Giving some words of help.

I couldn’t help but feel the need to comment on Aaron’s post (it’s tough to get a link to a post when blogspot is banned here in China) from the other day. I’m still in a little disbelief that Aaron has nearly notched up 4 years in Korea. I vividly remember Aaron arriving in Korea, all bright eyed and eager to please, and being introduced to Jay, Michael, and myself. Admittedly, it wasn’t the best atmosphere in the apartment  when Aaron arrived, it was after a good 12 months of Jay and Michael bickering (although both did have a fondness for each other, just a differing of opinion), but Aaron settled down extremely well and, well, here we are now, nearly 4 years on.

Aaron listed some annoyance’s has been experiencing while living in Korea. I thought I would off him some of my experience (although it won’t be long before Aaron has spent more time in Korean than me!) and my advise. Hopefully he can use it, along with others who may share the same annoyance in Korea, and make their time in Korea that little more comfortable.

Disappearing Rubbish Bags. That’s right. Someone is steeling rubbish bags from the corridor outside the apartment. Not just mine thou, my neighbors also. For the best part of 18 months no one has ever complained about tenants placing bags outside, but for the past month they have been disappearing.

Aaron, I wish someone would come up and take my rubbish for me. I fail to see the problem here. If you have an Oscar the grouch taking your rubbish, then you need never buy government garbage bags again. If they’re taking it to sell the cardboard or plastic inside, then think of it as someone helping reduce your carbon footprint.

Starring At Food. But one behavior that confuses me a lot is the practice of starring at the food I buy while shopping. Now I’m sure people are just interested in what kinds of foods foreigners eat, but a few weeks ago I watched in bemusement as this middle-aged fella lent over into my trolley, moved my food around and had a real close look at what I had purchased.

Seems like an Asian thing. Chinese people love looking at the food in my trolley, too. Prepare an A3 sheet of paper and with huge lettering write something along the lines of "What are you looking at?", or "I eat food, too.". Lay this over the top of your food and people will quickly understand that looking into your trolley makes you feel… psychotic. Better yet, go over to their trolley (or basket) and start going through their items and randomly pick something out of it and put it in your trolley. Starring them out also is a good strategy, but be careful, starring at hal-mae (old woman) too long who won’t shift her glare, can cause blindness.

Micro-Manage Me Please! So its been a serious shock to the system to have the assistant manager of the department take such an interest in the 4 week long TOEFL camp which started a couple of weeks ago. The level of micro-management has created a level of resentment that I’ve not experienced since I started working at a University.

Micro Management. Doesn’t it feel like someone actually cares what you’re teaching now? After nearly 4 years of almost zero-guidance teaching, starting with our (and almost every other English teacher in Korea) first class the day after getting off our 13 hour flights and being told to teach, all of a sudden someone care about those little things such as lesson planning. In all honesty, lesson planning is one of those amazing things I’ve discovered recently (although I did cover it during my TEFL) which has assisted me no end in the classroom.

No more Playground books for you Aaron, you’re a real teacher now!

Of all the many people I’ve met in Korea, Aaron by far seems like one of the more relaxed, take-it-as-it-comes characters, and dare I say had flourished well in the land of the morning calm. I have to admit, if these are Aaron’s biggest problems about Korea, he’s doing just fine.

Korea; where men aren’t really men.

The Chosun Ilbo reports;

Korean men in their 20s and 30s are becoming more feminine, not only by paying more attention to grooming but by wearing girdles, waxing their arms and legs, and crimping or straightening their hair.

Hell, I thought Korean men were just as girlie when I first step into Korea nearly 5 years ago. I’m not so naive to think that most men around the world, at least in the more developed countries, have indeed become a little more metro sexual (for arguments sake, I’ll use that term instead of girlie, would hate to offended any of the sensitive ‘he-princesses’) largely thanks to the ‘opening up’ of our feelings and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (come on blokes, we all watched it).

