Merry Wednesday Good Gentlefolk!

Apparently a middle school student died recently in Cheongju after getting into a fight with another students/other students. Has anyone else heard anything about this? My co-teacher told me about it on Tuesday, after one of her homeroom students ended up in hospital with a possible broken rib after being punched in the chest by another student and finding it hard to breathe (he turned out to be ok). I think she said it was at Seo-Gyeong Middle School but I'm not sure - she might have said Seo-Gyo or Seo-Hyeon. Which brings to mind the stabbing incident at my school last year - I can't remember if I blogged about this or not (I certainly should have if I didn't), but last year after the movie "아저씨" ("Ajosshi" or in it's English title "The Man From Nowhere") came out which features a lot of violence, apparently it became popular amongst the second year boys to mimic the stuff done in the movie. To this end, one of them brought a knife to school (I think, or he could have been using his craft knife which all students quite ridiculously have and are allowed to carry around at all times, even when they aren't using them in any subjects, to semi-disastrous results) and was mock-stabbing his classmates. And of course, ended up actually stabbing one of them, sending the stabbed student to hospital for stitches and making the student who stabbed him have a panic attack and start crying because he genuinely thought he'd killed his friend. Which I guess was quite a smart move (although involuntary) because it made it harder to punish him for it since he was already mid-nervous breakdown. And then of course there was the incident with Jin-Seon. Don't get the wrong idea, it's not always the boys - the first year girls have been in trouble for going to visit their friends at other schools and starting scrag-fights there too, where apparently the go-to move is scratching up each other's faces. *Sigh* Teenagers.

Anyway, today is my last day of regular school before my winter camps start. I'm taking tomorrow and Friday off to use up my holiday days since they don't get paid out if I don't use them, and am overjoyed at the prospect of never having to teach my Thursday and Friday classes again (a jubilation that has lasted since last week). Hooray! Today I also only had one class with my favourite 1st graders - the "super-smart" class (my co-teacher's nickname for them). But unfortunately I completely stuffed up on that one - our timetables got changed so I had them first period instead of sixth (I normally wouldn't have class until 3rd period anyway), and wouldn't you know it, but I turned my phone off last night (so losing the alarm on it) and forgot to set my clock alarm, so I didn't wake up until 8.53am, 33 minutes AFTER I was supposed to be at school and 3 minutes AFTER my first class was supposed to start. On any other day it wouldn't have mattered but of course today... *double sigh* It's official - I'm a cotton-headed ninny muggins (I've been watching "Elf" with some of my students ㅋㅋ). Luckily my co-teacher knew that I wouldn't do something like that on purpose and wasn't angry - it's also her homeroom group so they were fine.

놈놈놈 (nom nom nom, haha^^)

I guess it's really a pretty typical way of ending my school year - violence and tardiness, although it's a nice change that it's me being late for once and not my students. If it was any other class than my good class I might still have wandered in 20 minutes late, just to be a jerk and interrupt their movie, since they do it to me all the time. Anyway, I better get going with finishing stuff for my winter camps! I have 20 hours of conversation class across the first two weeks, then 10 hours of a teacher's class and 10 hours of a students' class in the third week so I'll be pretty busy. And after last year, this time I know for sure not to be stupid enough to tell the VP or Principal about the class magazine/newspaper we're making, no matter how proud I am of my students :) Oh and it's 오징어덮밥 (ojing-eo deopbap, as in the picture above), which I love, with egg and vegetable soup (계란야채국) - which I also love! - and chocolate cake for lunch because it's Wednesday, so hooray!

Oh and one last reason to be happy: Ryan also has the day off on Friday! At least I hope so - if he doesn't I'm going to turn up at his hagwon, take a kitchen knife out of my bag and sit there glaring angrily at his boss while I stroke the knife blade for the whole day. A bit of a complicated story there that I won't go into, but it basically involves his boss dicking around and telling the Korean teachers that they had Friday off, then didn't, getting angry that they assumed they did, and then telling them that they DID have the day off and he was faking it to encourage them to work harder. Hi-LAR-ious, no?

