Where's the Beef?

As some of you may or may not know there has been some political unrest here in Korea lately, and what would be the cause of this unrest........................................... US beef. Yes, US beef. Korea has agreed to start importing US beef again after a 5 year hiatus. The US beef promises to be half the price of what is currently offered in the grocery stores (food is expensive here.)

Yet there is tremendous public outcry concerning mad cow. There are constant protests, people setting themselves on fire, and a whole lot of misinformation out there. Basically, with the exception of a few people I've met, all of Korea thinks that American cows have mad cow disease. The interesting thing is that no one really knows what happens if you eat meat from an infected cow. A lot of the government cabinet has resigned and some are calling for the resignation of the President of Korea. This is insane.

The most ironic thing about this to me is that avian bird flu is already in Korea. We couldn't go to the zoo because of it. They do know what happens to people who get infected with this yet vendors sell eggs on the side of the road, and chicken restaurants are everywhere.

What it really comes down to for me is that I want to be able to buy some beef. I'm hungry and I like beef, I just don't like paying through the nose for it.

This has been me ranting. If you want to look at photos and videos of the protests go to bbc.com.

I'm out

Things have happened

Well since the last time I chronicled about my stay in Korea much has happened. I've visited the Pacific Ocean and seen the barbed wire fence that runs along the coast and is supposed to ward off North Koreans.

I've gone shopping at a night market in Seoul at three in the morning. It was full of shoes, shorts, shirts, and sunglasses. Due to my large in Korean foot size (11 US) and my general uneasiness about Korean fashion (lots of bright colors, and tight pants) I didn't really buy anything.

I've finally played basketball, but I'm not sure it can really be called basketball. The quality and general rule following that accompany a normal game weren't really evident.

I've grown to love Korean food more and more. Especially dumplings, noodles, and dare I say some vegetables.

I've tried and failed to get my driver's license. Thanks to my current Oregon driver's license having a provisional title on it (despite the fact I've had it for 6 years and it will not expire until I'm 26.)

I've also visited Costco 3 times, and Korean Costco is in fact like American Costco. There's the huge pizza slices and hot dogs. As well as Kirkland signature everything, apple pies, tillamook cheese, and yes mom the huge trail mix bags.

I'm no longer uncomfortable taking the subway. Mind you I was never uncomfortable with the cleanliness or people on board, just the general lack of knowledge of how things worked. I now feel somewhat confident I can navigate the cities system with no stress.

And most recently I had parent visiting day in the preschool. Picture this if you will a room full of mothers, cameras (video and flash), siblings, preschool students and me sweating and dancing and singing like I always do in the preschool. Only most of the kids are distracted by the aforementioned moms, siblings, and cameras and I'm pretty much doing all the silly stuff by myself.

Needless to say I'm not the crazy about doing parent visit days. The kids acted nothing like normal and it was weird. But it's over I survived and hopefully won't have to do another one for a long time.

Here is a picture of me and I fellow teacher at the night market. I nearly bought these but knew I probably would never wear them.



This last picture is kind of indicative of how a lot of my pictures turn out. I generally don't smile in pictures and haven't really since about my 2nd grade school pictures. I usually decide to go with more goofy/intense route. What happens is that the kids in my pictures kind of sheepishly smile while I make a face that is a little over the top and slightly disturbing.



At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I do intend to update this a little more frequently.

Random Happenings

Today is children's day, which means a day off for all teachers. This last week our kids went to a festival for all the preschools in our town. Here are some pictures from the day. There were clowns, tanks, fire trucks, and mandatory tricycle races for the kids. I say mandatory because when watching the races it was evident that the parents were way more into it than the three year olds. Which made me think the parents should race instead. And lo and behold there were parents footraces for the mothers and the fathers as well as a teachers footrace. Now these races were very competitive, I saw at least 3 moms fall flat on their faces while running.

I bowed out of the teachers race because I was the only dude preschool teacher there . It was really a no win for me to race anyway. If I won it was because I was supposed to and if I lost.............................( I wouldn't have) it would have been embarrassing. Here are the pictures.




A few weeks before, we joined the two Korean preschool that operate on the bottom floor of our building on a field trip to a children's museum. Although I didn't take many pictures, I did manage to capture something uniquely Korean. Karaoke on the bus. Complete with scream singing and children's songs. It was an experience that was once in a lifetime (hopefully.) Here are some of the pictures.



These next pictures are from Seoul. On a day off I went into the city with some fellow teachers. We ended up at the movie theater. The theater was on the 11th floor of a place called Techno Mart (which is kind of like best buy on steroids.) There was a pretty awesome view from the roof.



