Twice in one day? Phwoar!

.. you can tell I'm stuck at school deskwarming^^ Anyway the first was just pictures of random fat animals so I figure you can deal with it. And this might actually have some content - it's a reblog of a post by Burndog giving some credit to GEPIK (Gyeonggi-do EPIK) co-ordinators and telling everyone to give them some much deserved slack instead of getting their panties in a twist over mini-crises they don't have the common sense or mental wherewithal to deal with themselves. Now fair enough, there are some real problems that many teachers, both Korean and NESTs, run into in these jobs that require not only teaching skills but interpersonal skills and not a bit of cross-cultural understanding, but let's face it, a lot of the "horror stories" you hear from people teaching overseas are either greatly exaggerated, extremely biased and likely selectively told, or come about mostly because people are selfish idiots incapable of seeing things from someone else's point of view or because they have never lived away from home or by themselves before (and often certainly not together) and are just not at the stage where they can deal with problems on their own. And fair enough - we all run into problems like this in our daily lives, but it's a whole 'nother thing to take it beyond whinging to your friends (or the uncaring cyber world, hehe) and create such a fuss that it makes further problems for yourself and everyone else you drag into it, as well as making a bad reputation for other people in your situation who have managed to do ok.

And this is where my problem is - our EPIK co-ordinators and the staff at our Office of Education here in Cheongju for the whole of the Chungbuk province work really hard to help us and try and give us a good start to our lives here, probably more than they might feel obligated to were we not in Korea. And yes, that isn't always the case - you might be really unlucky and have a crappy co-teacher who has no interest in helping you and in fact hates and resents you (which is quite common) but there are most certainly also a good number of lazy bums working as NESTs with a huge sense of self-entitlement who are only here for the money because they couldn't get a job at home. And frankly, that's the major reason I came here when I did too, as did a lot of my friends, but the major difference there is that we all also had at least some vestige of a positive attitude and tried to make some adjustments to living here in another country and enjoy the things that worked for us, beyond soju and samgyopsal. Even those who never managed to learn more than "kamsahamnida" or get beyond trying soondae that one time they didn't really know what it was, the people I've actually stayed friends with have all done at least a year and stuck it out with varying degrees of success, and problems and crying and drunken rants aside, we've all had a generally positive view of some aspect or another of the experience in common. So there is a lot less thankfulness out there than is deserved, and people always seem much quicker to bitch rather than laud, so maybe if you haven't done it yet and are still teaching, you should take the time to write a quick thankyou email to your co-ordinator.

Not to gloat but personally, I think I've actually been really lucky and had a good school with supportive teachers. Sure there have been minor problems (14 hour teaching day anyone?), but nothing to blow out of proportion that I had to run crying to my mummy (the Office of Education/POE) about. I know this has been helped by the fact that I do speak some Korean, and the teachers here like that I can at least understand them a bit, which I think has also made them more forgiving of my quieter personality (i.e. why not all foreigners are as loud as most North American teachers), peanut allergy (a surefire topic for conversation at any meal featuring the dreaded nut) and inability to drink soju in large quantities. I've also had a great EPIK co-ordinator (by this I mean the head of the NEST liason office-y person), Mary Hahn, who I'm pretty certain is asked to do everything and anything involving English or English speakers at the POE rather than just what her job description says, and who has always done her best to help us resolve our issues and questions here, no matter how trivial. Case in point at our Orientation - someone asking why they didn't have an oven in their place and when the POE would be buying one for us (yes, I'm serious). Even though Korean apartments generally don't have ovens, we have more than enough money to spare to spring for a small one on our own and no-one has the room for a real one anyway. Mary calmly explained that our school sets up our apartments for us (which we had just been talking about) and recommended a few places we could go to buy one. Or the person who asked the same thing but about an air conditioner who seemed to think it was a life necessity rather than a luxury.

Well anyway, organising going home has made me think about all of this, as there is a new teacher coming in to replace me that I'm going to write a letter to (ala Lara-style! which I know Edithe was very grateful for) who I hope at least appreciates the teachers at the school and the things she has easy, as I know she's probably not going to be able to appreciate the students.
  
Anyway, this is the reblog - sorry for the rant :) I actually went off ole Burndog a bit and actually unsubscribed from his now main Tumblr blog as he apparently got a new smartphone or discovered Instagram or something because he started filling his blog with slightly wanky Instagrammed photos of pretty much nothing anyone else but him would have any interest in seeing (and even then I can't imagine him being thrilled to look at those pictures more than once), rather than the bile-filled but well written rants I quite enjoy reading, but hey, it's his blog. I'm sure there are people out there who rolled their eyes and instantly closed my blog page after finding more pictures of fat animals eating this morning too :)

Thank-you GEPIK co-ordinators!

Hello Burnchums...the below is a re-post of something I posted over on Tumblr...BUT...I decided that it's worth posting here too. For your reading joy.

Howdy Burnfans!

Today, I'm gonna re-post a Facebook status update that I wrote...and I'm going to add some shit to what I wrote. Anyways...here's what I wrote -

"As we enter the final stretch of the current school year...how about all of my GEPIK teaching friends spare a moment of their time to think of the great work that our GEPIK co-ordinators do. They get served shit sandwiches all day, generally dealing with the worst kind of teachers (both domestic and imported) and their stupid demands...YET...they always do their best to help us, train us, and make sure that we still have jobs! So...let's all say something that we humble teachers never seem to say...thank-you GEPIK co-ordinators...you're a bunch of champions and we'd all be fucked without you!

Sorry...but sick of the sea of negativity toward everything lately...especially when most of it is based on rumours, innuendo, or ignorance!"

Now...I'm horribly biased...I've been in Korea for almost four years...and I've only ever worked for one GEPIK school. When I first arrived at my school…I was very worried. I wasn’t told a lot about what was going to happen or how I was going to do my job, and to make matters worse, I had no co-teacher. When I decided to come to Korea, one of the great perks of the job was that an experienced and dedicated Korean teacher would be available to help me plan and teach every lesson. So, when I realized that my school had gone a different road, I freaked out. I spent most of my first morning looking for flights home, and most of my first afternoon on the phone to GEPIK. I was frightened. I was freaking out. GEPIK couldn't do shit to help me. The bottom line is that they can talk to the school and suggest that the school follow the more conventional model...but at the end of the day, the Principal decides how shit works.

What I got out of this situation was an understanding of how shit actually works, and exactly where GEPIK's responsibilities start and finish.

So...near the end of my first year, Dain Bae asked for people to volunteer to become GEPIK Reps...which was basically a system where people who have been with GEPIK for a year or more, make themselves available to new starters who need help. I wasn't keen to do it...but my best mate John wanted to give it a go...so I jumped on board! Now...the GEPIK Reps have been replaced by GEPIK co-ordinators...but here's an example of the kind of emails that I would get when I was repping -

"I am a ESL teacher in Suwon. I have problems with my Korean co-teacher, and not a soul to talk to about how to deal with them. In the recent past I have spoken to my Principal and Vice-Principal, but as far as I can see they just want to sweep the problems under the nearest rug. I am angry and depressed over my situation here; and feel so alone that I wish I could sprout wings and fly across the ocean. I asked the Vice Principal of my school to please provide me with someone I can go to, but I have heard nothing from anyone. I know they just wish I would just stop "being a problem". Unbeknowest to them I am not the problem, but she is Korean and I am not so to me that pretty much says it all. My Korean co-teacher has many people to discuss what she sees as the problem. I have no one, and I fantasize about just packing up and leaving.
I don't know what to do. Any suggestions?"