Anyway, now that he apparently DOES actually have the day off, we can do what we had planned to do which is go to Deoksan to the Reesom Spa Castle, which is a warm water theme park, and then stay at this cute pension which has a jacuzzi in the room! How awesome is that?? Ryan originally tried to book us a place that had the in-room jacuzzi outside because he knows that I like outdoor spas, but since it will be the New Year's weekend places are pretty full up, so we couldn't find one that was free and also not horrendously expensive (like more than 400 000 won). And then I'm going down to Busan to meet up with my favourite ladies, including the Cheongju posse and my KBFF II, for what I'm sure will be an amazing NYE! So it will be a very exciting three day weekend ^_^

Oh and I'm meeting one of Ryan's sisters on Sunday for an early dinner/late lunch before she heads back to Seoul on the KTX and we go back to Cheongju, so wish me luck! I'm obviously going to have to go easy the night before so I don't look like I just fell out of a tree on Sunday when I meet her, haha :p

Anyway, happy Wednesday everyone! Hope you're having a delicious lunch today, if not a brilliant day :)

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!

HAPPY 추석 EVERYONE!

Ms Yun, one of my co-teachers, is one of the sweetest people I've ever met! She's always the one who looks out for me, gives me snacks and drinks between classes when she thinks I'm getting tired or thirsty, hunts down medicine for me if I'm sick and being obstinate about going to the doctor, bullies me into actually going to the doctor, and actually tells me about changes to my schedhule. Sure, she says some weird stuff sometimes, but it's always because she's trying to give me good advice, despite the age difference and generation gap - for example, warning me that if I go out at night to Chungdae (one of the university areas and the main drinking area in Cheongju), I should catch a taxi home rather than a bus because there can be dangerous people on buses and I might get mugged. I didn't have the heart to tell her that the buses have usually stopped running a good few hours before. She's also the one who has been trying to reassure me (unsuccessfully) over the past few weeks that tanning is actually popular in Korea these days amongst the very rich (not because I said anything, I must just have started getting darker over summer). Anyway, the sudden declaration of this affection has good cause - she just brought me a huge box of songpyeon, sweet rice cakes filled with either red beans or (my favourites!) honey and ground sesame seeds or chestnuts etc. This was probably because a) when discussing Chuseok plans, I had told her that I was keen to try actually making some myself, but that I'd heard it was a little difficult and b) just because! Perhaps because she isn't married and doesn't have any children of her own, she's very gentle to the students most of the time (sometimes too gentle! But she can really bring the rain if needed) and looks out for me like a close aunt would. She got a bit upset last year when I gave her a Christmas present because I hadn't told her that I was going to and so she hadn't prepared anything for me, despite me trying to tell her that it was fine, and I just wanted to give her a present to say thankyou.

Anyway, so thanks to this very generous present, as well as some wonderful care packages that I received on Tuesday, just exactly when I was feeling down and really needed the love, I'm sure to have a brilliant Chuseok. For those of you wondering, Chuseok is the Autumn lunar harvest festival - Koreans keep telling me that it's 'Korean Thanksgiving' but it's really much better, as we get three days off (hooray for a five day weekend!) and of course there are lots and lots of jeon (lightly battered fried foods and savoury pancakes), songpyeon and ricecakes around! Which is lovely if you like ricecakes like I do ^_^ It's traditionally a time to spend with your family where you commemorate your ancestors, so most Koreans return to their hometowns at this time and the women of course spend a lot of time cooking the food for this and for their families, although apparently these days many are increasingly using it as an excuse for a short overseas holiday. So a big thanks to Ms Yun, Lara (aka KBFF) and Nat (aka City Pug)! You guys rock! ^_^

To everyone else:

Happy Chuseok!

"Have a happy and warm Chuseok!"

"Have a good [merry] Chuseok!"

(I couldn't decide which Chuseok picture I liked best so here they both are)

***UPDATE***

I must have mentioned wanting to make songpyeon more than I realised - that or my co-teachers know how hard it is and are trying to spare me the agony - because another co-teacher, Ms Kwon, just gave me another huge box of songpyeon. Serious songpyeon overload! I distributed them to my co-workers in my office and asked them to keep it a secret :) Michelle and Edithe, if you read this, you are both expected to help me eat the other box! If you haven't, hehe... surprise! ^_^

O_O

You know, I just realised that my co-teacher compared me to a disabled person earlier today when I was fumbling with the lock on our staffroom door and trying to close it with one hand. Maybe it was just co-incidence that she started telling me a story about disabled people when I was doing it... ? Dunno. Haha, weird day :)

Warning: possible overshare ahead

What have I been up to since last week I hear you not actually ask? Well, Saturday was an interesting night in which I almost got assaulted by some random Korean girl that one of my friends befriended out of pity that we then couldn't get rid of. Very friendly, but very agressive. Some things she could have done with knowing: if people want to leave, let them leave - pick up the clue that they may in fact be escaping; don't try and pimp your new friends out to your old friends and think that this is funny; affectionate is cute, grabby is not; 'holding on' to someone's bag to prevent them leaving is not a good idea unless you want things to end very badly, and throwing a temper tantrum as a last resort in a packed bar when that person wrestles their bag back and goes to leave will not make said person want to stay any more. Luckily, it was also Emma's birthday and this was only after we'd done the majority of the fun stuff celebrating already. As she had sent us all a text message saying "What are you doing tonight? I want beer and a face full of cake!", she got her birthday wish and the subsequent face full of blueberry preserve and egg tart. So at least the night started out well!