Here is a quick video from one of the little boys I work with in the preschool. Every time we start playing music he does this dance. As you can see the dance is becoming contagious among the kids. It's kind of bizarre looking but it makes me laugh. This little guy is pretty hilarious but he is also probably the most challenging of the kids to work with. He keeps me on my toes. I'm sorry the video is sideways.




Finally here's kind of a picture of me and one of the kids. I don't actually have many pictures of myself, which I'm sure you are all disappointed by, so here's some of my face. This is me and one of the preschoolers, Chloe, after spending most of the day at the children's festival. In all fairness it's not a very good picture of Chloe, so I put another picture of her where she looks more like herself.



I'm well thanks for your continued prayers.

Nearly two months in here are some picture

This isn't from Korea but it's currently my favorite picture. That is my brother looking freakishly huge and my niece looking cute.


These are some of my kids from the preschool. Two new kids were added this week. That puts the preschool total up to 14 kids.




This is the preschoolers during PE. They have PE once a week and a man shows up to lead them. It's pretty entertaining to watch.



And here are some of the kids I teach in the afternoon. Everyday I teach language arts for about 2 hrs. I get two classes a day and teach four classes total. Which means I see these classes below twice a week.

Quick Video

We had an open house for all of the church families who helped us move. I found these two little guys running around my apartment. I should have seen this coming.

The pictureless post

Places and cultures are all different. I'm taking this chance to highlight some unique things I've experienced here in Korea.

The school where I work is located somewhat near a military base. Not close enough for me to see it but close enough that for one day a week the doors in our school rattle as mortar rounds are being fired across the nearby mountains. On the way to school this week I saw 2 tanks driving in the road coming from the opposite direction. I've never seen that in the states.

Our school is surrounded by rice patties. They are all dried from the long cold winter. As I speak I can look outside my classroom window as the patties are being burned. These burning fields are not 40 yards from the school where children are playing outside. That's something new for me.

Couches. Its not uncommon for a family in Korea to have one. It is uncommon though for them to sit on it. Generally when going to someone's house I end up sitting indian style on the floor rather than on the plush couch near me. This leads to legs falling asleep and me shifting around a lot. It's not a big deal it's just different.

Another difference is in the heating of homes and buildings. Many Korean building heat their floors. Never once have my feet touched a cold floor. Even in the morning when I first crawl out of bed. My toes are warmed.

Groceries store bags. Free, you would think. Not so in Korea. One must tell the clerk how many bags one wants and then must bag ones own groceries. I'm not so good at guesstemating how many bags I'll need so this can be somewhat problematic.

They are many more differences I'm sure. But I have time for only a few. This is what I love about traveling. I get to experience new sights, sounds, smell, and tastes.

New Place

li

ds





Here are the pictures for the new apartment that I live in. It's a nice place. Much nicer than any that I've paid to live in in the states.

Everyday I stay busy. Between my preschool duties and my afternoon classes I stay busy from 8 to 6. It's good for me.

I've taught more in the last few weeks than perhaps my whole life. In the afternoons I teach kids ranging from 8 to 12 years old. I teach for two hours with them. I've found that when working with grade school and elementary kids I can tend to be a little bit of a tough teacher. I have fun but I don't put up with much junk from the kids. It's funny because I find myself doing very teacherly thing. For example today I made one of the older boys stay a few minutes after class so we could discuss his behavior. It has started to feel natural for me to teach. I'm far from accomplished but I enjoy it and learn a little bit more everyday.

On the preschool side of my job everyday is fun for me. I'm working with 12 kids and 7 of them are new to the preschool this week. Everyday get to play with and engage them in new ways. Its fun work.

Today it snowed a bit and I got the chance to have a snowball fight with the kids during lunch break, which I probably won't ever do again. The odds get a little sketchy when its twenty kids to one. Not to mention there was about half an inch of snow on the ground. After about ten minutes of intense snow ball warfare there was basically only mud and mush to throw, which didn't stop the snow balls from being launched at me.

This last picture is a funny one. This little boy attends the Korean speaking kindergarten that is downstairs from the one I work in. This week was his first and he spent two days running throughout the building to avoid his class. The teacher seemed to allow him to get away with it. Yesterday, his second day of running, he wandered up to my classroom late in the day. There was no one else there and I was just hanging out. He grabbed a puzzle starting working on it, and after about 5 minutes ended up like this. It was picture worthy.



Thanks to all for your continued prayers and support. All of your comments and e-mails are greatly appreciated.