It now seems that Korea, whose male population is either one of the two extremes, is embracing the femininity that us foreigners have witnessed for many, many years. And good on them, if you’re good at something, why hide it?

I do wonder about Korean men waxing their arms and legs. To be entirely honest with you, I think there’s more than enough Korean women out there that should consider doing the same thing. Korean men, general speaking, don’t have hairy arms or legs (my students used to be amazed by my bare legs when I used to wear shorts to work) so I’m not overly sure why they would want to wax it? Maybe it gets tangled up in the girlfriend’s, wives, or lover’s arm and/or leg hair?

Crimping is gay for a man (for example Lee Min Ho, pictured on your right.)

Colorful skinny jeans, made popular among women by a girl group Girls’ Generation, are also popular among men. The imported stock for men completely sold out just four months after they were launched. 

Now I love Girl’s Generation (소녀시대) for no other reason that they bring together 9 fine looking Korean girls, and with their colored jeans they make the world just that much nicer place to live, but I draw the line with men wearing them. I mean no. Just stop right there. Can you really pictures these jeans on a man?

I haven’t seen any man, be it Korean or foreigner, with colored jeans on, so I can only assume the ‘fad’ is still isolated in Seoul. Let’s hope it’s one of those things goes as quickly as it came but I think I would have a hard time taking any of my male students seriously if they walked into my class with colored hipster jeans on.

And God himself can only imagine what would happen if I returned to Australia and rocked up at the pub wearing some of Tae-Yeon’s pink hipster jeans with a pink shirt (blouse) and white over-wrap.

S Korea: Camping at Jirisan Mountain ‘09.

Over the weekend, Em and I, along with a few of our co-workers and friends (amongst them our good buddy Aaron) headed down to Jiri-san National Park for a spot of summer camping. You may recall last year that we took an almost identical trip, and seeing as both Em, Aaron and I enjoyed the camping experience in Korea, as different as it is, we figured we’d do it again.

Along with us were our co-workers Kris and Miranda, as well as some other friends, Rob and Paul.

Aaron popped in on Friday afternoon and spent it dropping his stuff off at my academy, and then seeing a movie at the local Lotte Cinema. He arrived back when I had finished work and we both went over to meet Em at her work, so we could have some dinner at a local chicken BBQ place around the back of our apartment.

We had a somewhat early night as the next morning Aaron and I had to head out to West Daegu bus terminal to pick up the rental SUV we had hired for the trip. Aaron had arranged the reservation earlier, seeing as he was the only one of us with an international driver license.

We caught a taxi to SongHyeon subway station, and after a quick phone call to the rental place, managed to find it easily enough. The paperwork was done in 5 minutes, and after a quick demonstration of how the navigation works (thank God I can read and write Korean) we headed back home to collect Em, our stuff, and then the rest of the guys.

Within half an hour we’re on the open road.

For adventure notes and photos, click here… Read more »

And what a busy week that was. Swine Flu Ricetard.

Friday ends a fairly busy and fun filled week. Here’s just a quick look at what happened;

• Sunday: Korean former President Roh Moo Hyun kills himself in shame following allegation of corruption against him and the rest of his family. Despite the fact that the Korean media was all over him in the weeks prior, they have changed their angry from crying foul, to that of mourning one of their greatest leaders. My person opinion is that of sadness, but if you don’t want to stand by the principals you choose to represent yourself as a leader, then you’ve only got yourself to blame.
• Monday: We (the foreign teachers) were brought in for a ‘crisis’ meeting at work to talk about the swine flu. Parents had been calling in worried that little Billy and Sally would be catching swine flu from us dirty foreigners. In short, we’re asked not to interact or socialize with any other foreigners here in Korea.
• Tuesday: Taking it once step further, the foreign teachers were taken to a clinic to be tested for swine flu. The doctor at the clinic laughed when he realized that none of us had left the country in 6 months. As a precaution, the Korean teachers got tested too, in case we gave them something.
• Wednesday: The new seating arrangement at work has me in a favorable position to jump out of my third storey window should I have found out I was swine flu positive.
• Thursday: My Canadian co-workers dying in the 20C+ heat. Droll.