Now...that's just one email. Most of the emails were a LOT less dramatic. The above email doesn't really contain any information...the person asks for suggestions...but doesn't explain what the problems are...aside from the fact that the co-teacher is Korean. I ended up giving up an entire Sunday to go and have coffee with this teacher...and the problem was that they had told their co-teacher to 'shut the fuck up' in front of an entire class...and then when the co-teacher spoke...they slapped her (not very hard!) across the face. Suggestions? Well...going home seems a good one...or at the very least moving to a different job. Once you slap your co...there's no coming back.

Now...that's an example of an email that I received as a GEPIK Rep...here's an email that was sent to the blog a year or so ago...when I mentioned that I was going to be giving a speech at GEPIK Orientation -

"I am currently having a very hard time with the replacement Korean English teacher. She replaced a Korean teacher that I was working with for six months. She told me to my face how the Korean language is more important than the English language. Well, that is fine, but not in the English classroom. In an English classroom, English should be the dominant language.

I actually had to raise my voice and shout. I have spoken to not only the Vice Principal but also the Principal of my school with her and without her. Along with a hard copy writing about what she did. She is more than mean and she said that I do not even know how to do word processing. That was more than a problem comment. My old job was in the computer industry and my fiance is a computer developer. He does not like how she has been treating me also. Along with, the computer that she made me have is in all Korean (since she has the computer with the English programming and words that I use to have). I can not read Korean. I have had to ask her for simple things regarding the computer and I feel as though it was not fair at all. Her bad flow is now starting to affect/effect my fiance's work. I do not want that to continue. That is not fair for either of our futures.

Lastly, she knows that I might be pregnant. The doctor told me to wait until August to come back in until then. Since having this new Korean teacher (she only has a year of teaching under her belt before here), I have been sick a lot more than usual. How much abuse do I have to put up with? Her actions make me sick. I am bi-polar and am being treated for it. She did cause it to act up after being stable with high fluctuations. That is not a joke. That means loss of money somewhere. Along with, she definitely loves to feed off my cousin who was a Vice Principal in Illinois and my other cousin who was born in South Africa. Oh, plus my family members who actually do have a lot more than she will ever make. Know what, that is fine if she wouldn't be such a for real bitch. She even used a ruler on the students right in front of me in class. Who is going to pay for all the backlashes from that? The school district?

She decided that she wanted my room painted and wanted me to move everything. Well, for real I don't feel like I should be moving everything. Should I be pregnant, it is considered high risk since I am over the age of 35. She does not seem to understand that since she already had a child at an age of 24. Some of us were not so lucky at that age. She continuously smirks and is not even close to being nice.

Please respond when you have a chance. Oh, I can not always remember here either since she definitely does not watch the flow like I have always had to.

Lastly, someone stole $1,800 out of my bank account. Magically, it disappeared and within one week - my Dad did have a heart attack. Oopsy, that money would of covered him to not have the heart attack.
Not exactly fair, administrators from South Korea even. Not even nailed down to Gyeonggi Province since the Principals wife had cancer. That cancer might spread somewhere not good if that Korean teacher doesn't start behaving. That I did learn from the doctors in my family and from the other doctors that I am required to assist. Don't really want to help her anymore at all. Not even a little bit. I did hold my tongue for four months also with her."
Now, if a humble blogger can receive an email as loopy as that, can you even begin to imagine the sort of shit that the GEPIK co-ordinators get every single day? See...the trouble is...when we think of GEPIK co-ordinators and the questions that they must be asked...we think of the perfectly reasonable shit that we think about. For example...I don't know whether or not I'm gonna need a TESL or TEFL or TESOL or whatever it is, next time I renew. I have NO IDEA! I don't even know who to ask. The question that I have...is perfectly reasonable...so I imagine that everyone else is reasonable...BUT...they're not. There are a lot of nutjobs out there...and the GEPIK co-ordinators get calls from foreign teachers, Korean teachers, and recruiters and administrators...all with questions, queries and complaints. What a fucking life hey?

Well...why not add into the mix the constant shit pouring downstream from the government reducing funding, demanding more training hours, changing paygrades, and altering hiring requirements (all of which GEPIK gets criticised for by NETs who somehow think that GEPIK hates NETs)? Why not throw in teachers who do selfish and stupid shit like midnight runs, that have a huge negative impact on the students and teachers at the schools that are left behind? Well...it's a lot of shit to deal with isn't it?

Now...I'm not entirely sure why I decided to write this. I mean...I'm out of here in the not too distant future...so there's no real reason for me to care about this stuff...but...I guess that I feel like there's a lot of shit that gets said about GEPIK, and there's not much that gets said on GEPIK's behalf...so this rant is my way of trying to get people to understand why it might be difficult to get their GEPIK co-ordinator on the phone whenever they want to, and why the co-ordinator might sound a little wary when you do get hold of them!

Let's all just be nice to one another hey?
I seriously could barely even understand what that bi-polar woman was talking about. It makes me annoyed that people who can't even write coherently are English teachersㅠㅠ

Farewell Friday

Sorry for the less-than-usual-attempt at a cheery post to end the week on, but I felt like this was an issue in need of awareness. Over the last week or so there have been a lot of posts on the 1000th protest of the women mostly stolen or enticed away with the promise of factory work and all kept against their will as Comfort Women. These women are now grandmothers in their 80's and 90's and slowly dying off, but nevertheless congregate from all over Korea to stage a protest outside the Japanese Embassy once a week, every Wednesday, come rain or shine - not for the money or compensation, but just in the hope that they and what happened to them will be acknowledged and that they will hear an apology before they die. Here are the last two posts that give the best insight into their cause. Sorry about the swearing by the way.


The first is from the Ask A Korean! blog

Ask a Korean! News: 1000th Wednesday Protest, and a Comfort Woman's Story

First, a little bit of background. As many of the readers know, although the Japanese government recognized its responsibility for Imperial Japan's hand in forcibly recruiting Comfort Women, the Japanese government has not yet made any compensation out of government funds.

Some of the surviving Comfort Women in Korea -- there are only 63 of them, who are in their 80s and 90s -- protest in front of the Japanese embassy for the inadequacy of Japan's response every Wednesday. The "Wednesday Protest" to be held on this Wednesday, December 14, 2011 will be the 1000th one, after nearly 20 years of weekly gatherings since January 1992.

Dong-A Ilbo featured a story told by Ms. Kim Bok-Dong, who was recruited as a Comfort Woman at age 14. She is now 87 years old, and is the longest participant of the Wednesday Protests. The translation is below.

*                 *                 *

"Mom, how old am I this year?"

She said it has been eight years. I was 14 when I was taken, so I was 22. All my friends were married and left the town.

As I was being dragged around by the Japanese military and tortured, I completely forgot how many years have passed. One day, there was a commotion about liberation. I was in Bangkok, Thailand at the time, my last stop as a Comfort Woman. I took a boat with other women. We had almost nothing to eat on the boat, and it took us several months for me to come back home [which was Yangsan, Gyeongsangnam-do.] It must have been around October when I got home -- the rice field was golden and people were harvesting.

I got home, and my mother was cooking in the kitchen. She was shocked, because I turned so dark. For so long, I was raped by hundreds and thousands again and again -- how could a 14-year-old child be right? My mother was in shock also because instead of crying my eyes out, the first thing I asked was: how old was I? I didn't really forget -- I blocked out the time when I had to deal with the Japanese soldiers.

