Model U.N.

Well, it has been over a month since I have posted, partly out of laziness, partly out of not being inspired to write. Sure, I have had many adventures to write about, but most of them would have ended up in a dispassionate format like "I did this, and then I did this, and then I went here and did this, oh but before that I did this too..." so I have abstained from writing. I suppose I might jump back to them later. For the record, after summer camp I had a week of summer break spent searching for good micro-brews, randomly traveling the subways, and sleeping. The highlight was probably visiting the Coex mall, specifically the Coex Aquarium. I highly recommend it. Besides that, I had two weeks of summer classes and then a few days off here and there to travel to Jeju with my girlfriend. Jeju was excellent, but almost anything I could say about it is likely to have been said somewhere else on the internet. We also visited the DMZ and Seoul. Now she is gone, and I have been at work for nearly two weeks since. We had Typhoon Bolaven, but North Korea got the brunt of it from what I understand. We had some rain and very heavy wind, but I didn't have to change clothes like I was told I would.

 

I have just walked home from Model United Nations tonight. A walk home listening to music generally leaves me sweaty but energized, so I will explain some of my experiences with Model U.N. so far. When I was first asked to work with the Model U.N., I thought I was going to be coaching. I was very nervous, until I found out I was only to be a helper. The topic this year is biodiversity, and since one of my majors is Biology, my head teacher wanted me as an advisor. The students went to a Model U.N. summit at a college while I was coming home from Jeju, so I missed their explanation of the topic.

Regardless, last week I attended my first meeting. I was to judge the opening statements of each country and rank the top three. The head teacher told me to be critical and ask them tough questions to find out who is the most prepared because she suspected that most of the students would have similar, generic speeches. She was mostly right, and so I was mostly critical. I found myself scowling unconsciously throughout the whole meeting, probing them to find the breadth of their knowledge. I asked one speaker from a poorer nation what her nation had to offer in exchange for U.N. funding for conservation efforts. No response. I asked the delegate from Japan, who said she was committed to preserving the environment and biodiversity, how Japan's whaling industry fit into their plan for protecting the environment. She suddenly transformed into Miss South Carolina.  I felt a bit like Simon Cowell and I wasn't sure how to feel about that. The head teacher was even more critical, however. The point of this meeting was in a large part to prove to them that they need to do their homework before the meeting. They need to know their stuff. At the end, I was asked to give comments and suggestions on how they could all improve.

Afterwards, the head teacher told the audience that I would now field any questions about biology or biodiversity they may have. I was taken off guard. I had completely forgotten I was supposed to answer questions. The shoe was on the other foot. Fortunately, it turns out my college education had served me well. I was able to answer all types of questions off the cuff about GMOs, biotechnology, artificial selection, and invasive species. I was on fire. However, they kept referring to something called "genetic resources" and asking how a nation can protect against theft of their unique organisms or leverage them to their benefit.

I was immediately hostile to this concept. The idea of a nation or business owning rights to a plant or animal species is kind of asinine in my opinion. Life is constantly evolving, so at what point does your ownership become void? Apples originated in Kazakhstan, does that mean all apple eating nations owe the Kazakhs some sort of royalty? Life doesn't see the borders we do and would not abide by them. Just because a nation claims a resource as their own does not mean an organism cannot wander across a border. Does this mean if an animal naturally spreads its range into another nation that the nation has free legal right to the use of their newly acquired so-called "genetic resource"? How do you even prove it was a natural migration and they were not illegally seeded? There are far too many gray areas in my opinion for this concept to be viable. I reiterated several times that this was only my opinion, but I felt regulation of this type was impossible.

It was then that one of the smartest students I have had the pleasure to work with, Hye-Eun, pointed out to me that this was indeed the actual U.N.'s intention to regulate genetic resources and it was a central topic for this year's Model U.N. She filled me in as the egg dripped down my face. Part of me still wanted to tell everyone, "Well then class, the U.N. is full of shit," but I held it in. Instead I told them that I understood that in reality, we sometimes have to make judgments that are only necessary because we live in a world of nations and politics. Nations are forced to make distinctions where there should be none.

I thought about my words later and realized just how hopeless I made their situation sound. Great, first meeting of the year and I have effectively told the students they have no chance of coming to a proper solution. Way to drive up membership, Ben. I kept telling them it was impossible, but as I thought about it later, the United Nations tries to do a lot of impossible things. One of their major goals is world peace. Will it ever happen? Probably not, but perhaps it is worthwhile having someone out there trying for the impossible.

