"If I am island trapped, I take two things no. One thing! I take teleporter!! Is electric not!! Is MAGIC!!!! haha Alley Teacher. I am Korea back. essay is lose. My win."

written by  alli_ockinga on July 21, 2009 from Inch'on, South Korea
from the travel blog: I go Korea!
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I think I've mentioned that teaching English as a second language involves a lot of charades. This is even more true when teaching science to eight-year-olds--challenging enough--and then adding a language barrier. We're on a pollution/recycling unit right now.

"Okay, guys. Show me your Pollution Face."
"EWWWWWWWW!!" they say, screwing up their faces and sticking their tongues out like Mr. Yuk, complete with two thumbs down.
"That's right. Why is pollution bad?"
"Earth is sick and very many sad."
"Right. Let's see your Recycling Face!"
"Hooray!" Two thumbs way way up, with deceptively angelic smiles, tossing their ribbon-and-curl hairstyles over their shoulders. Only girls in my science class.
"And why is it good to recycle?"
"Earth is happy."

We are going to be making the butterfly banks out of recycled bottles today. I will probably get in trouble by my boss for deviating from curriculum today, but I'm somewhat indispensable to him because a.) I am emceeing the school spelling bee tonight and b.) he's manipulated me into teaching his summer class schedule because I am 'senior foreign teacher' at my school, which means an extra thousand dollars in July, but no hapkido for a month. Thus are the politics of a hagwon.

Anyhow. As I'm assembling the craft materials needed for the butterflies, it strikes me that teaching kindergarden and first grade is really just Mom Practice. *On that note, I'd like to take a moment to thank my mom--all moms, really--for the countless batches of papier mache and play-doh and assorted other art projects you supported over the years. You were a really good sport.* It's not just the crafting that's led to this thought. Last week, I took the science class outside to observe and draw natural resources and taught them about how we stop, look and listen before holding hands to cross the street. Then I showed a kid how to tie his shoe, and a couple days later, splinted a boy's sprained finger with a ballpoint pen, toilet paper and scotch tape. He injured it doing Tae Kwan Do in the halls.

"Teacher! Teacher! Teacher!" Mom! Mom! Mom!

I like the little kids more than I thought I would, though. I really like how they call me Alli-sang and bow to me. Very Karate Kid. They take a lot of energy, but we devised a three-rule system (raise your hand, be quiet, sit down) that's fairly effective. If they follow the rules, they get to play a game at the end of class. If not, tough luck. They've all bought into the system enough that if I forget to write down the rules at the beginning of each class, they yell at me. Which is what I deserve for messing with my own routine, I suppose. I especially enjoy how little it takes to impress young children; the first time I shuffled a deck of cards in front of them, they asked if I knew Harry Potter. I said yes.

written by  alli_ockinga on June 25, 2009 from Inch'on, South Korea
from the travel blog: I go Korea!
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But no matter. The staff is rad. Master has a collection of them: slim bamboo sticks of varied lengths, between five and seven feet long. It’s the same weapon that the purple [thanks Chad!] ninja turtle uses. For my first lesson, I learn how to twirl it in front of me like a propeller. I’m a little clumsy at first—can’t say I’ve ever had occasion to twirl a bow staff before this week—and I drop it on my bare toes once. Boy that smarts. I see why it’s considered a weapon. Lesson two follows shortly, when Master refuses to let me pick up the staff.

“Alli,” he says, stepping between my outstretched fingers and the bamboo, “no hand.”
“No?”
“No. You are ninja…and, foot.”
“You have to pick it up with your toes,” Ellen says, filling in the language gaps from several feet away. She has progressed to twirling one-handed on either side of her body. I am jealous.

“Show me,” I say to Master.
“Watch.” In a move reminiscent of soccer, he rolls the staff forward and over onto the top of his right foot and catches it there, forming an L with his shin and foot. Then, like lightning, he kicks and somehow, the staff is now in his hand. As far as I’m concerned, something magical just occurred.
“You try.”
"Um…”
My first attempt lacks a certain something that I’ll call grace, and the staff rolls off the top of my foot before I even think to turn my toes up to catch it. My second try, I catch it, but am stumped. How do I get it to go up?
“Now, kick!” Master encourages.
“Kick how?”
“Up.”

