No Perv's Poster

We just got this anti-perverted guy poster at school and I love the drawings, especially the drooling in the top middle picture.

Christmas Korean Style

Christmas, a time for family, god, gift giving...at least in the US. Here it is another day for lovers (they have more than any other country I think). You may think that it is because they are not Christians...and you might be right since in a survey 49% of people do not have a religion, but Christians make up the second biggest group with 26%.

I asked everyone about gift giving, and nobody I talked to said they got gifts but all the kids were trying to change that tradition. At some of the markets I did see toys for kids. My favorite gift were these painted hermit crabs...hard to see but these are live crabs which are painted.

Christmas Cards Part 2

Sandy got a few Christmas cards from her middle school students.  The first one is my favorite.  Hard to not love a kid who writes "Sendy" and "I can't English" with the symbol for tears.

The next one is really well written and pretty nice.

Christmas Cards Part One

I got two Christmas cards this morning.

The first has a beautiful drawing on the front and a nice message on the back.

The second one is less warm and fuzzy and a lot more maniacal and funny.

Abortion Republic

I have been trying to understand abortion in Korea for the last few days. A couple of facts:

• abortion is illegal with some limited exceptions
• 350,000 abortions are performed a year according to official records
• 1.5 million abortions are performed according to a number of experts and the Catholic Church
• 450,000 children are born each year

If the estimate of 1.5 million is correct, then 3/4 of the pregnancies end in abortion. This number is about 650,000 more than the US for a country with a population of only 48 million. This is not a moral judgement, but a shocking fact (if true).

Why so many abortions? One reason is the huge social taboo on having children out of wedlock. According to surveys, most people do not have a moral problem with abortion, but they do with out of wedlock pregnancies. 1.6 percent of babies are born out of wedlock here according to a NY Times story, compared to 40% in the US. In the same article it quotes a recent survey that stated, "Only about a quarter of South Koreans are willing to have a close relationship with an unwed mother as a coworker or neighbor."

Strangely enough, it seems that pragmaticism versus a moral outrage is causing officials to look at reducing the number of abortions. Currently women average 1.19 births, far below the 2.06 needed to maintain the population. Facing the prospects of a collapsing population, the government is looking at range of measures including strictly enforcing existing abortion laws according to this article.

Even for married couples, having additional children is a huge burden. When I talk to friends about this, they say they would love to have more children, but it is just too expensive primarily because of education expenses. I think it would make sense to just make all education completely free like it is in the US. Given the culture of children attending classes after school, maybe school hours should be extended like Sandy's school- it finishes at 7:30PM-and make that free also.

Balancing Act

In today's paper their is a story about the gender imbalance reaching a crisis point in 2014. Between the "ideal" marrying ages of 29-33 there is a shortage of 70,000 women, but in 2014 that number rises to 381,000. This is mainly because of the Asian preference for males and abortions for sex selection.

I wonder what the implications are for the world when the biggest countries (China and India) along with Korea have these huge imbalances. So many men with no chance to marry or have children. How does this affect their behavior and society?

Excellent Reporting- Alien Graveyard

I read far too many newspapers and I can not believe that no other legitimate newspaper except the Korea Times has had the guts to print the story about the alien graveyard discovered in Rwanda.

Of course I thought there was a chance this could be a joke, but I have never read any stories in the newspaper that were jokes, so I think it is a legitimate (in their mind)news story. I do not care if the expert quote is from the Weekly World News.

It is a bit hard to believe, but the consensus from my colleagues is the newspaper actually believed the story. Excellent.

Only In Korea

Knock, Knock, Knock

Last night at 9 PM...who the heck is at the door. I looked through the peep hole, but it was dark and I could not see anything. Must be the cute kids from next door with some sort of Korean food from their mother. It is impossible to keep up with the gift giving with them.