Warning: the story ahead may be a little more than you ever wanted to know. In fact, I just remembered that a bunch of us were talking about this only last night and I actually specified the rule that any detail about bodily emissions was an overshare, so I apologise for my slight hypocrisy. Don't worry, it's not that specific.

So I say started, because it ended with me going home after a couple of hours feeling a little queasy, despite not having drunk an inordinately large amount of alcohol. Nothing that couldn't be fixed with some cup 짜파게티 (jjajangmyeon ramyeon) I thought - little did I know that my night wasn't over yet and that I was going to wake up again repeatedly sweating with a fever over the next six hours continually running to the bathroom and trying not to hurl my guts out. You could say it was an improvement when I finally managed to, except that I then spent the rest of the morning pretty much sitting on my bathroom floor sobbing into the toilet and wishing it would stop between bouts of whatever else was pouring out of my body at the time. Part of this melodrama might have been the fact that I couldn't even keep any water down, and since I had had a few drinks the night before, I was getting pretty dehydrated.

Anyway, thankfully the vomiting stopped after four hours, and I managed to have a shower and some sleep. Later on, watching "Killing Bono" with some food and tea with Eadaoin also helped - great movie by the way! Stars Ben Barnes as Neil McCormack (Prince Caspian) and Robert Sheehan (Nathan from 'Misfits') as well as Martin McCann as (according to Eadaoin) an eerily lookalike Bono. It also had Pete Postlethwaite in it in his last role before his death from cancer earlier this year, looking tragically remission gaunt rather than cocaine-chic gaunt, but doing a great job (as always) nonetheless. By the way, best quote of the movie from Pete Serafinowicz: "Don't boo me, I went to Eton!" haha^^

Monday saw me with more stomach pains and sleeping through both my deskwarming and the two classes I had (they were watching movies anyway) and Tuesday slightly less so (probably because I skipped two meals entirely and didn't have any carbs or dairy) but still sleeping all afternoon at my desk. I'm feeling much better today so I'm going to see how I go with lunch and if it comes back then it's probably doctor time. One of my co-teachers kept trying to get me to go home yesterday but I didn't want to go since a) I've already taken a few sick days off, b) my vice-principal doesn't like me as it is, and c) I can sleep just as easily at school as at home (there's a very comfortable couch in my English room office). So instead she's been giving me a bunch of extra medicines and a kind of back massage-pummelling to help circulation or something. Another got me some 죽 (juk) or rice porridge for lunch since I didn't want to risk the kimchi fried rice and hotdogs that were today's lunch, so I am being very well taken care of :)

At any rate, I can easily say that of all the indigestion meds (소화약) I've tried, by far the best have been these herbals ones called 보화환 (bohwahwan) and 생록천(saengnokcheon). I think that 보화환 might actually be a generic name for that type of medicine, but it basically looks like little choco-balls, or really big brown silica gel balls, and goes with the 생록천 drink. Apart from dried orange peel and ginseng, I have no idea what is in either of them, but they work really fast and last for a good couple of hours at least. You can take them three times a day and were 3000 won (about $2.80) at my local chemist.

So that's the update on the state of my digestive system. Hopefully things get better and I don't have something awful like the last couple of times I didn't think I was sick and ended up having tonsilitis and then a kidney infection. If you don't hear from me, assume that I've got stomach cancer or appendicitis and have been hospitalised... or more likely that I'm fine and just lazy about blogging. Peace out y'all! Hope your tummies are feeling less grumbly than mine :)