Right. I study the staff, and my right foot, like I’ve never seen either article before. I need to use my foot like a simple machine. There seems to be some sort of fulcrum involved. I cautiously lift my heel off the ground, and the staff catches on the floor and makes a halfhearted attempt to arch up towards me before clattering to the floor again. The upwards motion of the staff startles me so much I yelp and jump backwards as Master laughs. He rarely tries to hide his amusement during class anymore. Ninja indeed.

But I think I understand what needs to happen now. You have to catch the staff about nine inches from its edge, and then the rapid upwards movement of the kick combines with the weight of the stick pivot it upwards from the floor, like a rainbow, towards your waiting hands.

In an ideal world, that’s what would have happened on my next shot. Instead, I was so focused on making my foot do its job that when the lucky rainbow action did occur, I hit myself in the side of the face. I’m glad I wasn’t wearing my glasses, and that I’m not good enough with the weapon yet to inflict any actual damage.

When I get home, my messenger is flashing neon orange at me, and I see that I’ve missed a shout out from my buddy Curt, back home. Sorry, I was at ninja class, I type. You still there?
-I love you because that’s true, he writes. How was class?
I tell him about the staffs, and picking them up with my toes. I achieved about a seventy percent pick-up success rate by the end of class.
-Shut up, he says. -People don’t really use bow staffs.
Straight up, I DO, I say.
-What, like you kick it up to your hands and then swipe it at someone’s FACE?
Yeah. And then I yell AI! And punch them. Theoretically.
-Oh my god. You are mind-blowing.
Thanks.
-It seriously makes my day better knowing that you exist.

I appreciate his incredulity. I think it’s a pretty cool skill too, and I certainly hope that knowing my way around a bow staff translates somehow into my American future. But here I am, having landed in Asia, and I don’t know where this path is leading me, but I’m aware that the only way to find out is to keep following it. Still, there are certainly days when I wake up and think, there are people out there trying to cure cancer and bring peace to the Middle East. And what I am doing? I am getting graded on how quietly I can somersault and my ability to pick up sticks with my feet. But today, I’m thankful to Curt for reminding me that what I’m doing here, as often as it seems like I'm lost, is a really interesting life experience. I’m halfway across the world, and that’s an awesome thing—even if I don’t know why yet.

written by  alli_ockinga on June 11, 2009 from Inch'on, South Korea
from the travel blog: I go Korea!
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I should probably be grading the stack of diaries my T6 class just handed in, but my dinner will arrive in a few minutes, so I’m taking advantage of the for-once quiet teacher’s room to sit back and think. It’s eighty five and humid as a greenhouse today, which makes the Asian answer to Gatorade—named Pocari Sweat, thanks to an overly literal translator—even less appealing than the average ion-supply drink. But the heat is the least of Korea’s crises this week.

Turmoil first beset South Korea last weekend with the suicide of their much beloved former president, Roh Moo-Hyun, following allegations of a bribery scandal. Rather than continue to take part in the federal investigation which tarnished his reputation, Roh leapt to his death from a mountain behind his house. “Too many people have suffered because of me,” he said in a note, according to CNN. He was 62. I can’t help but consider the various forms of scandal to blemish U.S. leaders from Jefferson up through the Kennedys, Watergate to Hanging Chads. I’m not saying anyone is wrong or right, but I don’t believe any of the latter were so distraught by disappointing the American people that they had to jump off a mountain. You have to admire a culture with a sense of honor. And yet, despite the allegations, Roh was an extremely popular president, and the first Korean leader to cross the demilitarized zone into North Korea to meet with Kim Jong Il.

I’m amazed at the desire South Koreans have to reunite with the north. If U.S. history had been written differently—say, if the south had won—I’d want to be as far towards the California coastline as possible, perhaps even on a houseboat. I certainly wouldn’t want to readopt them and try to meld our opposing ideologies. Admittedly, this is only one of many reasons why I would make a poor world leader. But every now and then my students will write diaries or essays about Korea, and without fail, they want to see the countries reunited.

"Korea is many war history. Fighting is very many. And north, south Koreas was one korea unity ago. But today, not. I very want unity. And dispersion --> teachar dictionary okay? --> dispersion family, together not. My sad. :( "

Which is a pretty solid political analysis for a nine-year-old in a second language.