At the meeting tonight we listened to each country's proposal for Article 1 on sustaining biodiversity. I also learned that along with genetic resources, countries are claiming ownership of traditional knowledge from resident tribes, especially that knowledge which could lead to medical breakthroughs. As we did this, I couldn't help but continue to snicker at how ridiculous the whole concept is, but this time I had to keep it to myself.

Gifted Program and Summer Camp

I suppose I should give a description of my weekend job. You see, during the week I teach high school English, but once a month on the weekends the English teachers teach a middle school gifted program. This program is full of very bright students. Many of these students may even be on par or above the level of student I am used to teaching. Before last week I had taught two of these special weekend sessions. The class that I teach is called “Literature and Social Issues.” Since another teacher does the same class, we usually share ideas and plan together. My first lesson was titled “Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance.” We focused on the poem “Harlem” also known as “A Dream Deferred” by Langston Hughes. It is a powerful poem with a strong message expressed in fairly simple language, a perfect poem for my first class. Of course, in order to teach the “social issues” part of the course, I felt it necessary to give a brief overview of the entire history of slavery and civil rights in the United States. Imagine cramming that heavy of a topic into under 30 minutes. I moved fast, but I got mad too. It's hard not to get passionate when you loaded up a presentation full of heartbreaking pictures of inequality. Overall, good lesson, but not enough interactivity.

The second lesson focused on “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost. This one was meant as a review of some of the basic poetic devices and how to interpret a poem. Much more active and interesting for the students. However, at the same time, the poem is depressing. Beauty fades. Everything dies. Be happy in the moment because youth is fleeting. I mean, I am the kind of guy that usually digs this type of writing, but teaching it three times in a row begins to wear on your zeal.

Now, all of these lessons for the middle school gifted program have been building up to a four day summer camp. For the summer camp, I was told to do more content based lessons. This means instead of teaching straight English, we should teach a subject we know and incorporate English learning into the classes. Since I have a Biology degree too, I decided I would focus on that. Immediately an excellent lesson came to mind from the NSTA conference: Strawberry DNA extraction. It was a fun, easy, and fascinating experiment that you could adapt to any skill level or age group. After some suggestions from other teachers, I settled on a nature scavenger hunt lesson and a lesson on camp sing-along songs.

As English teachers, we were required to stay on campus during the four days. Truthfully, we never had time to leave, so it was not such a bad thing. The camp actually turned out to be quite a bit of fun, but a lot of work. My first lessons were in DNA Extraction. I used a .ppt that I found online and only slightly modified to reflect the Korean use of the metric system. For instance, do you know we eat an estimated 150,000 km of DNA in one meal? I borrowed a lot of lab equipment like graduated cylinders, test tubes, and stirring rods. Unfortunately, the students that were prepared to volunteer in my classroom did not show up, or when they did, were only there for ten minutes. Most sessions I was all alone to set the whole class up with materials as well as teach the content behind the experiment. It was intense. However, each class was an improvement. Every class tried extracting DNA from strawberries, but depending on availability we also did peaches, watermelon, cherries, plums, and tomatoes. Each class was different, but I improved in my delivery over six periods. By the time I hit the last session, all of my corny jokes were fully formed and times out (What would I look like if I had strawberry DNA instead of human DNA? A strawberry!) The kids loved it. One student told me the only time she had ever used lab equipment was for examinations. She had never done anything fun with it before. My favorite class asked me if they could play with their DNA after they were done. They started mixing their concoctions together and creating a rainbow of DNA mixtures floating one on top of another. This was a highlight for me because it meant they were curious about what would happen if you mixed them together. Playing is one of the best ways to learn.