I’ve also added some great new links to other bloggers in Korea. Suffice to say my morning reads of blogs now occupies close to an hour. I’m always amazed at the quality of some, if not all, of the blogs that I follow from other people living the life here in Korea, too. To a degree, it does make mine feel a little small (umm.. my blog that is).

• Chris in South Korea
• Living Life Frame by Frame
• Ruby Ramblings
• The Dancing Bear in Korea

To name a few of the newcomers to my blog list.

The weekend is looking equally full. Tomorrow I’ll be sitting my TEFL exam. I started in late March and have been making daily progress with the 100-hour online course. It’s been about 10 or 11 weeks now, and while I wouldn’t say I’ve done close to 100-hours, I’ve certainly done a lot more work than I had expected to. As soon as I download the exam tomorrow morning, I have 24 hours to complete it. On average, the exam takes 6 to 8 hours, is open book, and one needs a 75%+ score to pass.

While I expect to pass, I’m not taking it lightly. Sure, it’s only a TEFL certificate (hardly a Masters in English Linguistics), but its an accomplishment and I’ve certainly learnt a great deal about teaching techniques and English grammar that will make me a better teacher (hopefully).

And with that, I leave you with this weeks final note: Korea’s latest Ricetard entry. Seems almost fitting.

Have a great weekend all.

I’m not hot… yet.

Working exclusively with 3 Canadian teachers, I’m often reminded that they come from a place far, far away from where I come from. This can be no more evident then their attitude towards the weather, in particular the ‘heat wave’ we’ve been having here in Daegu.

Now Daegu is known to be the warmest (hottest, depending on who you are) city on mainland Korea (I suspect Jeju-do has the honor of having the warmest temperature, at least year round), as a result we get only 5 or 6 days of snow, max, and aren’t as susceptible to the bitterly cold winter days like those folks in Seoul (which of course is where anything of interest should be). Over the last month we’ve had temperatures ranging from 25C up to ~34C. Now in anyone’s books, 34C is quite hot, but while it says it’s gotten that hot, I can promise you it hasn’t, not at least in my corner of Daegu.

So my Canadian co-workers, who are from Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, where I believe even the polar bears wear beanie’s and winter coats, this kind of weather is not only hot, but early in the year for any hot weather at all. They often come to work with, what seems to me, like heat exhaustion. That’s not to say I don’t come to work looking a little hot under the collar either, I just don’t have the theatrics to accompany it.

As it would seem, they all have been working their air conditions and fans back at their apartments to deal with the heat. In contrast, I have yet to even utilized the services of my fan seeing as neither Em or I have been feeling hot inside the apartment. Em, being from Beijing, experiences temperatures much hotter than those here in Korea, while coming from Australia, the Korean summers aren’t considered ‘hot’, just excruciatingly humid (no surprise seeing as I come from Perth, where there literally isn’t any humidity).

That said, Korean summers are uncomfortable and I have in the past used my air conditioning a fair bit, especially last year as my new apartment felt like an oven at the height of summer. I’m not overly sure why this year both Em and I aren’t feeling the heat, but I’m not complaining, nobody likes to feel hot.

Of course there is always the flipside to the argument, where the winters are cold for me, but a stroll in the park for my Canadian friends. I think I’ve blogged before about how much better I am dealing with the cold here in Korea, although certainly had a lot more trouble dealing with it in Beijing. I only need to think back of my first day in Korea and how cold I was (that was a long, long winter).

PART II: I’m a swine flu target.

I posted this morning about how I, and the other three co-workers at my place of employment, were told not to interact with other foreigners in fear of getting swine flu and passing it on to our students. You can read about that rant here.

I have to admit I thought that would be the end of it. Come on David, I should know better than that now.