Dinner is taking longer than usual to get here today, so I open up a diary. They’ve chosen to write about North Korea today, and it’s a timely topic. North Korea is being a decidedly poor neighbor again this week, having just launched another nuclear missile. This week, South Korea officially joined the U.S.-led effort to limit trafficking of weapons of mass destruction, which I think we can all agree is a wise effort. You don’t want to accidentally leave one of those nuclear warheads underneath the couch cushion! But naturally, North Korea—specifically Kim Jong Il, but it’s getting harder and harder to separate the man from his country—doesn’t see things that way. Instead, they’ve chosen to interpret the South’s participation in the effort as a declaration of war. To boot, they no longer plan to abide by the 1953 armistice which ended the Korean War.

Needless to say, we’re all a little sketched out by the north. Here’s another diary entry from today: "I think North Korea is very very VERY MANY BAD!! Because Kim Jong Il is bad man. And north Korea is bomb. And bomb is Boom!!! And that is scary. Because north Korea wars well. Many guns."

Which is true.

Still, the actual threat of war is questionable. North Korea needs economic and energy support from the world, and thus far, it seems all the UN has done in response to what CNN reporter Elise Labott calls North Korea’s display of pyrotechnics has been even less than a slap on the wrist. More like a long, stern look over the top of the glasses. It seems that the North is acting out like a petulant teenager, simply hoping to get attention; at least, we can hope that. I’m no political analyst, but this is what it feels like from where I’m sitting tonight, half an hour from Seoul.

Rest assured that if war does officially break out, I’m skipping town. It’s actually in my contract. My coworker said today, “Hey, at least if there really is a war, we get out of our contracts for free!” Strange that the threat of nuclear war to an entire region makes us think only of the immediate effects on our individual wallets. Then again, isn’t personal economics the driving force behind all wars?

written by  alli_ockinga on May 27, 2009 from Inch'on, South Korea
from the travel blog: I go Korea!
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This is getting ridiculous. I need to start learning Korean.

Probably the most effective way to go about this would be to attend some real language classes, or meet up with a private tutor, but I don’t see that in the bank account. I’m still broke from surviving student teaching back in Boise, plus, my credit cards took a substantial hit from a New Years visit to the mountains which was financially ill-advised, but there are some people you just have to see before you up and move to Asia.

So I’m going to have to approach this acquisition of language from a more grassroots standpoint. For Christmas, my older brother got me a book called Say it Right In Korean. I gave it a cursory glance on the plane—there were fourteen hours to kill, after all—but I was quickly discouraged by it. Korean is easily the most foreign-sounding language with which I have ever come in contact. Not only is there an overwhelming amount of syllables in every word, none of the sounds seem to fit right together. Everything seems so choppy, as if the words themselves are being diced in the air as they leave the speaker’s mouth.

Before I can try reading it, much less attempt speaking, I need to figure out what the Hangul alphabet is all about. This is probably what I should have been doing while unemployed for the month of January. Additionally, the guy here before me left two books in the apartment: Korean through English and Romanized Korean. I am least frightened by the Say it Right book, but there’s no correlating alphabet in that one, so I pick up the Romanized one, since it’s smaller.

I quickly discern an underlying logic to the system that I can appreciate. The English language has been through many major overhauls, influenced over the centuries by a picnic spread of Western languages, suffering mass identity crises every several hundred years on the heels of this invasion or that migration. Speaking English competently is a bit like being in a codependent relationship with a schizophrenic. One moment, things are going swimmingly and everything makes a quirky kind of sense. Take gh, for example. English used to want the ghs pronounced way back in the throat (as in the ch of the Scottish loch), and so it was done. And then, for reasons too complex to understand without a PhD in Linguistics, English decides that we’re dropping that rule, it’s all just crap, and from now on we’ll be saying it just like a normal g, like ghost.

“Well…okay,” you think. “If you really think that’s best.” You’re pretty sure you love English, and besides, it’s all you know. Too late to switch to Dutch now. And just as you’re getting used to this new side of English, he rounds on you again. Now, he claims you’re supposed to say gh like it’s an f. Like in cough.

“But what about the new ‘g’ rule?”
“I never said that.”
“Yes you did!”
“Well, not at the end of a word.”
You sigh. “Okay, I guess. So what you’re saying is you want me to start saying 'through' like ‘thruff’?”
“Well, no, not this time.”

