Koreans call dinosaurs "dragons!" Wahoo!

I had such a great Chuseok* with Lacey! She arrived Thursday night from Daegu (she got a FOUR day weekend for the holiday) and I retrieved her from the express bus terminal in Gwangju. It was so wonderfully bizarre to see her in Korea. I don't know how many times over the weekend one of said "...hey. We're in Korea." After much hugging and face touching, we got on the subway and headed to shinae (downtown) for some food. We tried to get some pizza-in-a-cup, but in order to get some with no meat ("go-gi aniyo!"), the vendor said we'd have to buy a whole pizza. Pshhh. Not long after, Lacey spied a sushi place that was AMAZING. The sushi was so good...and cheap! We both probably ate about 15 pieces each (and the Korean neverending vegetable sides) for about $18 per person. And we got the Spicy Love Platter, which is just hilarious. I'd say that the waiter looked at us funny when we ordered it, but we're waygooks (and Lacey's got blonde hair and bright ass blue eyes to boot) so everything we do is weird. We'd have to study our whole lives to be really good at being Korean...and even then, we'd still look western.

// * [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuseok ] I had songpyeon at school. Mine was green! And I bought my fellow teachers a cake from Paris Baguette for the holiday (and to celebrate my first paycheck). They. Went. Nuts. //

Korea is a very homogenous country (although that's been changing since foreigners began entering the country in the 70s). Although once in a while, it feels annoying to be the waygook (there's that gleam in the old man's eye on the subway that means pointing and talking to/about you in Korean will happen for no less than 15 minutes), most of the time, it's pretty liberating. Pretty much anything I do that is outside of Korean custom is looked over because foreigners are weird. And when I get something right, they get REALLY excited about it. I don't have to worry about not knowing what I'm doing here (something I hope I take home with me). I take what comes at me, asking questions when and in ways that I can and generally, just can't worry about looking a fool. It's not like "throwing caution to the wind" or some noble thing...I can't worry about it or I won't be able to do anything and will go insane. I really don't know what I'm doing 85% of the time. And it's wonderful.

Anyway, after our dinner and some coffee, Lacey and I headed on home to Naju to watch movies and be adorable. Friday morning, we stocked up on food for the weekend. For Chuseok, 80% of Koreans travel to their extended family's home and everything is shut down...so gathering supplies is necessary. Then, after the world's most DELICIOUS omelet, we headed back to Gwangju to see the Design Biennale [ http://gb.or.kr/?mid=sub_eng&mode=03&sub=01 ] with my two favourite expats in Korea, Hughie and my doppelganger, both of whom are Canadian. The show had a ton of really great things in it...and because it was design and not "fine art," I didn't get all twitchy about trying to be (and then not be) super intellectual about it. And we got to see some awesome/adorable dance performances outside.

Afterward, the four of us went to a nearby kimbap (or gimbap) restaurant. The vegetarian buffet we were hoping to go to was closed. BOOOOO! Then shinae for coffee and A NEW PAIR OF CHUCKS FOR TAMMY! ASAH! And every time my brain remembered that the next day wasn't Sunday, it just couldn't believe it. Such a glorious time warp exists here! The week absolutely flies by, a ten minute snooze feels like half an hour, and a three day weekend feels like some sort of crazy dream. I LOVE KOREA.

Saturday, Lace and I decided to just lounge about. And that we did. Tamara came over for a bit. We played cards and watched movies. Awesomeness. On Sunday, we slept in until FOREVER and it was GLORIOUS. Then we went to TGI Fridays for what tasted like THE BEST WESTERN FOOD EVER (I'm going nuts with the all caps, here...). Seriously. Bread. Everything just tasted so...decadent.  And then it was time to take Lacey to the bus station. It was such a good weekend. And soon, I will travel to Daegu to see her sights and meet her friends and foods.