When I was 14, someone from the local government office was in town, saying there was not enough people to make the soldiers' uniform. He told me, "you should go too." I said, "How could I? I never learned to sew." Then he said, "you can learn there. Don't worry, they will send you back by the time you got old enough to get married." I said, "I might go if I go with my mom, but I don't want to go." Then he scared me: "It's what the Japanese government wants to do. If you don't go, your family will be in trouble." I was scared, so I went along.

So I was dragged all over Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand and went through hell. At first, I had hope that I would get back home they promised that they would send me back when I'm older. So I barely hung on, counting days, but they would only take me to different countries. It's not like I could speak with them. I would tell them, "please send me home. I think I'm going to die," but the damn Japanese only laughed. Nobody listened to me, so I was practically a mute. After molesting a young child like that, I thought they would say, "sorry, you can go home now" -- but no one did. Two years passed.

Afterward, I lived without counting days. I gave up trying to figure out what day was today, what year was today. I think the pain would have broken me if I was counting the days. You have no idea when the pain would end, so you just hang on one day at a time. When the sun rises, I would think: "I'm awake." When the sun sets, "I'm still alive. It would be great if I died after I fall asleep." And then I would wake up the next morning again. The pain was unspeakable. I couldn't even imagine that it would take so long.

Ms. Kim Bok-Dong (second from the left) attends a memorial of Ms. Noh Su-Bok,
a former Comfort Women. The memorial was held at the 998th Wednesday Protest,
held in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul.

I hear the 1000th Wednesday Protest is coming up. I am 87 years old. All my protest buddies died off, and now there are barely 60 some odd people. I was 68 when I first joined the protest. I was a young grandmother at that time -- I could at least stand up straight. Other grandmothers had a lot of energy too, saying "we should fight." I heard that in that January cold, women's groups were getting together to protest every week to help the old Comfort Women grandmothers. I couldn't sit still, so I was took the train up from Busan, where I was living. They already had seven protests or so. I really thought, "Alright, I'm doing this. They wouldn't just sit around if a grandmother comes out like this."

I thought I had a strong resolution, but I just burst into tears in front of the Japanese embassy. I was trembling all over. All I could do was yell. I knew I had to protest, item by item, but all I could do was scream. For the crime of being a Comfort Woman, I lived in hiding outside of my hometown for 40 years, running a tiny restaurant. I have no child who calls me mother. All I could do was yell -- just come out and look at me, look at this old grandmother, after you made me unable to live like any other woman, unable to wear a wedding garb. I had no other way. I thought these bastards would come out and say, "we're sorry grandmother, we are sorry."

But the police came and put the grandmothers' on a bus. We were crying and yelling, but they just carried us out and put us down at the City Hall square. So what? We would come back. I took the train back to Busan. I even thought in the train back, "I should see this one through. If I keep showing up, wouldn't they at least say they were sorry?" I had hope. It's not about the money. If they are human, they had to apologize.

I came up for every protest. At the 50th protest, we went to the Blue House instead. We yelled at the front gate, "Mr. President, please come out, we need to get this resolved." The police took us again to the City Hall square. At first, I really thought it would be resolved soon, as long as I kept it up. I yelled at the protest, rain or snow. Yell, taken away and let go at the City Hall and go back to Busan -- and the time passed like that.

At first, we kept count. I figured around the 100th time they would hear us out -- but no. The Japanese embassy has twenty-some odd windows. When we go, they put the curtain down and block out all the windows. They don't even peek. No matter how much we chant -- "apologies and reparations" -- they put this thief-catching cameras on the gate and hide, just looking at what those grandmothers are doing. Now I am too old to yell, so I just look at the embassy, trying to see if they at least opened up the curtain a little. I can't even stand up straight anymore, but no one would listen. It doesn't matter how much we plead and protest.

Since then, I didn't count the numbers. I couldn't live like that. Now, I just let the week pass. I would realize it's Wednesday, then I attend the protest. I get home, and think another Wednesday passed. I hang on, one week at a time.

As I was dragged around for eight years, I began drinking at age 16. I would drink whiskey and gaoliangjiou when I had to deal with the Japanese, because I could not stand being clear headed. I would smoke after dealing with a Japanese soldier, because there was no other way to take care of the anger and sorrow in my young heart. Now, after each protest I sit in my room and chain-smoke. Every Wednesday, because they won't even draw their curtains no matter how much this grandmother yells.

After I came back, my mother said I should get married, since I was 22. She thought I was at a uniform factory. I had to tell her the truth. She could only say: "How would I meet my ancestors after I die? What would I say after turning my child this way?" She said that every day, then died only six years later. The doctor said her heart was full of anger.

There is a big commotion around this 1000th protest. I am just frustrated. My cataract surgery went wrong, so I can't see out of my left eye and the image is distorted out of my right eye too. I wonder if I could see at least those embassy bastards coming out and saying, "grandmother, please don't be angry any more. We're sorry," while I can still see. I couldn't even imagine that it would take so long. Being dragged around, not being able to say anything and not being able to receive any apology -- it's the same as before. I feel so helpless. I wonder if my mother felt this helpless also.

I miss my mom all of a sudden. This can't go over the 1000th time. We can't wait much longer. I am too old now.

The second is from the blog of a woman who volunteers at the House of Sharing.

Why I’m lucky to know the Halmonis

First off, I just want to say how happy I am to see the 1,000th protest photos explode on Tumblr.  Thanks to everyone who reblogged to spread the word about this issue.  It warms my heart to know that many people have gotten to hear at least a little about these courageous women.
Next, I want to write about how grateful I am to have been able to know them for the past 2.5 years as a volunteer at the House of Sharing. These women are truly remarkable.
I’ll start with an anecdote to illustrate the attitudes these women face when they go public as survivors of “comfort stations”.  On my own FB wall, an acquaintance of an acquaintance commented (one reason you should not accept just anyone’s friend request) in regards to a post I made about going to the 1,000th protest.  He wrote something along the lines that these women need to stop employing “nationalistic rituals” in order to ask for free handouts from the Japanese government and stop distracting from Korea’s more “pressing issues” (North-South relations, rise of China, etc). Of course, this guy thinks he’s an expert in East Asian diplomacy, all because he lived in Japan for a couple of years. I don’t think I need to explain any further, right?
ㅡㅡ
And then I remembered once again how amazing these women are.  Because they hear this bullshit all the time and they are STILL fighting.  I was ready to put my head through a wall after just that brief discourse on my FB wall and it wasn’t even in reference to anything that I’ve been forced to experience.  These Halmonis have to listen to people casually discuss the THOUSANDS of rapes that they survived as if it’s a nationalistic plot or should be discarded in order to promote diplomatic relations.  This is not a pawn for strategic relations, people. These are real women - over 200,000 - who were systematically raped, beaten, tortured, and killed. And they have to listen to dickheads like this guy flippantly reduce the rapes and torture that they experienced to political maneuvering.
He also made several references to them being similar to prostitutes, that they had volunteered to work in this “comfort stations” or were paid.  Let me just make two things very clear here: First, even IF you “volunteered” to work as a prostitute (how many 11-19 year old girls in 1930’s Korea would really knowingly do that??), once they are unable to voluntarily leave their “volunteering”, once they are physically forced to stay somewhere and have sex with people against their will, it is rape.  Even IF (big if), the initially went there as a volunteer, they ceased being a volunteer and became subjected to rape when they were unable to leave at their own will, unable to refuse sex at their own will, unable to avoid physical abuse and torture at their own will.  Secondly, even though most of these women never saw a dime of the money being paid (in official Japanese military coupons, by the way), being paid by your rapist does not make you a prostitute. BEING PAID BY YOUR RAPIST DOES NOT MAKE YOU A PROSTITUTE. Let me say it again - if someone rapes me and then throws $100 at me, I am not a prostitute and you are still a rapist.
And even though they face these attitudes EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DAY, they still fight!  That is why I’m lucky to know these women.  They teach me that women’s voices matter.  That no matter how little socio-economic power we have, if we demand to be heard, we will eventually be heard!
When they were abducted and forced into “comfort stations” they were the most vulnerable members - young, poor, uneducated females - of an already vulnerable society - Korea under forced Japanese colonial rule.  And yet they have created the longest-running human rights protest in the world.  These women have been fighting for 20 years to be goddamn heard.  And people have listened.  The US, Canada, EU, Philippines, and over 25 prefectures in Japan have passed official resolutions, urging Japan to resolve this issue.  And that is powerful people.  Old, poor, uneducated women - the most underrepresented members of our international community made people hear their voices.
Then this FB guy demanded that if I was so sure that it wasn’t a nationalistic issue, I’d better be doing everything I could do to stop it “in my own backyard” (Korea), where Korean women are suffering in the same ways, but this time, not by Japanese hands.
And here’s another reason why these women are amazing.  They do exactly that. They stand in solidarity with Korean (and now also Filipina) women who were coerced to work in the 기지촌 (US military camptowns) in Korea. They fight with these women, they understand the connection between their issue and what is happening in Korea today.  One of the 기지촌 survivors actually spoke at the 1,000th protest.  Our House of Sharing International Outreach Team will be holding a workshop today with Duraebang (a shelter for Filipina women trafficked into Korea), translated by yours truly.  More info on that event: http://www.facebook.com/events/181888128565648/
Finally, I want to say of the estimated 200,000 women who were forced to work as sex slaves in “comfort stations” during WWII, approximately 150,000 were Korean women but only 234 South Korean registered officially as survivors.
Of those 234, only 63 are still living. Japan must resolve this issue, but they are literally hoping that the issue will die away with the Halmonis.

