Korean classes, Fingerprinting and Billy Elliot...

Dear All,

So another week in the world of ESL teaching in Mokpo bids me to return to the keyboard and tell you all about it.

Last week was a fairly uneventful one for the most part. Wednesday night I went out for dinner and Thursday I went bowling. I didn't want to go bowling and reveal my complete lack of prowess at the alley and everyone told me that they weren't good to bowling either-, which is normally a sure sign that they are all experts. But no, turns out that everyone was every bit as crap as I was! In fact, some were worse- hooray! So I had a great time. And as the bowling alley is right next to my hagwon I was able to give people directions for the first time since getting here. No beer at the alley though which was a bit of a shame. We split into two teams- without the old school embarrassment of two non-elected captains calling out the names they want until only I am left standing- and away we went. I managed to get A strike at some point in the game and two spares. Cool enough but I also managed to be the only person to throw the ball the wrong way- i.e., back towards my waiting friends- and go bright bright red. And the alley must have liked me because after one of my goes it spat a pin up into the gutter. The next go it did the same thing with my ball which then proceeded to roll up and down in the gutter for the next five minutes until the rather angry looking attendant came and freed it- it's not like it was my fault- was it?

Not a bad night all in and onto Friday and a heavy old beer sesh in TV Park with the other teachers. Some of who didn't make it to the Korean class the next day. But I had saved myself and went to my first Korean class. Not really sure about the whole thing. I want to be able to communicate with people (and order pizza deliveries) but the rest of the class have all been there for a couple of weeks now and I am way behind. But I can now say 'teacher' in Korean and count to the dizzying heights of 2! Yes, 2!! Amazing stuff. So I have been entertaining my classes this week with my amazing display of knowledge of their language- well, it has made them laugh a lot anyway!

Saturday night a group of us went round to a friend's house to watch the Billy Elliot DVD and can you believe that the Canadians in the room requested that we put the English subtitles on, as they didn't understand what was being said!! And I still had to explain what a 'poof was and the difference between the US and UK use of the word 'fanny' (ask your mother!). The fact that they didn't understand made me laugh almost as much as the film had.

Sunday was a fairly quiet one. Yesterday we started a new timetable which has been a bit of nightmare- new times and rooms so I spent a lot of yesterday wandering around trying to find which room my classes were hiding in.

This weekend a group of us are heading to Seoul for a few days, which should be cool. We had talked about heading up to the DMZ but two of us are missing our passports. Mine is at the immigration office as I am waiting on my alien registration card. You have to register if you intend to stay in the country for longer than 90 days. The first time me and Tim went we were told to come back as they were changing the system. So we went back on Friday. I have to say that the guy was certainly having his fun with us. To start with we only have our address in Korean and he made us write it on the form- I only hoped that I wasn't writing anything too offensive, as it was my first attempt at writing the Hangeul script. He seemed to enjoy that a lot. Then he thought it was funny that neither of us knew our blood group or how tall we were in centimetres. Having had a good old laugh at us with his mates about that he then proceeded to fingerprint us!!!! This is part of the new system so no one had warned us about this. He wasn’t impressed with Tim's fingerprints and kept complaining that they were no good! Now he has my passport and is all a little vague as to when I am going to get it back. Might go over this week and ask him really nicely. Crappy as you have to be nice no matter how big a tosser the guy is- and he really is!

My new timetable means that I don't start until 3.35 and finish at 8.50 though two days a week I only have two classes which is pretty cruisey. Kind of hope that more people sign up though but I guess that they will carry on paying me. I got paid for the first time last week- I was handed a brick of cash- imagine getting paid 1.85 million and the country not having any larger note than a 10,000- it took me ages just to get it into my pocket- never mind counting it all to check it was all there!!

I walked past the dog dying shop today and saw a beautifully dyed specimen with pink ears and a yellow tail and green feet- strange colours for a little boy dog. And how do I know that it is a boy dog?? Because it was busy mounting some non-dyed little brown mutt while the lady in the shop wasn't looking- that will teach them to out the dogs in the window!

That is all for now and thanks for taking the time to read this drivel. More next week after Seoul

Cinemas, beds and Aussie Day...

