Sorry I haven't been in touch for a while, it's been a hectic few weeks. I assume this email is going to be very long so don't feel obliged to read it all. I don't have a phone and Skype won't work so this is the only contact I have with most people back home so I'm trying to fit two and a half weeks into one email.
Firstly, thank you Gran and Grandma for posting me things, love you lots!
After I spoke to you all last, we went on a field trip to the African village in north Seoul. An hour on a bus with 6 year olds was hell, they don't have seat-belts and the bus driver was a little manic. I spent the whole hour with my mp3 player on to drown out the noise whilst pinning any children in my reach to the seat with my arms spread out like a crucifix.
When we got to the village (which was in beautiful mountains) we went around the museum in about 3 mins (very educational!) and whilst I had turned away from my class for a second, to look at a wooden statue of a giraffe with boobs (I still don't understand), the boss started screaming. I turned back to see one of my 6 year olds jumping on a glass cabinet. Oops!
We moved rapidly on, at which point I saw it. The souvenir photo area. Koreans are quite openly prejudice against black people. I was was wondering on the way there... "why, if this is the case, are we going to an African village?" Some of the kids were quite openly saying, on the bus, that black people were bad/ dirty/ scary, all of the above. Anyway, the photo area answered my questions. The opportunity for a photo was with three black people. Not in some national dress or doing something worth taking a photo of. No, they were in jeans and coats standing against a wall looking very disgruntled whilst my supervisor excitedly hustled children towards them, camera in hand.
I've realised something about myself that I had never noticed before. My face cannot hide my reactions. I noticed this when Cintia, standing on the other side of the photo area looked at me and mouthed "I know, what the hell is going on?" I realised that I had a confused, half of my mouth pointing upwards, half pointing downwards, expression on my face. The trip carried on in this manner with children crying at the African dance, clearly scared witless because of what their parents had instilled into their minds.
We got back to the school where all the parents had come to collect their little angels, most of which were asleep in a pile on me. As I got off the bus, one of the parents gave me a bag and said "a gift". Gifts are quite common here, I often go into class to find a pile of sweets and drinks on my desk and the parents often bring food for us.
I got into the staff room and opened the bag and it was beer chips and fried chicken. We've been told not to buy beer in the local area because if any parents see you the will go mad, (In the minds of the parents, we're not meant to have lives, we're all here because we feel a desperate need to teach these children to speak English) so this was a very daring thing for Cindy's mum to do (Cindy shall be getting straight As from now on!). Cintia and I drank all the beer hiding behind our bags in the staff room so the boss didn't see and went to our next classes very tipsy but refreshed.
I had my medical last week which the don't do by halves. The hospital was amazing, it was about ten times the size of Blackpool vic, with a multi storey car park, which looked cleaner than any UK hospital. The whole medical service here is so efficient, in thirty minutes, without an appointment, I'd been interrogated by a doctor (my male supervisor there as my translator, which got very embarrasing at times when he didn't know word such as 'period', there are only so many things one can mime) had a blood test, two urine tests, a chest X ray, an eye test, been weighed, measured, (both of which probably classed me as clinically obese over here) and had a mamogram (Why, I don't know). I missed one lesson including getting there and back in really busy traffic. I said to my supervisor that everything was very quick and he said "Oh no, sometime's it's busy, my friend broke his leg and he was here for three hours." I told him that in the UK you'd be very lucky to have been seen in 4 hours, let alone treated. I told him that last year, me Charlotte and Doug sat in the emergency dep in Leeds hospital for something like 6 hours with no sign of being seen so we left. I think he thinks I was exaggerating wildly.
Christine has booked her flight from Cambodia for Christmas. I'm really excited. I found her some really cheap flights so she booked them straight away and is coming for about three weeks from 21st December. If anyone wants to send her anything around then, you can post it to me, it's safe to post things here, they won't get stolen, just put C/O me on them though because my post goes to my school. Don't send chocolate though because I'll smell it through the parcel and eat it.
Yesterday, I got very patriotic and got overly excited about bonfire night (after a completely over the top Halloween I felt it was only right to make Koreans acknowledge this event with some level of excitement). Cintia was also feeling very patriotic because of the Obama/ McCain election. When we found out that Obama had won, we decided a dual nationality celebration was in order so we bought sparklers, wine, beer and bread (I've found a french bakery, thank God) We watched an hour of Jon Stewart online, Obama's victory speech (which made me cry!) and sat on the rooftop with sparklers, with me explaining what I believe to be the story of Guy Fawkes, I'd never thought about it until Cintia thought it was strange, but it is quite sadistic that children get excited about burning a fake person on a fire!
