my students

Some people have said they want to hear about my students. Well they are all little monsters. Nah just kidding, they are alright. Honestly my kids are a lot like any elementary kids back in Canada whether you know them from teaching or remember being a kid yourself. I have some kids whose hands go up for every question and I have some who never want to answer and go beet red if you call on them. I am fortunate to have Moon Hae Jin, my co-teacher, teach every class with me. There are always two teachers and she already knows the kids from last semester. They gave a lot of information out during orientation about the differences between Western and Korean kids. That they would make personal comments like you’re fat, you’re pretty, you’re handsome etc. and that they are more respectful since teachers are more respected in general over here and that you might be treated like a celebrity since you’re the only foreigner they know. So far none of that has been true for me although I have heard it occasionally from the other English teachers I hang around with. I do get a lot of “Hello teacher!” in the hallways.

I think the biggest difference is the way they do ages over here. Everybody is born 1 and then everybody turns a year older at the same time on new years. So if you were born late in the year, say December, it is possible to be 2 years before your actually 2 months old. They stick to that and so you can see some really young kids in your classes. This might be a slight benefit in learning English however, as the younger you are the easier you absorb it and the more likely you are too participate. My grade 3 class will dance and sing all the time well it is impossible for the more shy grade 6’s to do the same. They get more nervous in front of their peers as they get older.

I’ll post good student stories as I live through them.

Greg

The foreigner community

The foreigner community in Mokpo is pretty large. It is hard to tell exact numbers but the facebook group has 313 members and around 100 or so were listed as coming to the last big party and that seems about right. All of the people I’ve talked to have been English teachers of some sort, private or public. This group is fairly active and pretty friendly. On the new arrivals first weekend in Mokpo the people who had already been here hosted a dinner for us. They introduced themselves, listed some hobbies and offered advice. Korea can be a difficult place sometimes so it is great to have people you can ask about stuff like where to buy a bike, or the best place to find a western food item or just what to do on the weekend.

Also set up were the sports leagues that I play in, soccer and ball hockey, they have all the equipment (hockey sticks are hard to find in Korea) and manage to find a place to play. They were eager for new players to replace the teachers we replaced here in Korea. So that is great and a good way to make new friends as well.

The community also has a few leaders that are awesome at creating parties and running annual events such as the “show your colours waygook party” and the annual Halloween party. Laura and I attended the former last Saturday and had a blast. It was a dress up as your country idea to show that not all the foreigners (waygook in Korean) are from the same place. Canadians are in the majority but there are plenty of Americans and I have met a few people from the U.K., South Africa, Australia and even a German.

The foreigners here have also become involved in the community, in particular setting up an organization that helps the orphanage here in Mokpo. They organize people to teach English to the orphans and also run fundraisers such as the Halloween party. Laura and I have joined and teach English for one hour on Mondays. We have heard it is almost as much for the sisters (It is a Catholic orphanage) than for the students as they badly need a break as you can well imagine. I’ll talk more about the orphans another time.

finally a post

Hello everybody,


Sorry for the lack of updates but we have been extremely busy here in Korea. Not only are we getting used to a whole new country and working five days a week but we are also busy almost every night. This week I volunteered at an orphanage Monday night, Tuesday night I played soccer, then Wednesday is volleyball night with the school, Thursday is ball hockey and then Friday my co-teacher, Moon, and her boyfriend are coming over for dinner. Oh and don’t forget lesson planning and hours of power points. Laura has a similar (but less sport filled) schedule. So you will have to forgive us.

There is a lot to update you about. The field trip to Danang folk village and a bamboo forest, our night out in Gwangju, the new schools, the foreigner community here in Mokpo, Mokpo itself, our apartment, the new pet rabbit, our first teacher dinners. Really so much to write about and so little time.

