This afterenoon I read the much talked about article in the New York Times about the "Tiger Mom" in America who raised her daughters in the so-called Chinese style. To quickly sum up the article her daughters were banned from sleepovers, play dates, school plays, extra-curricular activities that their mother didn't approve of and basically disobeying their mother in the slightest. This has got me thinking about the children I teach here in Korea, some of whom attend 3 academies a day finishing studying at 7:30.
A few months ago I had a conversation with two of my students who were about to finish elementary school and move up to middle school, meaning they were going to leave my academy for another one. I asked them how they felt about going to the "English Genius Academy" - they weren't excited. They knew it meant more studying and that they would be at schools until 8-9 o'clock in the evening.
I then asked them how they felt about their future in general and their expressions changed dramatically. They looked so grave and miserable at the prospect of this. Eric and Alex told me about all the extra studying it will mean, all the extra academies they will have to attend every single day in order to get the top possible marks in English, Korean, Maths and the Sciences (I assume they study a musical instrument too).
From what I have heard and read, Korean high school is nothing short of a two year endurance test. Eric and Alex already only get 6 hours of sleep a night, so they anticipated that during high school they would get even less.
But what about university? I asked. Surely that would be fun? The boys seemed slightly more enthused then as they realised that they would be away from their mothers (sort of) and free to do whatever they wanted (sort of). Universities aren't exactly the same as in the West here, there are rules and regulations to adhere to and mothers will still expect visits home and phone calls I'm sure.
After university comes the thing the boys are really not looking forward to - Military Service. They will have just had their 3-4 years of freedom and then be forced to conscript into the military for two years as all Koreans do. They winced when they thought about this (I wondered if they had heard the same rumours that I had heard about beatings). Then they asked me a question: "What was military service like in England?" they couldn't believe me when I told them that we don't have it. Then they looked on in shock as I told them that high school was sort of fun and that my mother hadn't told me what to do for about 8 years. It was too much for them.
The reason I'm writing about this is because of the general sense of pity that I think most of the foreign teachers feel for the children they teach. They study so hard and often make it clear that they don't want to be there at 7 o'clock on a Thursday evening. When I (and Meghan) ask our children what they did on the weekends they answer is almost always "I studied".
Another thing I have noticed is that the children are always complaining that they are hungry. I know that they are children, but if you think about it most parents in the West have problems getting their children to eat (especially at the ages I teach), but Korean children are always hungry. The fact that they go from academy to academy after school means that they won't get their dinner until about 9 o'clock at night. You should see their little faces at the slightest mention of pizza or cookies.
Clearly, the West does not have the perfect education system, our flagging exam results and downright dangerous children in the schools account for that but what we do have is freedom. Korea has the best exam results in the world, by quite a long way, but the question a lot of people ask is "at what cost?"
Sunday, 23 January 2011
Monday, 15 November 2010
My Friend Neil
I have been very lazy with my blog recently and haven't updated it in well over a month. Now I feel that I have to but this time it has nothing to do with my life in Korea, it is all to do with my dear friend Neil Beeson.
On Saturday morning I woke up to read the horrible news via Facebook, that Neil had died in a motorcycle accident in his town in Thailand. I made a few frantic calls to Thailand to confirm the news and was left in shock when I was told what happened. I then had to make the most difficult phone calls of my life as I called to England, Thailand again and Australia to break the news to other people. On Saturday I had a very difficult time accepting the reality, but come Sunday it sunk in and I wept my eyes out as I wrote my small tribute to him on Facebook.
Now I want to write a full tribute to him, the party mad, beer swilling, West Ham loving hurricane that was Neil Beeson.
I spent 4 years living with Neil in Plymouth and to put it simply he was never easy to live with. This wasn't neccesarily a bad thing, he was never dull. He always wanted to party or at least have a good time, which usually involved several cans of lager and possibly some Vodka Red Bull depending on what day of the week it was.
I actually cannot recall when I met him for the first time. I lived with me in my house of 33 people in Plymouth and for the first couple of weeks, we could not work out if it was him or his then girlfriend that was living in the house. Finally, he appeared for the pool night and promptly hustled (or fluked) his way to all the money bonding with us in the process over our shared love of the Football Manager video game series.
Over the next 5 years, we spent 4 years living them together, doing not a lot except playing video games, chatting about nothing in particular, partying at the Students Union and making ill advised attempts to pick up women well above our average.
It was during this time that he some of my fondest memories were (of anyone) were created. The ridiculous and the impossible were never beyond him, such as the time he was drunk off his ass and suggested that we should take the ferry over to France and sleep on the beach, failing to understand that Northern France was not the tropical paradise he seemed to think it was in the middle of March. It was then that he declared his hatred of history films set in the past, that he told our Spanish housemate that West Ham were just as good as Sevilla, revealed that he had never listened to Led Zeppelin and walked in on me and my then girlfriend and was forced to flash her to make up for the incident.