I got to work this afternoon and went straight into my classroom to organize the days classes (my room is quiet a lot cooler than the rest of the academy). The head teacher popped in and asked me (and again I’ll have to paraphrase);

‘David, at 2 o’clock we need to go to the doctors for a compulsory health check.’

Upon asking if it has anything to do with swine flu she replied;

‘Yes. But it’s not just you, the other Korean teachers are getting checked too because they may have caught something.’

Sorry to have burdened you with the assumption that I may have given them something that would be highly unlikely or probable for me to get in the first place. Maybe she didn’t mean it like that, but I felt a little defensive.

She explained that another academy around the corner, Chong-dam (창담 – apologizes if it isn’t), who have over 150 branches throughout Korea, will be closed until early June as some of their teachers had suspected cases. The parents had been calling in droves worried about their poor little angels at our academy, too.

I smiled and said ok.

Sure enough we went around the corner of the academy straight away and got our tests, which consist of getting out temperature read, twice and without putting new caps on the ear thermometer between each of us, a throat inspection, and a question and answer session with the doctor, who I might add seemed rather amused that we’re being tested since none of us had left the country in the last 6 months (myself nearly a year ago) or had flu like symptoms.

The doctor than asked me questions about my insurance in Australia, seeing as I choose not to have it in Korea (a different topic entirely), and I responded that I have coverage. It seemed that he was trying to get my insurance in Australia to cover my work related trip to the clinic.

‘Oh, you don’t need to worry. My hagwon will pay for everything today.’

The head teacher, who decided to ignore doctor-patient confidentiality and sit in during my ‘observation’, seemed a little startled, but then nodded her head in agreement.

That’s a girl.

I should also add we left before the Korean teachers, so I think we half expected them not to get tested at all. Alas they did show up and got tested. For no other reason than not making us feel excluded, I was happy enough to take the test as a group, and put to rest the unwarranted worry that I’m sure had gone through the parents and management core of the academy.

Not to sure what to make of this all, suffice to say I think now its the last I’m going to hear of it.

Thanks for all the linkage over the net regarding my initial post;

• The Hub of Sparkle
• Brian in Jeollanam-do
• Ruby Ramblings
• Chris in South Korea
• Anyone else I’ve missed

I’m a swine flu target.

My hagwon has a reputation of having a lot of meetings, so when the head teacher called us for a meeting an hour before work yesterday, we didn’t think a great deal about it. They’re usually nothing more than a general update of what’s going on, any feedback the head teacher has regarding the way we teach, or how the hagwon would like us to teach certain classes. For the most part the meetings are unnecessary, but they are appreciated seeing as I used to bitch in my last hagwon for having no meetings whatsoever (and finding out when our students told us).

Going to back to the meeting, we were called in and I noticed initially on the whiteboard the numbers and letters; ‘H1N1‘ written in big writing. That is of course swine flu which has recently hit Korea, and in particular eight foreign teachers who recently entered into the country.

John, Kris, Miranda, and I all looked at each other and we straight away knew where this was going to be heading. Without being able to remember word for word what our head teacher said, let me paraphrase;

‘There has been a lot of talk of H1V1 in Korea, especially about all the foreign teachers getting it…

A lot of the parents have been asking if their children are in danger of receiving it because they are being taught by foreigners here at the academy’.

Well, I’m not going to say this is a stupid and ignorant enquiry, I suppose if I was a parent and my son and/or daughter was at a hagwon, perhaps it may cross my mind, too. The response wasn’t a harsh ‘No‘, which it should have been, but more along the lines that…

‘…our teachers are unlikely to have the flu virus.’

One must remember that neither myself, nor my co-workers, have left the country in the last 6 months, before swine flu became an issue. We’re just as likely to have swine flu as any of the Korean teachers, or to say that if we did have swine flu now, there would be a good chance we’d have shared the lovely disease with all the other Korean teachers, who would have passed it on exponentially faster to the students, whom we all know (both the Korean teachers and students) are happy to cough all over each other without placing their hands over their mouths (one of the real treats of Korean culture).