The next class, the scavenger hunt, was almost canceled due to Korea's rainy weather. I was quite worried because I had put a lot of thought into this lesson and built it completely from scratch and tailored it exactly to what the school had. The idea to have a scavenger hunt sprang from my belief that at a summer camp you should be allowed to go outside. I am not an athlete and I don't relish sports, but I see the need to and appreciate the power of keeping active. I felt it was my obligation to give these kids some sort of physical outlet. In America, all the glory goes to the athletes. In Korea, it is reversed. I guess wherever I go I am a contrarian, so I felt the need for these kids to have their time to shine too. We went outside to the only “nature” available, the pond behind the school. It is a nice man-made construction with fences, flowers, and trees planted. The beginning of the scavenger hunt began with a race around the pond. Most students participated but it was not required. Instead they could get a head start on earning other points for things like writing or drawing. I tried to include many different learning styles so everyone could have the chance to excel at something. They could even earn points for picking up trash or skipping stones. The best artwork or writing got more points at the end. Some of the classes were really close in competition. The stories written about the pond were usually fairly creative too. A lot of kids complained about the heat or being exhausted from running around the pond, but overall the feedback was positive. One boy said this was the best class because “he got to use his body.” I don't think that is commonplace in the Korean classroom.

The last class also sprang from my obligation to hold a proper camp. In order to have a real camp, you need campfire songs. Partly because I was running out of planning time, I designed a very basic lesson where we learn some standard camp songs and sing them together. My first draft was sent back because it wasn't academic enough, so I altered the content to reflect some more cultural and historical heritage by using old American songs like “Yankee Doodle”, “Oh Susanna!”, “Home on the Range”, and so on. Then I used these as a vehicle to introduce a little bit of history. We also sang “Down by the Bay”, a classic by Raffi. I chose this song because you can make up your own verse at the end. This would give them some writing and rhyming practice. Students struggle to rhyme in a foreign language, especially English, because the sound isn't reflected on paper. I had a few practice runs with the high school kids the week previous and they were far too shy and it was too difficult to make up a verse on their own. For the middle school kids, I made five teams and each team was able to make a verse. I don't think this class was as well received, but I also think they were tired since it was the last day.

In addition to classes, at night the students worked on their performances. They had all read a novel and were required to adapt it to the stage using their own script and interpretation. The ninth graders read “Matilda” and the eighth graders read “Island of the Blue Dolphins.” Lucky for me, I had read “Island of the Blue Dolphins” and could assist my eighth grade home room. That being said, I did not do a lot. Generally, I was tired and either relaxed or prepared for the next day during this time. Occasionally my guilt would get the best of me and I would go check on their progress. I would give them my thoughts on how things were going, throw out a few suggestions here and there, but I largely left it up to them. I did not expect us to have much of a chance at winning the prize for best performance. My co-teacher, Ms. Kwon, was concerned that the students were deviating too much from the novel. What had started as a survival novel akin to “Hatchet” had morphed into a romantic parody. The protagonist's little brother was now her love interest who she tragically loses to a wild dog that shoots him out of jealousy instead of mauling him out of hunger as the book goes. I tried to tell them this was going too far, but I wasn't sure it was. I found they were largely ignoring my concerns anyway. I backed off. One suggestion they did honor was to make it obvious. Make it obvious who each character is so the audience can focus on the story they wanted to tell. They made large signs with names for each of the characters; not exactly subtle, but it got the job done.

When it came time for the performances, it turned out my group was the last. I watched three Matilda plays, some telling the back stories of characters in the book, others deviating very little. The other “Blue Dolphin” groups deviated only slightly from the book in order to inject joke here or there. Every play was well done and seemed so much more polished than what I had seen from my group. By the time my group was ready to perform, the audience knew the story of the novel. They were primed and ready for something different, and fortunately my home room was able to deliver. Everyone was in stitches. Somehow, the dog shooting the little-brother-turned-love-interest worked marvelously. Later, the flashback to them meeting on the beach with the Titanic music in the background was cheesy enough to work. The protagonist's turbulent love life played perfectly because our belief was already suspended. They were dramatic and they were overly dramatic, never betraying a smile like I had seen in rehearsal. They laid it on so thick. The judges loved it. There was no dispute. Class 8-3 had stolen the show.

One of the other teachers told me he was sure I was going to get the Distinguished Teacher Award. I asked what he meant. He said, “Didn't you know? The teacher in charge of the winning team gets the Distinguished Teacher Award. Looks like your guys nailed it.” My heart raced. I didn't deserve an award. I did close to nothing. They did all the work. If they had taken my suggestions, it would not have been nearly as funny! What if I had to make a speech? Sure enough, my class did win, and luckily I did not have to confess the truth to the audience. We went back to the home room and the eighth graders opened their prize box: notebooks, notebooks for all! Plenty to go around! They appeared excited, but maybe it was more about what the notebooks represented. Meanwhile, I couldn't help but think there had to be a less arbitrary way to pick the best teacher for the summer camp. I said my thank yous and goodbyes to the students, and headed off.