After living in Bristol for about a year, he was quite unhappy with his job and predicament and so we both decided to become teachers in the Far East. It was his suggestion to go and to the training course in Thailand and it was here that he passed from being an eccentric to a living legend. When we landed in Chiang Mai we passed out for about 8 hours and then went out and got ourselves slaughtered and threw up in the bathrooms later that nights. The next day we were due to to start our training course at 9am and when I tried to wake him up he took a swing at me and told me where I could shove it. This was Neil, the only thing he loved more than partying was sleeping, no one ever took it personally, it was just Neil.
It was there in Thailand that he decided one night to sleep in the corridor (because he refused to share the same room with a fully dressed sleeping couple) and then wondered the halls in his underwear looking for water, strolling into the kitchen were dozens of Thais had their breakfast. One night he even bashed his head on a stage, knocked himself out and carried on and only the next day suffered the concussion.
On our infamous weekend in Ko Samet he dissapeared for the best part of the weekend after being punched in the face by a Thai bar girl and only saw daylight for the best part of two hours. We all had to nearly leave without him because nobody knew where he was and the boat was due to leave. (Those who were there on the weekend later found out exactly what he was getting up to.)
Thailand truly became his home. There he could live the life he always dreamed of, be the king he always he wanted to be and most importantly sleep as much as he liked. I was then so happy to hear that he had settled down, got himself a solid loving girlfriend and some consistency in his life. It was a surprise to me, but he had well and truly found happiness in his life.
I was planning to fly out from Korea to Thailand over Christmas and visit in him in our old town. I wanted to see this life that he had adopted, but most of all just see my friend.
Rest In Peace my friend. The world will be quieter without you but it won't be nearly as happy a place.
I will never forget you.
Below are the pictures of the four Neils. Friend, sportsman, narcoleptic and party animal.
On Saturday morning I woke up to read the horrible news via Facebook, that Neil had died in a motorcycle accident in his town in Thailand. I made a few frantic calls to Thailand to confirm the news and was left in shock when I was told what happened. I then had to make the most difficult phone calls of my life as I called to England, Thailand again and Australia to break the news to other people. On Saturday I had a very difficult time accepting the reality, but come Sunday it sunk in and I wept my eyes out as I wrote my small tribute to him on Facebook.
Now I want to write a full tribute to him, the party mad, beer swilling, West Ham loving hurricane that was Neil Beeson.
I spent 4 years living with Neil in Plymouth and to put it simply he was never easy to live with. This wasn't neccesarily a bad thing, he was never dull. He always wanted to party or at least have a good time, which usually involved several cans of lager and possibly some Vodka Red Bull depending on what day of the week it was.
I actually cannot recall when I met him for the first time. I lived with me in my house of 33 people in Plymouth and for the first couple of weeks, we could not work out if it was him or his then girlfriend that was living in the house. Finally, he appeared for the pool night and promptly hustled (or fluked) his way to all the money bonding with us in the process over our shared love of the Football Manager video game series.
Over the next 5 years, we spent 4 years living them together, doing not a lot except playing video games, chatting about nothing in particular, partying at the Students Union and making ill advised attempts to pick up women well above our average.
It was during this time that he some of my fondest memories were (of anyone) were created. The ridiculous and the impossible were never beyond him, such as the time he was drunk off his ass and suggested that we should take the ferry over to France and sleep on the beach, failing to understand that Northern France was not the tropical paradise he seemed to think it was in the middle of March. It was then that he declared his hatred of history films set in the past, that he told our Spanish housemate that West Ham were just as good as Sevilla, revealed that he had never listened to Led Zeppelin and walked in on me and my then girlfriend and was forced to flash her to make up for the incident.
After living in Bristol for about a year, he was quite unhappy with his job and predicament and so we both decided to become teachers in the Far East. It was his suggestion to go and to the training course in Thailand and it was here that he passed from being an eccentric to a living legend. When we landed in Chiang Mai we passed out for about 8 hours and then went out and got ourselves slaughtered and threw up in the bathrooms later that nights. The next day we were due to to start our training course at 9am and when I tried to wake him up he took a swing at me and told me where I could shove it. This was Neil, the only thing he loved more than partying was sleeping, no one ever took it personally, it was just Neil.
It was there in Thailand that he decided one night to sleep in the corridor (because he refused to share the same room with a fully dressed sleeping couple) and then wondered the halls in his underwear looking for water, strolling into the kitchen were dozens of Thais had their breakfast. One night he even bashed his head on a stage, knocked himself out and carried on and only the next day suffered the concussion.