mmmmmMMMMMalaysia

For some odd reason, when I stepped out of the English classroom this morning the air smelled like mornings in Malaysia. Specifically, mornings in Penang, our family's favourite holiday place. I think it was the combination of the humidity with only a little heat (I had just stepped out of the air-conditioning) that you also get walking across the lobby of a hotel that is always open to the air (and pool!) outside, the smell of something savoury cooking, the smell of glazed pastry and the relaxed holiday feel that you get when you know you have nothing much to do but chill and enjoy your time. Now, I have no idea where the pastry smell came from as we aren't even having pastries for lunch - perhaps it was a relic from yesterday when we had the rice-dough donuts, or maybe from the sugar in the 양념 sauce to go with the tofu nuggets (???) today. Since we just had exams, we're watching movies in class for the next three weeks until the semester ends in my classes. Apparently no-one else is allowed to do this because it's a waste of time, according to our VP, but since he a) doesn't speak English and I'm guessing also b) doesn't consider my classes to be 'real' classes anyway I can get away with it. I've been letting the kids choose which movies they want to watch, and thankfully they haven't all chosen the same one (I learned my lesson last year after watching Home Alone 2 seventeen times). The first year boys got respectively embarrassed (like hiding their faces embarrassed) and excited watching 'Stardust' when there was a kissing scene and then when Michelle Pfeiffer took off all her clothes to admire herself in the mirror. They were subsequently very disappointed when the camera didn't actually show anything below her shoulders and above her calves, hehe ^_^ It's a weird dichotomy - students get really embarrassed when anything even close to hinting at sex is shown, but the boys are more than happy to ogle the tiniest patch of bare skin - proof that testosterone wins out over cultural mores every time!

Anyway, my students are at least happy to be in class. Other classes have chosen "Finding Nemo", "Pirates of the Carribean 1" and "The Corpse Bride". So far none of the girls have chosen "Confessions of a Shopaholic" surprisingly (I didn't particularly think anything of the movie anyway since it's very girly so I'm not too disappointed) and I'm tossing up whether the swearing in "Aliens 2" is at a negligible enough level to give the option of watching it to the second year boys or not.

In other news, I don't know if it officially counts as the start of Korea's rainy season, but thanks to all the typhoons sweeping over various parts of North-East Asia, it's been raining a lot here lately, hence the high level of humidity. Last weekend there was 30 - 80 mm of rain on Sunday alone, and the weekend before a typhoon in Taiwan resulted in about 2 metres of rain over Korea. My gumboots have at least been getting a lot of use! Hopefully it won't continue, not in the least because Koreans are not good swimmers and hence have no water sense (i.e. not crossing a river that has risen by so much that all of the walkways and even the bike path on it's banks has been covered) so that as well as the mudslides and collapsing houses and roads mean that there have been about 14 deaths already and another 5 missing, presumed dead. On the other hand, it does mean that there are breaks from the heat which is otherwise sweltering. I made the very stupid mistake of walking downtown yesterday by the road (taking approx 35 - 40 minutes), rather than by the river (approx. 50 minutes), and the heat, along with the pollution meant that I ended up very sweaty and feeling very dirty with all the dust flying around. I would have happily welcomed a brief shower of rain at that point, but I instead hid in a nice air-conditioned bank for a few minutes until I cooled down :)


Oh and to Cheongju-ians, good news! My favourite sushi place, Sushiru (스시루) has re-opened! They were briefly closed for a while a few weeks ago and it actually looked like the shop was being either torn down or refitted, but it opened to no discernable change except for different soy sauce pots so I have no idea why. If you haven't been there, I recommend you go! It's a street back from the Lotte Cinema, next to the Family Mart on the corner. It's also one of those sushi-train places and the food is always fresh. The staff is really friendly, and if they like the look of you they'll usually give you something free (and delicious!) to try - yesterday they gave us seared scallop and kimchi sushi 'service' (free), last time it was some succulent prawn tempura. Oh and the best bit! Every time anyone goes in or out they greet you with a battle-cry-esque "안녕하세오오오오오오오오!" I've actually been there so many times that last time I went they gave me a loyalty card ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Perhaps not incidentally, that's my new Korean word for the day - 회전초밥 or heejeon chobap: sushi train sushi :)

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Update: awkward moment of the day - realising that one of my co-teachers is slightly homophobic, or at least not comfortable with the idea of homosexuality or transgenders. Watching my roughest second year class of 15 year old male students leaning on each other and cuddling up to watch the movie (the chairs in the English classroom are pretty uncomfortable) with their arms slung around each other, and commenting on how cute I thought they were but how strange it seemed considering that when I was that old we never even did that, she started telling me about these two "interesting" boys she knew in highschool who would hold hands, walk around together, lie on the grass and talk between themselves and even take toilet breaks at the same time. Ok, now I know that sounds odd to us Westerners (for boys at least) but it's really not that uncommon in Korea. And then she started telling me about some famous Korean actor (I think she was talking about Harisu who's pretty much the only one who's actually made it) and how she "couldn't" understand her/him. I guess this was my fault though for bringing it up as I had forgotten how Christian she is - she actually got married in a church for one when it seems like most Koreans these days get married in wedding halls. Anyway, at least the students enjoyed the movie!