Day 4 - Day 38

Hi there!

Wow, its been well over a month since I've started my 2nd tour of duty in Korea. So much for updating this damn blog everyday eh? My laziness knows no bounds, and apparently no borders!

So whats been up with me? Well, I won't bore you with going over every single detail (from eating to pooping) like I've tended to do in my previous blogs. Instead I will just bore you with a rundown of how life has been treating me here in the Asian city of Ulsan, the Hamilton of South Korea (only Southern Ontario folk will understand that comment).

The school Liz and I work at is an actual kindergarten. Its not a hagwon run by a corrupt inept Korean businessaen who'd sooner open an orphanage-for-profit than a school (for corrupt orphanages look no further than Thailand and Cambodia built for those tourists who 'need to make a difference'). As it is a real school filled to the 3rd floor (the 4th floor is a roof surrounded on every side by high-rise apartments where the students mothers can monitor us constantly) packed with the wealthy children of Ulsan raised by soccer-mom Koreans, a teacher cannot get drunk and slag off like they would in a regular English school. Here, if you don't prepare your classes, not only do you quickly sink like a rock clutching your little ones (you all go down screaming) but you must then answer to your supervisors. These 18-hour workday Koreans will slice off your balls one by one should you not know exactly how you are going to spend each and every minute with these squealing bags of money. A person from the head office in Seoul even comes down to watch your classes and rip you to pieces with advice and notes designed to make you a better teacher (something I still never plan to actually be). In short, you must prepare and you must meet their expectations.

And you know what? That's exactly what a lazy, asshole like me needs. Last year, I wasn't abusive to the students, I barely yelled and never (rarely) came in drunk...hungover is different but I blame the soju and nightly peer pressure. What I never did though, ignoring all advice (yes mom, I am referring to your back country driving) was prepare. I would come stumbling in at 2pm, barely awake (I did just live across the street from my school), smelling of sleep and an assortment of the previous nights drinks, grab the 'teaching book' from the scowling Korean teacher - grunt "what page?!" as I skulked into the classroom.

Nothing good ever came from that. But still I did it. Within months I'd realized that once Hangman was offically dead (ba dum bum), photocopying "topical" word searches was the key. If a fellow teacher had done the same word search with the same class the day prior I simply told the hateful students to do it faster and "with even more English than yesterday!". God help me if the photocopier was busted that day, and God help the students too who would than be forced to stare at me for a full hour drawing crude penis-shaped drawings on the whiteboard before angrily erasing it...mumbling aloud, "elephants trunk looks like a damn penis again...why haven't these kids learned the word penis yet?! Make my job a whole ^%$lot easier! Uh-oh teacher just had another barf burp!".

I can't do that at IPS. But even if I could, I wouldn't. Even though I never thought it would happen, I actually am enjoying teaching the little ones...and wouldn't you be surprised to know that they are in fact improving day by day? As I may have mentioned in my previous blog, oh about a month ago, I am the primary English teacher for the year 6 students. Now saying that they are a 'Year 6' doesn't mean that they are in fact 6 years old, for as I am in Korea and they consider a newborn to be a year old the minute they "fly" out of the warm amniotic nest they are only about 5 in Canada. There are about 12 to each class and they get highly offended if you don't remember their names or if you don't praise them for drawing animals multiple colors. And boy do they get annoyed if you mistake them to be a "sweet little girl" when in fact they are a "boy".

I've only managed to do this once to a little chubby-cheeked, bowlcut-haired boy (who looks like a girl) whose name is Roy. I could never understand why he kept scowling and saying what I assumed to be "I love you!" in Korean whilst crossing his arms angrily. Until one morning a few weeks ago he came in and after brushing off one of my standard, "and hows my little princess today!?" lines I turned to Liz in a huff and haugtily declared that Roy was "one angry little girl". Liz laughed and surprised me with the fact that Roy was a Boy.

Boy was I surprised!

Anyways, though the work week is long and the pressure is on from 9-5 I am having fun and making more cash than I did last year. Knowing instantly that I love nothing more than adoring fans (even ones who poop themselves once or twice a week) I have become the main person who does the "morning announcements" everyday (nobody else wanted the job anyhow). I begin each "meeting" with a long "Goooooooooood morning IPS!!" a la Robin Williams in Good Morning Vietnam and talk slowly and clearly about everything from the weather to what movie I watched the night before and what I felt about it (teacher loved True Lies and was so surprised to see Jamie Lee Curtis was so beautiful with no clothes on!). Sometimes when another teacher is filling in, I am called in for special segments. Tomorrow for example, I must teach the kids our new Halloween song which is a modified version of Jingle Bells. Considering I often, albeit accidentally start off these modified songs about 3 octaves too high (from a rich base to a ball-crunching soprano) it usually makes for an interesting couple of minutes. Also, since we have to play some of the songs over and over again (easier if they are on a CD) I find myself singing the songs obsessively throughout the week. I've had many a teacher tell me to "shut up" because I wouldn't stop singing a famous Korean folk song called Arirang. If I ever have a movie of my life and there is a musical montage of my time in Korea, this would be the song I'd like played over it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCRR_4Gexm4 - this is a 48 second short version with words but no video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdzzzhdwcFU - this is a Korean dude playing the flute but with no words - I think it better captures the beauty of the song (yes, I am applying lipstick and ladies stockings as I say this)

By the way, Craig or Dan or Dad or Mom, can anyone guess what awesome 80's movie features this song (it is played throughout, though it changes a bit and is even hummed by one of the main characters whom I compared myself to very early on in my first couple of blogs back before I left for Korea for the first time?). Hint: who is the most awesome Korean movie character we know?

Since discipline is very important in our school I've managed to draw a good line between being a teacher and being a friend. The kids know (yet constantly 'forget') not to talk when the teacher is talking (or doodling), not to fight (action speaks louder than words I yell to encourage physical violence!), and to "sit nicely". This sit nicely thing has always cracked me up, for when the kids start crawling around (which would inevitably lead to one of them walking into a wall and crying bloody murder) all you have to do is bark, "sit nicely!" and the children will sit ramrod straight with their legs crossed and arms folded nicely on their little laps. One little boy though, a daydreaming boy named Jay who we were told to watch closely as he tends to rip his socks to bits if not monitored closely, refused to "sit nicely" one day and instead insisted on bowing like he was about to be knighted (head bowed, on one knee). I of course thought this was the funniest thing I've seen since I crapped myself a year prior, and rewarded his loyalty with a heavily-valued (and more stable currency than Canada) IPS dollar - which they collect with a rabid fervor to spend at the end of the month on a market day where I can guilt them into buying me candy.

Anyways, the class saw how I reacted to this little sock-destroying boy bowing like a brave knight and, knowing how impressionable I am, suddenly all began doing it with a gravitas usually only given to real Kings. Delighted that they would do this, I spent a huge chunk of class going through the militaristic drills of "sit nicely!", interchanged with "sit nobly!". Now, in front of any teacher, whether sitting in a line outside the auditorium or misbehaving in their classroom I can bark "sit nobly" and seconds later I have a band of tiny gallant knights. Some teachers laugh with delight, others frown in confusion (and jealousy).

Though it is highly amusing now, it will no doubt become a heartwrenching tableau when I must leave them in 11 months, when a new teacher replaces me.

I don't think I will teach the kids: The King is dead, long live the King!

"Sit Nobly!" will die with me.