On our infamous weekend in Ko Samet he dissapeared for the best part of the weekend after being punched in the face by a Thai bar girl and only saw daylight for the best part of two hours. We all had to nearly leave without him because nobody knew where he was and the boat was due to leave. (Those who were there on the weekend later found out exactly what he was getting up to.)
Thailand truly became his home. There he could live the life he always dreamed of, be the king he always he wanted to be and most importantly sleep as much as he liked. I was then so happy to hear that he had settled down, got himself a solid loving girlfriend and some consistency in his life. It was a surprise to me, but he had well and truly found happiness in his life.
I was planning to fly out from Korea to Thailand over Christmas and visit in him in our old town. I wanted to see this life that he had adopted, but most of all just see my friend.
Rest In Peace my friend. The world will be quieter without you but it won't be nearly as happy a place.
I will never forget you.
Below are the pictures of the four Neils. Friend, sportsman, narcoleptic and party animal.
Saturday, 25 September 2010
Everland and Chuseok
Before I start properly on this blog I'd like to mention the crazy man who stands outside my apartment building in the mornings with his penis out. He just likes to stand there holding it, not really doing a lot else. The Koreans, typically, like to pretend that nothing is happening and ignore him.
There was also the case a month or so ago when I was walking towards a bar at night and a Korean man walked past me in the other direction, completley naked! He seemed to be completley unaware that he was naked, like he'd just forgotten to put his clothes on that morning and had gone about his daily business. This time though, the Koreans most certainly did notice and were out in the streets taking photos on their mobile phones.
Korean Business Logic
I always wonder just how most business' here make any money. If you were to ask someone at home where is the best place to open a bedding and fabric store in town, they would probably not answer with "next to the seven other bedding and fabric stores that all sell the same stock". Yet this seems to be the way in Korea, the bedding and fabric stores are all next door to each other and sell the same things for the same price. The main street in town has about 10 hiking shops on it. The techno-mart in Seoul has one floor with almost 50 camera shops in it, none of whom stock anything different from the guy next to him. All of these shops are always completley empty whenever I walk buy, which makes me wonder just how people keep their businesses alive.
There is also bar street in our town, which almost looks like a bar street in the centre of Bangkok with it's neon lights and pumping music blasting out, but again all of these bars are pretty much empty even on Friday and Saturday night, unless a group of 10 foreigners comes inside. The bars again sell the same drinks for the same prices - which isn't cheap, £2.75 for a small bottle of weak Korean beer (I cannot stress enough just how weak the local beer is here). I always think that if one of the bars actually lowered their prices, by just 1000Won (50p) they could make a killing, even if it's just from the foreigners.
Everland
Last weekend, my boss took me to the fourth biggest theme park in the world (according to the Lonely Planet). Now if you think theme parks are brightly coloured and tacky and you have set foot in Korea for more than a day, you might get some idea of just how brightly coloured tacky Everland is. This was not aided by the fact that they are celebrating Halloween there for the next 2 months, so everything is decorated with skeletons, ghosts and pumpkins, who are not supposed to be scary but are cute like everything else in Korea.
It was certainly an odd experience, like being at a half-assed Disney World, with the poor staff being forced to do a little dance whilst the rides span and looped about. They were also made to sing the Everland jingle everytime you got off the ride (with Everland pronounced Eber-rand by Koreans). They were quite enthusiastic at the start of the day, but come 7pm when we went home they really could not be bothered anymore (but still had 3 hours left to work).
There were some good rides at the park, namely the giant wooden rollercoaster, which seemed to defy gravity for the most parts, but some rides were clearly not designed for Westerners like the Viking boat (biking boat to Koreans) which nearly crushed me when they lowered the safety bar.
Undoubtedly the funniest moment there was when we rode on the Amazon river ride, humurously put in the Africa zone, and doing nothing to dismiss assumptions that Koreans are bad at geography. As we got closer to the boats, we noticed that all the boats had covers that you could pull over yourself to stop you getting wet. Needless to say the Koreans were all cowering underneath the covers, pulled up to their necks and screamed as a little splash of water landed next to them. I tried to explain to my boss that this was completley missing the point of a water ride, you're supposed to get soaking wet on it, but Koreans appear to be afraid of water. When Meg and I got on and the staff pulled up the cover, they were all shocked to see us pull of the cover and wait to get wet. Of course we stayed dry and the water splashed over all the Koreans and managed to get them soaked.
Chuseok
I had three days off this week, unfortunately they were Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday so I couldn't go anywhere for too long. I did get to do a lot of sightseeing in Seoul, albeit not a lot on Tuesday because of the horrific downpours that caused severe floods in Incheon. Taking a cable car up to Namsan Tower and seeing the whole of Seoul from a great height was a huge highlight.