As much as I'd love to see it or support a protest (impossible with a public school timetable), I have yet to visit the House of Sharing, but this is their website for any who are interested. It doesn't look like they'll have any English tours until the new year, but they have a calendar of events for those interested in finding out, or of course you can contact them.

On a side note, one of those bizarre conversations I just had that seem to occur quite often in Korea.
Paige (my official co-teacher who I don't actually teach with, having just gotten off the phone from another teacher): Do you have any English word puzzles?
Me: What kind of puzzles?
P: Umm like a word puzzle.
Me: Er.. I don't but I can show you the program I use to make them. (Show her)
P: Oh, I meant like word scrambles.
Me: Uh, well, no I don't have any prepared. There's no program for them because scrambles aren't really complicated enough to need them. Can the teacher not make them himself since presumably he'll know what kinds of words will be needed?
P: Well, you know it's hard because we're not native English speakers... Are you sure you don't have any?
Me: Do you mean you want me to make some?
P: ... Yes.
Me: Ok. What kind? What sort of vocabulary should it use?
P: Any kind.
Me: ... Ok, well is there any special thing this is for?
P: This is for homework for students in the holidays. Mr Jeong is putting the worksheet together.
Me: So.. what kinds of words do the rest of the worksheets use? Should it be basic vocabulary or should it be something specific like feelings, weather, etc?
P: Anything.
Me: *ㅎ-ㅎ* Ok, well is it for first year or second year or what?
P: It's for students coming to our school next year. So you can use any words.

So basically the other teacher had called her and said 'get Amy to make some crud to fill the rest of the worksheets this afternoon'. Just to give you some background, they've been making these worksheets for three weeks (I saw one of my actual co-teachers working on one and discussed it). Why this had to wait until 3.40pm on a Friday I don't know. Paige tried to make it sound vaguely less ridiculous a request than it was, but still. So I ended up making it from vocabulary from the first year textbook. Unfortunately, the other teacher also didn't specify that he needed this stuff in a certain format (a program that only exists in Korea) so it didn't go entirely smoothly. I hope he didn't need it this afternoon as we both left at 4.30 :p

Anyway, that's about it. Happy picture for the weekend though^^ Have a great one people!

Cockles and clams and all things steamed^^

Spaland, Busan

Including me! Monday was a public holiday, as well as quite cold, so I spent most of it in a jjimjilbang (찜질방) with Edithe. We went to the one in Dreamplus, which was huge! Nothing like the scale of Spaland in Shinsegae Department Store in Busan that you could easily spend the whole day in, but it was pretty good all the same. First we went and had a soak in the baths, and then went to relax in the communal areas. For those of you not familiar with Korean jjimjilbang's,  they are a kind of combined bath and sauna house, which is great for those of us living in tiny one-room apartments with no bathtub (our shower is one of those on a nozzle that hangs on the wall, or in my case hand-held to stop it flooding my apartment). It's a great place to hang out too because it's one of the few places where you see lots of space, exactly for that purpose, which is a commodity on short supply in such a heavily populated country.

A pretty typical 찜질방 bath set-up

So people usually go there for the full bathing experience - first you shower yourself and have a good scrub down to get rid of that nasty top layer of skin (you can buy little glove things for this purpose and rely on a friend or neighbour to do your back for you, or pay an old woman to do it for you, assuming you want EVERYTHING scrubbed down to that last nook and cranny - beware though, your skin CAN get addicted to this so once you start doing it you kind of need to keep doing it again every so often), then go for a nice soak in one of a number of baths. There are always baths of at least three temperatures: cold, tepid and piping hot, just like the Roman bath system, and sometimes there will be extra baths with special water, like salt-water or mineral-enriched water etc. The one at Dreamplus was an odd dark yellow colour and the sign just said it was an "event bath" (i.e. they change the type every so often) so we didn't brave it, and the "massage bath" didn't work, disappointingly, but we gave the other three a good work out, changing between them and the sauna rooms every so often.

And yes, you ARE expected to be completely naked in these places. In fact, you're likely to get roused on if you try and wear anything in. But really, at least you can stare back at people if they stare at you, and nobody really cares - everyone's seen at least one naked person before in their lives (assuming everyone knows how to look down!) and unless you freak out and act weird or have some weird gigantic piercing or a massive tattoo, no-one's likely to even pay you any attention.

Must figure out how to make these ram hat things!

Anyway, after the cleansing, you put on the short and shirt they give you and move into the communal areas. Earlier on, we'd almost walked out there butt naked as we'd been nattering away and not really paying attention to where we were going, but luckily a(nother naked) woman had stopped us and directed us to the baths instead. Here you can do whatever you like - most people just lie around and snooze, chat, read or watch tv, but there is also usually a restaurant, a massage place, a snack shop (unless you're somewhere like Spaland with very high tech keys that also track your bill, don't forget to take money with you if you want to buy anything) and the communal (non-naked) saunas of varying temperatures. At Spaland these are over a whole floor and half a mezzanine level and include things like the Pyramid Room and the Sonic Vibration Room, but at the Dreamplus things were a bit less complicated, so there was just the Ice-Room, the Salt-Stone Room, the Charcoal Room and the Gem Room, which we went into as it was a moderate 40 something degrees, and had crystals embedded in the ceiling. Our sotto-voce chatting was apparently too loud though as the only other occupant there who'd appeared to be asleep started snoring quite ostentatiously after about 15 minutes so we didn't linger, but went back to the communal area to read magazines and gossip with the others.