That night, we went out for Italian food. Teacher Helen ordered us each an entree and then three pizzas for us to share. One had black crust made from squid ink. It was nice to be out of the school building and celebrating the beginning of my summer vacation.

My Thoughts on "10 Things Most Americans Don't Know About America"

I was told by my friend to respond with my thoughts on this blogpost titled "10 Things Most Americans Don't Know About America." Instead of just a short response I ended up writing a blogpost. The post I am responding to is well-thought out and the author seems to have a lot of experience all around the world. In contrast, these are just my thoughts so far as an ignorant foreigner in a new country.

So..

1.Few People Are Impressed by Us
Sure, but a lot of Korean students seem to be. One told me that there is a belief that Americans do everything right. I guess I see it like looking up to your big brother that you find out later isn't so great.

2. Few People hate us
I agree. We do have people in Korea that hate Americans and want westerners in general gone, but I can't imagine people spending that much thought on it.

3. We Know Nothing about the Rest of the World
True, but to me it is more that the rest of the world seems to know everything about us. Part of me says Americans shouldn't have to care about the history of other nations, yet most people from other countries seem to know something about Washington, Lincoln, MLK, the Civil War and so on. They know our culture. We don't know theirs. I kind of feel sorry for people here sometimes when I find out how much they know about America because they really don't need to know a lot of it.

4. We are poor at expressing gratitude and affection
I just read a great article by Simon Pegg on this issue. He thinks Americans are more affectionate and more honest with their feelings than the British. So, at least we have someone beat. I have been told that Korea isn't very open about these types of things either, but I seem to be doing okay so far.

5. Quality of Life for the average American is Not that Great
I love the American sense of exceptionalism and continue to be a product of it. I am self-deluded and loving it. That being said, he is right. The quote by Steinbeck is spot on. It is like the poor are suffering from Stockholm syndrome.

6. The Rest Of The World Is Not A Slum-Ridden Shithole Compared To Us
I agree. The rest of the world is catching up and hopefully that will lead to more peace and equality than the world has ever seen.

7. We're Paranoid
This is true. Strangers in Korea have been extremely friendly. I have yet to feel in danger at all. When I got to the airport the guy sitting next to me on the plane helped me all the way to the desk to get to my hotel. He even offered me a ride to the hotel himself but I thought it was best to take the free ride from the hotel. But, Koreans can be paranoid too. Just today I found out that many believe in something called "fan death." You should never ever leave your fan on while you sleep at night for fear that it will kill you. The way it was explained to me, fans blow the oxygen away so that you aphyxiate. It is taken seriously and even the government has issued warnings about fans.

8. We’re Status-Obsessed And Seek Attention
This is true, especially for me. Koreans don't like attention.

9. We Are Very Unhealthy
True. In America, we eat because it tastes good, so we eat a lot, and a lot of it is bad for you. In Korea, it seems like everything is done for your health. You can't just go to the spa because it is relaxing but because it does something physically for your skin or relieves some illness. Every food has some special purpose. Dog is eaten during hot weather and is considered a health food. I admire how health-conscious they are, but for me it is like turning an every day activity into a doctor's appointment. It kind of ruins the fun.

10. We Mistake Comfort For Happiness
Definitely true. But I think that it is sadly becoming more true around the world as more cultures begin to adopt our way of life. I also think this blogger is talking more about the difference between people who stay home and those who leave. Just about everyone in America is going to look complacent and docile next to someone who has traveled the world. You can find docile and complacent people everywhere you go. I am not sure how much worse we really have it than others. I suppose when I look at Korean students versus American students, the holds up. Koreans are willing to sacrifice and work hard all day long for what they want. Americans expect the teacher to do all the work and expect something for nothing. I do suspect Americans have more fun than Koreans do, but I could be wrong.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

The last few days I have asked students upon entering the class to tell me something funny, a story, or give me something to brighten the day. Yesterday I had a girl, after much cheering and encouragement from her peers, stand up and sing into a plastic banana. She was very good. She got up, giggled, and covered her mouth while she sang. When she got especially shy she turned around and sang to the door. Towards the end of the song she was facing forward with her mouth uncovered. The girls in the back of the room sang back up and clapped their hands. It was beautiful. I am blessed to be surrounded by such a supportive group.

