A tractor I found in a parking lot near my apartment. Taken on December 31, 2009.
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View The Paths in a larger map
I just finished putting together this Google Map, a small collection of geographic points of interest in Korea. It starts zoomed in on my town, Maseok/Hwado-eub, of which I have a more specific guide. Zoom out to start seeing other places and to get an idea of where I am in Korea. Hopefully, if you've followed along so far, this will give you a bit more perspective on my life.
View The Paths on my site, or click the link under the map above to view it in Google.
Incidentally, Maseok is also known as Hwado-eub. I'm not sure what it means, but it covers pretty much the same area as Maseok, and I don't know how they're different. Regardless, this is about a bit more of the social alterations going on.
For me, even with the impending departures of Graham, Tim, Aldrin and Barney, it was never the worst thing happening. I knew I only had to wait a week after Graham, Tim and Aldrin left before Hilary got here, and she would fill the void.
Continue reading The New Hwado Order.
After 12 days on the road around Korea, Ryley and I returned to Maseok with about a week until the start of school, and the impending departure of three of the pillars of our society.
The loss was to come at the end of August. Tim and Aldrin would leave on the same day, Tim's contract being up and Aldrin was planning a so-called "midnight run," and then two days later, Graham would take his leave of us. The loss promised to be devastating. If you imagine the group of foreigners in Maseok as a kind of family, Graham and Tim were our parents. Graham taught me how to get to Seoul, how to go to baseball games, how to order beer, and since we both taught middle school, he gave me invaluable bits of wisdom gained during his four years in the country. Tim taught me how to eat and drink cheaply, brought me back to reality when I was freaking out about not knowing how to teach, introduced me to great entertainment (Peep Show and Louis Theroux), and provided much knowledge gained during his years here.
Continue reading Back to life, back to reality.
As I mentioned before, on Monday Hye-Hyun came to my apartment with the school engineer to install the new curtain/shade she ordered for me online. At the same time, the building manager came with us to look at my gas boiler and see what my issue was. She informed me that unplugging it and plugging it back in was the correct solution, I just shouldn't hit any buttons after doing that. I guess the thing is silent when it's on just the water setting, and I had been waiting to hear the noise of it starting and thought it wasn't working. That was just about all I did on Monday.
I did actually start teaching in my third grade classes this week, which was pleasantly surprising in a way because I was expecting them to be much more out of control than they were. One thing I noticed was some of the girls who were so loud outside of school were dead silent in class. This week I also experienced the zombie class, 210, where the excitement from the first week must have worn off because I didn't remember them being so silent before, but this time it was like teaching in a tomb.
Continue reading Super Mario & the Beat[boxer].
Here's the lovely new curtain which Hye-Hyun ordered for me off the interwebs. Apparently she chose the design with a little help from some of the other teachers. Very soothing!
The school engineer came over to set it up and also the building manager came to see what the deal with my boiler was. Apparently the correct solution to my problem is to just unplug it and plug it back in, but never press the buttons I was pressing. Evidently, the boiler is silent when heating the water and noisy when heating the floor, so when I thought it wasn't working that's only because it was doing the water. Oh well, nice to know how things work!
This pic and another of my room with the new curtain are available in my Korea Misc photoset.
My photos from Namyangju on Flickr are now geotagged extremely unnecessarily accurately so if you want you can check out my map and see where stuff is. check it out:
Flickr Map
Or, if you're on a photo page and want to know where it was taken, scroll down on the right and under additional information click the Map link next to "Taken in Namyangju-Si"
Flickr Map
Or, if you're on a photo page and want to know where it was taken, scroll down on the right and under additional information click the Map link next to "Taken in Namyangju-Si"
Monday morning I was able to regain hot water by unplugging and replugging the gas boiler, although the functioning has not returned to normal it gives me hot water so that's good.
Not really my first week of teaching considering I only did introduction/icebreaker stuff in my third grade classes, but I did teach for the first time this week. On Monday I had two third grade classes, and I had prepared a little bit of a lesson but before class the teacher I'd be with came up and told me that we could just do intro stuff and have the kids ask me questions about the mysterious nation I'm from.
The classes went fine, although my schedule was changed unexpectedly I still only had two classes. The kids all screamed and cheered when I walked in the room, and then when I said hi they screamed and cheered again (this behavior would be repeated by every single class). In all third grade classes throughout the week I did the same thing, and they all asked pretty much the same questions, from the I Love English handbook. "Where are you from?" "What is your hobby?" "What food do you like" "How long are you going to stay in Korea?" Etc... Some questions weren't always formed so well: "How tall are you?" usually came as "what centimeter?" or "centimeter what?" and "Do you have a girlfriend?" often was just "girlfriend?" Another one was "foot size?" By just reading out questions from the handbook I got asked some interesting ones as well, such as "what is the weather like today?" "why don't you have lunch with me today?" "what are you doing this afternoon?" "are you busy tonight?" and more.
Not really my first week of teaching considering I only did introduction/icebreaker stuff in my third grade classes, but I did teach for the first time this week. On Monday I had two third grade classes, and I had prepared a little bit of a lesson but before class the teacher I'd be with came up and told me that we could just do intro stuff and have the kids ask me questions about the mysterious nation I'm from.
The classes went fine, although my schedule was changed unexpectedly I still only had two classes. The kids all screamed and cheered when I walked in the room, and then when I said hi they screamed and cheered again (this behavior would be repeated by every single class). In all third grade classes throughout the week I did the same thing, and they all asked pretty much the same questions, from the I Love English handbook. "Where are you from?" "What is your hobby?" "What food do you like" "How long are you going to stay in Korea?" Etc... Some questions weren't always formed so well: "How tall are you?" usually came as "what centimeter?" or "centimeter what?" and "Do you have a girlfriend?" often was just "girlfriend?" Another one was "foot size?" By just reading out questions from the handbook I got asked some interesting ones as well, such as "what is the weather like today?" "why don't you have lunch with me today?" "what are you doing this afternoon?" "are you busy tonight?" and more.
Continue reading First Week of Teaching.