Michelle considering how much food we'll have to eat

So it was a very relaxing afternoon - so relaxing in fact that we missed our perfect bus that would have gotten us home in 20 minutes and instead had to take the regular 40 minute one and didn't even care. But get home eventually I did and went off to have dinner with Michelle. We decided to try chogae-guii (조개구이), or roasted mussels, which we'd both heard about before but never had the opportunity to try. We went to a place called Chogae Gung ('The Mussel Palace') and after some discussion with the waiters (who were very confused and then intrigued that we weren't fully Korean and thus didn't know what all of the things on the menu were) ordered the basic 조개구이 set menu for 33 000 won. And yes, that IS a lot for a meal in Korea, but it soon became apparent why - we got at least four different types of shellfish cooked for us at our table, as well as coleslaw, gyeran jjim (계란찜 - steamed egg soup), miyokguk (미역국 - seaweed soup) and  pajeon (파전 - savoury shallot pancake). The different shellfish included some gigantic mussels, cockles (called 조개비 or chogaebi), scallops (called 가리비 or caribi), and some others that I didn't recognise but were basically delicious! Most were grilled, some were steamed (in that foil parcel you can see) and some were even chopped up and put into a cheese ddokbokki for us. Here are some photos of our delicious dinner.

So all in all a very steamy and successful public holiday! Oh and then yesterday I got to school to find a 'bribe' of custard filled pastries on my desk from the third year girls who want me to help them with their English study group. How sweet!^^

 

Birthdays and Visas

Just in case you get the wrong idea dear readers, and anyone else who stumbles across my poor pittance of a blog looking for a description of life in Korea as an English teacher, class 1-5 yesterday was behaving worse than usual. They're normally just noisy, and in fact there's only one student that I've had to repeatedly tell not to take his clothes off and he's not in that class.

On the other side of the scales, some of my other students are very sweet! Especially the second year girls, probably because a) they're lovely! b) because I had a really excellent and gentle co-teacher for classes with them last year, so our classes were always pretty good and c) they are, for the most part, high level students, and even the ones that aren't particularly good at English are still fairly enthusiastic, so there were about 12 of them that joined my lunch-time 'Super Duper' free-conversation English club that I ran once a week. And really even the second year boys aren't as bad as the first years, in general, because even though they try to pull a lot of the same bollocks and are of course very noisy, there are still a lot who genuinely want to do well or enjoy studying English. So don't get the wrong idea; not all of my students are little hellraisers. Case in point about the girls, yesterday one of them, Jae-Eun, invited me to her birthday party on Saturday. I thought it was a rather sweet gesture, and apologised since I had planned to go to Daegu on Saturday. Her answer? "Ok, you go to Daegu first in morning, then come to my party afternoon! At my house! I give you address!" Her friend Yeon-Hee (another favourite of mine) interjected with "Amy is busy! BUSY!" Haha^^ Anyway, I had to mollify Jae-Eun with a promise of a 'birthday present' on Friday, and by singing 'Happy Birthday' to her in the staffroom (to mixed reviews: all the other teachers ignored us, Jae-Eun looked rapt, and Yeon-Hee put her fingers in her ears). And of course I'm going to make the whole class sing it to her today too, since we don't have class next week thanks to Chuseok (the Autumn Harvest Festival). Knowing Jae-Eun, she'll probably stand up and conduct the entire class, haha^^

Anyway, apart from that, I have some real information too for anyone looking for such. As some of you may know or be interested in knowing, adoptees can now get dual citizenship, entitling us to many things that are hard to manoueveur around when you're on the foreigner's short-term employment E-2 visa such as a credit card, websites, getting loans, buying a house, etc, or even getting a darn smartphone if you are that way inclined. However, getting this is a bit complicated, and as far as I can tell, to get it you need to be on an F-4 visa, which is tricky enough in the first place. Here is the link to a document detailing how you get said F-4 visa on the GOAL (Global Overseas Adoptees Link) website which also very kindly offers to help adoptees applying for dual citizenship, including free translation of documents for members.

And no, I don't have the F-4 visa, because it was so much work to organise (and yes, I am incredibly lazy), but I think I am going to make an appointment with someone at the Immigration Office or the Australian Embassy in Seoul just to see what's what and if there's some magical way not mentioned on the internet that I can apply for it from an E-2 visa. I'd still rather hold dual citizenship with England, but with all the bureaucracy crud and bollocks you have to go through to get anything done in Korea as a foreigner (especially as a foreigner with a long-ass name like mine that doesn't fit into a bunch of internet form name boxes), it's definitely worth looking into. Also, and I'm not saying that I'm going to, if I did have it and I'm ever teaching here again, I could walk away from my job if I hated it without risking being deported.

So anyhoo, hope that provides a nice and informative start to your collective Tuesdays. I'm feeling a bit down today for various reasons, but fingers crossed that the rest of the day is all sunshine and puppies :)

A response to a theoretical situation reflecting Korean family life

Me: if your apartment was on fire in a contained way that affected no other apartments in your block (had to change this from 'house' after too many arguments), and you could only save one thing, what would it be?
Gi-Hwan: My mother.
Me: What about your father? You wouldn't take him too?
Gi-Hwan: No, because he would be at work.

Good point.

Oh and just for the record, class with 2-6, while still moderately stressful, was actually what I would consider good! We got through all the work and only had to stay back 5 minutes after class ended and lunch started to wring three word answers out of two boys. Eun-Jong is still a nightmare (he spent ten minutes trying to hold the hand of the boy sitting next to him, got up and tried to walk out of the class 25 minutes in, and screeched like a hawk at the top of his voice) but I only had to tell him off three times which must be a new record. I think part of this is because it's become a bit of a class joke about how often I tell him off, so everytime I yell "EUN-JONG!", the rest of the class does it too at the top of their voices. Anyway, I now have no more classes today, so I'm going to try and study my Korean, classes for which are starting again this Saturday (10am - 12pm at the Cheongju YMCA)... and possibly watch an episode of Jersey Shore. teehee^^

Serious post of the day - Seoul Slutwalk 2011

Reblogged from Roboseyo, 18th of July 2011

SlutWalk Seoul 2011

(possibly from here... anybody have an ORIGINAL original source?) (from here)

A police officer in Toronto said that women should protect themselves from rape by avoiding dressing like sluts. Toronto's feminist community called bullshit on victim-blaming, an all-too-prevalent attitude in assault safety discussions, and organized a response called "SlutWalk" -- a group of women dressed like "sluts" and walked through the streets of Toronto carrying signs, to raise awareness that those attitudes are really not cool, and possibly to reclaim the word "slut."

Since then, SlutWalk has spread to other cities, and it appeared in Seoul last Saturday, July 16, 2011.

I attended in solidarity, because I strongly believe that the idea needs to be introduced, championed, and spread, that it doesn't matter what a woman wears: nothing even remotely justifies sexual assault, and focusing on what a woman should do to avoid the attack implicitly acquits men (and other would-be attackers) of their responsibility to not be rapists, which is where every discourse about sexual assault should begin and end: with better education of what rape is, and what the consequences are, until the slogan "No means no" jumps to the lips of 20-year olds as quickly as other slogans, like "don't drink and drive."

The proceedings for Slutwalk Seoul started at 2pm. I joined up near Gwanghwamun at 4 - demonstrations aren't allowed in Gwanghwamun Square proper - during a welcome pause in the intermittent downpours in Seoul that day. There were speeches, some songs, a non-verbal performance, and then a march down to Deoksugung palace, in front of which there was a dance, and then a return to Gwanghwamun.

The SlutWalk crew moved on to Hongdae, where I was a little too wet and cold to catch up with them, though I met with a few of my feminist and/or supportive friends, including The Grand Narrative (from whom I found out about SlutWalk Korea) and Popular Gusts, for some burgers and drinks afterwards.


signs were carried, slogans were shouted.

