The last few days have been so fun, and according to Bianca, they are all due to her value as a good luck charm. This may be true, and in that case, I am sure glad I am keeping her around, because I’ve had a fabulous bit o luck lately!
First, Wednesday…after a long day of teaching unruly children and disobedient adults and playing some badminton (where my partner put me to shame!), I picked Bianca up in Buyeo. My afternoon had already been weird because only one teacher, the one who doesn’t go to my school, showed up to my teachers’ workshop and I was forced to make awkward conversation with her for half an hour before two others showed up and we could play a modified version of taboo…sort of. I guess all my teachers were seeing about the installation of this motion sensing device that calls out English phrases when people walk by. Seems silly to me, seeing how they already have me, but who am I to dictate how they throw away $3000? But Bianca, of course, put me in a better mood and began my streak of wildly good luck. We walked to the old fortress and quickly hiked around, but dusk descended quickly. Luckily, we came out right in front of the restaurant that I planned to take her to and didn’t know where it was. Dinner was delicious and we even managed to find our way back to the bus station for the very last bus, which ran 15 minutes earlier than I thought! What luck! That night, we played some cards with the chillun and went to bed early, in preparation for our big day on Thursday—the PICNIC!!!
On Thursday, we arrived at school at 8:30 to get on the bus with all the kids and teachers. I think Bianca was a little overwhelmed to see all of them lined up in more or less orderly lines by class. Probably the highlight of this portion of the day was seeing my little first grade friend of the mask fame with a full, unopened can of Hite (a Korean beer) in his lunch bag. I still have no idea what was going on there…other teachers and adults definitely saw it, and it just went unnoticed. WEIRD! Anyway, all the kids were so curious about Bianca, but a little shy, too, so we didn’t get too many questions. They were all directed to me, anyway. The buses were split by grade and we rode with the third graders…I’m not really sure why, but I was glad because then we could be with all my third grade friends and introduce them to Bianca. There were also some fourth graders on the bus who, my co-teacher later informed me, chose to ride on this bus to be with me. How precious! We sat by them on the way there and they tried to feed us all sorts of overly sugary snacks. It was REDICK how much unhealthy food each of them had!
We made a stop on the way to a national memorial dedicated to a young girl who led independence movements against the Japanese in 1919 and 1920 and was subsequently tortured to death. Not surprisingly, she is somewhat of a national hero in Korea. What is surprising is the fact that the Japanese evidently like her now, too, or so my co-teacher informed me. It was a nice stop, anyway.
After that, we went to an amusement park of sorts and had a picnic. I assumed we would be eating the lovely kimbap my host mother had packed for us (veggie for me, ham and fake crab for Bianca), but just when we’d settled ourselves on some picnic mats my third grade friends unpacked, we were taken away to the side of one of the buses, where some of the mothers had set up a couple single burner portable stoves and started to cook copious amounts of meat. We weren’t whisked away before I’d received two of my nicest gifts, however—a package of cherry tomatoes and duk (rice cakes—really delicious!) from a fifth-grade student and some corn-shaped bread filled with pudding from the first grade twins’ aunt. I was happy to be so loved, but unfortunately, all the other teachers ate my tomatoes before I got one, and I was afraid the duk would suffer the same fate until my co-teacher rescued it from their claw-like chopsticks for me. This picnic put any other I have attended to shame. Sure, it was held in a parking lot in the shade of a big tour bus, but I’ve never seen such delicious and varied food pulled out for a mere picnic! I mean, stoves??? I thought I’d just have kimbap! Which I did, of course, along with rice, five side dishes or so, duk, and grapes and apples for dessert.
Afterwards, we went to the park and quickly met up with my third grade friends. We spent a few hours going on rides and hanging out (the rides were all lame, anyway) and then we went home. Bianca and I sat in the back with I Bin, So Eun, and Young Seo on the way back and had a really good time trying to talk to them in the little English they know combined with the little Korean we know and understand. I actually really enjoy talking to them and understand a lot more than I do with most adults, probably because they tend to talk more simply and have more patience to help me speak and understand me, and are much less hesitant to use the English they do know to communicate, however they can. I really admire their assertiveness in approaching me and befriending me…it’s certainly not easy to have a friend who doesn’t speak your language at all, and when confronted with the same opportunity, I have been to shy to pursue it, even when they do speak mine moderately well! I Bin and Yoo Jin invited themselves over to my house to play and we ate some together before walking to taekwondo.