My first weekend was pretty uneventful, I did the laundry on Saturday morning and then watched some episodes of Conan. The laundry machine was interesting, it weighed the load and automatically set the time, then it didn't do anything for a while and I realized I had to turn the knob on a water hose, there was a cold and hot one but the hot one sprayed water all over when I turned it, so I opted to stick with just cold. Considering the state of my hot water I didn't know if I would've got hot water from it anyway. By the time the laundry was done there was still a puddle of water on the (tile) laundry "room" floor, I'm not sure what from, and it was grossly dirty so I wiped it up with a grossly dirty towel I had been left behind, and all was better. Of course I had to hang my laundry up to dry so I did that and went back to the interwebs. I didn't want to take another cold shower so I just stayed inside and ate cereal and watched Conan, and fell asleep around 4pm I think. I woke up around 11:30 and was up for a couple hours before finally falling asleep again.
On Sunday, I did much the same, just sitting in my room not taking a cold shower and waiting for my laundry to dry. I was also inspired by how dirty my socks were and the dirt stirred up in the laundry room puddle to finally wash my floor, and also rearrange my room since I discovered another electrical outlet by my desk so I could move my computer off my bed. I also talked to Graham Farmer on Facebook chat about the lesson I had to teach to the third graders, and he said he'd share the lesson plan he used with me, and we talked a lot about various things (Korea/New Zealand) and he said he'd show me the good restaurants in Namyangju, as well as maybe go to a baseball game sometime, making him the third person to suggest it (the others were Sun Man and Hye-Hyeon). I mentioned the hot water to him and he thought that was kind of weird so I called Hye-Hyeon to see if she could find out anything more, but since it was Sunday she couldn't get ahold of the building owner. I resigned myself to the fact that I'd probably have to take another cold shower on Monday. Once again, I ate cereal and since I didn't have an alarm clock I went to bed early so I'd wake up early enough for school on Monday.
On Sunday, I did much the same, just sitting in my room not taking a cold shower and waiting for my laundry to dry. I was also inspired by how dirty my socks were and the dirt stirred up in the laundry room puddle to finally wash my floor, and also rearrange my room since I discovered another electrical outlet by my desk so I could move my computer off my bed. I also talked to Graham Farmer on Facebook chat about the lesson I had to teach to the third graders, and he said he'd share the lesson plan he used with me, and we talked a lot about various things (Korea/New Zealand) and he said he'd show me the good restaurants in Namyangju, as well as maybe go to a baseball game sometime, making him the third person to suggest it (the others were Sun Man and Hye-Hyeon). I mentioned the hot water to him and he thought that was kind of weird so I called Hye-Hyeon to see if she could find out anything more, but since it was Sunday she couldn't get ahold of the building owner. I resigned myself to the fact that I'd probably have to take another cold shower on Monday. Once again, I ate cereal and since I didn't have an alarm clock I went to bed early so I'd wake up early enough for school on Monday.
Warning: This one is long.
Friday got off to a very inglorious start, my hot water didn't work. Trying my best to get as little water on myself as possible, I washed my hair in the icy stream as fast as I could and got out. A real shower would've been nice considering everything I had to do that day but when you're in Korea and you don't know your landlord's phone number and they probably don't speak English anyway, you have to wait until Hye-Hyeon can fix it for you.
I headed to school around 10:30 because I had to do my medical check-up stuff at the hospital, and Hye-Hyeon told me to be at school at 10:30 so we could go promptly when she finished class. On the way to the hospital we took an interesting shortcut through some streets/driveways/backyards(?) and I recognized the area where Sun Man and I had been lost driving on Monday night, and where the open-air market had been. Also in this area was a Nike store but Hye-Hyeon didn't really think I'd be able to find big enough clothes because we are *sort of* a small town. I suggested I ask the head teacher at my table in the teacher's office where he gets his clothes, because he is somewhat close to my size, and Hye-Hyeon began to teach me how to say "where clothes buy?" in Korean but it wasn't really working out for me. I also told her I had been able to read on the cable guy's truck that it said "di gi tal" in Korean characters, and on the street it said "tek si" (taxi) in the taxi lane. She said she was proud of me and impressed that I could already read after only being here a few days.
After some twists and turns and busy street crossings with no stop signs or crosswalks, we found ourselves at the hospital where we were directed to the 6th floor. This hospital was not exactly the peak of modern medicine by western standards, and after briefly filling out part of one form, we were told to sit and wait. At this point, Hye-Hyeon informed me that she had class at 11:45 and she would have to go, and she asked if I could make it back to school by myself. I tried to think over the way we had come in my head and I thought that yeah I could probably make it, but I don't think she was inspired by my answer because she gave me her cellphone so she could call me if I wasn't in the office when her class was done.
Luckily for me, at this time the lady at the desk came over to administer the first part of the medical check-up, consisting of me holding a metal spoon over each eye and reading numbers, Then things actually did get very advanced and I got to measure my height and weight simultaneously on a machine that did everything automatically. After this, they had me put my arm in the blood pressure/heart rate machine and it did its business automatically, and then she measured me around the chest, gave me a colorblindness test and we were done. Hye-Hyeon hadn't left yet because this part was turning out to be quicker than we thought, so she told me that I also had t have an x-ray, go to the dentist, and give a urine and blood sample (drug test and HIV test). [Interesting note: in the elevator leaving, a guy gets on by himself wearing a patient's gown and pushing an IV thing hooked into his arm, I also forgot to note in The Drive post that we passed this hospital a couple times while lost, and saw a man in a wheelchair in a patient's gown wheeling himself around the parking lot] The whole thing would cost 50,000W but Hye-Hyeon decided we should go because she was running late for getting back to class and we would come back and pay later.
On the way back to school, we talked about age and how I am 21 in the US but in Korea I am 23 because you start at 1yr old the day you are born (so 22) and then add 1 year on Jan 1 regardless of birthday (so 23), and I realized that this explained a lot about a conversation I had had with Nouth. She asked how old I was, and I said 21, and she said everyone else had said I was 23, and she thought I was lying/joking around with her. At the time, I knew about the Korean age difference (thanks to Culture Shock) but I forgot, so when Hye-Hyeon told me this I realized that everyone just said I was 23 because they knew I was born in 1987. This math is super confusing and is still blowing my mind but I think the best way to do it is to add 2 if it is before your birthday, and add 1 if it is after, within the calendar year.