At the event, there were almost as many cameras as demonstrators, and rain concerns may have caused the "costumes" or "slut" outfits to be less extreme than they might have been at other slutwalks; however, the crowd was enthusiastic, and people were generally OK with the different people who'd come - including males with cameras.

They ran out of the red ribbons which indicated a person didn't want to be photographed, so I can only publish pictures I took where no faces show... in that respect, the rain and face-obscuring umbrellas turned out to be a boon... and even if it hadn't rained, the point of going wasn't to take lots of pictures of women dressed like "sluts" anyway -- that'd kind of be missing part of the point of the event, that self- objectification for the male/appraising gaze is not the reason for the event, nor the reason women dress the way they do when they go out.


Here's a link that includes a video made by the Hankyoreh.


body-paint was used to interesting effect.

Why did I especially like this event? Two main reasons:

1. Because it was planned and promoted by Koreans for Koreans - the blog and the twitter account and the poster were all Korean only, and I think it's awesome that Korean women are speaking with their own voice.

2. Because when sexual assault comes up in Korea, even in my classes (I like bringing a lesson based on this article into my discussion classes), the discourses I've heard have overwhelmingly focused on the victim's side -- "she shouldn't wear short skirts" "she should not drink too much" "she should use the buddy system" -- what the woman did to bring her attack on -- and barely brought the attacker's side into it (things like stiffer punishments or public awareness campaigns). Overwhelmingly skewing the discourse toward the victim's responsibilities eventually results in an atmosphere of complicity and maybe even enabling, for would-be attackers, in which they figure they can get away with it, if she's drunk enough, or dressed sexy enough, because that's what they always hear when sex attacks are in the news anyway.

Blaming a rape on a short skirt is like blaming a pedestrian hit by a drunk driver for using the crosswalk. Especially in Korea, where short skirts are just about the norm.

I'm strongly of the opinion that for every time somebody says "she shouldn't dress that way" somebody should say "she has the right to dress how she likes and not be attacked for it" and "it's on the attacker's head" twice, and for every dollar spent promoting the former idea, two should be spent on the latter, and so forth. So that no sex attack ever happens again because somebody simply didn't understand, or hadn't had it impressed strongly enough upon them during that one class during high school, where the law draws the line.

It reads something kind of like this: "Sorry my body's not beautiful. Ha ha ha. -From an unsexy slut"

SlutWalk has, predictably, been controversial in many places where it's occurred, and I'd like to touch on a few of those controversies.

1. Maybe SlutWalk makes sense in Canada, where it was invented, but it's not culturally appropriate for Korea.

A journalist asked me if I thought this was an appropriate kind of demonstration for Korean culture, which (by asking it of a foreigner) turned into a kind of loaded question, given that the event was planned by Koreans: I think Korean women should be free to express themselves however they want. Cultural appropriacy doesn't come into it when a. people raised in this culture made the choice to express themselves this way, b. cultures change all the time, and c. some cultures systematically suppress women's rights, and ignore women's voices.

Deoksugung gate. Note the boys dressed as sluts.

2. Isn't this a pretty shocking and outrageous way of starting discussion about this issue?

Maybe it is... but sometimes controversy gets people talking in a way that doesn't happen when one minds their p's and q's, and sometimes something a little brash is needed to capture public attention. A hundred women walking past city hall in lingerie counts as such.

And especially in women's issues, where part of the problem is that women are programmed that being loud, and demanding their rights is unladylike, imprudent, or not "demure" the way a good filial daughter and dutiful wife should be, I'm all for women getting angry, and loud, until middle-aged, male middle-managers feel ashamed to say "well I think women's rights have come far enough in Korea because women have taken over every entry-level position in my district office, and I can't find a single man at the entry-level to promote into division manager," and until women feel empowered enough to confront them on actually believing Korea's come far enough when Korea's Gender Empowerment Measure was woefully low in the last year it was measured (61st of 109 in 2009 - shockingly low when compared to its very HIGH Human development index (26th in the world).)  (for the record, yes, Korea does better when you include women's access to quality healthcare and education here)

Sometimes a vanguard comes along with a pretty strident message, and acts as the shock troops for an important idea. After they've put the idea out there, it becomes OK to talk about it, where before people just changed the subject. Once it becomes OK to talk about it, very smart, less brazen voices (hopefully) appear to present the idea in a way that is palatable to those who feel accused and attacked by the stridency of the vanguard. Over time, idea enters the mainstream. I'm OK with that process taking place. I'm OK with there being a noisy vanguard for important ideas. I'm OK with some screeching about important ideas, especially because marginalized populations are marginalized because people don't listen to them: clearing their throat and raising their hand and saying please hasn't worked.

I liked this boy's sign.




3. But isn't it true that women who dress that way are dressing that way because they want men to look at them? Why would a woman dress like that if she wasn't looking for sex?

Hmm. Something I've learned: despite how I like to think the world is aligned, it's not always about men.

There are any number of reasons a woman might dress up nicely/sexy (and let's not forget that what's sexy to one person may be absolutely modest to another):

1. To pick up other women
2. To impress other women
3. To make their friends jealous
4. To make their boyfriends jealous
5. To display status
6. For their own damn selves
7. To feel more confident
8. To enjoy being admired by other women
9. To enjoy being admired (and only admired) by men
10. To balance feeling bad by looking good
11. To show off those bitchin' new heels she just bought, the sixteen pounds she finally lost, the hairstyle she's been waiting to try, or the great (name accessory) she got as a gift
12. To live out a Sex And The City, or similar, fantasy she has
13. Because of a bet she won or lost
14. Because going out and flirting with boys or girls helps her forget something that's bothering her
15. Because most women dress that way at the place where she's going
16. Because she was raised to believe looks were the only important thing
17. Because she was taught that sexual attractiveness is the best way for women to gain power over men
18. Because she grew up in a culture where people judge women who don't dress up and look good as "lazy" (I've had a man say that in class)
19. To attract the attention of men, because she wants to talk to men
20. Because she likes getting free drinks when she goes out (jeez. I'd dress in a tube top and high heeled boots if it meant I drank for free every Friday night. Wouldn't you?)
21. To turn on the boyfriend/boyfriend prospect who came out with her that night
22. To advertise she's looking to make whoopie with some guy she meets that night

That's twenty-two I thought of just now, and I'm not even a woman, and only one of them invites a proposition from a stranger who was ogling her across the room.

I wasn't catching every word, but the point of the event wasn't man-hating, as far as I could tell. I had an interesting conversation with a journalist about it, and the fact is, this is a really complex issue with a lot of variables...

1. There are any number of ways women can dress and behave, for any number of reasons (see above)
2. There are any number of ways that dress and behavior can be interpreted by the (usually male) observer (though too many automatically assume reason 22, and act accordingly)
3. There are any number of ways a male can act on their interpretation of a woman's dress and behavior
4. There are any number of ways that male's behavior can be interpreted by the woman he approaches

And clearly some things are out of line from the start, but there are others - certain types of compliments, certain types of eye (or not-eye) contact, and other kinds of movement and attention, that can be easily misinterpreted, on either side, at numerous points in the interaction... and it's unfortunate that the amount of alcohol flowing increases the chance signals will be misread.

But in the end, it'd be great if responsibility for those misreadings and misunderstandings were blamed equally on the dudes thinking with their one-eyed trouser-snakes (that's penises, y'all), as on the ladies who supposedly "brought it on themselves." And until responsibility for those misreadings and misunderstandings is shared by both sides, and moreover, until it is recognized that men are capable of better than acting on every sexual urge that comes along, and thus share more responsibility, women have a reason to hold slutwalks, and whatever other demonstrations bring these issues back to the forefront, where people have to be confronted by them**, and think about them, and hear ideas they don't necessarily agree with, that might force them to change some of their ideas.

