Back to the salt mines...

Aka school. The new semester has started. I think most of the people who read this blog have already asked me about how my trip home was, or if not, I actually saw them, so I won't bother rehashing that in detail. A quick summary though would be "heart-warmingly wonderful but way too short". It was good seeing my grandparents again and spending time with both them and my sister (and my parents of course but I saw them fairly recently anyway), and those wonderful and understanding friends of mine that I managed to squash in around the edges. Apologies to those that I neglected - I really am a terrible person and deserve cat aids.

Oh and just for Timmy, so you don't get bored, here are some pictures. Haha^^

With JP, my travel buddy in Phuket

With Kate, Rekha and Lucy in Canberra

Getting rained on with Fran

Roast lamb dinner with Kate and Chris

Mum ♥

With T-bo in the 'Gong

mmm birthday seafood banquet courtesy of my awesome Grandparents!

Anyway, so that aside, I had a really wonderful teaching morning today! It was one of those rare times when everyone is in a great mood and everything goes more or less according to plan (100% to plan would just be downright freaky). My first years loved the Jai Ho video I showed and the food bingo game I played with them and their ferociously competitive little natures meant that they even demanded we keep playing past the bell until there was a winner. Second years were even better, as the lesson we are doing is rather dry and last year was a bit problematic since there was nothing I could do to spice it up beyond a few funny pictures in a powerpoint, but they really got into the debate I asked them for at the end and about 80% of the class managed a good non-BS opinion about their topic by the end. Even those that did BS, like the one who said he agreed with corporal punishment because it was very "sexy and wild", were hilarious so I forgave them. For those of you not on Facebook, these were my favourite quotes (for those of you who are, 미안해!)

Me: Do you think it's good or bad to give children candy whenever they want it?
Jun-Kyeong: It's bad because the candy is mine.

Me: Ok so why do you think corporal punishment is bad?
Seung-Euk: Colourful penniesmen is bad because I must have it too often.

Haha. You don't know how much I wanted to laugh every time Seung-Euk said "colourful punishment" or variation theorof ㅋ ㅋ ㅋ  I love it during this time before the good effects of the holidays have worn off and they revert to little vampires trying to suck out my spirit and patience. At any rate, I walked out of my second class with 2-5 (boys) feeling very happy and thinking that having class 1-6 (also boys) in the morning was a vast improvement. This feeling soon evaporated however as I realised that it now meant that due to these timetable changes, I no longer have class 2-5 (a relatively good class bar the general afternoon and boyish inability to concentrate or stop shouting out the first thing to cross their minds) last thing on Fridays - I now finish with class 2-6, who are absolutely appalling, at any time of the day since they are all the worst students from all the first year classes last year. Seriously, who in their right mind would group these students together??? Positive attitude with them is like throwing jelly against a wall, which is pretty much what also happens to my patience after 15 minutes with them. Anyway, hopefully they enjoyed their holidays sufficiently to get bored at home and we can get through the lesson on Friday. Be positive! Only 6 more months :)

So anyway, I'm still feeling that glow from this morning. I have one of my favourite 2nd year's girl's classes next and then the endearingly silly (read: stupid) but enthusiastic 1st year boys class after, so I think Tuesdays are quickly going to become my favourite teaching days.

Oh and one more thing - a comic strip for you! It's about a 'real' mystery about a girl walking home from school late at night who meets a woman looking for her lost baby. In the cartoon, the woman asks the girl where it is and the girl says "over there" and tries to keep walking...

Don't forget to turn your sound on before you watch it. And if you scare easily don't watch this when you're by yourself or at night. Might take a little while to load.

scarrrrrrryyyyyyyyy o_O!


For those of you interested in the food lesson, here is the link to download the powerpoint. The lesson is based on my textbook (Cheonjae Education's Middle School English 1 , Thomas Orr et al; chapter 7: 'Namaste from India') obviously, but it's easily adaptable.