Today I asked one of my classes for a joke. One girl only knew half a joke so she wouldn't tell it. I decided to give an example. I remembered telling "Why did the chicken cross the road?" to a teacher who did not understand it. I decided to try that one again, just to see if the reaction was the same. I wrote the question on the board. No one understood. I wrote the answer on the board. Still, nothing. I tried the variation about the duck crossing the road because it was the chicken's day off. Still, no response.

Of course, too, this was after a great amount anticipation and build up. I explained to them that this is an essential joke in English, that you would be hard pressed to find a single native speaker that does not know this joke. It is so ubiquitous in English speaking, especially American, culture that there is an entire genre of joke that depends purely on the assumption that everyone knows the original chicken joke. It is taken as a given that you know this joke. I don't even remember learning it. 

Part of me wanted to defend the joke, to stand there and lecture out an explanation for why it was funny, but I knew that would be pointless. Instead, I began to second guess myself. Maybe the chicken joke isn't actually funny. I do laugh occasionally at it, but I also laugh at a lot of stupid things. Still, after thinking about it, I suppose the reason this joke is supposed to be funny is that it preys on our tendency as humans to make things more complicated than they actually are. The chicken joke is a joke that has instead been subjected to Occam's razor: the simplest, least phenomenal answer is probably the closest to the correct one. We are given no evidence about the chicken, and so we can only give a limited answer. There, my explanation makes it funny, right? Haha!

I told the joke later to a group of teachers while we ate ice cream. Most thought it was funny, one openly laughed.

I told a few other classes. They didn't get it.

Under Pressure

Note: I am beginning to realize that my blogs are long-winded and have a pattern of meandering from topic to topic and then back again just as my speech does. I apologize in advance. I hope to learn to be more concise in the future.

It is after midnight. I just got back from a long night of grading. All week has been preparing tests and grading previous tests. During the day I worked with Helen to create the test for Animal Farm. Because Korean schools are very high stakes, there is tremendous pressure for the tests to be perfect. If they are not, if there is any wiggle room at all, the students will cry foul. Tests are made to be difficult, not unfair, but challenging. If everyone does well on the test, then the school looks bad. Students have to do poorly in order for the school to keep their prestige. Otherwise, it looks to colleges like they are puffing up grades. We were told several times to make the questions very hard.

Most Korean English teachers teach to the test. Imagine if all the English you learned involved ACT English practice questions and you will begin to approach the common Korean philosophy. Just like American teachers, I get the impression this is not what teachers want to do but it is what they are encouraged to do or even feel forced to do. There is such a pressure to succeed that even a small error can seem (or actually be) life or death for a student's future.

I spent the entire day after school working on grading chart reading exams. Each student had a graph they had to read and then they had to describe it in five or more sentences. I had over eighty of these tests to grade. I got through the first question today, and I will do the other question Sunday. It was easily the most boring grading job I have ever done. Every answer was nearly identical. Not only that, but I am sure I wasn't completely balanced. It would have taken three times longer to be completely objective and I have already invested four hours in these tests as it is. The first graph is internalized now. The irony is that it shows that after 24 hours, retention of learning drops to 10% with lecture style teaching, while having students teach each other the information allows them to retain 90% of their learning the next day. It is funny that such a stilted exam style should have such a revolutionary message.

While I was working on this exam, Helen was proofreading her final exam. I was in the room to help her with any problems. She wanted me to stay, and I didn't mind because I had so much to do anyway and honestly if I had went home I would have gotten distracted almost immediately. I helped her with the English on it, and we talked about common grammar errors in Korea versus America. Naturally, we spent a lot of time talking about pedagogy.

I shared with her my concerns about high stakes testing. She agreed. We talked about how students are afraid to fail in front of native teachers. They do not want to speak up because they are afraid we will judge them. Education is all about failure. In America, we are more comfortable with failing. We are comfortable with stupid too. This is both a blessing and a curse. Because we are comfortable, Americans are able to take more risks. We are also gifted with a much higher confidence level. We believe we are special, whereas my students are reminded daily that they are just one of countless others competing for the same jobs on the global market and they feel they will not get anywhere in life if they can't even recognize that the main idea of passage number five in the textbook is about World Water Day and not about how water is sacred to most world religions.