Wednesday was the Korean Thanksgiving, Chuseok, so Meg and I were invited to my boss's family's house to have a traditional Korean Chuseok dinner. For once it was worth noting that this was one meal that didn't involve "red" so the food didn't knock my socks off as I feared it would (although there was Kimchi floating about somewhere.
The family were very kind to us, and the nephew and his girlfriend had perfect English (accent included) so could explain to us just what was going on and what food was being served and which food didn't contain seafood and was safe for Meghan to eat.
My boss's brother (whose house it was) greeted us at the door in what can only be described as pink pajamas. Bright pink pajamas! They were, apparently, traditional Korean clothes and whilst they looked very comfortable, they were still bright pink. My boss said she thought her brother was a bit backwards because he was wearing them, I think she might have been a bit embarrassed.
After dinner, we played a traditional Korean board game which was explained to me as being a bit like Monopoly. As we played the game I realised that it was nothing like Monopoly and was in fact very complicated. The head of the family, my boss's father, was apparently the master of the game and immeadiatley after dinner he was sitting on the floor throwing the sticks into the air, practicing apparently. As we played, it became increasingly evident that I was lucky to have a Korean partner to aid me, but we still lost and I hard to part with 10,000 Won (£5.50), the hosts where the eventual winners - which my boss said was more than a little suspect...
There was also the case a month or so ago when I was walking towards a bar at night and a Korean man walked past me in the other direction, completley naked! He seemed to be completley unaware that he was naked, like he'd just forgotten to put his clothes on that morning and had gone about his daily business. This time though, the Koreans most certainly did notice and were out in the streets taking photos on their mobile phones.
Korean Business Logic
I always wonder just how most business' here make any money. If you were to ask someone at home where is the best place to open a bedding and fabric store in town, they would probably not answer with "next to the seven other bedding and fabric stores that all sell the same stock". Yet this seems to be the way in Korea, the bedding and fabric stores are all next door to each other and sell the same things for the same price. The main street in town has about 10 hiking shops on it. The techno-mart in Seoul has one floor with almost 50 camera shops in it, none of whom stock anything different from the guy next to him. All of these shops are always completley empty whenever I walk buy, which makes me wonder just how people keep their businesses alive.
There is also bar street in our town, which almost looks like a bar street in the centre of Bangkok with it's neon lights and pumping music blasting out, but again all of these bars are pretty much empty even on Friday and Saturday night, unless a group of 10 foreigners comes inside. The bars again sell the same drinks for the same prices - which isn't cheap, £2.75 for a small bottle of weak Korean beer (I cannot stress enough just how weak the local beer is here). I always think that if one of the bars actually lowered their prices, by just 1000Won (50p) they could make a killing, even if it's just from the foreigners.
Everland
Last weekend, my boss took me to the fourth biggest theme park in the world (according to the Lonely Planet). Now if you think theme parks are brightly coloured and tacky and you have set foot in Korea for more than a day, you might get some idea of just how brightly coloured tacky Everland is. This was not aided by the fact that they are celebrating Halloween there for the next 2 months, so everything is decorated with skeletons, ghosts and pumpkins, who are not supposed to be scary but are cute like everything else in Korea.
It was certainly an odd experience, like being at a half-assed Disney World, with the poor staff being forced to do a little dance whilst the rides span and looped about. They were also made to sing the Everland jingle everytime you got off the ride (with Everland pronounced Eber-rand by Koreans). They were quite enthusiastic at the start of the day, but come 7pm when we went home they really could not be bothered anymore (but still had 3 hours left to work).
There were some good rides at the park, namely the giant wooden rollercoaster, which seemed to defy gravity for the most parts, but some rides were clearly not designed for Westerners like the Viking boat (biking boat to Koreans) which nearly crushed me when they lowered the safety bar.
Undoubtedly the funniest moment there was when we rode on the Amazon river ride, humurously put in the Africa zone, and doing nothing to dismiss assumptions that Koreans are bad at geography. As we got closer to the boats, we noticed that all the boats had covers that you could pull over yourself to stop you getting wet. Needless to say the Koreans were all cowering underneath the covers, pulled up to their necks and screamed as a little splash of water landed next to them. I tried to explain to my boss that this was completley missing the point of a water ride, you're supposed to get soaking wet on it, but Koreans appear to be afraid of water. When Meg and I got on and the staff pulled up the cover, they were all shocked to see us pull of the cover and wait to get wet. Of course we stayed dry and the water splashed over all the Koreans and managed to get them soaked.
