It really is almost over.

It is funny how when the whole thing is said and done, that you really only want to remember the good parts anyway. I hope that is how I will remember Korea... no screaming kids, making tests and discipline, but funny moments, laughing kids and exploring a new country.

The new teachers are here today, and they are fantastic.... as I knew they would be. It is hard to pass the torch and give up my babies to strangers, but they are in good capable hands, and will probably forget me in a year or so when the next set of new foreigner teachers come, and then it will be all about missing Aaron and Alison teacher ( yes the new female teachers name is Alison, the kids were so excited to not have to learn a new name!)

So here a just a few pictures from the end of last week, I may do another blog on our last night.

Sky with his big scary bug I threatened to kill if it got out from under his cup.
Sweet sweet Peter.

Adorable girls who HATE to have their pictures taken.

Hilarious Jason ( I swear I have seen that face in one of the Aisan horror movies)

My lovely girls who have each managed to hug me three times each today.

I miss them already and I am still here. Tomorrow will be much harder, but I intend to enjoy each class to the fullest.

Saving Face

After living in Korea for over 7 months, you start to understand the cultural differences more… mostly because they are in conflict with your own cultural ideals. At this point I still cannot claim to be an expert on the subject of Korean culture, far from it in fact, but I can draw from many of my own experiences. I decided to divert a bit from the usual Picture post blog and go a bit more in depth to the lifestyle that I have been living here.

I had a great conversation with Dani last week, we kept going over how it is so hard to explain to people back home exactly why living here is sometimes so infuriating… Not including the language barrier, the chopsticks or the excessive amount of carbs in the diet…( that was expected) the culture and the people encompassed by it can sometimes get you down. It is, however, not easy to explain why this way of living is so in conflict with my own lifestyle. I finally came down to one conclusion. Two words make living in Korea hard… but understanding them can make it easier to bear.

Saving Face.

In America this just basically means covering for yourself and maintaining dignity, but in Korea it is part of business, friendships, romantic relationships and family life. Due to the heavy Confucian beliefs Koreans are all about traits like
persistence, perseverance, respect for hierarchal relationships, concern for saving face, and respect for tradition. But as I see it saving face in today’s society can sometimes seem like displacing blame if you are from outside the culture. Nobody likes to be embarrassed or look foolish but part of the Korean nature is they don’t want to see ANYONE embarrassed or look bad or ever, even if it means shoving the blame where it doesn’t belong.

Take for instance my experience. I have been teaching the 2:30 America class for over a month with the new Level 1 book. I handed the books out the first day, and about a month and half later we were about a third of the way through the book when One day in class one of the children tells me “ oh teacher, no book today”. This happens sometimes since they have a different book for the days the Korean teacher works with them, so no problem, I went and made a copy of the pages and gave them to the student for the class. The next class the child still is missing their book, so I make note of it in the daily report that “so in so didn’t bring their book for the second time”…which is when the Korean teacher punishes them by taking away a star. Well that didn’t happen.

The student, so afraid of losing a star, tells the Korean teacher and their parents that “Allison teacher never gave me a book”... ok

So the Korean teacher approaches me and asks me why I never gave the child a book…. My answer “ I did, a month ago, when I gave out all the books, I think that particular student must have lost it” which is replied to with “ Well the child and their parents say you didn’t give them a book”….ok

Why would I forget to give a book to one child in the class, and if I did why did it take the kid a month and a half to figure it out… honestly. We were already 7 or 8 units in from the previous month, and suddenly the kids stops bringing it because I never gave them a book. That makes no sense.

Now this is where the face saving comes in. I am lightly reprimanded for not giving the child a book, because nobody is brave enough to tell the kids parents that the kid lied, ( because I gave the kid a book) So in order to keep the kid from being embarrassed or the parents from realizing their kid lied and really lost the book, they order a new one, and I end up looking incompetent.

Nothing is more infuriating. But that is what happens when you are the foreigner on the bottom of the social hierarchy chain…

It runs deeper than that. Koreans hate to say “no” or “I don’t know” so if you ask a question, if they are unsure of the answer… rather than be uncomfortable and look unwise they will LIE and tell you something that MIGHT be true, just so you don’t get uncomfortable and they can get your off their back without looking foolish.