I asked Hye-Hyeon how old she was and she told me to guess, so I guessed 25. She laughed and said "ok," apparently satisfied that I think she's 25, after a little more prodding she admitted she's 27 (in Korean years) so she may actually be 25 or 26 depending on when her birthday is.
When we got back to school, she told me to go eat lunch, and I started to go but I realized I couldn't because I hadn't done the blood draw and stuff yet (I don't know what you fast for and what you don't) so I went back to the teacher's lounge to continue to starve. At this point it was 24 hours since the last time I ate (since I went to bed so early on Thursday). I hung around on Gmail for a little bit until around 12:30 or so (I think) and it was time for Hye-Hyeon, Nouth and I to walk to Maseok Middle School to see a demo class. On the way there we looked around to see if maybe there was anywhere I could buy clothes; the answer seemed to be no. After getting a little confused, Hye-Hyeon asked someone directions and they pointed us in the right direction, which involved an underground pedestrian tunnel that was about 2 inches shorter than me. We eventually found a school area and I recognized another spot that Sun Man and I had driven by a couple times, and after asking another person for directions, we went through an elementary school and out the back door we finally saw our destination.
I think this was the first time since I got here that I saw another white person, and it was weird when I realized my instinct already was to bow. Ryley, the first other white man I saw, turns out to be from Ballard (Seattle, for the unenlightened), and has been here 3 weeks so he didn't think he'd be much help to me, but he said that he was starting to figure things out a little bit. At the demo class, there were some other english teachers but I didn't really get a chance to talk to anyone else since we were slightly late and the class started around 1:30.
Interestingly, and luckily I suppose, the demo class was on the exact lesson I was expected to teach to my second graders, so I actually did get a little bit of helpful training, in a way. The class was run by Graham Farmer, a New Zealander who's been here a couple years, and one of the things that most impressed me about it was that the room the class was in had an automatic sliding door, a giant HDTV embedded in the front wall, and six or seven super nice computers in the back. Automatic sliding door being the most awesome of all those features, by far. Nothing really notable happened during the class, except that Hye-Hyeon spilled her orange juice and the kids were exceptionally well behaved, which Graham admitted afterward was abnormal. Also, the kids were divided into teams for the activity and one team was named "Fart Mouse."
After class, we had a little gathering of all the English teachers in a different room where people from Maseok school gave little speeches and thanked us for coming and Graham talked about the demo class, and we all introduced ourselves. One of the teachers, from Florida, mentioned that he was surprised by the participation and obedience the kids showed, and Graham admitted that class is not normally like that. At this point I was still thinking the only way I'd be able to get the kids to obey me would be to hit them, considering theyve been so trained to respond to that.
After this little meeting I had a chance to ask Graham about discipline, and he said that he's never hit any student (phew!) and that I should just stop talking and glare at them, which was what I had been thinking I should try. He said yelling doesn't really work because 1) they might not understand what you say and 2) you can't yell over 40 kids. I asked him about clothes and he thought maybe I should go to Itaewon which is the foreigner-heavy part of Seoul, I guess, but he is lucky because he's shorter than me and small so he can probably find clothes that fit him around here. We also exchanged emails and he told me to Facebook him and I could get together with him and the other english teachers in the area when they go out. Hye-Hyeon and Nouth were getting antsy to leave so we snatched up all the snacks they gave us (for later, I still couldn't eat), and headed back.
Walking back, I had to try to explain what Seventh Day Adventists were because there was a church of theirs, but since I don't really know I don't think my explanation really explained anything. I also asked Hye-Hyeon if she ever went up into the mountains/hills around Namyangju and she said no, she's too busy, so I said what about the weekend? Apparently, she has better things to do on the weekend than come to Namyangju, at this time I still thought she lived somewhere nearby (hint: I find out later that she doesn't, if you didn't figure that out).
Back at school I still couldn't eat so I sat, starving, staring at my gmail inbox that continued to be absent of new messages, and waited for Hye-Hyeon to finish so we could go back to the hospital and then go to my apartment to look at the hot water situation. Also, she had got me a converter to try to use with my xbox so we were going to check and see if it would work or not.
On this, our second walk to the hospital, Hye-Hyeon told me that she could teach me Korean, and she looked at my schedule to find a time we both were free to "do the Korean thing" but I don't know if she figured out a time. Also on this walk I found out that she lives in Seoul with her parents because there's no reason to move out, and she commutes about an hour total with walking and bus ride every day to school. Also, we were walking behind someone smoking and she asked if I smoked, which of course I don't, and she said she tried it once but didn't like it so she never did it again. I think she was a little surprised when I told her I had never tried it. Also surprising, I haven't seen as much rampant smoking as some people thought there would be, maybe because I'm mostly around small children and women.
At the hospital, I paid my 50,000W and we headed over to the dentist next door, Hye-Hyeon continued to teach me what things meant, but I didn't really retain much of the information. We took off our shoes at the entrance to the dentist's office, and were provided with sandals which were of course too small for me, and then we sat in a chair and waited for a couple minutes. There were some nice massage chairs in the office and she said that's what she would do while she waited for me, but she didn't really get a chance because the dentist exam consisted of me walking up and he looked in my mouth for about 30 seconds, marked down "no problem" on our all-inclusive sheet and we were done. As we left, Hye-Hyeon said "I could've done that and put my stamp on there," and that "that's what I'll do next time" (with the next native teacher.
Back to the hospital for the xray, we got to sit in some crappy little chairs next to a crying woman on the phone and holding a baby, and no massage chairs. I pointed this out to her and she made a little "darn" expression and laughed. I asked her some more about her family and found out that her brother who is two years older than her also lives with their parents, and then I asked her why she wasn't married yet. [I asked this question because my Culture Shock book told me that older Koreans like to ask this question a lot, and I figured she had a decent enough grasp of english and humor that she would understand] She gave sort of an "I dunno" answer and I told her that my book told me that people ask that question a lot, and she says "oh that is so stressful! every time there is a birthday or something everyone always asks 'how old are you? do you have a boyfriend? how old is he? why aren't you married yet?' so that is why you ask me? because you want me to be stressful [sic]" I laughed and said yeah so she started to get up and says "so I can go now?"