Just a short one today I think. This weekend was Aussie Day and also the birthday of Tim- our resident Aussie. So I think I told you all about the nightclub on Friday night. Saturday night was the night of the international-sliding-down-the-hall competition- an event which we are hoping will turn into an annual gathering in the near future. Have I told you about shoes in Korea? In as much as you don't wear them in the house- why not? Because the heating comes through the floor- very nice, no cold feet in the morning- which also means that there are no carpets. And since everyone is walking around in stockinged feet there is quite a lot of sliding. And Rebecca's house has a very long hallway- use your imagination as to what happened next. The Tipperary lad put up a brave fight from the Irish corner when he just fell flat on his face and the evening has abandoned all together as tim crashed into the cat's food bowl sending Kitekat flying everywhere for about the fiftieth time. We are planning a rematch for Paddy's Day though.
The next day was a day of many soju heads (local deadly beverage which I no longer indulge in after my first night out here- coward that I am!) and I went fish shopping with a couple of other teachers. That is goldfish shopping- yep, everyone wants a bit of goldfish action now that they have seen the joy that Fluff and Nip bring to my place. We settled Eric's new fish into their new tank and new Zen-style tree house (underwater though obviously, like the lost tree house of Atlantis) and then went off to the cinema. Now this is the third time that I have been to the movie theatre here and the third one that I have been to. And I am still intrigued about something- namely why the person stands behind a screen so that all you can see is their hand poking out of a small mouse hole at the bottom to collect the money. Maybe it is all part of the witness protection plan over here in Korea. So I asked my classes about this on Monday and they told me that it is only like that in Mokpo. I advanced my next theory which they agreed with- that only ugly people work at cinemas at Mokpo and it would put the average punter off the movie to see them! Could be the reason I guess. Anyway, we all enjoyed Monsters Inc and celebrated by Eric buying another fish on the way home.

I can't write much today because I am tired. And I will share with you why this is- I was reading a good book last night that i just couldn’t put down. Finally I finished it and got up to switch the light off and the bed collapsed underneath me! I heard a BANG and then the mattress disappeared into the base of the bed. I couldn't leave it like that (though would have done had the drawers under it not made the whole thing a little lopsided) so heaved the heavy mattress up and out of the bed and propped it up against the table trying my best not to knock the fish tank over. Now I could see what had happened- several (not just one) of the screws had come out and the frame was on the verge of collapsing. So I dashed over to the drawer and got out my wonderful sanity keeping Swiss army knife and screwed the whole thing back together again. it took about another five minutes to balance the mattress back where it was supposed to be and ten I climbed gingerly in and didn't move again for the rest of the night. Traditional Korean beds are heaps of blankets on the floor but a lot of people now sleep in western style beds. But they don't have any sheets, pillowcases or duvets covers anywhere- which makes every night feel like a wash night where I can't be bothered to put the sheets on- very odd!

So, short by my standards and I bid you farewell as I have to get back to class soon!

Discos, Graves and Goldfish...

Hello there.

It is very noisy in the PC bang today- the computer games are woofing out of the speakers and there are three people playing guitar by the counter. Nevertheless I will try my best to concentrate as the guy next to me blasts his opponents into the next galaxy.

So it is Saturday and end of my fourth week here- only another 48 weeks to go. Not bad. Certainly having a good time so far. the kids are still fine- there are a couple of classes that I still have to sort out properly but we are getting there I think. Had a good lesson this week using some stuff that my friend, Heather, sent about London Zoo and the Tower of London so if anyone else has any flyers to send this way the kids of Hanlim Academy will be most grateful. It makes a change from using the books all the time too which is no bad thing. The books aren't bad mind. I use one called New Parade with the smaller kids which has lots of songs and colouring in , Let's Go is for the slightly bigger kids- deeper songs and no colouring in, and Fifty fifty for the teens and adults. Fifty fifty lessons follow a structure of talking tasks, lessoning tasks and reading tasks. Not a bad book but the kids really don't get the full benefit of how weird some of the tapes can be. There was one with a kid talking to his dad about how much better his mom was at doing everything, another had a woman in a car showroom looking at the cars and then stealing one and yesterday there was one about a man and a women comparing cars and how the woman has two so there is one for outings with the dogs. Some of them make me laugh and the kids don't know why at all!

So I went to Pusan last weekend as I probably mentioned but I forgot to say about the mounds on the hills. Everywhere I looked there were little mounds up on any available hill. I asked Tim about this and he said that they were graves, Most people already know where they are going to be buried. I find that odd. I don't know where I am going to be next week, let alone for all eternity. And if people don't stop dying soon they are going to run out of hills!