And that's the point of SlutWalk, to me.





**I'm lucky, as a man, because for me, these issues are things that I can touch on from time to time, read about at my leisure, and comment on when it suits me. It's not something that confronts me every time I dress up to go out, or get leered at in a bar; it's not something that casts a bit of suspicion and even fear on every night out, or every up-and-down I get from a stranger. I'm lucky to be able to approach the topic so academically, because I've never in my life felt like I'm three, or two, or even one decision from being raped. And the fact I haven't, and many males in these conversations haven't, means (I think) that some of us wildly misjudge what's at stake for others taking part in the conversation, because they, or someone they love, was. Because I'm not confronted by these issues every Friday night, I'm still learning about them. Somewhere stewing in me is a post, or maybe a series, about why these discussions get so fraught, and dramatic, and (frankly) ugly, when people go beyond preaching to the choir... but for now, suffice it to say I know I'm in a lucky spot, to be approaching the topic so casually. That bears on everything I write about it.



Comment moderation is on. I don't like deleting comments, but I also don't like trolls, flames, misogyny, misanthropy (that'd be man-hating) and general disrespectfulness of either the host (me), women, men, or other commenters.

And by the way: If you're about to go into the comments and say that "Yes, well, it's still true that women should be careful etc. etc."

To save you some time, I know. I never said otherwise. Everybody in the presence of strangers should use their smarts. Public awareness campaigns can help people who don't understand their choices, or who wrongly think their justifications are enough, but they won't stop pure predators. I know that, and I'm not saying parents and teachers should stop teaching would-be victims to get reckless... I AM saying that message should be a distant second to "Don't sexually assault people" in emphasis, but right now I don't think it is.

 

The only thing I disagreed with in Roboseyo's post was his list of reasons why women may dress 'like sluts' sometimes - number six, "for their own damn selves" should have been number one (so not really disagreeing). As to my own opinion, I think that this is a great idea. And, it has to be said, it seems like it was done pretty well in Seoul without being too strident which unfortunately often seems to be an excuse for media to write protests and shock-value campaigns off as overreaction, which can make it more difficult to get taken seriously by the people that it actually targets. It was also great to see so much male support in what Roboseyo rightly points out is a country with a terrible record for gender equality. Anyway, that's the serious post for the day. Might have a crack at translating some song lyrics later.

미안해!!!! (Sorry!)

 

 The Super Junior boys (a.k.a. the biggest boy band ever) singing "쏘리 쏘리" ("Sorry Sorry"). And yes, there are that many of them in the band!

It seems like I start most of my posts this way these days with an apology for my extreme laziness and lack of recent posting, and this isn't going to be any different. In my defence, I've been rather busy lately, not with anything particularly onerous, just the time-consuming business of having friends that I actually want to spend time with, so it's a busyness I'm rather glad to have ^^

This past weekend was a long weekend for Memorial Day yesterday (Monday, 6th of June) so I had a rather glorious time in Busan where I saw some baseball, drank (way too much) beer, went to the beach, ate hwaedopbap (회덮밥 - cold sashimi bibimbap) and (briefly) saw some of my lovely Busan buddies! Since it was a long weekend and the weather has been lovely and summery recently, and there was a Sand Festival at Haeundae, a lot of Cheongju people actually ended up there and weirdly enough many of us ended up congregating on the beach at around 11pm on Saturday night drinking beer, doing cartwheels in the sand and generally enjoying not being in Cheongju. Photos will be posted with greater details later (since I have less after school classes this week I might actually have time to post regularly! Hope you don't get sick of me this week dear readers! ㅋㅋㅋ) I also got a bit tanned (nothing like at home) so it was lovely^^

Anyway, apart from that, I also wanted to share a few interesting posts that I read recently. The first is one from the blog A New Yorker in Seoul that all foreigners coming to Korea should probably be told to read upon moving in before you get ideas about legal rights etc settled into your dumb foreign head, and it's especially helpful to know this if you are a foreign English teacher whose contract runs right up until the start date of the new year and whose school will probably want to bring in your replacement before your contract technically ends. Basically, a contract means diddly-squat. You. Will. Be. Screwed. Over. If they think they can get away with it (and they will really push it). I read this and immediately realised that I'm going to have to rethink my move-out plans even more than I had after seeing some friends last year go through this! Lara, Gerri and Neil, I think you'll find this resonates very closely to your last day in Cheongju!

**Gah, update. Gotta love last minute Korean-style plans, along the lines of "Do you have any plans? Because this is the plan that we have made for you that we expect you to attend in an hour's time. So your plans are now moot. Please cancel them." Dinner plans with Edi and Mr Smiley (co-teacher I have nicknamed that because he has only JUST started smiling at me at school, despite the fact that we have hung out quite a few times. And by smile I mean the tiniest possible lift at the corners of his mouth, flashed across his face like a squirrel on speed) and Om (yes, he's tall and has a deep voice so he's like Terry Pratchett's Om in Small Gods at his peak) are possibly still on, as the school admin people are promising to have me home by then, but I guess my plans of going to the gym and generally getting off my big fat butt are not. Oh well - this is why you should always go to the gym when you have the time to, (which was yesterday, instead of drinking vodka with Ead and scandalising her neighbours by sunbathing on her roof in bikinis) and not put it off until later. My bad.

The way a typical school dinner plan is made, a la Coree.

uh-oh

I think one of my co-teachers is annoyed with me. When we were talking about heroes I told our class that Mother Teresa was born in Albania, and I didn't realise she'd been telling them that she was Indian Brahmin. Needless to say they got very upset because I wouldn't give them any class points (since it wasn't a correct answer) and we had to start talking about someone else very quickly.

Ok - so obviously it's not good for teachers to contradict each other, that goes without saying. BUT. Even before I knew where she was from, I knew Mother Teresa wasn't Indian, she just lived and worked there for most of her life. It's pretty obvious from just looking at a picture of her, even a picture of her as an old woman (which most of them are) that she's not Indian, as racial features - heck, all features really - get less distinctive as we age. But anyway, somewhat tangentially (is that a word? It is now!) the whole thing made me realise once again just how multicultural Australia must seem to people, even though those of us living there know that while we have a lot of ethnic diversity, this doesn't necessarily preclude us from being an extremely racist country. And just to clarify, unless you're a complete idiot, you know that racism doesn't just mean white people hating non-white people and multiculturalism doesn't just mean you eat Chinese takeaway once in a while. Unless you live in an extremely small country town, by the tine we grow up, most of us can tell the difference between Indian and Filipino, know that Europe is a continent, not a country, and have eaten something more exotic than Teriyaki chicken at least once in our lives. Most of this is due to the fact that everyone in Australia except Aborigines is either an immigrant or descended from one (well, two to be biologically accurate). Korea doesn't have that. Even though it's pretty centrally located, as indicated by centuries of occupation, colonisation and general warfare for ground, for the majority of the world it's still a mystery. It's not somewhere that people know and automatically think "I'd like to go there someday" - it's somewhere they go either completely by chance (e.g. people looking to teach English who use recruiters and exchange students) or because they have some sort of connection with the country like family. Even though there's a large military presence (...) and there's been an increase in the number of South Asian immigrants here as wives or workers, there still isn't a lot of racial diversity and not much general knowledge amongst the population about other countries. Similiarly, even though a lot more people get the chance to travel these days, those of you who are familiar with the Korean travelling style (a whirlwind tour done with other Koreans, speaking in Korean most of the time and eating Korean food as much as possible) will know that it doesn't always give the most accurate impression of a country. Which is not to say that there aren't Koreans who don't take genuine interests in other countries, travel independently and can go for weeks at a time without rice or kimchi, and that people from other cultures don't do the "I don't actually travel outside of my own head" thing either (Aussies in Bali anyone?). This is just a generalisation. Hee~ :D