Soon enough it was time to have the x-ray, and with Hye-Hyeon translating we got this done fairly quickly, just one xray of my chest. We went back out to the waiting area to wait for our little sheet saying "no problem" but I guess something went wrong so I had to go back in for another one and then they gave us the sheet and let us leave. Next up was the urine sample and blood draw.
We go into the next room, by now it feels like a treasure hunt of medical procedures, two buildings, different rooms, all with Hye-Hyeon leading the way with our sheet of "no problem" stamps. In this room there's a woman sitting at a somewhat dingy looking desk, and she hands me a paper cup. Apparently, this is what I have to give the urine sample in. I ask if there's a bathroom where I can do this, and I'm pointed down the hall to a public restroom. Hye-Hyeon tells me I need to fill the cup halfway. Great, so now I am about to walk down a crowded hospital hallway carrying a paper cup with no lid, half full of my own urine. Once in the bathroom, I find that there is nowhere in the stall for me to set the cup, so I have to fill it half full and execute the rest of my peeing procedure while holding this cup of urine. Also, the stall does not have a door but one of those accordion style screens that you pull across and latch with a little hook & eye latch like you have on a gate. After successfully completing the cup filling procedure, I wash my hands, which in retrospect seems completely pointless as immediately after doing this I pick up a cup of my own urine and walk down the hall back to the room, where I set it on a tray and just walk away, glad to have not spilled anything.
Up next is the drawing of blood, and I'm a little concerned that I might pass out or something, considering my history with blood draws, and that the Koreans might interpret said fainting as some sign of critical weakness and deport me from the country. Whether or not Koreans would actually think this I have no idea, but based on the hospital experience up until this point this is what I was thinking. Luckily for me, everything went smoothly and I did not pass out, I was mildly intrigued when the lady told me (via gestures) to hold the guaze on the spot for 2 minutes (via Hye-Hyeon) and didn't give me a bandaid, so I asked Hye-Hyeon about this and she got me two strips of thin medical tape and taped the guaze down on my arm, and we were ready to go.
Hye-Hyeon informed me that we were going to go a different way home than the way we came, and apparently I have not really figured out my relative location to things because I thought it was completely the wrong way but she assured me it was right. I then mentioned that the hospital procedure had been a little weird, especially the paper cup with no lid, and she acknowledged that maybe this hospital is a little bit rural. I told her my mom was a nurse and would be a little shocked by some of this, but it wasn't really so bad.
Then, while walking, Hye-Hyeon asked me if Hilary was coming to Korea because I came, and I explained that sort of yes but sort of no, because she already knew about it through her TEFL/TESOL professor, and she asked if I would've come to Korea if Hilary wasn't going to. Of course the answer to that is no, and I told her that Hilary spent 6 months in Spain and after doing that I don't really want to be apart for a year. Hye-Hyeon asked how long we've been together and when I told her "2 years 2 months and 6 days" she said "me too!" Her and her boyfriend have been together 2 years and 3 months, so not exactly the same, but close. I asked her what her boyfriend does, and guess what? He works at SAMSUNG!! I was so shocked to hear this I burst out laughing [note: not really shocked]. She also told me that she thinks she'll marry him, as long as her mom says ok. She also told me that she's going to Europe this summer for a couple weeks, to which I said "I hope nothing bad happens to me during that time," which she thought was funny. As you may have noticed, she's helped me do everything/done everything for me pretty much. I asked if she was going with her boyfriend and she said no because he's too busy (at Samsung) and she's going with some girl friends (who have already been to western Europe) to Croatia and Hungary and then meeting different friends (I think) to go to Italy (Venice, Florence, and Rome), and Paris I think and a couple other places I don't remember. When I asked where in Italy she said Firenze, but I taught her that the English name for it is Florence. She asked if I had been there and I then had to explain what "Focus Week" was, and I told her that I liked Florence the best.
Back to my apartment, she took a look at the hot water thing but couldn't figure anything out, and called the building owner who said there was a city-wide problem and they didn't know when it would be fixed. She also asked me if my TV was working fine and I told her I was watching baseball a lot and that I was proud of myself when I could read what the teams were, and she said she watches baseball a lot because her dad and brother watch it so she naturally watches with them, and that we should go to a baseball game together someday. We looked at the xbox power supply and saw I needed a bigger transformer than the one she had got. She had to buy it from a store in Seoul, I guess, so I couldn't go with her to get it and she joked that she'd be really tired on Monday after bringing it because the bigger one is actually a lot bigger and heavier. On her way out, she noticed the stack of delivery ads I was accumulating and told me that "Korea is very advanced in food delivery" and showed me some menus, to which I replied "But do they speak English?" which turned her smile upside down. After thinking a couple seconds, she suggested I call her when I want to order and tell her the number and what I want and then she will order it for me and tell them where to deliver it.
She was going to show me where to put my garbage to have it collected, but on the way out I found the electric bill in the mailbox, the charge being 1,000W or so, since it was for before I got here. The landlord had given me 15,000W on Wednesday to pay for the gas and electric charges for before me when the apartment was empty, so I didn't really have to actually pay it, but Hye-Hyeon said I should bring it to school next week and she would take me to the bank to help me pay it. Then we looked around for the garbage dumping spot but couldn't find it, and she took me to the 24 hr mart to buy the government sanctioned garbage bags, 5 food bags for 91W each I think and 5 garbage ones for 250W each. After this, she left and I went back to my apartment where I explored the TV some more and watched nothing happen in Gmail or Facebook because everyone I know was asleep. After enough of that, I decided to go to sleep myself, and thus ended the most eventful day I've had in Korea so far.
Friday got off to a very inglorious start, my hot water didn't work. Trying my best to get as little water on myself as possible, I washed my hair in the icy stream as fast as I could and got out. A real shower would've been nice considering everything I had to do that day but when you're in Korea and you don't know your landlord's phone number and they probably don't speak English anyway, you have to wait until Hye-Hyeon can fix it for you.