This was not the end of the meeting. Our head teacher went on…

‘…because of this, we’re asking you not to interact and meet with any other foreigners for the unforeseeable future as they could be carriers of the disease…”

Smooth… Basically, we can’t meet up with anyone else who is a foreigner in fear of getting swine flu. Geez, my girlfriend will be devastated!

We all kind of chuckled, actually we all burst out laughing, and told the head teacher that was an unrealistic, not to mention somewhat of a draconian restriction to place upon us, and that simply was not going to happen. The head teacher, realizing just how absurd the request was, had a laugh too. It was fairly obvious that one of the ’suits’ had made the head teacher call the meeting and relay his concerns through her, suffice to say none of us were annoyed in the slightest with poor Grace teacher (head teachers name).

The idea that we are indeed more capable of getting swine flu than a Korean only goes to prove that Korean’s do believe that us foreigners are, hmm,… dirty. I use that statement cautiously because I’ve met more than my fair share of foreigners in Korea who are some of the filthiest people I’ve ever come across. One can only imagine what must be going through the mind of some of these poor Koreans who have to clean up after a foreigner teacher moves out from their apartment when their contract finishes. These foreigners do us no justice and only help to reinforce one of the stigmas attached to being a foreigner here in Korea.

To say I felt a little annoyed would be spot on, although I really put it down to ignorance on behalf of whichever manager chose to call this meeting. Would it have been better to have included the Korean teachers in the meeting? Probably not, the presumption alone would have more than likely made it that much worse.

But of course there are foreign teachers in Korea who do have suspected cases of swine flu, as reported by the Chosun Ilbo. In fact on the foreigners, currently in quarantine, is keeping us up to date on his blog (and we wish him, and the others there, our best wishes).  And Kimchi Icecream has a lot of valuable information about the swine flu on his blog, that’s well worth a look, too.

So my 목표* for today is: Find a suit to cough all over. Share the love.

* Goal.

Having a Chinese girlfriend.

Its a rainy Thursday morning and to avoid doing any study today I thought I’d talk about something that a handful of people have asked me over the past few years; What is it like to have a Chinese girlfriend here in Korea?

Its not really a stupid question, not what you realize how many foreigners here in Korea have Korean girlfriends and wives. While there are certainly a lot of foreigner-foreigner couples here, I wouldn’t be wrong in saying there aren’t a great deal of Australian-Chinese couples existing on the peninsula. Over the past 4 or so years here in Korea I have met at least two other guys here with either a Chinese wife or girlfriend, but neither had met their partner here in Korea.

The only person I can think of who has met a Chinese girl in Korea is my old buddy and flat mate Jay, who met his now lovely wife Lilian in Korea, and now living together in Taiwan. Although one would say that Taiwan is a far cry from the People Republic.

I suppose the biggest reason a lot of non-Chinese foreigner here in Korea don’t meet Chinese people is because there is simply no contact. When was the last time you went to a Chinese restaurant in Korea (not one of those yucky Korean or American styles one’s either) and sat down and talked with the Chinese staff? Most would either run away in embarrassment/fear or talk back to you in Chinese, a language that might as well come from another planet.

The few opportunities in meeting Chinese people is through education. I met my lovely girlfriend, Em, when I was teaching at University in Andong. At the time I taught about 10 Chinese students basic English conversation, although I dare say they spent most of the class talking to each other about matters I can only assume wasn’t about English, or texting their friends, again, not related to what I was teaching.

In fact my only communication with them was through Korean, which I might add was a whole lot better than mine. Actually, when I first met Em, we only talked in Korean, seeing as her English wasn’t that great, and my Chinese was, well, non-existent. It was patchy and difficult for us to understand each other and I used more gestures than a North Korean traffic lady to help get my point across.

Suffice to say, and I’ve told the story before (go search for it yourself), we hooked up (after I was no longer her teacher) and have been together for at least the better part of 2 and a half years.