The high school had midterms last week, which meant almost no teaching there. I just hung out at my desk and watched a couple of classes while they tested. And /this/ week, the middle school is testing! So most of my class time on Tuesday and Wednesday were used for review and I only teach a single class today (Friday, as I type currently). Don't get it twisted--I love my job and its sense of purpose. But having a lighter load in either school AND a holiday weekend was a nice little break.

Tuesday, while I was hanging out in the classroom during the students' review period (run by my Korean co-teacher), one of the students taught me Korean rock, paper, scissors (moo, chi, pa). They hold their hands differently, use one less count, and include a more complicated, "shot calling" rule set. Besides being taught how to play the game, it was nice to have students talk to me casually. The nice thing about not speaking (almost) any Korean, is that students /have to/ use English to communicate with me--it's not some painful "turning it into a lesson" thing" And whenever some non-sequitor pops up, I'll run with it! It has their attention, has them talking, and probably includes vocabulary they'd be more likely to use anyway. As noted by the great Eddie Izzard, it's not very likely they'll have to talk about a monkey up a tree when speaking a foreign language. And beyond the "educational value" of students talking to me...I want to get to know them better and for us to like each other. So there.

On Wednesdays, when I'm at the middle school, things pretty much wind down at about 2pm. The other teachers do work for a while and I try and answer as many e-mails as possible until around 3pm. Then it's SPORTS TIME! Last week was all jacked because of the holiday and upcoming midterms, but two weeks ago, Mr. Chung, the adorable, boy-faced social studies teacher who sits behind me gave me some ping pong lessons. IT WAS AWESOME. I think I learned how to say "like this." He said it about 50 times while showing the regular return and the backhand. When I heard an expat say it last night, looking for a hook to hang his hammock, he was trying to communicate that it needed to be heavy, like the large bolt he was picking up. And then it went PING! all the way back to two weeks ago. Hurrah! I've got to find the hangul...it sounds like "key-do kay." Oh, and the ping pong lesson had a turbo serve machine thinger. I didn't know those existed! I've only ever seen them for baseball and tennis...but after thinking about it, it seems a bit obvious. This past Wednesday, all the teachers played volleyball outside! It was really fun! I had two good serves and two lame-o serves (it's been a while since gym class...) and got all my other hits. Unh! And there was much fruit and some of the teachers drank Makkoli, a type of rice wine. OH! The teachers shouted in English while they played! They said "mine," "nice," "I got it," and my all-time favorite thing said in English by Koreans so far, "no touchy!" Ah, too good.

After playtime, all the teachers went to a restaurant nearby for roasted (in the middle of the table) duck. There was SO MUCH FOOD (and the principal paid!). A million side dishes (as usual), neverending anything (as usual), and MULTIPLE COURSES. I ate a million. Whenever there's meat, you usually grab some of that, some garlic, and some red sauce (and random, table vegetables) and wrap it in a leaf. It's SUPER good with duck...I wouldn't just have duck alone, though. I've had it once before and it was in a giant noodle bowl and I had already decided then that duck is not a meat to be eaten in large quantities or often.

Artmaking must happen more. I'm beginning storyboards for the second chapter of my "graphic novel," the first of which I did in school. I don't know how exactly this chapter will play out, but maybe I'll have the chutzpah to show it at the Gwangju International Center's art gallery in January. I don't know what format it'll be (the first was a mixed media installation). Right now, just storyboards.

There's the main highlights from the week...

Oh, some thoughts.  I loooove my job and know that it's an incredibly sweet deal, job, but I'm not really sure that English is a very useful language for most Koreans to learn. Besides certain businessmen needing English skills (and hopefully, their English-speaking counterparts would be working on their Korean), is the national teaching of English just an attempt to seem "modern?" Don't get me wrong. The benefits of acquiring a second language are staggering. Linguistically, Chinese and Japanese might be more helpful, but it's probably a little "to soon" for that. Reactions?

That's it for now.

-Tamz

p.s. Add pictures
p.p.s. Something is terribly wrong with the composition page for this blog right meow and I don't feel like dealing with it.