I opened the door and surprise, it was the gas station attendant. He forgot to put the gas cap on the car when he put gas in the car for Sandy early in the day. He tracked us down (not too difficult since we are the only western couple in our town), apologized, and gave us our gas cap.

I am pretty sure that does not happen in many other places.

Lost II-The Drunken Adventure

I have no idea what they mean with this sign, but it could be a great new TV show I think.

Another Year

Sandy and I decided to sign a contract for another year. We decided there wasn't a good reason not too. We like our colleagues, students and workplace overall. Our apartment, which we may have to leave soon, is nice enough. We wish we had more friends, but with luck, that will happen. Overall, were happy so why not spend another year.

3-3-3

Koreans brush their teeth more any place we have been. Students and teachers line up and are brushing away after lunch. They follow the three- three's rule: You must brush :

• 3 times a day
• for 3 minutes
• within 3 minutes of eating

As a kid I remember being taught "brush after every meal", but I could not remember for how long, so I checked at the American Dental Association site. Best I could tell, the ADA is messing with me because they changed the rules without informing me. It now recommends brushing twice a day...no recommendation on the length of time. Strange. The British Dental Association (insert joke here) recommends brushing for two minutes.

Things you can't know

I had the students write many essays this term about problems that children in developing countries have. I told them about children I knew and gave them some numbers. Their writing has improved significantly. For the last class, I had them do research, then write longer essays and finally present the material to the class. I use this to help the students write, but also to get them to think for themselves.

One big part of teaching is anticipating the problems that students will have and developing lessons which will overcome these issues. If it is your own country, you do it naturally. When you are in new to a country, it is really difficult to anticipate the problems. Given the similarities between the Japanese and Korean education systems, I rely on my experience teaching in Japan to anticipate problems.

I knew that the students and the teachers focus on the university entrance exams. What I did not know is the students have no experience doing any sort of research. I suppose the scope of the entrance exam is limited and the teachers are preparing the students for this exam...hence no need to do any sort of wide ranging research. In Japan the kids had much more experience with this and the students would be able to do research with no problems.

I gave the students some resources to do the research, but given their limited experience and dramatically less information available in Korean compared to English, the research was destined to be either non-existent or low quality.

A few students did a great job, but the vast majority did not. The students will get some benefit, but it is really disappointing to work a whole term towards a project and have the project fall short of your expectations.

Service Korean Style

I stopped at the bank the other day, it was closed..."too bad" I thought. My friend said, "Let me check" and went around the side and knocked on the door. She told them we really wanted to do some banking and they let us in through the side door a half an hour after closing.

A couple of days ago, I needed to exchange some coins for bills, so I went to the bank/post office around the corner from me. Like many small towns, our post office is privately owned. The owner is a really nice guy. We chatted for about twenty minutes while the clerk (who is always remarkably cheerful) took care of the transaction. The man thanked me (for what reason, I don't know) and gave me a box of dried persimmons.

I think that out of all the countries we have lived, people here have the most genuine desire to share and help. It seems that people get genuine pleasure from it. I know we get special treatment because we are foreigners, but I think it is a great part of the culture.

Meeting

Yesterday I sat through a meeting given at another school. I am sure the lecturers were good, but almost nothing was in English...not the writing or speaking. There were five of us there and we could not understand anything for hours.

While my mind was wandering, I thought "Why do lecturers teaching teachers how to be effective use methods that are so ineffective?" Is there anything more boring than watching a bunch of PowerPoint slides and a lecturer standing and talking? (The answer is "Yes", the same presentation given in a language you do not understand). I do not mean to be offensive, but it seems that everyone follows the same formula that is not great.

If I had that sort of class with students they would all be asleep. We are professionals, so we can not go to sleep (although one teacher was texting and another was nearly asleep).

I suppose if lecturers want people to pay attention, they should think of a regular group of students and try to be a bit more dynamic and have some real interaction.