How about my school first? I teach elementary at Mokpo Nam (South Mokpo) with my co-teacher Moon Hae Jin. I call her Moon because it’s easy to pronounce and cool. My school is very small, around 210 kids in comparison Laura’s school has about 1200 kids. I teach grades 3 to 6 and they are split up into groups of around 20 kids each. The students and I are very fortunate to have such small class sizes. In all I teach 9 groups of kids, 4 classes on Tues, Thurs, Fri and 3 classes on Mon. and Wed. I come to school at 8:40 and leave at 5. The times I am not teaching I hang with Moon in the classroom planning but sometimes just desk warming. Desk warming is the term foreign teachers use when you are required to be at school but you aren’t teaching. Right now I don’t do a lot of it but there will be times when my contract requires me to be here but there aren’t any students or even other teachers around. I eat lunch in the cafeteria with all the other teachers and students. The food here is pretty decent; there is always kimchi, a vegetable, plain white rice, a meat and soup. Since it is cafeteria there can be misses. The other day the meat was fish with veggies but the whole thing was full of tiny bones. Koreans are very adept at avoiding fish bones but for me it simply wasn’t worth it. I find the weirdest thing about meals is that there is nothing to drink, after you finish and put away your tray and chopsticks everybody grabs a glass, washes it and fills it with water for a quick drink before putting it back for another person. One glass of water at the end of the meal. I guess a lot of people drink the soup broth. So that is my school, maybe Laura will post about hers next or maybe I’ll describe the class to you.

Greg

day two of orientation

We have been getting up fairly early every day. We try to stay up as late as possible but so far have ended up getting up for a few hours every night before falling asleep again. I’d say we are sleeping about 8 hours but they are broken up.

Our first lesson today was some basic Korean language including reading, writing and some basic phrases. This was taught by Ms. Kim who is a supervisor at the Office of Education. The Korean alphabet is called Hangeul and is fairly easy to learn consisting of 40 characters. It was invented by a Korean king and his scholars since Chinese characters were thought to be too difficult. So it really is easy to learn although some of the pronunciation can be difficult since some of the vowel sounds seem very similar or are not used in English. We will bring you more language updates later as Laura and I are going to make the effort to learn. For now an-nyeong-ha-se-yo (casual hello) and gam-sa-ham-ni-da (thank you) are getting us by.
In the afternoon it was more info from Chris about living in Korea. The highlight was the end which was drinking and eating etiquette. It is important to let the elder at the table do everything first, in our case this will most often be the principal at school dinners. The drinking etiquette is interesting since glasses are often shared. At a formal drinking event you never fill your own glass, another person fills it, you drink it and then refill it for them and so it goes back and forth. Soju is the most common drink here and is a kind of rice vodka. It is almost always drunk as shots in one go. There is quite a drinking culture here but it is always okay to say no thank you or to request sprite. Apparently as a male my drinking stamina can be expected to be tested soon by the male teachers at my school.

This evening was a highlight and the first time Laura and I made it out on the town. Chris and some other returning teachers organized an outing to the local foreigner bar, The Speakeasy.  There was a flip cup tournament which for those of you who don’t know is a drinking game played by teams. It is a race between two teams to see who can finish their drinks first; with the next person only able to drink after the previous person has successfully flipped their cup from upside down on the edge of the table to right side up.  The whole experience was a blast and included watching a dance crew perform outside a department store, a side trip to KFC for Laura and walking around the shopping district. Everything there was bright, lit up in neon and not even the big stores close until 11. We didn’t close the bar down but we did stay out late and I ended up entering and winning another drinking racing game with pints and no flipping. Good Korean Times. I only regret being so full, I’ll have to try deep friend street octopus another time.

First day of orientation

Hi everybody, sorry for the lack of posts. Between the jet lag and the full days it has been difficult to spend any time on the computer. I’ll break down the days so far and do my best remember everything.

Day 2 (First day of orientation) :

These first few days have mostly just been about the basics and meeting all the other teachers and administrators in our group. There are 83 other teachers in this group so that has been a task all in its self. We are meeting a lot of people from our area however and already have invites for activities next weekend. A sidebar – the city we are going to is called Mokpo and is pronounced Moke (rhymes with poke) po. We are also being fed extremely well, with 3 meals a day. The breakfast is a western style buffet which includes an omelette station. The other two meals are Korean style with the main dish being a soup and then lots of side dishes including fish, kimchee, and various other veggies and meats. Lots of things in Korea are shared including meals, so no one has their own plate you just stick your chopsticks in whatever dish you want.  Sometimes you have your own soup bowl sometimes not. 

The first day included meeting our bosses at Jeollmando Office of Education including Mr. Park and Ms. Kim. Mr Park gave a short speech and apologized for not having a more formal opening ceremony since everything was so busy.  Next up was Chris who also works for the Korean Office and is a Canadian. He is the guy we go to if we have any problems in Korea with schools, health or apartments.  He seems really great and has been tremendously friendly so far, he said we can come to him with any problems or suggestions at all and seemed genuine about it. He then gave out name tags and a 3 hour lecture about the basics of living in Korea - phones, banking, health insurance, taxes, etc.