So English can be exasperating, and symbolically, it probably should just be scrapped and rebuilt according to the International Phonetic Alphabet, which equates exactly one sound to one symbol with little cheek and much refreshing honesty. Oprah would definitely tell us to end this confusing relationship with a language that doesn’t know what it wants, but deep down, I think we all know we’ll never really leave our mad, deranged language. It would take so long to rebuild. But that’s exactly what the Koreans have done, or more accurately, did—back in the fifteenth century, when the difficulty of Chinese script meant high rates of illiteracy, which in turn spurred a reinvention of the written word. I am delighted with the straightforwardness of the Hangul alphabet.

There are still a few overlapping sounds that trip me up. For instance, [g] often sounds like [k], as with [b] / [p], and [l] / [r]. But those are similar enough sounds, even in English, and I’m willing to forgive Hangul for the minor inconsistencies. It keeps our newfound relationship interesting.

So it doesn’t take all that long to figure out the phonetics of Korean. Within a week of study, I can stumble through the names of places on the subway, and even read a menu haltingly. It sounds exactly like when my kindergarteners try to read English, and I vow to remain patient with them. And it is time to stop speaking Spanish to the melon man.

written by  alli_ockinga on May 7, 2009 from Inch'on, South Korea
from the travel blog: I go Korea!
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So I'm a beginner, but some of the others in my class--Ellen, Suddar and Seamus--have been here since last summer, and are way better ninjas than me. A couple weeks ago, they took their black belt test, and I tagged along to watch. Come along with me.

Master picks us up in the bright yellow hapkido van, which is like a mini school bus covered with silhouettes of ninjas kicking and punching at around two o'clock, and we go to the hapkido room to change and pick up the other black belt hopefuls, most of whom are eleven-year-old Korean boys. I am merely here to witness and photograph the event, which leaves a bit of time for chatting with Master. He cooly assesses me in the rear view mirror. “Elly, wow! Beautifu!” he says. Most Koreans think my name is Elly. Close enough. Master pats his face, indicating that I am wearing makeup today, and as such, my appearance is vastly improved.

“Thank you, Master. When I’m not a sweaty ninja, I look better.”
“Alli has a date tonight,” Ellen says, further clarifying.
Master laughs. “Guro station?”
“Yep.” I grin. A couple weeks ago, I met this Korean guy when I was hopelessly lost at the subway station, and we're having dinner this evening. I got caught texting Subway Station Boyfriend at a hapkido party the other night, and the Koreans are all endlessly amused by it.
“Oh, are you seeing the subway fellow?” Seamus asks. I nod. “I’m a bit worried about that, to tell the truth.”
“I don’t think you need to be.”
“Where are you meeting him?”
“Seoul, somewhere.”
“Is he a decent sort?”
“I wouldn’t know, would I? It’s our first date.” [I did go on this date. It was okay. Cross-cultural dating is hard.]
“Yeah. True. I’d feel better if you were with someone. Perhaps I feel like I should fight him for your honor.” I am almost touched by his concern, but not quite.
"I’ll be fine, Seamus. Besides, you don't have your black belt just yet.”

Master is laughing in the front of the van. Today, Master is wearing a suit, which emphasizes the fact that he used to be the body guard for the president of Korea, or at least some important political figure. Really. Master can kill a person with his pinky finger. We leave the studio, now crammed into the bus with Master’s teenaged apprentices, and the seven red belts surround us, silent and afraid. We still get a little waegook fame, just by being foreigners. The smallest of them doesn't even reach Seamus’ waist.

We pile out of the van to join the throng of miniature would-be ninjas heading into the testing gym. Bemused, I observe the various levels of enthusiasm displayed by all the participants. Like any youth sporting event, there’s the he-man kids that clearly dominate; they are practicing handsprings in the corner, and doing one armed pushups as warm up. We are afraid of them. There are the average kids, who look a little scared, and mostly just don’t want to mess up in front of their Master. I can see right away that we are lucky to have such a patient and understanding Master; many of the other Masters look like Asian versions of Mr. T. Then there are the kids who don’t care now and probably never did. They are only doing this for their dad, and one of them has a comic book tucked into his red belt that he keeps peeking at during roll call. About one in five competitors are girls, and most of them are wearing sparkly barrettes and Chuck Taylors. I silently root for them to beat the boys. In the middle of it all, my friends tower above the rest. Our ragtag hapkido class could not stand out more: Suddah is of Indian descent, but with an Aussie accent; Ellen is an almost-blonde white girl, and Seamus looks like an Irish Goliath.