But at least there are plenty of people here to look after our immortal souls. Take for example a guy we met last week. He is a Seventh Day Adventist and over here teaching English. We took him onto the party we were having. He is a bit of a rebel as he had sneaked out of his host parents' home earlier to watch 'Lord of the Rings'- something the Seven Day Dentists are against. He politely refused all alcohol and but joined in the games- I really don't think that he realised that when you play cards and use money at the same time it is gambling! And he told us outrageous stories of wild parties that he had been to back home where there was both girls AND dancing! Bless his innocence! No-one appeared to have warned him about the lack of deodorant over here either judging on his aura. Not sure that he will ever ring again!
But I cracked the other day and bought two goldfish on the way home- Fluff and Nip. they are very sweet and I have put them next to the TV as they seem to speak marginally more English that it does. The tank is a little bare right now- I put in a coffee cup but you try miming 'gravel' and 'No Fishing sign- it was not likely to happen really. And now the other teachers have started asking where they came from and I sense a bit of a trend starting! And I have already found a brave volunteer for the flushing in case of disaster.

I am now truly Korean too. My cell phone has an ornament on it! Hooray- its nakedness was getting a touch embarrassing- so at least now it looks pretty even if it rarely rings. And when it does ring it causes chaos across the hall as the walls in our place are very thin and Tim's phone has the same ring. Cue him diving across the room this morning when Eric rang me to take me to the Buddha shop. Hee hee! And I went to the Buddha shop and bought a lovely wooden turtle key ring to give to Trish who gave me the turtle that now hangs from my phone. The woman in the shop liked us all so much that she gave us all little Buddhas on springs to put on the dashboard of our cars- I think that mine will live by the fish tank for a while- at least until I learn to drive and get a car! Though the fish will be long gone before that happens I am sure! people often give me stuff when I go into shops- I bought some notebooks the other day and she threw in a pen and before that I was doing my grocery shopping and woman at the checkout threw in an extra sausage. It is raining hard today and some guy walked me down the street under his umbrella. It is all very nice!

It is a good job that I now have the turtle though as yesterday was Tim's birthday and did he ever rake in the pressies- he must have about 10 things hanging from his phone- did I tell you that the phones have special hooks just so you can hang cute items from them? After school the director took us out for Tim's birthday. He invited me to his country home for the Solar holiday at the beginning of Feb which was very sweet but I think I am going to Seoul. he asked me if I liked drinking and how much I could drink. I tried to be all coy about it but Tim dobbed me right in and Mr Kim insisted that it was Korean tradition to scull your welcome to Korea drinks- it was the start of a very long night! There was a big party in the bar that brings us dried squid as a bar snack. And afterwards I got my first experience of Korean nightclubs.

But first I have to tell you about Korean ladies' foot wear. The shoes have big heels and they are so pointy that I can't even begin to tell you properly. Thin heels and big pointy toes which must go on for several inches after the foot has stopped. So the girls in the club were sporting their pointy finest which made it impossible for them to dance at all. When they did venture onto the floor it was to just stand and sway slightly. I am sure that our Western style moshing frightened the bejesus out of them. But the boys are something else. First off the DJ was in middle of the stage like some kind of a god in his suit and gold earrings. But the floor was where the real action was at. The guy giving it most was dressed in a not untypical outfit. He had on a crisp white shirt. this was covered by a baby blue v-neck cardigan which he had done the buttons up on. And the jeans had the most outrageous turn-ups you ever did see. And he was wearing the man's version of the pointy shoe which is a long slip on affair. we got quite a bit of attention ourselves- imagine being in your local backwater disco and a bunch of Koreans coming in and totally taking over the dance floor- that is us over here!

And I have finally worked out the toilet etiquette (though not the control panel). Every time I went into a cubicle someone would come and knock on the door and I would shout hello- last night I learnt that you are just supposed to knock back. I was too intrigued at the notice in the jacks proclaiming a sexy dancing festival to notice at first but I soon got clued in and was knocking away like the best of them.

TV, Dogs and other takeaway food...

G'day folks!

It is snowing in Mokpo today so pretty cold. It was snowing yesterday too but it didn't settle for more than a brief snowball fight on the way home. It was sunny on the way to work but very cold. And that is the weather report from the south west of Korea today!