I headed to school around 10:30 because I had to do my medical check-up stuff at the hospital, and Hye-Hyeon told me to be at school at 10:30 so we could go promptly when she finished class. On the way to the hospital we took an interesting shortcut through some streets/driveways/backyards(?) and I recognized the area where Sun Man and I had been lost driving on Monday night, and where the open-air market had been. Also in this area was a Nike store but Hye-Hyeon didn't really think I'd be able to find big enough clothes because we are *sort of* a small town. I suggested I ask the head teacher at my table in the teacher's office where he gets his clothes, because he is somewhat close to my size, and Hye-Hyeon began to teach me how to say "where clothes buy?" in Korean but it wasn't really working out for me. I also told her I had been able to read on the cable guy's truck that it said "di gi tal" in Korean characters, and on the street it said "tek si" (taxi) in the taxi lane. She said she was proud of me and impressed that I could already read after only being here a few days.
After some twists and turns and busy street crossings with no stop signs or crosswalks, we found ourselves at the hospital where we were directed to the 6th floor. This hospital was not exactly the peak of modern medicine by western standards, and after briefly filling out part of one form, we were told to sit and wait. At this point, Hye-Hyeon informed me that she had class at 11:45 and she would have to go, and she asked if I could make it back to school by myself. I tried to think over the way we had come in my head and I thought that yeah I could probably make it, but I don't think she was inspired by my answer because she gave me her cellphone so she could call me if I wasn't in the office when her class was done.
Luckily for me, at this time the lady at the desk came over to administer the first part of the medical check-up, consisting of me holding a metal spoon over each eye and reading numbers, Then things actually did get very advanced and I got to measure my height and weight simultaneously on a machine that did everything automatically. After this, they had me put my arm in the blood pressure/heart rate machine and it did its business automatically, and then she measured me around the chest, gave me a colorblindness test and we were done. Hye-Hyeon hadn't left yet because this part was turning out to be quicker than we thought, so she told me that I also had t have an x-ray, go to the dentist, and give a urine and blood sample (drug test and HIV test). [Interesting note: in the elevator leaving, a guy gets on by himself wearing a patient's gown and pushing an IV thing hooked into his arm, I also forgot to note in The Drive post that we passed this hospital a couple times while lost, and saw a man in a wheelchair in a patient's gown wheeling himself around the parking lot] The whole thing would cost 50,000W but Hye-Hyeon decided we should go because she was running late for getting back to class and we would come back and pay later.
On the way back to school, we talked about age and how I am 21 in the US but in Korea I am 23 because you start at 1yr old the day you are born (so 22) and then add 1 year on Jan 1 regardless of birthday (so 23), and I realized that this explained a lot about a conversation I had had with Nouth. She asked how old I was, and I said 21, and she said everyone else had said I was 23, and she thought I was lying/joking around with her. At the time, I knew about the Korean age difference (thanks to Culture Shock) but I forgot, so when Hye-Hyeon told me this I realized that everyone just said I was 23 because they knew I was born in 1987. This math is super confusing and is still blowing my mind but I think the best way to do it is to add 2 if it is before your birthday, and add 1 if it is after, within the calendar year.
I asked Hye-Hyeon how old she was and she told me to guess, so I guessed 25. She laughed and said "ok," apparently satisfied that I think she's 25, after a little more prodding she admitted she's 27 (in Korean years) so she may actually be 25 or 26 depending on when her birthday is.
When we got back to school, she told me to go eat lunch, and I started to go but I realized I couldn't because I hadn't done the blood draw and stuff yet (I don't know what you fast for and what you don't) so I went back to the teacher's lounge to continue to starve. At this point it was 24 hours since the last time I ate (since I went to bed so early on Thursday). I hung around on Gmail for a little bit until around 12:30 or so (I think) and it was time for Hye-Hyeon, Nouth and I to walk to Maseok Middle School to see a demo class. On the way there we looked around to see if maybe there was anywhere I could buy clothes; the answer seemed to be no. After getting a little confused, Hye-Hyeon asked someone directions and they pointed us in the right direction, which involved an underground pedestrian tunnel that was about 2 inches shorter than me. We eventually found a school area and I recognized another spot that Sun Man and I had driven by a couple times, and after asking another person for directions, we went through an elementary school and out the back door we finally saw our destination.
I think this was the first time since I got here that I saw another white person, and it was weird when I realized my instinct already was to bow. Ryley, the first other white man I saw, turns out to be from Ballard (Seattle, for the unenlightened), and has been here 3 weeks so he didn't think he'd be much help to me, but he said that he was starting to figure things out a little bit. At the demo class, there were some other english teachers but I didn't really get a chance to talk to anyone else since we were slightly late and the class started around 1:30.
Interestingly, and luckily I suppose, the demo class was on the exact lesson I was expected to teach to my second graders, so I actually did get a little bit of helpful training, in a way. The class was run by Graham Farmer, a New Zealander who's been here a couple years, and one of the things that most impressed me about it was that the room the class was in had an automatic sliding door, a giant HDTV embedded in the front wall, and six or seven super nice computers in the back. Automatic sliding door being the most awesome of all those features, by far. Nothing really notable happened during the class, except that Hye-Hyeon spilled her orange juice and the kids were exceptionally well behaved, which Graham admitted afterward was abnormal. Also, the kids were divided into teams for the activity and one team was named "Fart Mouse."
After class, we had a little gathering of all the English teachers in a different room where people from Maseok school gave little speeches and thanked us for coming and Graham talked about the demo class, and we all introduced ourselves. One of the teachers, from Florida, mentioned that he was surprised by the participation and obedience the kids showed, and Graham admitted that class is not normally like that. At this point I was still thinking the only way I'd be able to get the kids to obey me would be to hit them, considering theyve been so trained to respond to that.
After this little meeting I had a chance to ask Graham about discipline, and he said that he's never hit any student (phew!) and that I should just stop talking and glare at them, which was what I had been thinking I should try. He said yelling doesn't really work because 1) they might not understand what you say and 2) you can't yell over 40 kids. I asked him about clothes and he thought maybe I should go to Itaewon which is the foreigner-heavy part of Seoul, I guess, but he is lucky because he's shorter than me and small so he can probably find clothes that fit him around here. We also exchanged emails and he told me to Facebook him and I could get together with him and the other english teachers in the area when they go out. Hye-Hyeon and Nouth were getting antsy to leave so we snatched up all the snacks they gave us (for later, I still couldn't eat), and headed back.