Finally, the test begins. I don’t understand a thing after the national anthem, and even then, I’m not sure what to do. Hand over heart seems a cheap gesture, but I don’t know what else to do. I feel like I’m cheating on the Stars and Stripes. Then it’s three hours of pre-teen Koreans—and my friends—kicking and throwing each other to the ground. Several small children want a picture with me ("why yes, I am friends with Brad Pitt"), so I acquiesce to pass the time. Master keeps having to grab Seamus by the shoulders and redirect him, but from where I sit on the sideline, I don't think we're embarrassing Master too much. Ellen does particularly well. I wish I could do half the things she can.

As we leave, Master stops me. “Elly,” he said, holding an imaginary knotted belt around his waist. “Ten month. You, black belt.”
I looked at him in surprise. “You think I can get a black belt?”
“Yea. Black belt, okay.”
“Okay.”

written by  alli_ockinga on April 29, 2009 from Inch'on, South Korea
from the travel blog: I go Korea!
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“AHHHH!” they screamed at me, in horror. “Ichiro is Japan!” They hate Ichiro. I have actually heard one boy call another ‘Ichiro’ as an insult. After Korea lost that heartbreaker to Japan in the World Baseball Classic (for which more than forty percent of the nation tuned in), it’s all I heard about in my students’ diaries for weeks. “Korea is ranking number two at WBC. Korea, Japan. 5-3 is outcome. Korea team is lose. Japans is team win. My very sad.” They are supposed to write five lines, but some, apparently, were too heartbroken to go on. As a lifetime Mariners fan, I sympathize. (But maybe this year…and the cycle continues.)

As I lived at a lake the past few summers, I’ve missed a lot of baseball. But now that I’m in Korea, with more free time than I’ve had since I was eleven, it’s time to get back in it. But there’s a catch. There are a limited number of English channels available here, but perhaps unsurprisingly, FSN is not one of them. Instead, I spent this evening watching the Korean Baseball Organization, this country’s answer to MLB. There are eight teams in the league, which is nothing to scoff at when you consider how small this country is. It turns out my city, Incheon, has its own team.

We are the SK Wyverns. SK is a cell phone company here, a la Sprint. In an homage to Korean Consumerism, their baseball teams are all named after the companies that sponsor them. I suppose it’s no worse than Busch Stadium or Coors Field; Americans have beer, Koreans have technology. That aside, you may be asking, what on earth is a wyvern? As did I. I did some googling, and twenty minutes of fascinated clicking later, found out that wyvern is not, as I had supposed, some Asian word in need of translation. No, no. A wyvern is “a fire-breathing dragon used in medieval heraldry; [it] had the head of a dragon and the tail of a snake and a body with wings and two avian legs.” Wow. Couldn’t just be the Lions like Daegu, huh, Incheon? But don’t kid yourself. I totally want an Incheon Wyverns tee shirt.

So I’ve been watching Korean baseball. There are some minor differences that threw me at first. For instance, if the count is one ball, two strikes, we would say it’s 1-2. They switch it around so it’s strikes first, or 2-1. This was initially quite confusing for me. I thought the ump had a very creative interpretation of the strike zone for about two innings, until finally the count became 1-3, and at last, I understood. Other that that, though, it’s pretty much the same as baseball everywhere, which is one of the beauties of the game. The commentators even use a lot of English terminology, which I find comforting. Amidst the Hangul, which I still can’t make much sense of, I’ll hear a breathless “back-to-back homerun!” Out is still out, and foul is still foul. And, having grown up on baseball, both on the diamond and the radio, I have a pretty solid intuitive grasp of what the announcer is probably saying. “He’s got a rocket of an arm, that one,” I guess, as the left fielder nails someone trying to stretch out a double. Or, “Byun Hai is getting a little greedy over there on first. Might want to cut that lead a step or two.” Even the after-game interview with the losing manager is the same. His mouth is saying some variation of we-played-hard-and-I’m-sure-proud-of-the-boys-but-you-can’t-win-em-all-that’s-just-the-game; his eyes are saying ‘one more question about our on-base percentage, and I will rip that headset right off your head.’ It’s nice to know that a world away, some things stay the same.