Well, what have I got to tell you about today? Not sure so let's see how it goes. I have been thinking a lot about the whole being in Korea thing. It seems unreal most of the time- I could easily be in Chinatown in Sydney (except that they are Korean NOT Chinese- but all the languages sound the same until you get used to them I guess). My TV is one of the biggest reminders of where I am as for hours at a time there is nothing on there in English and I end up watching hours of Korean chess or the advert for the mattress that self inflates in 45 seconds. Maybe I should watch less TV. I have started writing letters but have yet to find the post office- next important step I think! So the TV is on, I am watching stuff I can't understand. Good job that my social commitments take me out of the house so often and that the PC bangs (internet cafes) are soooo cheap!

I do find myself avidly watching anything that is on in English though and have turned into a bit of an Ally McBeal addict- oh no! And my worries couldn't be much more different. Babies??? too worried about ordering food that might turn out to be too spicy for me to eat or trying to get a taxi to somewhere I don't know the name of! Men?? Well, maybe a little but I am too busy enjoying my space at the moment- I mean physical space- this apartment isn't big enough for two of us! So no more Ally Mc for me- well, maybe just five nights a week!

Korean TV- at least the cable connection that I have got seems to be mostly adverts for a lot of the time- the titles of a film come on and then the movie stops for a quarter of an hour while some woman comes on and tries to sell you shirts that don't need ironing EVER! But the short ads are even more annoying- not because of the content but because they show the ad- for instance for kotex- the ad finishes and then they show it again in case you weren't paying attention the first time! Double the irritation factor in one easy step!

And on to another subject lest you should think that all I do now is watch TV. I have found a very strange thing going on with the dogs in Korea- not that they are slowly disappearing and being replaced by well fed looking people. No, they only eat one type of dog and only at certain times of the month and it is all very hush hush as the international community is a bit upset about the whole thing and FIFA keep threatening to take the World Cup away unless they take Fido burgers off the half time menu. I am not taking about the edible dogs. I am talking about the little lap dogs that people have stuffed in their jackets or on the end of a lead. These are a little white breed- just smaller than the rats. Well, I say they are white but I discovered a special shop the other day that spends its day dying bits of the dogs. There are cages in there with white dogs with green ears, yellow tails and orange feet- since seeing the shop the other day I have been more aware of the canine inhabitants of Mokpo and found that this is not an unusual thing. I guess that buying a white dog gives you a good base to start colouring! Madness.

But at least there isn't dog mess all over the pavements here- only because there aren't any pavements to speak of and those that do exist allow people to ride motorbikes down them- making them only marginally safer than walking in the street. And the drivers are a little mad. There only seems to be about two different types of car- Hyundai and Kia- makes my life easier and now I am something of a car expert- not!

The only other thing that makes as much use of the pavements as the motorbikes are the little food tents everywhere. When it is raining the front is pulled down and you perch yourself on a little plastic stools and eat mainly food off sticks- fish on a stick, unknown battered item on a stick etc etc. Usually these places are quite small and we can only fit about five drunken foreign teachers dying for an egg and ham toastie in them. But when I went to Pusan at the weekend (big city on the other side of the country) these tents were creeping off the pavements and taking up the first lane of traffic too- well, I guess that the cars can always use the pavements!
Pusan was an interesting city though- so much bigger than Mokpo. And weird because it had all these lorries leaving the port there (no Eddie Stobarts though) and it reminded me of home as a lot of the trucks were loaded with the same kind of containers that we see in Felixstowe- K Line, Hyundai, OOCL etc. Then it occurred to me that they had probably come from my home town to get to Pusan and I got a bit homesick. But only a bit because then I hit the beach. It is considered the finest beach in Korea- it is a bit like Bondi would be if it ever got that cold in NSW- not likely with all those fires I would say. People are still drawn to the beach though and it was covered in people wearing duffle coats standing at the water's edge watching the waves. So we went to the aquarium there which was pretty cool- even though me and Tim seemed to be almost as popular an attraction as the fish. But we didn't care because we were too full of pizza- there was a pizza hut near the bus station and it didn't take much to persuade us to go in.
After the aquarium we went to the cooperative fish market- which sounds like a great idea to me- fish that actually want to get caught! Maybe they jump into the boats of their own volition only too pleased to be able to cooperate in the fish trade of Pusan. Maybe not. The place was massive though and filled with fish both dead and alive. There was more interesting fish there than at the aquarium- squirming around in their plastic bowls waiting to be eaten. The interest kind of wore off a little for me when a man pulled a squid writhing out of the tank and started to cut it up in front of me- its legs moved for a long time after the knife went in. Also popular were tubs with skinned eels in them- still moving- yucky!

