One Step Closer to my Dreams of K-Pop Stardom

This week was another exhausting, but mostly good week. I’m still having some trouble controlling one of my students. But I hope that eventually something will click, and he will realize that he has to sit down and be quiet or I’m just going to keep yelling at him every day for the rest of the school year. Other than that work is going well…the job part anyway. There’s been a bit of drama amongst the teachers lately. It’s caused this horrible division between the foreign and Korean staff, and I hate it. It feels like someone is always angry at someone else. I’m trying to play it neutral, but being Switzerland is really hard. I don’t want to upset any of the Korean teachers, so I’m being nice and helpful to them as much as I can when they come to me to complain about the other foreign teachers. Then the foreign teachers complain to me about the newest misunderstanding with the Korean staff, and I can see their side, but if I take it, then I’ll alienate the Korean staff…I hate dealing with drama, and being stuck in th

e middle of it.

School was pretty good this week. After class on Thursday as a class we all went out with our teacher. I wasn’t going to go, because they were going to a bar, but someone dragged me and promised we’d sit in a non-smoking section, so I went. It was interesting. I’ve never hung out with a teacher outside of the classroom before, except for that awkward subway ride a few weeks back. I didn’t stay too long, because I don’t enjoy being around people who are drinking, but I got to practice my Korean a little bit, and see my teacher in a different light.

Friday night I went to see my musician friend perform again. He really is a fantastic musician. Every time I go, even though it’s pretty much the same show, I still walk away in complete awe. I can do a lot of things well, but there’s not one thing in this world that I am simply amazing at, and I’m always in awe of those people who have found their niche, and can just do that one thing so well that it blows people away. Before the show I was waiting for some of my friends in the subway, and I witnessed Korean police using force for the first time since I’ve been in Korea. Some man was causing trouble, and he started shoving the police officer, so they had about four people forcibly restraining this guy, and he still managed to throw one of them to the ground. Good to see that the police here are top notch, especially with the G20 summit happening this week.

Saturday was an amazing day…quite possibly in the top ten of my life. It started out as any normal Saturday would. I slept late-ish got up and made myself some pancakes, got dressed, then caught the subway to meet a friend. We did a bit of shopping, then went to her side of town and hung out at her house for a little while. At 4 we went to meet a new friend. She just got to Korea, and we’ve decided to take her under our wings…basically because she shares our love of Korean dramas and Asian pop music. So we had dinner then all went to a K-Pop concert.

We saw a group called FT Island. They’re one of my favorite Korean pop bands; they even play instruments. Most of you have probably never heard of them, but just to give you an idea of how popular they are in Asia. While we were standing in line waiting to get inside we started talking to this Asian woman, whom we had assumed was Korean. However, she spoke flawless English, and turned out to be from Singapore. She has flown all the way to Korea from Singapore (a 6 hour $900 flight) just to see this group in concert. There were people from China and Japan, all of whom had traveled overseas just to see this group perform. You should you tube them, it’s definitely worth it.

Their concert was really good, and we had a great time, but what pushed Saturday into the top ten was what happened after the show. They played their encore, then the lead singer (who has an amazing voice) said that he had a friend who had come to the concert who wanted to come out and sing something for us. So this guy in a terrible shirt walks out, and I think, “Hey, I recognize him…he’s not a singer, he’s an actor.” So I was really confused because they started hanging all of these posters about this guys comeback album around the place and all of these girls appeared with signs that said OSKA on them, but the actor’s name isn’t OSKA it‘s Yoon Sang Hyun, so I was even more confused. Then through my limited Korean, I managed to understand that they were going to be using us to shoot a scene of a drama. Then this REALLY famous Korean actor walked into the room (Hyun Bin), and everyone starts screaming. So for the next half hour we got to be extras in a crowd scene for a Korean drama called Secret Garden. Dreams really do come true.

The drama starts airing this Saturday, and I don’t know what episode the concert scene will be in, but if we make the cut, I’ll definitely know, because I was standing by the only two ridiculously tall foreign girls in the audience… It was a really nice surprise ending to our happy day, and a nice welcome to Korea present for our new Drama loving friend.

So, now that I have been an extra in a Korean Drama, can I put that on my resume?

Have a good week, and bask in the knowledge that your degrees of separation from the world of Korean Drama stars just got one step shorter.

(Left= Hyun Bin, Right= Yoon Sang Hyun, Below= FT Island)