Chuseok
I had three days off this week, unfortunately they were Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday so I couldn't go anywhere for too long. I did get to do a lot of sightseeing in Seoul, albeit not a lot on Tuesday because of the horrific downpours that caused severe floods in Incheon. Taking a cable car up to Namsan Tower and seeing the whole of Seoul from a great height was a huge highlight.
Wednesday was the Korean Thanksgiving, Chuseok, so Meg and I were invited to my boss's family's house to have a traditional Korean Chuseok dinner. For once it was worth noting that this was one meal that didn't involve "red" so the food didn't knock my socks off as I feared it would (although there was Kimchi floating about somewhere.
The family were very kind to us, and the nephew and his girlfriend had perfect English (accent included) so could explain to us just what was going on and what food was being served and which food didn't contain seafood and was safe for Meghan to eat.
My boss's brother (whose house it was) greeted us at the door in what can only be described as pink pajamas. Bright pink pajamas! They were, apparently, traditional Korean clothes and whilst they looked very comfortable, they were still bright pink. My boss said she thought her brother was a bit backwards because he was wearing them, I think she might have been a bit embarrassed.
After dinner, we played a traditional Korean board game which was explained to me as being a bit like Monopoly. As we played the game I realised that it was nothing like Monopoly and was in fact very complicated. The head of the family, my boss's father, was apparently the master of the game and immeadiatley after dinner he was sitting on the floor throwing the sticks into the air, practicing apparently. As we played, it became increasingly evident that I was lucky to have a Korean partner to aid me, but we still lost and I hard to part with 10,000 Won (£5.50), the hosts where the eventual winners - which my boss said was more than a little suspect...
Wednesday, 25 August 2010
You can eat anything you like - so long as it's Kimchi!
It's been a little while since I last posted, which is strange considering I've been sheltering from the blistering sun or the rampaging thunderstorms for most of the time.
In this blog I'd like to focus mostly on Korean food, of which we in England it has to be said know very little about. First things first there is Kimchi, which is at everything single meal (breakfast, lunch and dinner). It is pickled, fermented vegetables although it is mostly cabbage and at times I think it can be life threatening due to just how spicy some of it can be. It certainly doesn't look very appetising, but when I was first taken to dinner by my boss I didn't hesitate and went straight for the Kimchi after struggling with the steel chopsticks used here. I'll say one thing for Kimchi, it isn't bland!!! I don't however agree with eating at every meal, everyday. When I asked my kids what they had for breakfast, lunch and dinner, the answer was all the same: Rice and Kimchi.
Variety is not a word used when referring to Korean diet. James told me that the main ingerdient in all Korean food is "red" and he's not lying. All Korean food is red. It has that same taste which is likely to bring tears to your eyes and knock your socks off if you eat it in large enough quantities. There are some odd mixes such as the Army Soup, invented during the Korean War when the American soldiers gave the people food supplies - so it consists of glass noodles, tofu, kimchi, bean sprouts and spam and hotdogs!!!
They also have the barbeque restaurants which are fantastic as you cook your own food at the table and pick and choose from a variety of side dishes. It is extremley difficult to do if you don't have a bowl of rice and are having to do everthing with you steel chopsticks (which slide out of your hands when greasy)
I have to say that I am happier with the food here than I was in Thailand. My main problem with Thai food is that most of the time it simply wasn't designed for someone my size, an English man can only take so much rice with a few scraps of meat. The korean bbq's are truly filling.
Lastly on the subject of food, it has come up a few times in conversation with Koreans here that we in the West like to eat lamb. A few of my friends have mentioned that they have spoke about this with Koreans too. The Koreans are quite often disgusted with me when I've mentioned that lamb is my favourite meat, that is until I politely remind them that they eat DOG!!!
Korean Kids
I have found it strange just how good my kids are at English considering that in everyday life barely anybody is able to speak a word. Shopkeepers and waiters will quite happily rant at you in fluent Korean and then look perplexed when you're unable to speak back to them. Even if you can speak a little bit, they're not used to speaking to someone who's first language is not Korean so they won't slow down or change their words or even use charades to help you!
My kids are almost all super intelligent, but this is no surprise because they have no choice in the matter. All Korean children are sent to extra English, Maths, Science, Korean and Music classes to supplement the government school system (in which the standard of English is horrendous). They are pushed to the limit of what the human mind can take when they study but they are equally sheltered and treated like babies for a long time and they won't leave their mothers until they are married!
The Korean alphabet has no F,R,V,Z, TH, or X which can cause huge problems with pronounciation. They are also incapable of ending most words without putting an extra "uh" or "ee". "Englishee" and "Robertuh" being prime examples. The F is pronounced as a P ("ehPPuh" they say) and the V as a B ("BuhWee") which was very funny during the World Cup Final when Cesc Pabregas, Rafael Ban Der Baart, and Robin Ban Persie took to the field. My older kids have learnt the alphabet properly but problems do occur quite a lot still.
