June in review / Gangneung with Sunny... Pt. 2

Sunny’s wife cooked a delicious breakfast of doenjang jjigae* for us on Sunday and we lingered around the TV for a while before it came time to begin the day’s activities. We spent the afternoon at Ojukheon House, a place where Sin Saimdang and Yulgok lived. They are two famous historical figures. Sin Saimdang is known as the “Mother” of Korea and you can see her portrait on the 50,000 bill. Koreans remember her for her art, calligraphy and filial piety.

Yulgok himself was a prominent scholar and statesman during the Joseon Dynasty. You can see his picture

on the 5,000 won bill. Below you can see a picture of his biography that hangs on one of the house walls. As you can see, the House sits inside beautiful park land. There are trees, shrubs, and flowers everywhere. We  had a great time wandering around and looking inside the various buildings. Like most other historical sites in Korea, admission costs only 3,000 won (less than $3), which is quite reasonable given how much there is to see here.

That 3,000 won also grants you admission to the Gangneung Municipal Museum. It has muted lighting and has large airy exhibits that are filled with artifacts from the past. It’s a marvel at how far Korea has come in the past hundred years. I know that I could say the same thing about the USA, but Korea’s made quantum leaps in housing and infrastructure since then. On one wall, you can see a picture of Gangneung in the early 1900s—a big collection of huts and houses along the ocean shore. The city is the 3^rd largest in Gangwon-do now.

Some pictures of the grounds.

This picture’s for Dick in Wisconsin. I saw these pipes and tobacco accessories and thought about when we used to smoke cigars and pipes together.

This picture’s for Kara because I thought you might like the clothes that Koreans used to wear. Check out the shoes, too.

For Drew (Kara’s husband) and all of my fellow hardware nuts: check out the old saws and squares. Carpentry’s an enduring interest of mine, so seeing this stuff brought back memories of miter boxes and high school woodworking classes.

For Mom: here’s a traditional kitchen. Note the big cooking pots.

Here’s me inside an archway.

This is the fabled “Mother of Korea”

Here's Yulgok.

Here’s the 5,000 won bill.

Here’s the 50,000 won bill.

Korea: where the new collides with the old in strange ways.

More information here…

http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/SI/SI_EN_3_1_1_1.jsp?cid=264191

*Doenjang jjigae (된장 찌개)

http://www.beyondkimchee.com/doenjang-jjigae/

Expect more information about various Korean dishes in the future because it’s occurred to me that I haven’t written much about the delicious food here. Perhaps you’re wondering what I’ve been eating all of this time and if I’m surviving. Perhaps you’re wondering how it compares to Chinese and Japanese food. What do you want to know? I can tell you that I eat Korean food every day and I love it.

I love it so much that I hardly miss Western food. Sure, there’s the lack of Silk soy milk and granola, but as for the old mainstays of soups and sandwiches, they’re not missed. Sure, they taste good, but kimbap, jjajang, and other foods have taken over now. 

Interlude: best quotes of the semester

As the semester comes to a close this week, here are some of the best things the MS and HS students have said during class.

S1 - What’s your favorite color?

Liz – Black.

S1 - Why?

Liz - I’m black.

“My favorite instrument is saxophone because it sounds luxurious.” – A HS 1^st grade boy during class.

Discussion question: What is exciting to you?

Jae-suk (HS grade 1 girl) - Sleeping

So-young (HS grade 1 girl) - Eating

Discussion question: What can you do at the bank?

S1 (HS grade 1 boy) - Shoot a gun

S2 (HS grade 1 boy - Rob it

Discussion question: What will you do this weekend

HS grade 1 boy – Drink. (After 5 seconds) Juice.

One 3rd grade MS class had a discussion on double eyelid surgery, so I did the next lesson on beauty. I wanted to get the students' thoughts on beauty and how they viewed people of different sizes. Koreans can have specific standards about beauty, particularly in the "V-line" face and "S-line" body, so I thought it'd be a good topic to address.

• When it seemed as though the students only thought skinny girls could be pretty, I asked if a fat girl could be pretty. One girl, Eun-sun, answered with "Only to her boyfriend." Later on, Dae-rae said "Wisdom is inner beauty."

“Bacchus is the Korean life force” – Sunny the math teacher. Bacchus is a Korean energy drink. It’s a less extreme version of 5-Hour Energy shots.

“I’m going to the park so I can fight.” – An HS 1^st grade boy.

(From a lesson on going places. The target expression was variations on “I’m going to ~ so I can ~.)

“You look like a grandfather. It’s good!” – Da-hye, an HS student.

(Upon seeing the mustache I was growing in March)

Mr. Choi the co-teacher on hangovers: “We met with [teachers] yesterday and we drank from 10:30pm. Yesterday was no problem. The problem is today.”

June in Review / Gangneung with Sunny and his family, Pt. 1

A journey into the past world of records and audio equipment.

June got capped off with an excellent weekend on the east coast city of Gangneung. My colleague Sunny the math teacher invited me to spend the weekend there with him and his family. Like many of the Korean teachers here, Sunny stays in Wasu while his family lives in another town. He sees them on weekends. I felt honored that he'd take this time to have me come and visit. We had a great time.