Go Wyverns.

written by  alli_ockinga on April 7, 2009 from Inch'on, South Korea
from the travel blog: I go Korea!
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Episode One: I hadn’t been here long, and Ellen was taking me out to experience some of the legendary Korean night life. We’d come up with some interesting outfit choices that night, which I will gracefully call ‘daring.’ We were not subtly clad. But we’re in Korea. Who’s going to know? While in the backseat of our cab, discussing various directions the night could take, our driver interrupted us. “You are Russian?” he asked. I looked at Ellen. It seemed to me quite clear that we were speaking English. Before I could ask, she told him, in no uncertain terms, that we were American. “He just asked if we were prostitutes,” she explained. “That’s what ‘Russian’ means.” Maybe I should have rethought the boots.

Episode Two: We are at another Korean watering hole called the Jail Bar. There are a few Western bars around, but I find they are usually not as funny as Korean bars. Jail Bar, as the name implies, is prison-themed. Iron bars separate smoke-filled booths, and the chairs and tables are made of unpolished steel. I’ve never found anything even remotely close to love in a bar, and here it seemed especially unlikely. Still, when a young Asian man leaned towards Ellen, reaching his hand through the bars and chains between our tables, I thought maybe she had a chance. He and his posse came over to talk to her. “Hello. Your face,” he said, gesturing at her, “beautiful.” Limited language proficiency produces an almost endearing directness. None of that Did-it-hurt-when-you-fell-from-Heaven nonsense that plagues seedy American bars. Then he motioned towards himself. “You like my face?” How do you answer that? “Yes, it’s a nice face,” she said. Two hours later, we were at a norae-bang (private karaoke room) with the young Koreans, and he confessed the words every girl wants to hear: “You make me the very happiness.” Aw.

Episode Three: This time, we were at one of the aforementioned Western bars in downtown Seoul, waiting to meet up with an acquaintance from home who’d just gotten to Korea. Another young Korean approached me, staggering. They are big drinkers here. “You are very beautiful,” he said, leaning in. He shamelessly appraised Ellen, as well. “You beautiful also. But she, more beautiful.” Ellen shrugged. You win some, you lose some. He told me I looked exactly like Sara from Prison Break. I have never seen the show, but I googled it later, and the resemblance is actually less than minimal. Still, I suppose I was flattered. Ellen saw an opportunity for entertainment in the man’s admiration. “That’s because she IS Sara from Prison Break,” she told him. “Tell him, Alli.” I looked at her. “It’s okay,” she encouraged. “You don’t have to be shy.” So I told him all about how difficult it is to be a celebrity when people are constantly recognizing you. It’s a tough life. He nodded understandingly. I sincerely hope that somewhere, he too is writing a blog about meeting an American TV star in the most unlikely of places. Finally, my friend from home called. “Your famous American boyfriend is calling,” said Cameron the Korean. Yes he is.

Instances like this abound. I’ve had a cab driver use his Korean-English dictionary (while driving) to demand that I “marriage” him, and the men are endlessly curious about our lives. “Do you have baby? Marry? Boyfriend?” Nope. Nope. Nope. “Why?” Because underneath my clothing, I am covered in scales. I would hate to tell them the truth, which is that I am extremely disinclined towards Korean men’s fashion. I can’t get behind men that carry Prada handbags which put my gypsy purse to shame, or sparkly cell phone charms bigger than the phone itself. But I’ve only been here two months, and a year is a long time. You never know how your standards will change…

written by  alli_ockinga on March 31, 2009 from Seoul, South Korea
from the travel blog: I go Korea!
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Our students aren't supposed to speak Korean at the school, so they get to choose their own English names. Most of them are young enough that their only real exposure to English is through Hollywood, which is kind of sad, but mostly funny. I have an entire class that is Star Wars themed. It sounds like I'm disciplining on the Death Star: "Darth Vader, stop talking or you've earned a time out." Or, "Skywalker, do you have your vocabulary?" And my own personal favorite, "I'm sorry, Yoda, that's incorrect." Nobody ever got to say that in the movie.