They do say some very funny things during class. Actually the three examples below are all from one girl in my more intelligent classes, she was deadly serious in all three.
1: Me: Name a scary animal
Jenna: My Mother!!!!! (all the other girls in the class then agree that their mother is very scary too)
2: Me: Describe your mother
Jenna: She has brown eyes, glasses, short black hair and a skin condition!
3: Me: Jenna read your story please.
Jenna: One day Mr. Cole the art teacher came into class dressed as a superhero and asked the students to draw him. The students called him crazy and then the headteacher sacked him and now he is a beggar. The End.
It is very hard to keep a straight face when you hear things like that in the class room. It is also hard to keep a straight face when trying to discuss geography with Korean children, it is clearly not an important subject here.
Me: Name a country that speaks English
Children: KOREA!!!
Me: No, a country that SPEAKS ENGLISH
Children: OH!...........SEOUL!!!
According to that class: China, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Argentina, Russia, Mexico and France all speak English. None of them said England even though they know that both I and my predecessor were English.
Right that's all for now. I have loads more I want to talk about, but I'll bore you if you read it all at once. So I'll leave you with news that I discovered there is such thing as Kimchi doughnut available in all Dunkin Donuts across Korea.......I think I'll pass on that one.
In this blog I'd like to focus mostly on Korean food, of which we in England it has to be said know very little about. First things first there is Kimchi, which is at everything single meal (breakfast, lunch and dinner). It is pickled, fermented vegetables although it is mostly cabbage and at times I think it can be life threatening due to just how spicy some of it can be. It certainly doesn't look very appetising, but when I was first taken to dinner by my boss I didn't hesitate and went straight for the Kimchi after struggling with the steel chopsticks used here. I'll say one thing for Kimchi, it isn't bland!!! I don't however agree with eating at every meal, everyday. When I asked my kids what they had for breakfast, lunch and dinner, the answer was all the same: Rice and Kimchi.
Variety is not a word used when referring to Korean diet. James told me that the main ingerdient in all Korean food is "red" and he's not lying. All Korean food is red. It has that same taste which is likely to bring tears to your eyes and knock your socks off if you eat it in large enough quantities. There are some odd mixes such as the Army Soup, invented during the Korean War when the American soldiers gave the people food supplies - so it consists of glass noodles, tofu, kimchi, bean sprouts and spam and hotdogs!!!
They also have the barbeque restaurants which are fantastic as you cook your own food at the table and pick and choose from a variety of side dishes. It is extremley difficult to do if you don't have a bowl of rice and are having to do everthing with you steel chopsticks (which slide out of your hands when greasy)
I have to say that I am happier with the food here than I was in Thailand. My main problem with Thai food is that most of the time it simply wasn't designed for someone my size, an English man can only take so much rice with a few scraps of meat. The korean bbq's are truly filling.
Lastly on the subject of food, it has come up a few times in conversation with Koreans here that we in the West like to eat lamb. A few of my friends have mentioned that they have spoke about this with Koreans too. The Koreans are quite often disgusted with me when I've mentioned that lamb is my favourite meat, that is until I politely remind them that they eat DOG!!!
Korean Kids
I have found it strange just how good my kids are at English considering that in everyday life barely anybody is able to speak a word. Shopkeepers and waiters will quite happily rant at you in fluent Korean and then look perplexed when you're unable to speak back to them. Even if you can speak a little bit, they're not used to speaking to someone who's first language is not Korean so they won't slow down or change their words or even use charades to help you!
My kids are almost all super intelligent, but this is no surprise because they have no choice in the matter. All Korean children are sent to extra English, Maths, Science, Korean and Music classes to supplement the government school system (in which the standard of English is horrendous). They are pushed to the limit of what the human mind can take when they study but they are equally sheltered and treated like babies for a long time and they won't leave their mothers until they are married!
The Korean alphabet has no F,R,V,Z, TH, or X which can cause huge problems with pronounciation. They are also incapable of ending most words without putting an extra "uh" or "ee". "Englishee" and "Robertuh" being prime examples. The F is pronounced as a P ("ehPPuh" they say) and the V as a B ("BuhWee") which was very funny during the World Cup Final when Cesc Pabregas, Rafael Ban Der Baart, and Robin Ban Persie took to the field. My older kids have learnt the alphabet properly but problems do occur quite a lot still.
They do say some very funny things during class. Actually the three examples below are all from one girl in my more intelligent classes, she was deadly serious in all three.