I Made A Student Unpopular

A class that is full of very bright and somewhat naughty students objected to their homework. One student handed me a letter for the class (as a side note, her letter was 125 words which was the required length of the essay). They were trying to preempt me from scolding them like I did a different class. They said the vocabulary was far too difficult and it would take too long for them to write.

When I walked in, I noticed one girl quickly starting to translate her essay. She did not pay any attention to the discussion. After 15 minutes of the discussion, I noticed she had just about finished translating the essay. I picked up her essay and counted the words, 131...6 more than the students were required.

I interrupted the discussion my colleague was having with the students and announced that the girl had just completed her essay in 15 minutes. The boy, who was doing a remarkably good job arguing his point in English, said, "ok,ok" and the discussion was over.

I am now crazy about the student who completed the work so quickly, but I am pretty sure I am the only one in the room who was happy with her.

More Mixin'

The NY Times has an interesting story about mixed race families here.

As I mentioned before, there is a huge influx of women, mostly from China, Vietnam (which now has a shortage of women), and the Philippines, that have come here through marriage brokers to marry Korean men. Most of the men live in rural areas and many are older. The men have difficulties finding wives because women generally prefer to live in urban centers, do not want the harsh farming life, and there is a growing gender imbalance with eligible males significantly outnumbering females.

A few of the more interesting quotes are:

"Among farming households, 49 percent of all children will be multicultural by 2020"

"the dropout rate of mixed-background children from elementary school is 15.4 percent, 22 times the national average."

"Compounding the risk is the fact that most of the foreign women marry older farmers or manual laborers. Some 53 percent of mixed families live on earnings at or below the national minimum hourly wage of 4,000 won, or less than $3.50"

The focus of the article is the effect on the children and notes there are derogatory names for these children "Kosians" or Korean Asians. Some of the kids want to hide their ethnicity to avoid the teasing. One mother from the Philippines thought it would be better if nobody saw her because then they might think her daughter was pure Korean.

Like everything in Korea, things are changing quickly, mostly for the better. There were very few of these mixed race children 10 years ago and now a massive wave of them are starting to enter elementary school. Koreans have traditionally been a homogenous people and quite proud of their heritage. How are they going to deal with this enormous societal change?

As the article notes, there are multi-cultural family support centers to help these families. The article does not note the TV and radio shows that are available that both give support to foreigners and try to help Koreans understand other cultures and, ultimately, embrace the positive aspects that diversity brings.

When Naoko, a friend from Japan, was visiting we were riding on a train and chatting. A woman heard us speaking English and asked us to sit down and chat. She told us of her life...she was from the Philippines and met her husband through a marriage broker. She had a couple of children with him. She was poor in the Philippines and came here for a better life. She really missed her family and had not been back for years because it was too expensive. She said it is a bit difficult, she has few Korean friends, but there are some other women from the Phillipines that she is friends with.

I suppose that this is normal in any country, you seek out those who you have something in common with. Koreans in America tend to be more friendly with other Koreans, not because Americans are not open to foreigners, but because it is normal to be more comfortable with those who you share a common experience.

I do not know what I think. I see desperation on both sides. Men, who desperately want to be married and have children, have few choices. They seek out a woman they do not know to make a life with. Women, who are desperate to escape the poverty of their homeland, are willing to risk leaving their families, culture and are willing to roll the dice on a better life. Hard for me to imagine.

Both parties have the freedom of choice to make this agreement or not, so it is not trafficking. On the other hand, the man has much more power because he has the money, and knows the culture. In addition, there are many stories in the papers about foreign brides being abused by Korean husbands. The courts do not seem to not take these cases of spousal abuse as seriously as they do in other developed countries.

Korea (and other countries) can not continue to import brides forever. The impact on their home countries must be devastating...losing tens of thousands of women a year is just not healthy for any culture. The Philippines has a law against it (not sure it is enforced too much). At some point, all countries will probably outlaw these brokered marriages. The bottom line is the mail order bride thing is just a band-aid.