The pressure is so much higher outside America. Even when I talk to my colleagues from the UK and Canada, it sounds like high school actually has a numerical significance on where you will end up. In Canada, they have the same philosophy about making tests difficult as Korea does. Don't get me wrong, by the way, I don't think hard tests are a bad thing. Plenty of teachers in America do make challenging tests, but then most then cover everything on the test at some point too. In other countries, some questions aren't covered and are only there to separate the men from the boys. In the UK, your scores in early high school affect whether you get on the college track or the vocational track. Once you are on the college track, you have to begin taking classes for you major right away. The way I understand it, my one year of sophomore biology in high school would have rendered me ineligible for a biology degree because I did not start soon enough on my education. Major life decisions are made in high school.

Helen told me about her hatred of the professors who go to America to study, pick up one or two teaching methods, then come back to Korea preaching them as if they were the one true path to enlightenment. I let her know that the same thing was happening in America, that we were studying Korea's methods and missing the point completely. She was surprised. I told her I thought it was funny how many students (and professors apparently) think America is the greatest thing on the planet. I told her most Americans are embarrassed about their education system for a variety of reasons.

She also told me she refuses to teach to the test. She has the students journal about class experiences. They edit and polish their work. She has been teaching lots of poetry recently. A few students even recently commented that they are finally seeing the beauty in the English language. She does not focus on bubbling in answers or fill-in-the-blanks. It is exciting to work with her on test making, despite the communication barrier, because I can tell she loves and understands the literature. For Helen, I think making test questions was a strange game of telephone. We both mentally paraphrase and interpret the poem into our own native languages. We both come up with question and answer ideas. Helen thinks of her idea in Korean, translates it to English in her head, types it out, then I read it, and translate it into proper English.

Helen told me that she is concerned that so many students have solidified their dreams. They all have something in mind, but some of them you can tell have been coached into a dream. I told her that I remember an old Korean man when I worked at Meijer who would come in and tell me at least once a week that teaching is a horrible idea, that I will never make any money, and that I should go to a school with a more recognizable name. His children are all doctors from MSU. I asked Helen if she knew MSU. She did. She did not know Grand Valley. I told her that given my experience with this expatriate, I can only imagine what Korean what pressure Korean parents must exert.

She asked me what my dream was. I didn't really have one to give her. I told her I honestly didn't even know where I would be living a year from now. Instead, I started describing my life philosophy and what guides me. I will not get into that as it is really a post or perhaps even a blog unto itself, but she found it inspiring and recommended that I share it with the students. She wanted me to show them that here I am, 24-years old, and I still don't have a dream. I am happy and productive and I have no idea where I am going. I mean, I do, but I really don't. One of the test questions that Helen had been tweaking for the last several hours was over the poem “A Road Not Taken.” I told her that I still wonder how my life would be different if I stayed in America. As the poem goes, “I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” I don't know what kind of difference it will make and I never will. I am learning to be comfortable with these kinds of high-stakes choices.

Helen opened up a lot to me. She talked about how she has been teaching for twenty-five years at middle school level and this is why her English is so poor. She decided to move up to such a high level school in order to increase her own English skill. She was afraid her skill would continue to stagnate as it did when she was teaching low level middle-schoolers. She told me about how she had a low opinion of foreign teachers for a very long time because of bad past experiences, but now she really looks up to some of them. I love how the later the night gets the more open people become with each other, regardless of age or birthplace.

Should get to bed, I have an early morning Skype date in about five hours and then I am taking the train to Daejeon for the weekend. Before I finish I would like to tack on one last line that sums up my very American opinion on the grading situation: Grades mean very little to me. Grades are about as accurate of a measure of competency as amount of pizza eaten is a measure of life experience.  

Community

Just finished some soondae and tuna kimbop for dinner that I got bought from a couple take out places near my apartment. Soondae is Korean blood sausage. Kimbop is a seaweed roll with rice, ham, radish, tuna, egg, carrot, and some other things I am sure I am forgetting. It is delicious, cheap, and you can find it anywhere. It is like the Korean version of deli food. In fact, I would choose tuna kimbop over any tuna sandwich any day. The soondae came from a place I have been frequenting in the past week that serves traditional Korean street food. It is fast, greasy, and delicious. I still have to memorize the Korean word for delicious. My students told me Friday that it was “ma-dee-saw-yo.” I am washing it down with some kind of milky, fruity alcohol. Someone at the ex-pat bar told me about it but I can't remember the name. Good stuff. I have been thinking a lot lately, probably ever since I got off the plane in fact, about two things: the sense of community here and the way that cultures adapt to their setting. I will try to cover these thoughts the best I can but I sense that I will be returning to them often throughout my time here.