Walking back, I had to try to explain what Seventh Day Adventists were because there was a church of theirs, but since I don't really know I don't think my explanation really explained anything. I also asked Hye-Hyeon if she ever went up into the mountains/hills around Namyangju and she said no, she's too busy, so I said what about the weekend? Apparently, she has better things to do on the weekend than come to Namyangju, at this time I still thought she lived somewhere nearby (hint: I find out later that she doesn't, if you didn't figure that out).
Back at school I still couldn't eat so I sat, starving, staring at my gmail inbox that continued to be absent of new messages, and waited for Hye-Hyeon to finish so we could go back to the hospital and then go to my apartment to look at the hot water situation. Also, she had got me a converter to try to use with my xbox so we were going to check and see if it would work or not.
On this, our second walk to the hospital, Hye-Hyeon told me that she could teach me Korean, and she looked at my schedule to find a time we both were free to "do the Korean thing" but I don't know if she figured out a time. Also on this walk I found out that she lives in Seoul with her parents because there's no reason to move out, and she commutes about an hour total with walking and bus ride every day to school. Also, we were walking behind someone smoking and she asked if I smoked, which of course I don't, and she said she tried it once but didn't like it so she never did it again. I think she was a little surprised when I told her I had never tried it. Also surprising, I haven't seen as much rampant smoking as some people thought there would be, maybe because I'm mostly around small children and women.
At the hospital, I paid my 50,000W and we headed over to the dentist next door, Hye-Hyeon continued to teach me what things meant, but I didn't really retain much of the information. We took off our shoes at the entrance to the dentist's office, and were provided with sandals which were of course too small for me, and then we sat in a chair and waited for a couple minutes. There were some nice massage chairs in the office and she said that's what she would do while she waited for me, but she didn't really get a chance because the dentist exam consisted of me walking up and he looked in my mouth for about 30 seconds, marked down "no problem" on our all-inclusive sheet and we were done. As we left, Hye-Hyeon said "I could've done that and put my stamp on there," and that "that's what I'll do next time" (with the next native teacher.
Back to the hospital for the xray, we got to sit in some crappy little chairs next to a crying woman on the phone and holding a baby, and no massage chairs. I pointed this out to her and she made a little "darn" expression and laughed. I asked her some more about her family and found out that her brother who is two years older than her also lives with their parents, and then I asked her why she wasn't married yet. [I asked this question because my Culture Shock book told me that older Koreans like to ask this question a lot, and I figured she had a decent enough grasp of english and humor that she would understand] She gave sort of an "I dunno" answer and I told her that my book told me that people ask that question a lot, and she says "oh that is so stressful! every time there is a birthday or something everyone always asks 'how old are you? do you have a boyfriend? how old is he? why aren't you married yet?' so that is why you ask me? because you want me to be stressful [sic]" I laughed and said yeah so she started to get up and says "so I can go now?"
Soon enough it was time to have the x-ray, and with Hye-Hyeon translating we got this done fairly quickly, just one xray of my chest. We went back out to the waiting area to wait for our little sheet saying "no problem" but I guess something went wrong so I had to go back in for another one and then they gave us the sheet and let us leave. Next up was the urine sample and blood draw.
We go into the next room, by now it feels like a treasure hunt of medical procedures, two buildings, different rooms, all with Hye-Hyeon leading the way with our sheet of "no problem" stamps. In this room there's a woman sitting at a somewhat dingy looking desk, and she hands me a paper cup. Apparently, this is what I have to give the urine sample in. I ask if there's a bathroom where I can do this, and I'm pointed down the hall to a public restroom. Hye-Hyeon tells me I need to fill the cup halfway. Great, so now I am about to walk down a crowded hospital hallway carrying a paper cup with no lid, half full of my own urine. Once in the bathroom, I find that there is nowhere in the stall for me to set the cup, so I have to fill it half full and execute the rest of my peeing procedure while holding this cup of urine. Also, the stall does not have a door but one of those accordion style screens that you pull across and latch with a little hook & eye latch like you have on a gate. After successfully completing the cup filling procedure, I wash my hands, which in retrospect seems completely pointless as immediately after doing this I pick up a cup of my own urine and walk down the hall back to the room, where I set it on a tray and just walk away, glad to have not spilled anything.
Up next is the drawing of blood, and I'm a little concerned that I might pass out or something, considering my history with blood draws, and that the Koreans might interpret said fainting as some sign of critical weakness and deport me from the country. Whether or not Koreans would actually think this I have no idea, but based on the hospital experience up until this point this is what I was thinking. Luckily for me, everything went smoothly and I did not pass out, I was mildly intrigued when the lady told me (via gestures) to hold the guaze on the spot for 2 minutes (via Hye-Hyeon) and didn't give me a bandaid, so I asked Hye-Hyeon about this and she got me two strips of thin medical tape and taped the guaze down on my arm, and we were ready to go.
Hye-Hyeon informed me that we were going to go a different way home than the way we came, and apparently I have not really figured out my relative location to things because I thought it was completely the wrong way but she assured me it was right. I then mentioned that the hospital procedure had been a little weird, especially the paper cup with no lid, and she acknowledged that maybe this hospital is a little bit rural. I told her my mom was a nurse and would be a little shocked by some of this, but it wasn't really so bad.
