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.