The real solution seems to be in promoting gender equality, and eliminating the preference for males something that most Asian countries, including Korea, need to work on. When girls and women are valued more by society, the numbers will come into balance. Strangely, eliminating a tradition (preference for males) is the only way to keep Korean culture.

Happy Thanksgiving and a boy who needs surgery

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because it is all about spending time with people you care about, and these days my students rank up there for me. It is also about eating turkey, something that most of the kids had never done.

A couple of months ago I decided to make Thanksgiving dinner for the kids who have been volunteering to help out the boy who needs surgery. I decided not to tell them until Monday and most were really excited to join in, but one group said they wanted to not join in because they felt like it was a sort of pay off for helping the boy. They said they helped the boy because they wanted to do something good, not for a payoff. Eventually they relented. You gotta love the purity of some these kids hearts.

The past week has been ridiculously busy (hence no posts) between shopping, collecting pine cones and branches for decorations and cooking. All went pretty well with the small exception of the oven not working for about twenty minutes when I put the turkey in it. My first attempt to repair it, which entailed cursing at it, did not work as well as I had hoped. The second attempt was more succesful and the food was ready, shockingly, a bit early.

Sandy was a great worker as always. Thanks to her and our friends, Elizabeth and Seiphemo, we got the food on the buffet.

33 kids, along with the Principal, Vice-Principal and some other teachers, came in and they were shocked to see the classroom transformed into a reasonably nice looking dining room. We covered the 6 foot tables with white paper so they looked like tablecloths. We ran the pines and pine cones down the middle. We lit up the room with dozens of candles.

We cooked turkey, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, corn, green beans, salad and pie. The kids devoured everything with the exception of the green beans...bought ten pounds...got 9.75 leftover.

The kids seemed to have a good time chowing down on all of the food. After they finished with their plates, they began devouring the remaining food.

I thought the best way to top the night was to have a video call with Se Teu, the boy they raised money for, along with his mother and my friend. I did not tell the students about it...it was going to be a surprise. The surprise ended up being my friends web cam dying and us struggling to serve dinner and help her with her technical issue.

We were getting ready to give up and I told the students the final total of money they raised, $1000...exactly enough to pay for the 3 operations the boy needs. I was in the middle of telling the kids that the surprise I had planned and that it was not going to happen when Elizabeth walked in and said we had a connection. I literally jumped and yelled like a little school girl...what the hell has happened to me.

The call was quite short, but perfect. My friend introduced the boy to the kids and they said a few words. After a little prompting from my friend, the boy said, "Thank You" in a sweet, raspy, little boy voice...a couple of the girls had tears in their eyes...it was perfect.

After the call, I thought things would wrap up, but the kids wanted to stay around and chat, so instead of ending around 7 like I thought, we wrapped it up at 9:15. The kids loved Seiphemo and Elizabeth, and now they took over my status as school superstar. I, of course, hate them at this point.

This has got to be one of the hardest, most memorable Thanksgiving Day's that I have ever had. I hope yours was just as memorable.

This is Teacher Training?

Every Wednesday we have a "Teacher Training" class. Three of the teachers from my school along with one from Sandy's school and three other teachers get together and chat so the Korean English Teachers can improve their fluency. I think it has a lot to do with getting out of school for a few hours and a little to do with fluency. Either way, we look forward to chatting with them, and I hope they feel the same way.

We have made some field trips recently. This week it was too the wine tunnel. It is an abandoned train tunnel the Japanese made about 100 years ago that now operates as a semi-tourist attraction. They serve persimmon wine which is much more tasty than you would expect.

These ladies are my colleagues and if ever a picture said a thousand words, this one does. Kyung Hee as patient as ever, Moon Sook telling the waiter what to do (probably with a little joke) and Ock Ran laughing pleasantly.