Then, while walking, Hye-Hyeon asked me if Hilary was coming to Korea because I came, and I explained that sort of yes but sort of no, because she already knew about it through her TEFL/TESOL professor, and she asked if I would've come to Korea if Hilary wasn't going to. Of course the answer to that is no, and I told her that Hilary spent 6 months in Spain and after doing that I don't really want to be apart for a year. Hye-Hyeon asked how long we've been together and when I told her "2 years 2 months and 6 days" she said "me too!" Her and her boyfriend have been together 2 years and 3 months, so not exactly the same, but close. I asked her what her boyfriend does, and guess what? He works at SAMSUNG!! I was so shocked to hear this I burst out laughing [note: not really shocked]. She also told me that she thinks she'll marry him, as long as her mom says ok. She also told me that she's going to Europe this summer for a couple weeks, to which I said "I hope nothing bad happens to me during that time," which she thought was funny. As you may have noticed, she's helped me do everything/done everything for me pretty much. I asked if she was going with her boyfriend and she said no because he's too busy (at Samsung) and she's going with some girl friends (who have already been to western Europe) to Croatia and Hungary and then meeting different friends (I think) to go to Italy (Venice, Florence, and Rome), and Paris I think and a couple other places I don't remember. When I asked where in Italy she said Firenze, but I taught her that the English name for it is Florence. She asked if I had been there and I then had to explain what "Focus Week" was, and I told her that I liked Florence the best.
Back to my apartment, she took a look at the hot water thing but couldn't figure anything out, and called the building owner who said there was a city-wide problem and they didn't know when it would be fixed. She also asked me if my TV was working fine and I told her I was watching baseball a lot and that I was proud of myself when I could read what the teams were, and she said she watches baseball a lot because her dad and brother watch it so she naturally watches with them, and that we should go to a baseball game together someday. We looked at the xbox power supply and saw I needed a bigger transformer than the one she had got. She had to buy it from a store in Seoul, I guess, so I couldn't go with her to get it and she joked that she'd be really tired on Monday after bringing it because the bigger one is actually a lot bigger and heavier. On her way out, she noticed the stack of delivery ads I was accumulating and told me that "Korea is very advanced in food delivery" and showed me some menus, to which I replied "But do they speak English?" which turned her smile upside down. After thinking a couple seconds, she suggested I call her when I want to order and tell her the number and what I want and then she will order it for me and tell them where to deliver it.
She was going to show me where to put my garbage to have it collected, but on the way out I found the electric bill in the mailbox, the charge being 1,000W or so, since it was for before I got here. The landlord had given me 15,000W on Wednesday to pay for the gas and electric charges for before me when the apartment was empty, so I didn't really have to actually pay it, but Hye-Hyeon said I should bring it to school next week and she would take me to the bank to help me pay it. Then we looked around for the garbage dumping spot but couldn't find it, and she took me to the 24 hr mart to buy the government sanctioned garbage bags, 5 food bags for 91W each I think and 5 garbage ones for 250W each. After this, she left and I went back to my apartment where I explored the TV some more and watched nothing happen in Gmail or Facebook because everyone I know was asleep. After enough of that, I decided to go to sleep myself, and thus ended the most eventful day I've had in Korea so far.
Hye-Hyeon decided I should come to school again on Wednesday so I could eat lunch and she could help me go grocery shopping, so after stopping by the Uninet PC Zone (they used Creative as a verb, painted on the wall saying something about art and mind and Uninet) I headed to school. Hye-Hyeon had talked to the school's computer person on Tuesday about me not having a laptop, and when I got there Wednesday morning there was a laptop bag with (SURPRISE!!) a Samsung laptop inside. After setting up my computer, Nouth took me to lunch where we ate some unidentified fish-type stuff, and I put my soup and rice on the wrong sides of my tray. Also at lunch, it was determined that I am probably 190cm tall (on Friday the official measurement would be 189.6cm).
After lunch, Hye-Hyeon set me up on the internet and installed Office 2007 so I would have MS Word. According to Nouth, all she uses the laptop for is Gmail and Word, so I'm set. Then Hye-Hyeon and I went to the grocery store to get me some food.
At this time, I found out that Hye-Hyeon lives with her parents and doesn't really cook at all so she might not have been the best person to help me shop but she still knew what stuff was what. I decided to keep it pretty simple to start with, and I got some water, milk, eggs, butter, cereal, nuts, rice, Ramen-type packaged noodles, cooking oil, frozen dumplings and kimchee, none of which I've eaten yet except for the cereal, milk and water. I've been surviving mostly off the lunches served at school, my two QFC sandwiches and Swedish Fish/Sour Patch Kids, and sleeping a lot. If only the school served lunches on the weekend...
We walked back to school with the groceries and then had to wait for school to end so the school engineer could come over and try to install the curtain I inherited from the previous native teacher (who didn't live in this apartment). My afternoon at school consisted of gchat and kids continuing to be amazed by my presence, until finally it was time to go. Hye-Hyeon also informed me that the guy from the cable/internet company was coming in the afternoon to set me up, and that it would cost 31,000W/mo for the cable and internet package, about 25USD.
The school engineer, who apparently doesn't speak any English, drove us back to my apartment. On the drive I again noticed that there are no stop signs and our driver didn't really even seem to look for other cars, and neither he nor Hye-Hyeon wore a seatbelt for the ride. We also picked up the building manager to come help me change the entry code for my door, and again explain how the hot water/floor heater thermostat deal works, as well as provide me with a much-needed remote for my AC unit.
The engineer determined that the curtain didn't fit my room, and then asked if I wanted a drink, and explained via Hye-Hyeon that he lives in the high rise apartment that I can see out my window. I was way too tired to drink at this point so I said no, and he laughed something in Korean that Hye-Hyeon didn't translate for me, and then prepared to leave. Hye-Hyeon told me that the internet guy was supposed to have been at my apartment around this same time, but that he was late and she had to leave, so she had talked to him on the phone and left me a note to give him, and then left me to fend for myself.
When the internet/cable guy showed up, I let him in and he set about doing various things and talking in Korean, ostensibly to me but he knew I didn't understand what he was saying. I handed him the note from Hye-Hyeon and everything seemed to be going okay except that he couldn't get a signal on the TV. He also informed me (via gestures, mostly) that I needed three plugs and with my refrigerator and TV plugged in I only had one extra, so I hopped over to the awesome 24hr mart with everything and bought a 4 plug power strip. I came back to find him messing with some panel in the main entryway of the building and I showed him my new plug skills and he approved. After finally figuring out whatever problem there was, he turned to the internet, which was set up pretty quickly, and then set up my landline phone which apparently is a bonus part of the package for the first three months (I learned this from Hye-Hyeon later). He wrote down my phone number for me, showed me which buttons were which on the TV remote and then left.