The rainy season's begun here, so it rained all the way from Wasu to the outskirts of Gangneung. It wasn't raining in the city at least. This occasion marked the third time I've been on the east coast of the country. The first trip happened when a co-teacher and I drove to Yangyang for a teachers conference and the second time was a teachers overnight trip to Sokcho before Christmas.

Sunny and I left Wasu in the morning and arrived in the mid-afternoon. We stopped for a delicious lunch of galbi tang in Chuncheon on the way. We met his lovely wife and cute daughter at their apartment and took off for the nearby Charmsori Gramophone Museum and Edison Science Museum. He said he'd been here once as a high school student and had enjoyed it. Indeed! I was geeking out left and right as we went from room to room here. Over 100 years of audio equipment stands inside those museum's walls and it was a real treat to see the hi-fis of yore. Our guide played us tin foil recordings, music boxes, and in one excellent instance, a 78 of Glen Miller's Orchestra doing "In The Mood." This place had everything from wax cylinders to DVD players. They had plenty of reel-to-reel tape decks and those kitschy 8-track pod players from the '70s as well. The 8-tracks were especially fun to see in person. I've still yet to hear an 8-track in all its glory live though. No matter--the 78s and the music boxes were more than enough to fuel my inner music and history geek. 

In front of the Charmsori Gramophone Museum. It is attached to the Edison Science Museum. Fellow audiophiles will love this place. It has rooms full of gramophones, record players, music boxes, and audio equipment. Fantastic collection! 

Among the many gramophones there.

Military Demos on a Pocheon Mountain / Metal Storm

From a recent Facebook status update: "I joined my high school kids for a field trip to a mountainside military base yesterday. We saw a *live fire* demonstration of American and Korean tanks, jets, and helicopters. I saw an A10 Warthog in all its glory and that famous machine gun sounded menacing. See the Youtube link for one part of what we saw. The Naver link has pictures. The artillery fire was deafening. The tank fire will hit in the guts from hundreds of feet away. We saw (and heard) this multiple times during the hour long demonstration. It ranks as one of the best times I've had here. We got to see the tanks, missiles, and bombs that shelled the mountain. Enjoy."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaP8mY88E-E
The Korean and American military holds this demo every year. This video shows exactly what we saw, except we had much better weather.


http://whitekjh.blog.me/150120554659
This page has the pictures.

More to come later.

Another side of the Korean school system

Some big news for the week:

My contract renewal papers arrived earlier. I signed them. Renewing's been on my mind for a long time now; indeed, it's been there since month two or three. The principal, principal, and the teachers approve of it, but the principal said (at a dinner last night) that the students' opinions held the most sway, and they want me to stay too. I'm glad they do because they're fun to work with!

That's the good news. The not-so-good news is that another student's committed suicide. This story came out this week:
A Daegu commits suicide over alleged bullying

This has happened eight times in six months and it's beyond saddening.

The website Eat Your Kimchi has a good and informative page about Korean schools and bullying. It also explains more about how the school hours work over here. The students put in long hours during the week and most of them don't get too much rest at night. Somehow they hang on.

Happy Korean Memorial Day

No school today because it is Korean Memorial Day. Let's take a moment to remember the military personnel of this great country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Day_(South_Korea)

http://blog.korea.net/?p=10283

As a side note, the summer weather has arrived: it's hot and sunny today. It's time for a siesta.

May 2012 in review

A new month has begun, so it's time to look back at the previous one. May was a good time. There'll be more to come...the following comprises some of the best times:

• Getting a cab ride from central Seoul to Wasu at 3am with Kirsten. We rode around 110km and paid 100,000won including tip. This came at the end of a long night that began with Claire’s choir concert downtown and ended with a long after party in a neighborhood near the Noksapyeong Station.

• Pub Golf with most of the Cheorwon Crew. Claire put this together: Nine holes spread across all three of our towns, replete with 3 legged races, flip cup, beer pong, bowling, beer chugging. The opening hole had us chugging a beer through a mouth full of marshmallows and then eating the marshmallows. I did this in two long swigs. Most everyone else did it in one. Those marshmallows burned on the way down the throat.

• Meeting some of teachers and students of my two schools’ sister school in Heffei, China.

• Having the distinct pleasure of teaching a 90 minute joint class of Korean and Chinese students from middle school and high school. The principal, vice principal, and many of the teachers watched. The class had students from middle school grade 3 to high school grade 3. I and my co-teacher Ms. Jeong taught the students how to write a comparison paragraph about the two schools on a piece of poster paper and the kids did wonderfully. The paragraphs they wrote exceeded our expectations and the kids had a great time working with each other. All of them listened attentively and showed enthusiasm. This day will forever stand as one of my best (and favorite) classes. Credit goes to the principal for the comparison idea and Ms. Jeong for preparing the posters and 90% of the lesson. She outdid herself there.
• Drinking free makgeolli on the street at the Cheonggyecheon Festival.
• Riding on a motor  scooter for the first time—on a Friday night in the gridlocked Dongdaemun area of Seoul. Weaving between cars made for one fun near-death experience.