1: Me: Name a scary animal
Jenna: My Mother!!!!! (all the other girls in the class then agree that their mother is very scary too)
2: Me: Describe your mother
Jenna: She has brown eyes, glasses, short black hair and a skin condition!
3: Me: Jenna read your story please.
Jenna: One day Mr. Cole the art teacher came into class dressed as a superhero and asked the students to draw him. The students called him crazy and then the headteacher sacked him and now he is a beggar. The End.
It is very hard to keep a straight face when you hear things like that in the class room. It is also hard to keep a straight face when trying to discuss geography with Korean children, it is clearly not an important subject here.
Me: Name a country that speaks English
Children: KOREA!!!
Me: No, a country that SPEAKS ENGLISH
Children: OH!...........SEOUL!!!
According to that class: China, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Argentina, Russia, Mexico and France all speak English. None of them said England even though they know that both I and my predecessor were English.
Right that's all for now. I have loads more I want to talk about, but I'll bore you if you read it all at once. So I'll leave you with news that I discovered there is such thing as Kimchi doughnut available in all Dunkin Donuts across Korea.......I think I'll pass on that one.
Sunday, 1 August 2010
First Post
Right, I meant to start writing this a while ago, but I am a lazy man...
First things first I am not in Seoul, but in a small town 90 minutes south-west of Seoul called Seosan. Seosan does not work in a mildly humerous pun to be used as a title for this blog, so "Seoul Man" will have to do for now.
First Week
Arriving on Sunday, the only thing I wanted to do was watch my beloved England play Germany in the World Cup. A decision I regretted when myself and another Englishman were sat in a bar at midnight local time watching the team of pamperred, prancing pre-madonnas get battered by a German invitational XI composed of three Turks, two Ghanaians, numerous Poles, a Spaniard and a Brazilan. The South Koreans, who exited at the same stage, were welcomed back in Seoul as heroes and I had a hard time explaining that the England time were likely to be pelted with stones for losing in round 2.
On the Monday, when I was due to start my first day of school, I was rudely awoken by a man shouting over a tannoy at about 6am. Not speaking a word of Korean I naturally assumed that the North Koreans were invading and sprung out of bed to look out of the window. Seeing that there was no panic among the citizens of Seosan, I ignored the tannoy and went back to bed. I later found out that the tannoy was just a man shouting "Garlic, come buy your garlic! Garlic for sale!". Who really needs to buy garlic at 6am!?
I do possibly have the nicest boss in the world, Liz told me as soon as she me me that she was going to be my Korean mother, I'm not sure I had a choice about this, but I aprreciated in anyway. Liz has lent me money, booked me train tickets, bought me dinner and is letting me borrow her son so I can buy a TV this week.
Gay Korea
Korean is a deeply conservative country and can also be very Christian in certain areas so it is no surprise to find out that homosexuality is not tolerated in Korean society. However what is extremley funny to Western eyes is that Korea is an extremley gay country, it just doesn't realise it.
Men have ridiculous hair cuts, which they're constantly adjusting in the mirror, they carry handbags, wear tight white jeans, wear make up, get their eyebrows plucked, sit on their friends laps....the list goes on. You just have to google images of Korean boybands 2am and Big Bang to see what I mean (the posters of 2am's latest single is hilarious as one of them has a tear rolling down his cheek in it
2am
Big Bang
Meg and I have started a photo album, entitled "Gay Korea" which we'll put up on Facebook soon. Most of the photos are going to be of one of posing behind or nearby the unsuspecting target so that we can take a photo of him without him even knowing it.
Oh yes, there is also the phenomenon of Dom Chim here or to put it simply Ass Attack. I was warned about this before I arrived in Korea, which was handy as it has saved me on numerous occasions. If you're ever in a Korean school DON'T BEND OVER!!!! If you bend over, perhaps to pick up a pen, you run the risk of a child shouting Dom Chim and then ramming his fingers up your arse! This is a very popular game with the children, and indeed with the teachers as my boss has Dom Chimmed a couple of children right in front of me, the other teachers, our school driver and indeed some parents and nobody thinks that this is weird! Liz asked me to we have this game in English schools and I tried to explain just what would happend if a child tried to ram his fingers up another childs arse in an English school. "I think he would regret that decision for the rest of his school days" I told her.
Fan Death
And now for my favourite thing about Korea phenomenon the mysterious Fan Death. Put simply Koreans believe that if you leave you fan or airconditioning on overnight then you will die. I don't mean that they treat this as a ridiculous old wives tale like when your mother tells you not to pull that face or it'll get stuck like that when the wind changes or the Loch Ness Monster, I mean that Koreans genuinely believe that you will die!
