Santa is Korean...No English...

This week started out a bit stressful. I spent all day at work alternately teaching and studying for my finals. After work, I went to school, studied for another hour, and then took my last two finals. I was much better prepared for the second two finals, and it definitely showed in my scores. For the Writing and Speaking tests we took on Thursday I got 86% and 84%. For the Listening and Reading tests we took on Monday I got 93% and 100%…not too bad if I do say so myself. I beat all of the overseas Koreans in my class on those two tests. If only I could match their speaking skills, I would be unstoppable.

Tuesday was my last day of Korean classes for the term. It was a little sad. We all kind of bonded with each other over the course of the term, and now a lot of people are leaving Korea, or moving on to other things. After class on Tuesday we all went to this German place, and just hung out for almost two hours. Even our teacher came, as much as we annoyed him at times, I’m pretty sure he liked us. On Tuesday, my teacher handed me a tiny piece of paper and told me I needed to go to this room at 8:20. Turns out he recommended me for a scholarship, so I had a surprise scholarship interview. There were a lot of candidates, so I doubt I’ll get it, but it was nice to be nominated nonetheless.

The rest of the week went on as usual. It was odd having free time after work on Thursday, but I think that this week is going to be even more odd. I have to do a lot of studying to prep for level 6 of the language program, so I should be using my free time for that…however I’ll probably end up watching Korean drama instead, because that’s what I do.

This week wasn’t very eventful. I am growing ever more frustrated with the child in my class that cannot behave, and is in turn corrupting all the hard work I put in to get the other students to behave. I’m so frustrated that there’s nothing I can do. There’s no principal I can send him to. If I send him to a Korean teacher he just gets baby talked to and told not to do it again. I can’t punish him, he doesn’t respond to yelling, he rarely listens when I’m talking to him. I’ve run out of things to do except ignoring the kid, but I don’t want to completely give up hope on him, or else he will stay like this for the rest of his life, and he will never have any friends.

This week I had a terrible craving for chicken Caesar salad. So I went to the store to see if it would even be possible. I easily found lettuce, and assorted veggies for the salad part. Chicken was easy to come by, I even managed to find a bottle of salad dressing that said “American Caesar” on it. Then I went on search for cheese, and in the back corner of the store, I found a whole block of feta cheese…it cost 10,900 won($10), but I didn’t care. I went home made my salad, listened to Christmas music, and spent the evening wrapping presents. It’s fun how just a small taste of home, can improve my mood and give me a small sense of Christmas spirit. Last year I had no Christmas spirit. This year, however, I am REALLY excited. Probably because my favorite little sister is coming to visit me, and unlike last year, I don’t have to work on Christmas Day.

This week I was trying to use Santa as a threat to get my children to behave in the classroom. So I told the kids that I had Santa’s phone number and if they were bad I would call him, and he would bring them rocks on Christmas. One of my students looked and me with this knowing look on his face and said, “But teacher, Santa is Korean…no English.” I didn’t fight the Santa is Korean thing, because to each culture their own, but I did explain to the student that Santa is a genius and he can speak any language in the world. After I explained that, they took my threats more seriously.

I hope you all have a wonderful week. And remember that the best way to spread Christmas Cheer is by singing loud for all to hear.

Love,

Jessica

In Which North Korea Does Not Blow Up South Korea

This was a pretty good week. I think. It all went by so fast that I don’t really remember what happened. I started practicing our winter play with the students in my class. It’s going to be an unmitigated disaster. The performance will require my ten 5 year olds to stand in a straight line and only move when it’s time for them to deliver a line, or complete and action. My students are a very energetic bunch of students. They can’t stand still in a line for 5 seconds much less five minutes. It’s not going to be a fun next couple of months.

This past Thursday was my speaking and writing finals for my Korean class. I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had much time to study…it definitely showed on my speaking final. I went into the room for the test and the teacher asks me a question that I don’t understand. It was apparently about family reunions, which I only understood after clarification. It was rough, and I ended the interview by apologizing to my teacher. I think I did a bit better on the written test. And I actually made some time to study for the reading and listening portions this weekend, so I hope that they will go better tomorrow.

On Friday night I went to the really fancy part of Seoul to meet some friends for dinner. This is the part of Seoul with Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Mercedes parked all over the place. I thought I knew how to get to the place I was going, but I was mistaken, so I ended up wandering around in the bitter cold for over an hour. I tried to flag a cab but the cab driver refused to take me because I was a foreigner traveling alone. I even talked to him in Korean, so it can’t be because he was afraid to speak English. I was lucky enough to be raised in a place where I didn’t have to encounter racism, but coming to Korea has truly been an awakening experience on what it’s like to live as a minority. People often refuse to sit next to me on the train, cab drivers refuse to stop for me, I get lousy service at restaurants, people at stores ignore me until they have no other option but to talk to me. It hurts my feelings sometimes, but at the same time, I’m grateful that as a white middle class suburban female, I get the chance in my life to experience this racism so that I will NEVER treat anyone like I am often treated here.

Saturday I slept in which was glorious. I haven’t had more than 7 consecutive hours of sleep in about a month, but I slept for almost 10 hours on Friday night. It was amazing how much energy I had on Saturday. Saturday afternoon I went with some friends to the Embassy housing on the military base, and had Thanksgiving dinner with a family from church. They are both Foreign Service Officers working at the US embassy. One of them is one of the leading North Korean experts (you may have seen some of his work on WikiLeaks). We asked them about the North Korean situation, and neither of them seem to concerned, which was comforting, because if anyone knew, they would know. They briefed us on what we should do if something does happen. The place we have to meet to get shipped out of Korea is only a 25 minute walk from my house. Then they filled us with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie…all acquired from the military base…it truly is a magical place. Walking through embassy housing was like walking through suburban America…a car even stopped at a cr

osswalk and waited for us to cross instead of trying to run us over. It was shocking.

Saturday night guess what I did? If you guessed another K-pop concert then you are right. But this one was a pretty extreme K-pop concert. If you know anything about K-pop at all, then you know about Big Bang…I saw Big Bang!!! and 2NE1 and Se7en, and Gummy. It was a really good concert. My favorite Korean musician is TaeYang, and he is a member of Big Bang as well as being a solo artist, and I got to see him again! We were even closer to him this time. I may or may not have screamed like a teenage girl when he came over to our side of the stage.

Now that it’s December, it’s time to get into the Christmas spirit. So I would just like to tell everyone how thankful I am for the savior and his birth and all of the many possibilities that are available to us in this lifetime because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I hope everyone will take this Christmas season to think not about gifts, and shopping, but about what you can do to help others, and to feel the true peaceful spirit of Christmas that can’t be found in the crowded stores.

Big Bang Dancing it up on Stage...crazy costumes and all.