Which usually ends up making trouble for the non-Korean speaker. Like for instance searching for an hour for a bus station in the wrong direction in Busan because we had the misfortune to ask someone who didn’t know either.

The crucial thing that saving face is up against is the concept of respect from a Western sense. Respect for my time, and my intelligence.

In the West, we strongly adhere to the idea that the highest measure of respect to show a person is honesty.

Americans can seem so friendly to other cultures because they engage in many "face-saving" activities in ways that Koreans do not. Take for instance how we deal with strangers. I grew up in a place where you hold the door for someone coming in behind you, give compliments, and do your best to help someone even if you don't know them. Something simple like smiling at someone as you pass them on the street does not happen here. Koreans are taught to withhold emotion at all times and even cover their mouth when laughing…But things I consider just simple consideration for another person seem lacking here. I have had the door slammed in my face at the bank, been pushed in the butt with a shopping cart to move and not told when a co-worker was leaving the workplace forever until 10 minutes before she left.

I sometimes don’t understand why a whole society of people cannot just stand by what they think, and if necessary, SAY what they think. I feel like those we hold in the highest esteem we show respect by being honest and giving opinions when needed or asked.

Though to the Koreans, Honesty is often in conflict with relationship-preserving or face saving actions. They believe to make someone close to you feel bad for any reason, even with honesty is considered rude and hateful. Americans simply trust that our good friends will not be hurt by our outright comments because we respect them enough to tell them the truth.

( Hey sorry, you have lettuce in your teeth!)
There is, however, some irony here in that, from an Confucian perspective, Americans can often seem cruel to those close to us (friends and family) or appear that we take close relationships for granted with our honesty. Go figure.

So there you have it, East vs. West…. I can see both sides… and I think I fall somewhere in the middle. I think there is a fine line between honesty for the better, and honesty just to be mean or make someone feel foolish.

Next post, My birthday weekend in Seoul!

Seollal New Year Gift Sets!

I am running way behind on Blog posts, but I had these pictures from back before we went to Seoul. The whole reason we had off to go to Seoul was for the Solar New year ( which also happened to fall on Valentines day!) The Koreans all give extravagant gifts for this holiday (as it is much like the Lunar New Year) Our Boss Grace gave us these cool gift sets.

For Me, since all women cook in korea, (ahem) I got a set of cooking oil as well as seaweed.... Not sure what to do with the seaweed as we are not big consumers of it, but she was very thoughtful to pick out something not so spicy so we could try to enjoy it! The cooking oil I will totally use!

The two big boxes on the sides contained big packages of flat seaweed. Four in each so 8 total...

For the men, they typically give beauty products.... I guess they saw how pretty Joseph is, and decided he can't get that way just naturally ( she gave Manager Daniel the same gift pack!)

It came with two lotions (which I use) face cream ( which I use), Happy time body lather (which I use) Chapstick ( which I use) Soap ( We do share that) and korean toothpaste ( which Joseph claimed as his own, and I can only "borrow" if I run out of colgate!) So I cleaned up pretty well! (har har har)


She also very kindly gave us quite a bit of cash, which was very handy for our trip to Seoul (basically enough to cover our bus fare for both of us, to and from Seoul, with some extra).... So, needless to say, we had a very wonderful Solar New Year... and will be quite sad not to have three days off work when we get back to the states next year!

Only slightly sad we didn't get a spam gift set! ( we see those all over the place) Maybe on the next holiday.

Little moments mean alot...

I simply had to post about this, because it made me laugh so hard, and is quite possibly the best thing that has happened since I arrived in Korea three months ago!

I walk into the Family Mart today to buy a drink, and was suprised to hear the song "What Christmas Means to Me" by Hanson from their Snowed In album, but that is not why this was the best moment of my life.... because I hear Hanson all the time here (surprisingly!) On top of my favorite band actually being played, the cute korean guy ( I say 18 or 19) working the counter was singing along.... and dancing.... He didn't see me till it was too late.... BAHAHAHAHAHAHA....alll I could do was smile as he turned a bright shade of red..... oops.....

Gamsahamnida Mr. Korean man singing and dancing to Hanson....Gamshamninda!!!!! (thank you!)

2010 is going to be a good year...

General Updates and Such...