In the evening after dinner Laura and I went for a short walk down to a convenience store. It is very hot and very humid here. It is over 30 degrees everyday and feels like you just came out of the shower as soon as you step outside. It was only a short walk but we were tired and sweaty. Laura bought some Pocari Sweat (a kind of Asian gator aide), a chocolate ice creamy thing and I had a beer. Here it is common to buy a beer and drink it at a table outside the store. They were the perfect treats after the walk and we enjoyed them until the mosquitoes forced us back to the hotel.  Laura may add her recollections later.

On the bus to Gwanju

On the bus; first day in Korea.


It’s Thursday, August 19 and about 6:00 in the morning here in Korea. In Nova Scotia, it is six in the evening on Wednesday. We missed most of that day, which is a weird adjustment to make, but not as weird as the sun just coming up when it felt like the darkness should be deepening.

Airports are their own little environments. In many ways, they are all the same. In Incheon, we passed a KFC and a McDonald’s as we made our way down to the farthest set of doors, where our group was meeting. This was after we picked up two large coffees from Dunkin’ Donuts. The cover on one of them cracked and coffee sloshed all over the place as we tried to drink it, push carts, and walk; until we dumped half of that one out to make the walking a little safer. Greg bought them and said the actual coffee-making process was slightly different from ours. When he brought them over, he said, “I hope we enjoy these coffees, because they cost seventy thousand dollars.” We had a good laugh, maybe because we’re so sleepy. They actually cost 7000 won together, which is about seven dollars, expensive, but not unexpected for a coffee at an airport. Oh, also, our trip INSIDE the Toronto airport was extremely long. We got off our plane, walked a long way through terminal one, took many moving walkways and escalators, and followed signs for a good 15 minutes before we ended up on a monorail that transported us from what I presume was Terminal 1 to Terminal 3. The whole trip was 20 or 25 minutes. We were surprised by this, but one of my carry-ons had wheels, so we could load two of the remaining three carry-ons onto it. That made the walk a bit easier.

The flight from Halifax to Toronto was your basic Air Canada flight, except that we got to move to the emergency exit seats, which offer slightly more leg room – a nice advantage! Korean Air was way different. In the first place, it was the bigest plane I ever flew on. In our section, Economy, there were three colums of seats with 3 in each row. In the higher class areas, they had seatsthat were partially encase in white pods, so they could slide out the seat part into a fully-reclining cot. There seemed to be a class below us, too, but their seats didn`t seem way worse than ours.

The service was totally different from any other flight I`ve been on. First of all, the stewardesses (I choose that word instead of flight attendants intentionally) all looked like I imagined stewardesses would look when I was little. Each of them was a petite Korean woman with crisp, tailored beige skirts, white shirts, and sometimes a pale blue cardigan. They all wore short scarves tied identically at their necks and their hair in matching place double-twisted buns with a stiff, blue ribbon attached. They were quick, efficient, and very polite.

When we got into the plane and found our seats, there were “presents” waiting for us: a bottle of water, a pillow and blanket, headphones, and a little kit containing slippers and a toothbrush with the tiniest tube of toothpaste. The seats were not too cramped together, but there was very little leg room, for me even less than Greg, because I have some kind of box built in under my feet, but I was on the aisle, so I could stretch out a bit. Another nice touch was hot towels in the carefully orchestrated “morning” for our flight. None of us had much idea what time we should consider it, except they raised the lights for an hour or so around meal times, and definitely did serve one supper and one breakfast.

Laura

One more day to go

Our first blog post. This blog is for all our friends and family to follow us in Mokpo, South Korea. This is our last night in Canada and we are pretty excited about the trip. We are all packed, 4 50 lb bags plus carry ons filled to the max. We have our tickets, schedules and every other detail all set out but I still couldn't tell you what is going to happen. All I know is that the plane leaves from Halifax tomorrow at 830 pm and from there it is onto Toronto and then the 13 hour non stop to Inchon, ROK.

It was an up and down day today. It has been filled with excitement for the trip and lots of memories of the last jam packed 2 weeks. But also we had to say good bye to Molly, our faithful dog, who we left in good hands with our friends Ferne and Darrell. Laura couldn't hold back the tears and I welled up a bit too. I don't know who will eat my pizza crust in Korea.

Last Canadian supper - Steak and Lobster.

The next post will be from Korea.

 Greg