The middle classes write diaries three times a week to work on writing. On my first day, one seven-or eight-year-old girl wrote, "Today is English school stranger change. Stranger name is Alli. She's eyeglasses and sky color t shirt. Alli teacher is so so scary. But so pretty!" That diary is currently taped to my fridge.

Another class has seven eleven-year-old boys, and one annoyed girl. Eight students is a pretty typical class size, although a few have just one student, and some as many as twelve. Yesterday I was trying to explain 'castle' so I drew a cartoon on the board. Teaching here is like getting paid to play pictionary for seven hours. ("Teacher, draw is what? Angry cat?" "Very very big mouse!" "Tiger!" It was actually a weasel.) But anyway, I draw a castle, and as one, in perfect harmony, the boys begin to sing: "Do-do-do-dodo-DO-do..." It was the Super Mario Bros. theme song. So I guess they got the point.

These guys are fun, but hands down, my favorite student is the Monster Kid. He's one of my younger students, about six, and we're making ABC books in his class. Each page has a large bubble-letter (Aa) and three words that begin with the letter of the day (alligator, apple, ax). They're supposed to color the letter, and draw pictures of the words. And every single day, this kid transforms the bubble letters into some kind of monster, or as he says it, MONsterrrrrrrrrrr. It has become the highlight of my day. "Tell me about your 'H' picture, John."
"Teacher. H is House MONsterrrrrr." Sure enough, there is a roof over the capital H, and the little h is a garage with a car inside.
"What are these?" I ask, pointing at two red and blue spikes protruding from the roof.
"POISON FIRE TEETH!"
"Wait. So, if the House Monster bites me, am I on fire or poisoned?"
"POISON FIRE! and Teacher! Teacher!"
"Yes?"
"Feet." The House Monster can walk. "And Teacher...human. Bloooooood." A stick figure covered in red scribbles lies prostrate on the ground.
"What happened to the human?"
"Feet, crush. And poison...FIRE...teeth crush! Bloooood."
If I ever have children, I hope they are exactly as creative as John, with maybe slightly fewer violent impulses.

Off to work. I can only imagine what the Ii will become today. Ice monster, perhaps?

written by  alli_ockinga on March 19, 2009 from Inch'on, South Korea
from the travel blog: I go Korea!
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Other than this instance, however, I have found Korean food very good. I sort of figured it would be along the lines of Chinese, but it's actually very unique. There are similar elements--lots of noodles, dumplings, vegetables--but Korea certainly has it's own distinct cuisine. The single greatest thing about Korea so far is the barbeque. Korean barbeque is delicious. Actually, the entire restaurant experience here is a beautiful thing. You usually sit on the floor, and you have to take your shoes off, so it's super comfy. When you are ready, you ring a little bell that's built into the table, and the waiter comes over to take care of you. I am still in the only-ordering-food-with-pictures phase, so I point to what I want, and then they fire up your own personal grill in the middle of the table. You get to see the food cooking in front of you, so you know it's trustworthy, and you can grill it as long or short as you want, which guarantees that it's delicious. Usually, there's some sort of dipping sauce and vegetables to go with, and then you wrap the whole thing up in a lettuce or sesame leaf and eat it like the world's healthiest taco. And tipping is nonexistant here! It is, as my uncle Chuck would say, the total package.

And the side dishes. Every meal comes with about 8 side dishes, from soups and rice to vegetables, eggs and lots of things from the ocean. I have now expanded my definition of food to include about ten kinds of seaweed. It's actually quite good. And of course, there's the kimchi. Okay. I've been here a month, and it's time to talk about kimchi. When I said I was moving to Korea, the first thing everybody said was "Stay away from the kimchi!" Those people are wrong. Kimchi is good. It comes in many forms, but usually it's pickled cabbage or radishes in some kind of red spicy sauce. And yes, it's served with every meal.

So I've been trying to remain open minded and expand my edible horizons. I think I am coming along fairly well. At bars, instead of peanuts or popcorn, they serve dried fish or squid. Squid is really chewy. I had to chew it for what felt like hours, as if it were a piece of the worst gum ever. The best thing I can say about eating squid is that it's a life experience I've now had. And at least it's better than tofu.

written by  alli_ockinga on March 4, 2009 from Inch'on, South Korea
from the travel blog: I go Korea!
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