Vacation

Just got back from a vacation around the south west part of Korea.

We spent a day in Damyang which is famous for bamboo and old trees neither of which were exciting. The town had a really nice feel with a long walking park and hundreds of families enjoying themselves. The government provides tons of free things for people to do and they really take advantage of it. It is great.

My favorite site in Damyang was a series of boulders placed across the river. It afforded the more daring a way to cross (and fall into) the river.

 I have to give a hat tip to the girl in heels who traversed the river. A girl can be a risk taker, but one of the risks should not be appearing to have short legs.

We spent our first night in a love hotel. We knew it would be hot when we saw the hallway lit with black lights and painted with flourescent paints. We got into our room which had your standard 6 foot long mirror next to the bed. I have no idea how they expect you to brush your hair using it, but I guess it was OK.

You can read more about the vacation after the jump

The Deadliest Mile

Today's paper had a story about Korean roads being the 5th most deadly in the world, but this is compared to the population.  Of course in a densely populated country, a lot of people do not drive so this statistic is meaningless.

A much more important measurement is the number of deaths per mile driven.  In this category, Korean roads are deadliest...slightly ahead of the Czech Republic and 20% ahead of Malaysia which was in 3rd.

Koreans are consistently some of the most thoughtful people I have met, but it seems that there is some sort of evil spirit that takes over their bodies when they get behind the wheel.

This weekend I was doing my usual driving/bitchin' about Korean driving when I realized I was nudging into traffic and being a slightly bad driver myself...I am afraid it is catching.

Can You Pass This Test?

A student challenged me with the following question from a national test that was given early this month:

"28. With no attempt there can be no failure and with no

failure no humiliation. So our self-esteem in this world

depends entirely on what we back ourselves to be and do.

It is determined by the ratio of our actualities to our supposed

potentialities. Thus, ________________________________.

This illustrates how every rise in our levels of expectation

① the higher your expectations are, the more you will achieve

② self-esteem can be increased by lowering actualities

③ success divided by pretensions equals self-esteem

④ early failures in life may lead to happiness later in life

          ⑤ more supposed potentialities increase chances of happiness


13% of students nationwide guessed the correct answer, 3.  A guess may be the wrong word since a guess would mean that 1 in 5 (or 20%) students got the right answer. I have attached a few passages/questions and, according to the Flesch Easy Reading Formula, they are university level for native English speakers.


Most kids struggle with saying anything past, "How are you?" and "What's your name?", but they are expected to understand ridiculously complex written questions that most native English speakers would have to read a few times (like I did) to understand.

Eventually the translating software will actually work and the need for reading English will diminish, so the current lack of focus on speaking is an enormous mistake. The government is making strides, but until the university entrance exams have a spoken component the current system will stay in place and the vast majority of kids will study English for a decade and not have even a rudimentary grasp of the spoken language.

Since the questions are already on the internet, I thought it was a good idea to publish a few of these after the break if you are interested

Trust

According to the UN, you are about 14 times as likely to be robbed in the US than in Korea. There are some conveniences that come along with safety; shop owners leave things on sidewalks overnight, bicycles are not locked in some areas, and nobody checks tickets on trains (but they do on subways).

My favorite recent crime story was about a man who was robbing a little private school.  When he produced a knife, the woman fell.  As she got up, they discussed why he was robbing the shop.  She pulled out a bible and they talked about it and he apologized and left.

Less than 20 minutes after he left, Cho came back to the institute and kneeled before Woo with teary eyes, asking her to report him to the police. Since she refused to do so, Cho called 112 (which is 911 in Korea) and turned himself in.

Only in Korea.

High School Boys for Mature Women

There is an article in today's paper about male sites for young men to sell themselves to mature women.

More than a dozen male high school and university students have been caught by police for operating multiple online community sites brokering sexual encounters between younger men and older women.

 ...Of the 14, seven were high school students.... 

...Among community cafes they operated, one site had a membership of 550 adult females

I am not sure what to make of this.  I am guessing some of the "550 females" are really guys pretending to be girls and others are just playing around and not really seeking an encounter. That said, there must be a market for something like this.

According to the article, "The boys did it because they wanted to make money."  This part does not surprise me since there was another article today with a Reuters poll saying that Koreans are the most materialistic people in the world.

These sort of things really do shock me because the people I meet do not seem to be any more materialistic than people anywhere else. In addition, I know that there are sex related things in big cities, but we just see none of it here in our little town.

Even though I posted a few things lately that seem a bit negative, I really do think Korea is a great place to live, to raise a family, and to teach.