So it has been a while since I updated and here I sit with an hour left of work and no classes to teach so I figured now is the best time to keep everyone updated with what has been happening. Some of you who talk to me on a regular e-mail basis or facebook stalking status know Joseph and I have been under the weather again thanks to a wonderful huge supply of foreign Korean Germs! many thanks for this latest cold can be giving to my students... I am fairly sure.

I just had one student in my 7:30 class come into the teacher room and try to force feed me some kind of spicy korean snack that looked like a flat piece of white beef... Uhhh no thanks Helia, and did you even wash your hands.... yeah... ( At least they like me enough to share a snack, but I am overly cautious about eating anything that is not packaged... mostly because they like to kill me with spicy things.)

This week at school has been crazy too, Our manager Daniel is out sick all week with H1N1, which is not good for buisness!( or for Joseph and I because we have to sub his classes.)

I actually missed work on monday, but today I am feeling much better, though from the sound of my voice that would not seem to be the case. All my students keep saying "ahhh teacher your sound like monster"At least the constant river that has been my nose has dried up! Yeah!

Our Co-workers have been so worried about us they take every opportunity to ask us how we feel, or if we are getting enough sleep and exercise... they also love to try out the Korean medicine on us. Korea has a plethora of different medical facilities from clinics to offices, pharmacys, to Herb stores... the supply is endless, the worst of all was the Red Ginsing Tonic that Sen gave us. Ginsing is widely used here for medicinal purposes and is thought to cure almost anything. They take the ginsing root and make a special tonic out of it... however the one Sen gave us she refered to as a "potion"...which pointed towards an herb sort of medicine.

The directions were simple enough, Put in a glass, heat up in the microwave for a few seconds and drink..... which is easier said than done...

After taking the red/brown liquid out of the microwave joseph and I were overcome with a very powerful smell, and this was the bad power, not the good kind.... it smelled like hot dirt... really, there is no way to describe it other than Hot dirt. Not wanting to shun something that might make my cold vanish because of something silly like a bad smell, I ventured to taste it.... BAD IDEA.... note to self if it smells like dirt and looks like dirt... it is probably gonna taste that way too... it tasted like they forgot to shake the dirt off the ginsing root before making this potion... who knows... after that my stomach started feeling awful and I had to drink pepsi for the rest of the night to settle it down... Even worse was the next day we found two more "potions" on our desk at work. I feel bad because the stuff is expensive, but ewwww not again... it doesn't really help much. We said thank you and made sure to tell how much better we felt that day and luckily on thursday there was no more potion to be had!

Grace has been really helpful too she took us out for the Korean equivalent of Chicken noodle soup here in Korea. Guk Bab is a white Broth with pieces of meat and seaweed, and though when she took us out tuesday, I could not taste much, it was warm and helped clear my sinuses some.I thought the meat looked wierd but I was not sure why.... and I almost liked it but I could not put my finger on what was wrong, and then at work the next day when Jenny teacher told us that it was basically tripe soup... yeah to cure upset stomach and colds, Koreans eat pig stomach and intestine soup.... wow... can someone pass me some hot dirt potion please?

The next meal she took us out for was much better. Nalboo soup is lots of Ham ( regular kind) spam and noodles in a pork broth... it was really filling and somewhat spicy, but it was alot better than some of the other medicinal cures. It is what they used to serve the men in the military during the Korean war, because it is so easy to make and is very filling. I would acutally eat that again. So we have been back at school for the end part of this week, not too many problems.

Now in Teacher Daniels absence, we hired a sub for the rest of the week, her name is Paula, and she is very kind. She has been great to take over some of the classes so by wednesday Joseph and I had our breaks back. Thankfully Jenny teacher who was on the brink of sickness was able to pull herself back to the light and not succumb to disease because with two Korean teachers out things would be a mess.

So things are calmed down, Joseph is feeling better as am I. So no worries here.

All I know is that it is friday night, and Joseph and I are going to meet our friends from South Africa for dinner after work, and have a nice fun weekend. Maybe even have a reason to take some pictures.

And last but not least, we went to the bank today and opened up accounts, which was exciting. Our Bank is part of some Big Company that sells fish on all the Islands so our banks slogan is "Fresh bank, Fresh fish" and there are fish pictures all over the place... we were kinda concerned and confused when grace took us to the "bank" we thought it was a fish market, but thankfully it was just a bank.

Anyway, that is all the updates for now... it is 8pm and I am ready for my weekend to begin!