How it works:
Announce that we are playing international food bingo (make bingo grids of 4x4). But first we need to go through the foods we will use. Students must guess what each food is and which country it is from (explain that each country is only used once or you'll get the same three or four countries screamed at you over and over again.. which will probably happen anyway) using the pattern in the slide. Whoever can guess the answer and make a full sentence (first hand up of course) for each food before we repeat as a class gets a point/other reward. Or just the satisfaction of beating everyone else perhaps. After allowing students to guess, lead students through each slide before moving onto the next one. I usually just say the "when I went to ..." and get the students to finish with "I ate ..." because of time limits but you could get them to finish the whole sentence. This whole process works as a kind of game in itself if you have enough competitive students. After going through them all, show students the final slide, ask students to fill in their sheets (with only the foods usually but they can do the countries if they are REALLY low level) and hand out the bingo grids. You should have printed out this final slide also. Read out the first half of the pattern sentence and students should guess the food and finish it, e.g.teacher: "When I went to England...? (What did I eat?)" students: "I ate fish and chips". If you are doing this for particular grammar, you shouldn't move on to the next one until they have finished the sentence properly, rather than just let them shout out the food. Winner gets whatever prize of course.
This also works well as a co-teacher lesson because during the slide the CT can help prompt the students make the second part of the sentence, and during the game you can alternate picking countries. Doing it my way usually takes about 25 minutes, but you could easily drag it out to 40-45 (i.e. a whole lesson) if you were being really thorough.

P.S. Please don't anyone wish cat aids on me.

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 :)

Summer Birthdays and Summer Shenanigans

So I have no idea what 'shenanigans' means in Minnesota, but apparently it's something big enough to get into a tizzy and storm out of a bar over.

Oh and hello readers! <insert half-arsed excuse for not updating my blog more frequently to cover reality of extreme laziness here> At least this month I have a valid excuse or two to keep the lame ones company though - principally, the end of semester and the simultaneous start of summer camp, and secondarily, my birthday! (huzzah!) As a testament to my ageing faculties, and partly in defence of my long absence, it did actually take me a while and a random question from a teacher about my exact age to remember that it was in fact my birthday soon. Having failed to remember that, it was also a bit of a trial to remember exactly how old I was turning and the difference in age between 23 and 25, possibly because of afore-mentioned failure to remember exactly how old I am. (Darn math! You kids these days with your subtractions and divisions and whatchamacallits!) Celebrating a joint birthday with a borrowed KBFF (since both of our originals have left!), Christy and I had a lovely day of manicures, pedicures, Harry Potter movies and cake around Nampo-dong in Busan. Luckily, Christy doesn't seem to have been afflicted with early-onset dementia like me, and was most gentle in her mockery of my extremely blonde weekend, even when I was surprised that the cherry and almond ice-cream cake we had chosen after much discussion in the store had cherries in it. Later, we went out for Christy's birthday with her friends and had a quiet but fun night out at a nearby bar and of course noraebang, topped by the most magnificent night-club I've ever been to! Aptly named Superdome, the culmination of the evening was the roof opening to music from the Star Wars movies and being showered in fake snow. Beautiful! (I just realised that I didn't in fact get a video of this like I thought so you'll have to go there to see this wonder for yourselves!) It was also quite entertaining  - singing and dancing from the stage-shows, and an ajumma being physically dragged out of the club by five bouncers after getting mouthy, throwing beer all over people on the dance floor and then trying to take them all on and refusing to leave. Haha, Busan never fails in fun^^


The next weekend (last weekend), birthday celebrations were set to continue with a trip to Pohang, a coastal city in Gyeongsangbuk-do. Looking for a quiet weekend after a cocktail party on Friday night that had featured some particularly lethal drinking games, things didn't quite go to plan. Mostly due to the afore-mentioned drinking games and a challenge to the theme of "I don't get drunk. Drunk is for people from weak countries", a friend that I'll call Irish Pride (IP) barely made it to the bus (she had our tickets so we were very lucky that she has a conscience!) and having made it to the bus, trooper that she was held it in for 2 hours before we got to the rest stop before hurling her guts up. Off the bus at the other end and another chuck up, a run to the chemist (the fastest I've ever been able to explain a problem and buy the correct medicine for it!), another 40 minutes on a city bus, and 15 minutes walk with a stop or two along the way, and we were at the beach.

At this point, the less hungover of us wanted to get something to eat, so we continued down the beach. IP definitely needed a rest so she decided to hang back and have a nap as was. Being too hungover to take stock, the place she chose was unfortunately right in the middle of the beach with no shade. Being good friends that we are, when we'd eaten and come back to find her, the first order of business was of course photographic evidence of her solitude amongst the crowds. I'm sure at this point that the Korean tourists around were wondering what kind of people we were to be sniggering and taking photos of this poor hapless person evidently not very well that we'd apparently just stumbled on. Even after we'd woken her up and all gone off together, I'm sure they were still unimpressed, as we were also the only ones wearing bikinis (the usual Korean swimming outfit being not that much different from normal clothes, i.e. fully dressed), and after taking a dip we all promptly fell asleep on the sand, then after waking up took more photos of others still asleep.