One of the biggest question people ask me is; What are the differences between Korean girls and Chinese girls?

Where does one start? Firstly I can’t say I’ve ever been in a serious relationship with a Korean girl, so it’s a little difficult to contrast on a long term basis. I can make the following observations from the Chinese and Korean girls I do know. Now before you all start emailing me saying I shouldn’t generalize, please understand that these are my own personal experiences and it is a broad generalization.

1. Chinese girls are less whiny. Compared to Australian girls they are a little whiny but much, much less then Korean girls. For that I am very happy.
2. They are more straight forward with you. At least with some of the more obvious things when you first start dating. If they’re not happy, they’ll let you know about, for most of the time, expect you to do something about it. I always feel with Korean girls it was a bit of a mystery as to why they would get angry and not talk to you for days on end.
3. Chinese girls aren’t afraid to eat. Compared to almost all other women from other countries, Chinese girls aren’t shy when it comes to eating. If they’re hungry, they’ll eat, and they’ll expect you to eat too.
4. Their style and fashion are very different. But then that’s the case with any other country and culture in the world. Chinese girls where a lot less make up and don’t dress as girly as Korean girls. On the surface one could say that would be considered a bad thing, but without make up, Chinese girls are a lot prettier (and in many cases simply don’t need make up). While I, and most other guys, like girly dresses and clothes, one can understand why some women wouldn’t want to dress up every day. Perhaps Korean girls go that extra yard.
5. Chinese girls are much less submissive. It’s Korean culture for the man to run the house and have the housewife follow what he says, much less so when dating (I’d love to hear people’s thoughts on that). With Chinese girls, they run the house and us men merely are a mechanism to make sure things run smoothly. Actually, from what I’ve observed, this is a HUGE difference between the cultures, although I’m sure if you went into country China, things may be different.
6. It’s a myth that all Chinese girls can cook. I guess like many other places around the world, Chinese women what to get out of the kitchen and do more with their lives. Em, and most of her friend, cannot cook a lot of dishes. But with so many cheap and affordable restaurants in China making some delicious food, one need ask why they need to be able to cook? As for Korean girls, hmm, I’m not sure how good most of their cooking is, but dare I say bibimbap is a much fair simpler dish than Peking Duck.

I’m sure there is a whole stack more, but these are by far the 6 big ones that come to mind. While I don’t want to say Chinese girls are better than Korean girls, or vice versa, I’ll go as far to say they simply are a different ball game. One may be more agreeable than the other, depending on the guy. Of course Korean and Chinese men play a massive role in defining how one can depict the women, but that would be delving way too far into such matters that I simply don’t understand. That would require someone with a sociology or anthropology background to decipher, neither or which I have.

As for our life here in Korea, well most Korean just assume Em is Korean. When we go shopping, eating, or merely making an enquiry, despite the fact that I will talk to the person in Korean, they will always answer back to Em, and not I. While I’m sure they’re doing it for the purposes of ease of understanding, I always feels it’s a little rude to not answer me back directly. If I’ve made the effort to ask something in Korean, one would think it would be polite to get a response, instead of being ignored.

As for thinking Em is Korean, well that’s perfectly understandable. A lot of her students think she looks Korean, too, but personal speaking I don’t see it.

The response a lot of the time from Korean people who find out I have a Chinese girlfriend is why I would choose a Chinese girl over a Korean one. Like, what is wrong with our girls? I usually reply that we’re not together simply because I want a Chinese girlfriend, but that I found a really nice and special girl that happens to be Chinese. If she was Korean, Australian, or Kenyan, that wouldn’t matter.

That’s usually enough for them to feel somewhat embarrassed/ashamed about asking suck a silly question to begin with.

I’m not 100% clear on the attitude of Korean’s towards the Chinese, but it feels like, for the most part, there is a level of respect for a country that has a long history with Korea. Again, I think that’s a subject for another time.

As for me, I’m just happy I have a wonderful girlfriend. One can’t ask for more than that.