I then spent a little time exploring all the channels I have, finding some amazingly terrible English programming including Pensacola: Wings of Gold, a Top Gun rip-off featuring Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer look-alikes, the female Terminator from T3, and the episode I watched also featured horseback riding and domestic abuse. Sadly, nobody was awake in America to share this with me, so I went to sleep.
After lunch, Hye-Hyeon set me up on the internet and installed Office 2007 so I would have MS Word. According to Nouth, all she uses the laptop for is Gmail and Word, so I'm set. Then Hye-Hyeon and I went to the grocery store to get me some food.
At this time, I found out that Hye-Hyeon lives with her parents and doesn't really cook at all so she might not have been the best person to help me shop but she still knew what stuff was what. I decided to keep it pretty simple to start with, and I got some water, milk, eggs, butter, cereal, nuts, rice, Ramen-type packaged noodles, cooking oil, frozen dumplings and kimchee, none of which I've eaten yet except for the cereal, milk and water. I've been surviving mostly off the lunches served at school, my two QFC sandwiches and Swedish Fish/Sour Patch Kids, and sleeping a lot. If only the school served lunches on the weekend...
We walked back to school with the groceries and then had to wait for school to end so the school engineer could come over and try to install the curtain I inherited from the previous native teacher (who didn't live in this apartment). My afternoon at school consisted of gchat and kids continuing to be amazed by my presence, until finally it was time to go. Hye-Hyeon also informed me that the guy from the cable/internet company was coming in the afternoon to set me up, and that it would cost 31,000W/mo for the cable and internet package, about 25USD.
The school engineer, who apparently doesn't speak any English, drove us back to my apartment. On the drive I again noticed that there are no stop signs and our driver didn't really even seem to look for other cars, and neither he nor Hye-Hyeon wore a seatbelt for the ride. We also picked up the building manager to come help me change the entry code for my door, and again explain how the hot water/floor heater thermostat deal works, as well as provide me with a much-needed remote for my AC unit.
The engineer determined that the curtain didn't fit my room, and then asked if I wanted a drink, and explained via Hye-Hyeon that he lives in the high rise apartment that I can see out my window. I was way too tired to drink at this point so I said no, and he laughed something in Korean that Hye-Hyeon didn't translate for me, and then prepared to leave. Hye-Hyeon told me that the internet guy was supposed to have been at my apartment around this same time, but that he was late and she had to leave, so she had talked to him on the phone and left me a note to give him, and then left me to fend for myself.
When the internet/cable guy showed up, I let him in and he set about doing various things and talking in Korean, ostensibly to me but he knew I didn't understand what he was saying. I handed him the note from Hye-Hyeon and everything seemed to be going okay except that he couldn't get a signal on the TV. He also informed me (via gestures, mostly) that I needed three plugs and with my refrigerator and TV plugged in I only had one extra, so I hopped over to the awesome 24hr mart with everything and bought a 4 plug power strip. I came back to find him messing with some panel in the main entryway of the building and I showed him my new plug skills and he approved. After finally figuring out whatever problem there was, he turned to the internet, which was set up pretty quickly, and then set up my landline phone which apparently is a bonus part of the package for the first three months (I learned this from Hye-Hyeon later). He wrote down my phone number for me, showed me which buttons were which on the TV remote and then left.
I then spent a little time exploring all the channels I have, finding some amazingly terrible English programming including Pensacola: Wings of Gold, a Top Gun rip-off featuring Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer look-alikes, the female Terminator from T3, and the episode I watched also featured horseback riding and domestic abuse. Sadly, nobody was awake in America to share this with me, so I went to sleep.
This should be short, I suppose, considering my apartment is not very big. Sun Man showed me a little of the apartment, such as how to get hot water and how to turn on the floor heating, but I was pretty much on my own until the next morning when Ms. Kim (my coteacher) would come by to get me.
One bad thing about my apartment was that I didn't have a remote to turn on the AC, and it was really hot. On the other hand, since I don't have any sheets yet, it's good it's hot because I can sleep without bedding. My apartment building is apparently a new building, and as I will find out later a lot of Namyangju is recently built (last 3 years or so) which is why there's so many apartment buildings but no shopping malls. This newness is evident in my awesome keypad entry system on my door, and my magical laundry machine that weighs the load and automatically determines how long to wash and how much water to use, although maybe that's normal for Korea.
The apartment seems pretty good, it's sort of odd that the shower is the whole bathroom, but it's ok, and the bed is big and long enough that my feet aren't sticking over. Also, I've been supplied with lots of dishes and kitchen appliances/utensils so I don't have to worry about finding a lot of that stuff. The only problem came today (Friday) when I couldn't get any hot water, but apparently that's a Namyangju-wide problem, and not just my apartment, so hopefully they get that fixed soon so I can take a normal shower again before school next week. Some of you may have noticed on Facebook that I said my bathroom smells like Moclips, but combined with spraying freezing cold water on my head the flashbacks are getting a little too realistic.
You'll get a lot more info about my apartment through my other posts. Next, school.
One bad thing about my apartment was that I didn't have a remote to turn on the AC, and it was really hot. On the other hand, since I don't have any sheets yet, it's good it's hot because I can sleep without bedding. My apartment building is apparently a new building, and as I will find out later a lot of Namyangju is recently built (last 3 years or so) which is why there's so many apartment buildings but no shopping malls. This newness is evident in my awesome keypad entry system on my door, and my magical laundry machine that weighs the load and automatically determines how long to wash and how much water to use, although maybe that's normal for Korea.
The apartment seems pretty good, it's sort of odd that the shower is the whole bathroom, but it's ok, and the bed is big and long enough that my feet aren't sticking over. Also, I've been supplied with lots of dishes and kitchen appliances/utensils so I don't have to worry about finding a lot of that stuff. The only problem came today (Friday) when I couldn't get any hot water, but apparently that's a Namyangju-wide problem, and not just my apartment, so hopefully they get that fixed soon so I can take a normal shower again before school next week. Some of you may have noticed on Facebook that I said my bathroom smells like Moclips, but combined with spraying freezing cold water on my head the flashbacks are getting a little too realistic.
You'll get a lot more info about my apartment through my other posts. Next, school.