A surprise highlight happened when a local news crew appeared. They seemed much less enthusiastic about having their picture taken than taking mine. They interviewed me for a show next week...I am sure it will be about local foreigners corrupting upstanding Korean teachers.

A Boy Who Needs Surgery Part 4

The seniors have finished their entrance exam and have free time, so 7 of them have joined our fundraising efforts. This is especially good because I do not teach them...they just heard about the program and wanted to help. They put together a PowerPoint presentation and are going to deliver it in each class. It should be exciting to see how they do.

Bitna, who I wrote about in the speech contest, is leading the group. It is great to spend more time with her and to meet more of the seniors. These extra curricular activities are the best part of teaching.

More tourist stuff

Pyochungsa is a temple that was originally built in 654 but, like so many other things, had to be rebuilt after the Japanese burned it down in the 1500's. The temple itself is beautiful, but the surroundings were even more spectacular. We had no idea that it was a hiking mecca until we saw hundreds of people pouring down the mountain into the tourist buses at the end of the day.

This was the other spectacular thing we saw...the huge clam at Costco. The one on the left is about 5 inches across and the other is about 10inches...ridiculously big.

Matchie Matchie

During summer they were everywhere...young couples advertising their relationships by wearing matching clothes. I ran into one student with the whole matching clothes thing going with his girlfriend and he was so ecstatic about it that I gave him a pass and did not make a joke.With the cold weather there is apparently fewer matching clothes choices, but I have run into a few.

I hate to admit it, but I thought the mother daughter matching clothes was quite cute.

As I mentioned before, the matching underwear is available everywhere. One guy told me about the benefits of wearing matching underwear: it makes his girlfriend happy and what better time to have a happy girl friend then when you show off your matching underwear.

24 hours of a Lifetime

The Seniors are taking their test tomorrow that will determine the rest of their lives...the college entrance exam. It can not be understated how focused students are on this one moment in their lives.

As the students were departing for the hotel that they will stay at the night before, the other students lined up, banged some drums, and wished them good luck.

One of the nice parts of Korean culture is the respect that students have for the older students. I think that part of it is expected, but partially the student want to show respect for their seniors. A nice tradition and a nice little ceremony.

I took a few random pictures. The girls who begged me to not post their pictures, as always, are posted first.

Miscellaneous pictures

A few pictures I took that I liked but never posted.

A beautiful temple set in the mountains that has trained Buddhist nuns for centuries.

A box of beautiful persimmons

A remarkably cheerful student.

The rice fields just before harvest.

Really Big and Small People

Today we had a car wash to raise money for Se Teu, the boy who drank acid. As usual, the students were great. They mostly laughed (ok...I heard some complaining at the end) and worked their little hearts out. It was great seeing them in a different situation because you really get a better view of who they are...the leaders, the hard workers etc.

I really did not know what would happen with this whole fundraising thing, but it has turned out great.

On a less wonderful note, a teacher at the middle school that shares the track next to the school decided it was unsafe to have students use diluted dish detergent in "her" area. We were washing the cars on concrete next to a drain, so there were two wet spots from the water that was about 5 by 10 meters each. There were no other students even outside, so it was hard for me to see the danger. When the principle decided to appease her and asked me to move it, I did not complain because he is a nice man. Cost us an hour between moving the supplies and the cars and getting the students going again.

Seoul Tower

Seoul Tower gives great views of downtown Seoul. My favorite was atop the urinal.

The sculpture of the person who appeared to be jumping to their death was just creepy. The sculpture could be interpreted as someone soring, but it does not look that way to me. Given that Korea has the highest suicide rate in the world, I am not sure this is an image that should be encouraged.

On all of the fences around the tower, there are pairs of love locks (conveniently available in the shop for the less thoughtful lovers). Couples lock their locks together on the fence with a love note and then exchange keys. I thought it was cute for teenagers, Sandy thought it was a good idea for people who are in their 40's who have been married for 23 years.

A nice way to spend an hour.