TKD was uneventful, and then I had the usual moderately boring SK class. There were my two students there again (I’m beginning to wonder if anyone else will show up, ever!) and we did some basic vocab. review for a while over maple nut ice cream, and then they suggested we go out and drink. So we did, and it was actually pretty fun. Another first for which I am evidently indebted to Bianca. We drained two pitchers with the help of two other engineering guys who showed up later and had some good conversation, even with the language barrier. One guy basically offered himself up to us as single and willing, but we were forced to decline. Mr. Nam, the one student who is so enthusiastic, asked me about all my favorite Korean dishes and said he would “handmake” them for me. Ridiculous, I know, but he will actually probably do it. He is so nice—a bit strangely enthusiastic, but enthusiastically nice, too. He says I am like a Korean in my likes and dislikes, which I am sure is a major compliment. Mr. Bak was there, who speaks English nearly fluently, but he forced the rest of them to muddle their way through, for the most part, and the result was a bit hilarious. I think it was a good call, though. We were there a long time, so I had Mr. Nam call my family to tell them where I was. He hung up and searched through his dictionary to tell us what happened, eventually settling on a word that means “having doubts about your wife’s fidelity.” It was ABSURD, but I guess since he mysteriously showed up that one time to ask me to teach them and then called my house, my father had some ideas of his own. Bianca and I were like, whoa, that CAN’T be right! Anyway, eventually we were left with only my two students, and though they wanted to norebang, we claimed tiredness and went home, where I treated Bianca to her first episode of Full House. A stellar day for sure!
Today, I taught in the morning and in the process found out definitively that I am in fact teaching first and second grades twice per week. I’m stoked. So Bianca got to see my lovely first graders in action and see how delightfully mischievous they can be. She claims I must have a lot of patience to deal with my students, who are constantly poking and prodding me and in general demanding a lot of attention, and though I hadn’t thought about it like that before, I guess she’s right. In some ways, I almost unconsciously assume that anyone can deal with kids, but in reality, I suppose few can do them in large quantities like I can. I certainly get frustrated at times and it is definitely draining work, emotionally and physically, but I like it so much that the unpleasant aspects hardly register. What I remember is I Bin singing the English song I taught her class with me on the bus, or Young Seo holding my hand throughout the day of the picnic, or the way Sol Hui always nestles up to me the instant she sees me, or the chorus of enthusiastic “Hi!”s that follow me wherever I go, or my favorite first grade student rushing up to me at the end of class to help me put away all the alphabet flashcards and empty my trash. I have not had a truly bad day at work yet. Though there are times when I do hate certain classes, I adore all of my students individually and I am so happy to see them every day. I guess that’s something that comes from seeing them only twice a week for class—they don’t have time to grate on my nerves!
This afternoon, I had to teach my English Chat Class for fifth and sixth grade students, even though my sixth graders and both fifth and sixth graders from the other schools were absent. I was a little sad because I wanted to take Bianca to the beach, but the seven of us did some silly English vocabulary games and had a pretty good time together. I had time to take Bianca to the top of the hill overlooking Hongsan after lunch, so we did get in some outside nature time, anyway. After class, I went to Yoo Jin’s house with Bianca and I Bin. The two of them waited patiently for us for two hours! Yoo Jin was talking about it all day…I was really sad it had to be such a short visit, because it’s a long walk and I Bin and I have TKD at 6. In the end, we only had 10 minutes at her house, during which we downed cookies and bread and jam and watched Home Alone 2, the only movie they could find in English. I’m not really sure about Yoo Jin’s home life…I only saw her sister there and possibly her little brother, though I thought she was the youngest. There was also another one of my little boys there. Who knows…maybe they’re cousins and Grandma and Grandpa are taking care of all of them? The three of them escorted us as far as the main road, Yoo Jin in rollerblades and the little boy student on a bike. She is not a strong skater and those road are not the ideal place, anyway…she came so close to breaking her head so many times, I am amazed she has lived so long already!
And now, I’m just chillin at home. Bianca and I wrote up our extensive proposed travel itinerary for Southeast Asia, which will need Mrs. Shim’s approval because it exceeds our allotted foreign travel time of 28 days. I sure hope she does…after all this research into places I’d like to visit and falling in love with them in the process, I’d hate to miss out on any of them! Tomorrow we are off to meet Janaki in Daejeon and go to the ginseng festival in Gumsan…should be a rockin’ time!