IP on IV

Anyway, so after an otherwise relaxed afternoon on the beach where we'd all been at least a little burnt, it started getting cloudy and sprinkling, so we decided to leave and go find a motel. Getting up however, IP (at this point as red as a lobster, mostly from the walk from the bus) started getting the shakes. Protesting that she was ok, the rest of us got bossy and called a taxi to take her to a hospital. It was revealed at this point that she'd also had a bit of a cheeky chuck on the beach and buried the evidence. Which meant that she hadn't been able to keep down any water. The first taxi took us to a hospital nearby that proved to be closed, but luckily a woman (who must have been a nurse that normally works there or something) saw IP's state, called us another taxi and gave us some good advice to stop us freaking out that IP's hands were turning blue and she couldn't stand up by herself. Luckily IP was ok when sitting down, so she didn't redecorate the taxi. Whether it was to the driver's credit for understanding the urgency of the situation or just because he was afraid of that happening, he got us back to the city in under 20 minutes, where it seemed like it would normally take at least 30. Fortunately, a nurse at the hospital spoke enough English that they could figure out some treatment for IP (since the gaps in my Korean medical vocabulary are more like crevasses and the others don't really speak Korean). An injection of something miraculous for her migraine and a litre and a half of IV fluid for the dehydration later, things were looking less dire. Possibly gazing at the handsome English speaking male nurse and discussing the link between education and good looks amongst Korean medical staff for a couple of hours helped. At any rate, it was more than enough time for her sympathetic friends to take another photo. Hehe ㅋ ㅋ ㅋ


Anyway, so a steak dinner and the obligatory noraebang later, and it was a good birthday weekend where no-one died! Sadly it was drizzling that night so the fire work we tried didn't do anything and we were all to scared to go pick it up, but I did get a 'Happy Birthday' song from the staff at Outback Steakhouse and a commemorative photograph so it was all good :)


As a follow up, yesterday I went to the dermatologists with IP as her face had puffed up and started blistering quite badly - kind of like 3rd degree burns. They gave her some medicine, an injection, and some magic ointment though that seems to be doing the trick. She's sworn off the tipple but we'll have to see how long that lasts!


And that's the saga of my last two birthday-related weekends :)

Something silly to entertain the bored :)

A bit of fun to while away a couple of moments while deskwarming or otherwise idling at a computer - the Nac Mac Feegle game on www.terrypratchettbooks.com. Basically, the Nac Mac Feegle are little blue brawlers with very strong heads, so the goal of the game is to drop onto as many people's heads as possible. Sound weird? Perhaps. But still entertaining, haha^^

Oh and because I can, a badge! Love it :)


I'm Reading Terry Pratchett

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.

If you're reading this, I have already been killed..

Haha, anyone remember that ridiculous Pauline Hansen video she made? What an idiot. In oh so many ways.

Actually, this is just a follow up post to my one yesterday whinging about how sick I was. I went to the doctor and apparently it was just gastro-enteritis. Surprisingly, this was the first time I've been to see him this year when he HASN'T suggested that my illness stemmed from constipation. Tonsilitis? And constipation. The flu? And constipation. At any rate, I am taking a bunch of medicines (seriously, there are like 7 in each dose) and feeling better every day. Luckily today is also 초복 or chobok, the first 'dog day' - there are three in Korea (삼복 sambok or 복날 boknal - I've heard it called both), each marking the supposedly hottest days in summer (today it was about 28 degrees and rained like the sky was flooding for about half an hour then just as abruptly stopped) - so we got summer chicken soup (닭곰탕/삼계탕 - dakgomtang/samgyetang) for lunch so I could actually eat something. The long and short of it is that I'm ok. Sorry for worrying people :)

TTTTTTTTTTTT-hursdee

A classic email from T-Bo (who likes his privacy, hence remaining otherwise unnamed) to brighten my morning.

"I teach English at a Korean elementary school. In a presentation today I used this picture of Justin Bieber and convinced them it is real. Now the entire 5th grade thinks this is what he actually looks like now. The girls aren't taking it well."

Hehe ^^

Thanks T-Bo! BTW if there is a better nickname you'd prefer, let me know. (By 'better' I automatically exclude "T-dog".)