One thing I truly love about Korea and especially the school where I work so far is their understanding of community. In the United States, we have a great sense of rugged individualism and independence. We want to be our own people. Our country is adapted to personalization. In America, you can “have it your way.” In Korea, they emphasize the importance of doing things as a group. They have a very explicit understanding of human bonding.

Where I work, you do not simply go to lunch, grab food, and eat at your desk like so many teachers in the United States. Instead, you announce to everyone in the office that you are going to lunch. They either offer to join you or decide to stay a few minutes and go later with another group. No one goes alone. If someone looks like they might go alone, usually another teacher will offer to stay behind so that they will not eat alone. The rules extend throughout the meal. You must wait for everyone in your party to finish eating before you get up and leave, unless you have something very pressing to do and you excuse yourself. In America, we do understand that eating together is important, but we do not voice it as often or make it a rule. I have been invited to eat with the vice principal at a nice restaurant as well as one of my co-teachers. Coworkers learn to get along with each other outside of work. This is not as common in America, but I sense it is more common at the smaller, perhaps charter, schools. You are strange if you eat alone here. I absolutely love this part of Korean culture because I love people. I hate eating alone and always made it a point to try to eat with others when I was at the duplex in Michigan. Mankind's history with cooking begins around a campfire. This means that eating has been a communal thing for a very, very, very, long time. Instead of shrugging off something so fundamental to who we are, Korean culture chooses to embrace it.

Koreans also have a deep understanding of why we do, or perhaps why we should, drink. Granted, I haven't been out drinking with any Koreans yet so my opinion on this matter is still very fresh, but I have gained some sense of their ideals from where and the way beer is served. I also gained some insight from one of my students. I asked her what the drinking age was in Korea and she did not know. Either she was blindingly ignorant or it just did not matter. Regardless, she told me drinking usually begins in college for Koreans, but then she followed up with something that I found illuminating. She said that Koreans begin drinking in college because “they need to make friends and become familiar with others and that is the way that you can get to know each other.” I found this to be a very mature opinion on why we drink coming from a girl that is probably far too burdened with studying to even consider drinking. Not only that, but I have noticed my English students tend to use familiar in a different way than we would. When we say familiar, we mean to get acquainted, but when Koreans say familiar, it seems to me that they mean they become like family. Drinking cements us together.

On the other hand, I had a class create a bucket list on Friday and one of my better English speakers raised her hand and told me that before she dies she would like “to drink until she has no memory.” I told her our word for that was “blackout drunk,” which I wrote on the board. She got red and said she only wanted to do it once. We all laughed and I told her it was an awful idea. This scenario would have gone very differently in the States. Here, I have the sense of maturity about drinking and while I cannot speak for all Korean students, mine are too busy, tired, and scared of expulsion to drink. Americans kids will drink and keep it hushed. Korean kids will verbally fantasize about drinking and then not.

I suppose tonight I will stop with community, then tackle some of the adaptations in the next post. One final thought on community for now: I have not yet described my apartment. I sleep on a floor futon to the side of my living room/kitchen. Other than this one room I have a bathroom and a laundry room. It is essentially designed for one person only. Today I realized how ironic this may be. The first time I have ever lived alone is in a country that puts a high value on togetherness. I wonder how common it is for Koreans to live alone?

Grocery shopping

After a brief Skype call this morning, I got up and went to the grocery store. I was hungry. I was still tired. I was unsure whether or not I actually wanted to go or if I wanted to stay and wait around or work on schoolwork. I was hungry and lazy enough, so I showered and headed out.

I should mention that here, the showers are not fixed. They are attached to the sink and hang on a hook on the wall. Since the bathroom is entirely tile with a drain below the sink, you just shower where you stand and aim so as to not soak your towel, something I have so far been able to manage. My showers are definitely faster now and far less relaxing then they were in America.