Anyway, I think that is enough for now- just thinking of those fish makes me want to run to the squat pot!

Toilets, Pig's heads and Beer...

Ok folks,

Here is another slice of Korean life for you straight off the Mokpo Hot Press ( and that is not the cupboard where you keep the towels for all those Irish out there). I am afraid that I have to address a slightly unsavoury topic today so I hope that you will forgive me if I start this mail with a bit about the hygiene facilities here- that is to say the toilet, the bathroom, the restroom, the ladies, the smallest room, the bog, to put no finer point on it- the dumpster!

In my house (well, room but this sounds so much more grand don't you think!) I have a fine upstanding western-style pedestal toilet. With just the one drawback. It has a padded seat. Not a drawback in itself I have to admit but the shower head is right over the toilet (think of the time saving advantages of that in the morning) and so the whole contraption gets soaked when I shower. Again, not really a problem as it is water proof after all! But there is a split in the plastic cover of the toilet seat and some of the foam is exposed so when I shower it gets wet and every time I sit in my throne for the rest of the day it squirts water on the back of my legs- a clear case of toilet's revenge.

But there is more to this story. Moving from my house (there she goes again with the delusions of grandeur- just indulge me) to the school I encounter a completely different kind of beast. A squatter. Well, an experienced traveller like myself is more than used to this kind of thing but this is a little different. The rest of the squats that I have used in many different countries are more like toilets for idiots as they have feet plates so you know where to stand and 'aim', in Korea I guess they figure that if you can't work out where to stand then you don't really need to go. Hence a bit of shuffling up and down on my haunches and the occasional glance to make sure that it is all going where it should be. And of course the paper is deposited in an open bin (trash can) next to the slit pit itself. The smell is something very nasty too- try day two Glastonbury festival if you need some kind of benchmark. All in all not a place to linger.

Which takes me to toilet type three which I came across for the first time last night. This one has its own cockpit and I am sure that there should be some kind of an exam to undertake before you are let lose alone with one. the first thing of note was the not entirely comfortable feeling when I realised that the seat was heated- unnerving! Having 'done the deed' I looked at the control panel next to the bowl and it contained no less than eight buttons- out of which at least seven did the same thing- squirted water straight up in the air so high that the ceiling in the cubicle was soaked by the time I left. I fought my way through the water and put the lid down- hit the off button (the only thing labelled in English) and ran away. Later someone took me back and showed me something that I had missed as I tried to dodge the Niagara that I had unleashed- behind the seat is a small and perfectly formed flush handle. I was more than happy to find that our next location had my old friend the squatter waiting there for me!

And now I have to tell you about that next place. I did the most Korean of all things that I have done since I got here and I went to a nori-bang- that is a singing room. Not Karaoke for any old tom, dick or Harry but a place filled with different size rooms depending on the size of your party, a menu of songs, two mikes and then my favourite bit- tambourines! I have to admit to thoroughly enjoying the experience, banging the tambourine hard on my knee (I had a beer in the other hand of course) even as I dodged the mike every time that it was thrust under my nose. Proudest moment had to be joining in a rousing chorus of Take on Me- I am sure that Morten himself would have been proud of my effort. Some of the Korean translations of song lyrics that came up on the video screens were pretty funny too and I shall try and note some of them down next time to pass onto you all.

So far I am having a lot of fun. I am a bit freaked out because all my kids are great and everyone gives me a funny look when I say that here and they tell me all their horror stories. I am sure that things will change and they will give me new classes with monsters in them. I have mainly girls in my classes and most of them are adorable. I went into the classroom on Thursday and the girls leapt out from behind the door and plied me with candy- so much for losing weight (though I am sure that my beer habit has more than a little to do with that problem)! Biggest successes this week were 1. working out how to use my washing machine- all the buttons are, of course, labelled in Korean, I spent ten minutes pressing all of them in different combinations before realising that I just need to turn on the water at the wall! 2. getting my phone- it is a little white foldy-in-half thing and it is a Hyundai and it says Neomi on the front for all your mobile phone geeks out there. the school bought it for me so I didn't have to cope with all that. 3. buying some speakers for my CD walkman so I now have tunes in the house. 4. working out the way to walk home from work so that I pass through a traditional Korean food market and 5. knowing to avert my eyes from the stalls so that I miss the three pigs head hanging upside down from hook by a flap of skin on their necks and 6. passing my first solid in a squatter!