Seoul Shift: Children Falling, Small Kittens, and Making Jerro

Hello There,

Since I finished and posted the video for the contest, a few things have happened (obviously). For starters, I finally got over my sickness a couple of days ago. The total running time: 13 Days, 4 hours, and 33 minutes, give or take a few hours. Even now, I'm still sneezing every once in a while, but the actual 'being sick' part of it is over. Now, I just have to stay healthy.

Two Fridays ago, so the 21st, I get a call from a friend at 8am. She goes, "Hey, so you mentioned wanting a kitten, well, someone has one." Basically, someone in Suncheon bought a kitten from a pet store, woke up the next morning and realized that he was leaving soon and keeping the kitten wouldn't really be fair. So, he needed to let someone take it. After much debate, I decided to take the kitten. It is a small, black and white kitten that was 2 weeks old when I got it. I named it Romi, which is short for Ramyeon, the Korean word for Noodles. She is very loud, very hyper, and anything else that can describe a kitten. Luckily, she uses the litter box and only the litter box. In fact, I even accidently locked her in my wardrobe for an entire afternoon (not really my fault), and when I found her, she jumped out and ran straight to the litter box. Great cat.

Last tuesday, the 25th of October, the school had a field trip. It was optional, but I decided to go along. So, at 8:30am, a teacher picked me up from my apartment and we headed to the school. When I got there, everyone was lined up, ready to get on the buses. I knew we were going hiking, but I wasn't sure what to expect. The last time we went hiking, we walked a 1/4 mile, sat down, and ate. So, I really didn't think too much of it. Well, this time was different. First, we drove for what felt like half an hour into the mountains. We are dropped off at the huge lodge, where we take pictures and start walking.

(Insert cultural oberservation tangent below)

As we are beginning our walk, I realize something. It is something i've been told about and even seen a few times, but this was the first time that I was blown away by it. In Korea, when a Korean is performing some type of physical activity, such as soccer, golf, camping, or anything really, there is a need to be 110% equipped, no matter how serious the event. There are guys in my town with full sets of golf clubs, balls, bags, shoes, and everything else needed to play the PGA tour, except that the only golf they play is screen golf because there isn't a course within 300 miles. On this hiking trip, every teacher and student out there shows up with full hiking gear, a hiking pole, backpack, canteens, you name it. Here I am with my jeans, tennis shows, and sports jacket. People are asking me, aren't you cold? Where is your hat? Are your feet sore? No, i'm fine.

Ok, so we are walking. After about 10 minutes, the path gets steep, really steep. Then, it gets rocky. Before you know it, i'm watching 3rd graders slip and fall on their butts because the steps they have to take to get over the terrain is about 1/3 of their height. Finally, we saw a sign, and I realized that the entire hike would end up being about 4 miles. Once we hit the ridgeline, however, I realized that it was definitely worth the hike. Just from the first viewpoint, less than half way up, I could see for miles in either direction. It gave me a perfect view of the city on one side and a river I had never seen on the other. Finally, we reached a stopping point near one of the taller peaks. We had to use ladders that had been screwed into the sides of the rock, but all the kids made it alive. We took some picutes together holding a banner, which i'm guessing said something about our school. Then, one teacher told me that if I wanted, we could go to the highest peak. So, him and I set off for the very top. We had to use some ropes that had been installed to get up and down some rock faces, but it wasn't anything to bad. From the top, you could see four different cities and a different province. The view was absolutely spectacular. For lunch, we had bimbap, or something like that. It is basically Korea's version of sushi. It was suprisingly not too bad, although I still would have preffered a ham sandwich.