It is so bad here that fans are sold with timers that will turn the fan off after a certain point, hotel staff will come round the rooms and turn the fans off, the government releases statements during heatwaves telling people to turn them off at night and death by fan is reported in the newspapers as a cause of death in an obituary.
James (my very good friend and fellow ex-pat out here) told me about Koreans he has met with degrees in science who still believe in fan death and have not understood why Westerners have never heard of it. He showed them the wikipedia article which says at the top that it is only believed in Korea.
Fan Death
Right that is all for now. Hopefully the Gay Korea album will be completed sometime soon (and then constantly added to), none of you leave your fans on over night and Kim Jong-il doesn't invade the South with the aid of garlic salesmen
First things first I am not in Seoul, but in a small town 90 minutes south-west of Seoul called Seosan. Seosan does not work in a mildly humerous pun to be used as a title for this blog, so "Seoul Man" will have to do for now.
First Week
Arriving on Sunday, the only thing I wanted to do was watch my beloved England play Germany in the World Cup. A decision I regretted when myself and another Englishman were sat in a bar at midnight local time watching the team of pamperred, prancing pre-madonnas get battered by a German invitational XI composed of three Turks, two Ghanaians, numerous Poles, a Spaniard and a Brazilan. The South Koreans, who exited at the same stage, were welcomed back in Seoul as heroes and I had a hard time explaining that the England time were likely to be pelted with stones for losing in round 2.
On the Monday, when I was due to start my first day of school, I was rudely awoken by a man shouting over a tannoy at about 6am. Not speaking a word of Korean I naturally assumed that the North Koreans were invading and sprung out of bed to look out of the window. Seeing that there was no panic among the citizens of Seosan, I ignored the tannoy and went back to bed. I later found out that the tannoy was just a man shouting "Garlic, come buy your garlic! Garlic for sale!". Who really needs to buy garlic at 6am!?
I do possibly have the nicest boss in the world, Liz told me as soon as she me me that she was going to be my Korean mother, I'm not sure I had a choice about this, but I aprreciated in anyway. Liz has lent me money, booked me train tickets, bought me dinner and is letting me borrow her son so I can buy a TV this week.
Gay Korea
Korean is a deeply conservative country and can also be very Christian in certain areas so it is no surprise to find out that homosexuality is not tolerated in Korean society. However what is extremley funny to Western eyes is that Korea is an extremley gay country, it just doesn't realise it.
Men have ridiculous hair cuts, which they're constantly adjusting in the mirror, they carry handbags, wear tight white jeans, wear make up, get their eyebrows plucked, sit on their friends laps....the list goes on. You just have to google images of Korean boybands 2am and Big Bang to see what I mean (the posters of 2am's latest single is hilarious as one of them has a tear rolling down his cheek in it
2am
Big Bang
Meg and I have started a photo album, entitled "Gay Korea" which we'll put up on Facebook soon. Most of the photos are going to be of one of posing behind or nearby the unsuspecting target so that we can take a photo of him without him even knowing it.
Oh yes, there is also the phenomenon of Dom Chim here or to put it simply Ass Attack. I was warned about this before I arrived in Korea, which was handy as it has saved me on numerous occasions. If you're ever in a Korean school DON'T BEND OVER!!!! If you bend over, perhaps to pick up a pen, you run the risk of a child shouting Dom Chim and then ramming his fingers up your arse! This is a very popular game with the children, and indeed with the teachers as my boss has Dom Chimmed a couple of children right in front of me, the other teachers, our school driver and indeed some parents and nobody thinks that this is weird! Liz asked me to we have this game in English schools and I tried to explain just what would happend if a child tried to ram his fingers up another childs arse in an English school. "I think he would regret that decision for the rest of his school days" I told her.
Fan Death
And now for my favourite thing about Korea phenomenon the mysterious Fan Death. Put simply Koreans believe that if you leave you fan or airconditioning on overnight then you will die. I don't mean that they treat this as a ridiculous old wives tale like when your mother tells you not to pull that face or it'll get stuck like that when the wind changes or the Loch Ness Monster, I mean that Koreans genuinely believe that you will die!
It is so bad here that fans are sold with timers that will turn the fan off after a certain point, hotel staff will come round the rooms and turn the fans off, the government releases statements during heatwaves telling people to turn them off at night and death by fan is reported in the newspapers as a cause of death in an obituary.
James (my very good friend and fellow ex-pat out here) told me about Koreans he has met with degrees in science who still believe in fan death and have not understood why Westerners have never heard of it. He showed them the wikipedia article which says at the top that it is only believed in Korea.
Fan Death
Right that is all for now. Hopefully the Gay Korea album will be completed sometime soon (and then constantly added to), none of you leave your fans on over night and Kim Jong-il doesn't invade the South with the aid of garlic salesmen
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