I'm starting to find that probably the biggest challenge for me is the language barrier. I thought it was going to be a culture thing but it's not. Everything is very similar here to the UK but it's just harder to do anything here because so few people speak English. Just getting a subway map the other day was a huge challenge, trying to mime, 'map' is quite tricky. I have learned some korean, mainly through my kinder classes. I dread to think how it sounds to koreans, I must pronounce everything the way a six year old does. I know the basics, 'hello' 'goodbye' etc, I can count, call over a waiter, sing a child's song and name various objects. The one vital word that I have learned though is 'anja', 'sit down'. in polite company it should be 'anja haseyo' 'sit down please' but I removed 'haseyo' because normally when I want to say it, all my manners have gone out of the window. It works a treat, it scares the kids to death because they think that all of a sudden I can speak the language so they can't get away with laughing between themselves at me in korean!
I mentioned in my last email that two of the girls I teach have a tendency to strip in school. Unfortunately one of them did in the library the other day at the moment her mum walked through the door and started screaming. There was uproar, I got told to stop them doing it, as if I had been encouraging them, the parent took no responsibility and blamed the school fully.
Today I had my open class where the parents get to come in and watch you teach. I'd been preparing the lesson for three days and teaching the children all about seasons in preparation.
I've done a lot of presentations at uni, some to big companies and nothing compared to twenty mins in a room with these parents. It all started going really bad too and the kids started fighting. Ordinarily I would have shouted but I couldn't. Anyway it got to the end and the parents went into a room to discuss the class with my boss and whilst they were I nearly started crying out of frustration. The parents here are so picky and complain about anything and one of the parents looked really angry when she left so I was waiting to get shouted at, (Deborah had been, the day before, because she handed a child a book in an 'unloving manner) Anyway, the parents came to wave to the kids through the door and I opened the door and said "oh come in" and one of the dad's came up to me, shook my hand and said,
"thank you for teaching my naughty son"
I said "It's a pleasure, he's not naughty at all"
He replied, "Since you started teaching him, he's started speaking English, he loves to come to school and he is more confident at home, he didn't used to speak at home but now he does, you're a very good teacher, thank you"
I was so relieved! I had decided this morning that if I got a bad review from these parents, I had learned nothing from PR if I couldn't sell myself to 12 people. The parent that was angry wasn't angry at me, she was mad at her daughter for not answering enough questions. They expect a lot from there kids here. One of the kids in my pink class has never done homework and doesn't care about anything so when I did her review and report the other day I was pretty honest. She came in today with her homework book with all 4 weeks of homework done (20 pieces)!! She had blatantly been screamed at for her report. I'm starting to feel like my scary battle axe maths teacher, Mrs Magee!
I seem to have just talked about my life in school but I'm having a much better time outside school. I've met lots of people and most of them are great. Seoul's so big though that meeting someone involves an hour on the subway in most cases, so to do something in the week, you only get about two hours there before you have to come back (the last subway is 11.30). Even though I winge about the state of my apartment, at least I live about £5 in a taxi away from the centre so when I go out I don't have to wait until 6.30am for the first subway to run.
The bars here are amazing, nearly every place I've been too has been cooler than anywhere I've been in the UK, I went to one the other day that was like a cave with little tunnels that you could sit in on cushions and with two girls cross legged in the middle of the floor playing on buckets with a child's farmyard sound effect machine as accompaniment. I should be going to the ice bar this weekend (tables, chairs all made of ice) which I'm really excited about.
Anyway I will go, I think if you've read this far, I've taken up too much of your time already. Thanks for all the lovely replies from everyone, as much as I don't really feel homesick, it's nice to come in from work to emails about what's going on back home,
Much love to you all, especially-
* Sheryl and Beth, I hope baby Crisitina arrives soon, I've spent all week checking facebook for updates.
* Marcus for getting engaged, well done for taking the plunge!
* Asha, hope all is going well in your new life in Dubai, keep the emails coming, it looks amazing.
1 comment:
Love the blog title! Look forward to catching up with your exotic (ie far eastern) experiences.
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