After lunch, the kids played games organized by the teachers, while I slept in the grass. Then, out of nowhere, a teacher comes up to me and shakes me, telling me to get out of the grass. I stand up, surprised and nervous, wondering what the problem, or maybe if something is in the grass. He says, "Grass dirty, no sleep". My mentor teacher translated the details for me. Basically, the grass is very dirty, and if I sleep there, I will definitely get sick. It's not a question of if I get sick, it's more like, "you will get sick". I, doing my duty as a foreigner, looked at them strangely, wondering if they were playing a joke on me or if they actually believed what they were telling me. My only reply was, "I'm already sick". To keep from stirring up worry amongst the staff, I moved to the harder, less natural wooden platform that is so popular here in Korea. On the trip down, I watched student after student tumble, cry, get up and later tumble again. The kids would get a kick out of it when I would say, "Cha Re So", or "Good job", after someone fell down. I guess hearing me speaking Korean would be enough for the student to laugh and forget they fell. Overall, the trip was well worth it. I'm glad I decided to get up earlier than normal to make the hike. The view was amazing, as you can see in the pictures, and it was fun to get out with the staff and students.

Earlier this year, I got a package from home. My parents sent me a random assortment of, well, stuff. I got a stuffed animal, cooking utensils, a card, and of course, Jello. Jello is not something they have here, or can really even fathom. It's strange how something like Jello never made it over here when they have virtually everything else. When I first showed my staff the packages, they had definitely never seen it before. So, last week, I decided to make Jello with the kids. The third graders were the lucky ones who got to make the Jello, which ended up being more than enough for the entire school. Making it was fun, and the kids did everything. I got a water heater from the kitchen and we mixed, stirred, and put everything in the fridge. The next day, I passed out Jello to every grade and the staff members. The kids were thrilled. More than a few times I heard, "Teacher, eat?". "Yes, eat it", I would have to say.

Today, I have an interesting topic to write about. It's a bit of a language difference that creates some big time confusions and some laughs as well. In English, if someone asks a negative question, such as "You've never had Jello?" we can respond by saying, "No, I've never had Jello". Although the question is negative, you still respond negatively even though the persons assumption of you never having had Jello was correct. In Korean, if someone asks a negative question, you can either agree or disagree with the statement. So, if I say, "You don't want to eat with us?", the response would be "Yes, I don't want to eat with you" or simply, "Yes". What this means, is that when I am speaking English with Korean students or some of my staff, we get confused at times. A few days ago I decided to run some errands in town before coming to school and I ate at home. So, I called the school and told my mentor teacher than I would be coming in later. He asks, "You don't want to eat lunch here?" I responded with, "No". So, after eating lunch, I get to school, just to find that the cafteria had made me lunch and it was waiting on me.

Almost forgot to mention... last week I hosted a dinner at my place. One of the staff members came over with some friends of hers and I told them I would host a classic "American" meal. So, I bought a small grill for $10, found some semi-acceptable meat (ground beef here is crazy expensive), and put some things together. Wow, talk about an intersting meal. I was thrilled. I was having cheeseburgers, kraft macaroni and cheese (thanks to my army friend who brings me american products from the base), potato salad, sour cream and onion potato chips, the whole getup. I picked up my burger and just went to town. My guests, on the other hand, were trying to figure out how to put the burger together. One burger ended up having no top bun, one burger had only meat and bread, and so on. They refused to pick the burger up with their hands, which made the entire event interesting and ended only in a burger disaster. They did enjoy the overally American / completely not spicy meal, although they went about it the totally wrong way. It was kind of a nice change, considering when i'm eating at school, I have to ask how to eat nearly everything.

In other news, it's finally starting to cool down here. In the mornings and evenings its in the 50s, meaning i'm wearing sweaters now. I know that in about a month, it will start to get really cold and i'll be doing some winter shopping. Also, next weekend i'll be in Busan for a soccer game, which should be a good time. It's with the foriegner team here in Gwangyang, and it's the first leg of a tournament. Also, I just returned from a culural trip sponsored by TaLK. They took all of the scholars from our province on a free trip to three different cities, seeing different cultural sights along the way. The trip was amazing, and it was great to see everyone again. That is a totally seperate post coming in a few days, along with plenty of pictures.