Do Something Good 1st Meeting

We had our first meeting of the volunteer club today. Last year's project for the boy who drank acid, Se Tu, had about 30 students, but I did not know what to expect today, so when we got 55 I was really pleased.  

The students decided that they wanted to work on international projects in Thailand including :

• a sister school for Burmese refugees
• an animal sanctuary
• helping with health care for an individual. 

I think I have ended up with another big project which will be like childbirth: I will be exhausted, aggravated, frustrated, happy, proud and in the end I will forget all the bad stuff and think, "That was great!".

Good Kids

I am really enjoying the students this term.  The things I like the most these days are:

1. Enthusiasm.  There is just nothing like coming to school and having kids scream "Steve-uww"from the windows.
2. Generosity- The single greatest trait of most Koreans is how they share.  If a kid buys some food, they always share it.  The same is true with my colleagues. 
3. Closeness- I love it when I see a couple of high school girls walking around holding hands and just laughing like little school girls. It seems in most places kids are in such a rush to grow up, they can not enjoy adolescence.
4. Notes-I often get thank-you notes from the kids...usually with a few grammatical mistakes which for some unknown reason, makes them even better.

Kids have problems here, but there is an awful lot that the rest of the world could learn from a country where kids study hard, don't do drugs, don't have a lot of sex, and are generally just not snarky like they are elsewhere.

Shortages but not of porn

There may be a shortage of food and about everything else, but at least the North Koreans can get their porn.  According to an article todays' paper, "Foreign porn has spread so widely that any home with a player usually has one or two porn DVDs."

I guess all they need is a little electricity and they can have themselves a good time.

Safe and Stupid

Some Koreans, like some Americans, have the same blame the foreigner first attitude, so it is no surprise that when a foreigner does something stupid and criminal it gets lots of attention. There have been recent stories about Americans  who have molested kids, attacked old men, and video taped and distributed liaisons with Korean girls.  The haters have good material to hate us.  I have always been treated so well, so I think the haters are a minority.

If you normalize the statistics for age and sex between Koreans and foreigners, there is not a big difference in crime statistics. It seemed reasonable for the Korean government required us to get a document from our state saying we did not commit any crimes.  No big deal, it took about a week and it was done. 

Now they have decided to require that people get FBI background checks. The process entails:

• get fingerprinted- how long this takes depends on your jurisdiction
• send the documents to the FBI- 3 months for processing plus a week for mail (3 months...ridiculously long)
• Send the documents to the US State Department to be certified- 3 weeks for certification, 1 week for mail

If everything goes perfectly, you must wait 4 plus months for this one stage in the process. 

Korea is competing with Japan and the rest of the world for native English teachers.  The JET Program in Japan is far better organized and has a better reputation the EPIK program (which I am in).  One advantage Korea has is the JET program is bureaucratic and takes forever to get through the highering process.  With this new requirement,  the EPIK program has lost a big advantage.  

Given that everyone already has to go through a background check at the state level, it seems unlikely that this FBI background check will have any real impact on crimes committed by foreigners.  What seems certain to me is there are going to be some people who go to another country because they do not want to wait for this process to be completed. 

Gyeongju Part 2

We made our third trip to Gyeongju this past weekend.  I wrote before about it being a living museum, and that is fair since there are cultural sites everywhere you look.  Last time we were not able to go to Bulguksa, a temple that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  We made it this time and it is really beautiful. It was founded in 573 expanded, destroyed and rebuilt over the years, but the statues are original stuff.

Kids and Museums

We have gone to lots of museums recently and they have all the normal stuff behind glass...great for adults.

What I think that is different is that they are all been overflowing with families with young kids...fabulous in my opinion.  Most museums are free, so it is a cheap way for any family to have a day out. In addition, they have lots of interactive displays in separate areas for kids. Some of the display are designed for little ones, some for the whole family, and even some computer generated stuff to appeal to teens.  Brilliant in my opinion.

Silly Pictures From Gyeongju

As mentioned before, Gyeongju is great and beautiful, but like everywhere, there are a few silly things I had to take pictures of.

I really do not know what they mean by this sign

A funny non-infringing (kind of) sign

I love the Love Hotels because they all have some personality.  This weekend we stayed in one that was pretty tame outside of the love toy vending machine.

Do Something Good!

I am starting a volunteer club at school. The purpose of the club is to

• get students interested in volunteering (something that is not very common here)
• teach them about other countries and the problems people have
• give them an opportunity to speak English with me
• give them an opportunity to develop leadership skills
• improve students' resumes to enter university 

I wrote a few times about Se Teu, the boy who drank acid, and the program we had to pay for his operations.  I think it was a great experience and wanted to continue doing something like this.  The school supported it, but I did not have the sense that they were enthusiastic.

Students who were in the group last year have been sending in their university applications, and now there has been a growing realization of the value of a volunteer program and everyone is remarkably enthusiastic.

I contacted a US based organization, Do Something Good. They provided me with the materials to help organize the students and some advice. I am hoping that I will have the students take over all the leadership very quickly including the choice of projects.

As usual, I had low expectations....maybe 10 or 15 kids will be interested.  I put up some signs Friday and I have got 26 kids signed up already.  What they hell have I gotten myself into...again!

Weekend Pics

This weekend we joined what seemed like a million others to a rain soaked lantern festival in Jinju.  In the end it was nice, but not great because of the rain.  I also posted a couple of pics of the rice fields.  The pictures do not really capture the incredible contrast of the blue sky with green/yellow of the fading rice.