Lake/kintamani region of Bali. We actually lucked out and had a private tour, because the two guides didn't have anyone else sign up that day, so it was just us and them. It was pretty nice though, they were an Austrlian-Dutch couple who lived in Bali for 3 years and love it there, and very easy to talk to and nice and friendly.

First they drove us up to the region, and we had a quick breakfast of some eggs and toast. First we did some canoeing. Actually, the boats look more like inflatable kayaks, but still fun. First Aaron and I had to carry one of the canoes across the street and then down a dirt bath before we can paddle, which was quite a bit of a workout for my weak arms. It was a bit windy so the waves were a little big so paddling back (towards the current) was a bit tiring. The view was quite nice though, with some mountains and the lake in the scenery. Aaron and I rode in canoes with the different two guides since we never canoed before, but it was pretty easy to learn, although that doesn't mean it didn't need upper body strength I didn't have.

After our little canoeing trip, it was lunch. We had baked fish (from the lake), chicken satay, some fried noodles and some fried rice. It was a pretty yummy Balinese meal

.

After lunch it was our bike tour, which I was still weakish from sick so I couldn't make it to some of the hills, but it was still fun. Along the bike tour we got off and walked through some local villages. The guides had used to live in these villages and now help with donations and schools and such with the village, and so the locals all know and like them.

The kids were especially cute and would smile and imitate our guide and hug her legs and just be happy kids. We also saw some of their local temples and school, and met some more local people. I felt as if this was a great experience because it was actually seeing the locals in their natural setting, not meeting them in touristy markets and them hassling you to buy a sarong. They seemed very happy and smiling and the kids were just too adorable.

After our bike and walk tour, they drove us back to our hotel, satisfied and happy. I would definitely recommend this tour to anyone. For dinner, we went to back to the organic restaurant across the street and I got a veggie sandwich and Aaron got a breakfast burrito. We also tried the Balinese black rice pudding, which was creamy and very good.

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