I was craving pizza this morning, or anything greasy. I should mention, Korean pizza contains corn nine times out of ten. It also relies heavily on seafood like shrimp and often it is advertised in half-and -half varieties. It is odd, I do love Korean food, I have enjoyed it very much, but I am having strange cravings for a greater level of greasiness than Korea has to offer. Don't get me wrong; Korean food is plenty greasy, but maybe it does not have enough cheese for my current American diet. On my trip to the grocery store I noticed most of the restaurants were closed, most likely for Buddha's birthday. It is interesting that Jesus's birthday makes so much of a larger splash in America than Buddha's birthday does in Korea. I will be interested to see how Christmas goes in this country. BBQ Chicken was open. From my trip to Seoul (post coming soon), Laura had told me about an ingenious product they serve that I meant to try. It is called Col-Pop Chicken. It is a cup with the bottom half full of cola and the top half full of chicken. I think I had a medium and it costs just under $2.50 US dollars. The chicken, especially the barbecue sauce, was about Grand Rapids school lunch quality. I was disturbed to think a place calling themselves BBQ Chicken could get it so wrong. It immediately reminded me of just how wrong we get it in America when we try to replicate ethnic foods. Think Taco Bell.

The grocery store in our area is part of a chain called Homeplus. Homeplus, at least in our area, exists on several levels of a large office building. The top floors consist of a JC Penny style store that holds clothes too small and expensive for my taste. They have a place called Ashley's that is an “American Grille” and also a buffet. Ironically, the food looks to be mostly Korean. I have heard it is good; expensive, but good. In regards to the spelling of “grille”, I have found that in Korea if you want to impress you use English or a bastardization of it, but if you really want to go the extra mile you use French, just like we do. The lower sections consist of a grocery store that resembles Family Fare and below that a general merchandise area that resembles Target or Meijer.

I swept the clothes area out of sense of adventure and headed down to the bottom to get my ethernet cable. The one I had was too short and had a loose connection. I found it telling that the longest cable they had in stock was 3m. This says something about the size of Korean households I think. 3m is enough to stretch across the width of my apartment, but not quite the length. I was hoping for 4m just for some extra leeway. I also came upon my first bargain in Korea: 3000 won for a returned optical laptop mouse. So far it is serving it's purpose; I kind of hate the trackpad on my laptop. I found it remarkable how the electronics was in the back-right corner of store, just like Standale Meijer. The automotive was almost adjacent if it weren't for a few oddly placed toy aisles. The center was designated for clothes and fit almost the very same profile as any store in America.

The large differences begin with the grocery floor. Although it resembled Family Fare, the quantity and price of each item varied drastically. Watermelon is priced at around $20 each. Eggs must be bought in bulk size of 24 or more in order to get anywhere close to American prices. Beef is expensive. Squid is dried into a jerky form. Octopus is sitting out, cold and I presume bought by the kilogram. Milk is over $6 for 3L. The milk section is comparatively tiny, while there is nearly an entire aisle devoted ramen. The cheapest beer, the stuff that is equivalent to PBR or Natural Ice, is more akin to the price of Sam Adams. Meanwhile, Soju is under 1000 won a bottle. I went through the entire store minus the health/beauty care section just price matching. Then, I grabbed a cart and started over. In Homeplus, you deposit a 100 won coin into the cart to unlock and retrieve the coin when you lock it back to the others. You also provide your own bags. As this was my first time, I bought a couple big ones. I found out at the register that 1+1 is the same as buy one get one free, which was my suspicion. I was able to get two boxes of store brand frosted flakes this way. Samples were available all over the place. I tried some juice, iced coffee, hot cocoa, stir fry, and pastries. A large pizza was available on-site for about 12000 won, which is great. I will definitely take advantage soon.

I ended up buying way too many ramen bowls, some Korean branded Spam to satiate my grease craving in the future, bottled water, Milkis (milk soda, friend suggested), soy bean oil, some candy that reminded me of Twix, Frosted Flakes, a 1.8L bottle of Soju, and some orange juice to mix. I am not sure what you call the mix of soju and orange juice, but for now as I am drinking it I am calling it a Korean screwdriver.

My big lesson from shopping today was that I have to change my cravings. I know it will take time, but I have to give up breakfast. Bacon is here, but is scary to even consider. If I want to live within my means, I need to eat as Koreans do. I have to, as much as I want to perish the thought, mostly give up beer. Milk will be a luxury. Eggs I may still swing, but not at the moment. A friend told me I also have to stop shopping at Homeplus and move to the market. Vegetables are much cheaper there. Of course, that requires real cooking, not just pouring boiling water on top of noodles. The way I see it now, I am on the opposite side of the world. This requires opposite thinking.