At any rate, the racial thing is actually one of the paradoxes of living in Korea for me - even though I look pretty much like the majority of the population and here I can be just part of the crowd for once, unless I keep my mouth shut and dress to the princess standard, I kind of stand out more than I do at home in Thirroul, which is a small and VERY white suburb. As someone who is ethnically Korean and who doesn't have any tattoos or weird hair I'm obviously not as sensational as much as some other foreigners, but I still wasn't raised Korean, I still don't have any Korean mannerisms (that I'm aware of) and I still don't carry myself the same way or have the same facial expressions as everyone else. So for someone like me, unless you're in Seoul, you still stand out and people WIL stop and stare at you in the street. Or stop you in the street to have a chat about the Bible. Or ask you about your life story and give you their opinion on why you should/shouldn't track down your birth parents (taxi ajosshis). Or goggle at you from their car windows as they careen through intersections because they find you more interesting than red lights, pedestrians or other vehicles.

Anyway, I find this double standard of obscurity/celebrity ... well, curious. It's a bit hard to call something interesting when it also means unwanted attention. If I'm a bit tired or having a bad day, sometimes I don't even say hi to my students if I see them in the street, I'll just smile and wave because I don't feel like having everyone turn and stare at me or try to start a conversation about random stuff when I have somewhere to be.

More after lunch.

So I was reading The Grand Narrative, one of my favourite blogs on sexuality and gender in Korea from back in my Honours days, and the issue of male prostitution in Korea through 'host bars' came up. (By the way - is it just me or do all of the men on the sign for the Japanese bar at the bottom look like the same man or maybe two or three men at most with different hairstyles?) Now this is interesting, because as a foreigner in Korea who has some Korean-American friends with experience in Korean culture, I heard about 'booking clubs' fairly early on. Sorry to my Korean-American buddies by the way, but it's true! Maybe all of my Korean friends are too straight-laced, or think I am, but I've never heard anything about booking clubs from Koreans unless I've brought it up myself and directly asked them about it. A 'booking club' or 'night-u club' (as opposed to a plain club where you go to dance) is basically a place you go with the expectation of meeting someone. Don't get me wrong - this doesn't necessarily mean you and everyone you meet there are expecting sex (unless you are somewhere very seedy). You might just be out for a fun night of flirting and or dancing with your friends, and in places like Cheongju the 'night-u clubs' are actually pretty much the only places you can go to dance anyway because there is only one (very dodgy) dance club.

This is usually how it goes: you pay the entry fee and go in. You have to buy a table or a room and some drinks. If you are a woman and it's a fairly busy club, sometimes you don't have to pay the door fee, and you usually just get a table and a round of beer (the cheapest alcohol) because you wouldn't expect to be there for very long - only until you get 'booked'. If you are a man, you would usually buy a bottle of alcohol like whiskey or vodka, and some anju (안주 or 'bar food' that you are normally expected to buy when you buy alcohol anywhere you go). If you are there to really just have fun with your friends you'll probably get a room so that you can sing karaoke and don't have to scream over the house music to talk to your friends. This also means you'll probably get more girls or at least more attractive ones because that's how the waiters make tips - in booking clubs, you aren't supposed to find people yourself, you ask the waiters to do it for you. And this is probably what keeps booking clubs relatively un-dodgy - the fact that you don't have to take the plunge and make the first move yourself and that when the waiter brings a girl to your table, you know that they will talk to you, if only for as long as their drink lasts. It's also in the waiters' and clubs' interests not to let anything too crazy happen, as their reputations and jobs are at risk if it does. Which is not to say that they can't get damn pushy about it. Booking clubs are all about men meeting women so it's the waiter's job to find as many attractive girls as possible for the men to flirt with and if you're there it's assumed you want to flirt too, but for many it's a bit of a giggle, and still a bit daunting to be all by yourself so girls will usually go in packs - if a waiter grabs one girl, he's also usually grabbing her friends too because they'll have immediately gripped onto each other like a line of crabs. Once at the chosen table or in the room, it's etiquette that you stay for at least one drink. One of my friends told me that she once tried to leave immediately after being shoved into a room by herself, and the waiter held onto the doorknob on the other side and laughed at her trying to get out. Technically, you can say 'no' if a waiter tries to pull you off by yourself, but they can also pretend not to hear you, or take some dramatic and very sneaky measures - for example, when I went to my first booking club with about four other people, one of whom wasn't even 17, and a waiter tried to pull her off by herself, of course we all immediately said no. Seeing that it was a no-go, but not wanting to take all five of us, he pretended it was ok and then led us on a roundabout way to one of the rooms. On the way, as we walked through a hallway, another waiter with a large group of girls walked through us and as if by magic, a bunch of other waiters appeared and grabbed different people from our group and dragged us off in separate directions. Co-incidence? I think not. Luckily I grabbed someone else's hand so we were ok together, but it took us a while to find everyone else after we'd had our obligatory drink and politely excused ourselves.

Anyway, that's basically it. If you're an obvious foreigner (i.e. white or black) and not in Seoul, then you might have some trouble getting booked, as we found out a couple of weekends ago at Castle, one of the Cheongju night clubs. I actually broke the rules on that one since our waiters weren't too concerned about helping us out and went up to some guys myself and brought them back to our table to flirt with my lovely friend visiting from Busan (who'd never been to a night club before). But SOMEONE ELSE (you know who you are!) immediately stole the cutest one and then the other one clammed up when he found out my friend didn't speak Korean so my stint as pimp-waiter was a bit of a failure. But we got to dance (and I got to practice my Korean) so it was still good fun. Oh and one of my friends who was with us and is an English teacher at one of the universities here also ran into some of her students so it was probably good we didn't stay for more than a couple of hoursㅋㅋㅋ

Anyway, so booking clubs are interesting facets of Korean culture. Keep in mind that in Korea, although people are very casual about talking to strangers if they feel they have something in common (e.g. you often see ajummas chatting to each other like old friends about their children or problems with their health or what have you when they've only just met by sitting next to each other on the bus), but can be very shy about talking to their crush, which is why a lot of relationships start through mutual friends introducing people here. And back to the other interesting part - that is, the point of my post - which is the other side of booking clubs: host clubs. These are basically the same but the other way around, and for women to flirt with men. Judging from the tone of The Grand Narrative's article and this post by an American girl living in Korea who was curious and decided to check it out for herself, it doesn't seem like men go there of their own volition to flirt and have a laugh like women go to booking clubs. What does that tell you about men the world over? (Sorry to the nice men out there ^_^)

I think I'll stick to dog-cafes instead :p

****ADDENDUM: I asked a friend about host bars and she said that it's mostly hookers and hostesses who go there, i.e. women who have to spend all their time fawning over the men. I'm pretty sure the American girl living in Korea was neither of those things, so it's obviously not entirely them, but I guess it makes sense that the hard working ladies like being pampered too occasionally. She also said that there's a service where you can call someone to run to the grocery store for you and bring it to your house if you don't want to go outside or whatever, but again, it's mostly used by 'ladies of the evening' (but presumably also by day) that are trying not to interrupt business by making a 7-11 run for cigarettes and soju etc. And no, I don't know how she knows these things when she's spent the last 8 years living in Sydney.