Bruce and stuff...
It's Saturday, and normally there wouldn't be any English Camp today, but class was canceled on Thursday because the students had to go to the middle school that they'll be attending soon. It's the last day of English Camp! These last four weeks have been a great way for me to just dive in, well, get thrown into teaching. I still have a long way to go, but I've learned a lot and feel much better prepared to go into the next 11 months or so. One more day of English Camp and then I'm on holiday for ten days. Well, I won't be in class, but I will have to do some work. Sometime before February 1, I have to create a 5 day teaching plan. Another 20 page document, but this one will ultimiately go to the Ministry of Education in the city of Haman; for what purpose I'm not exactly sure. But I was planning to spend at least some of my winter vacation planning what I'll be teaching anyway. Before the English Camp I was really just flying by the seat of my pants. and while it was gratifying to find out that I'm actually pretty good at that, I really want to go back in February with a clear idea of what I'm doing, when and how. I'll try very hard to get this done in the first few days that I'm off so I can maybe plan a little trip to Busan or something.
I bought something new this week and made some new friends. I bought something called 'yu ja cha' ('cha' means tea). This is really kind of like a big jar of marmalade, you put a tablespoon or so into a cup, add hot water and you have a delicous cup of fruit flavoured tea. Very refreshing! This stuff is so much like marmalade that I wonder if you couldn't do that with marmalade? Anyone care to try it?
Three kids from one of the English Camp sessions came over to my place earlier this week. One of them was so excited because she had just received a letter from Michelle, her new penpal in Canada, and wanted me to help her understand the letter - I did that. She and her friend came over again the following day to get my help with responding to the letter.
Each of the kids who came over takes either Taekwondo or Hapkido. Hapkido is very much like Japanese Jiu Jitsu...lots of throws, grappling, holds, and some kicks and punches thrown in for good measure. After my 3 month swim pass is finished I was thinking about doing weights and cardio, and then taking either Hapkido or Taekwondo till I go home.
Anyway, I did my laps and then dropped in to the Hapkido school, which I passed on my way home, to check it out. It took a few minutes, but finally I got the instructor to understand that I just wanted to sit and watch the class and he said I could. It was 5:30pm and I had actually come in pretty close to the end of the class. The next class would only start at 7:00pm. Just then the owner and head instructor, Joong Hyawn arrived and ushered me into his office along with a friend of his. We sat and had some green tea. He understands some English and I understand some Korean, but communication was a little difficult, but we managed. He invited me to his house for supper with he and his family. I met his wife, mother, grand-mother and two little boys. I played with the kids, showed them some magic, and then we ate. We had fish, soup, regular kimchi, spicy kimchi (which I really don't find that hot), and other stuff that I really can't identify except to say that it looks like some kind of leaves marinated in red pepper sauce. Before I left, Joong Hyawn's mother gave me some spicy kimchi, some regular kimchi and some other spicy dish. Then, it was time to go to watch the Hapkido class.
The class looks like fun, and if I work very hard I may be able to earn a black belt before it's time for me to leave here. It's decided! In April, after the swimming, cardio and weights, I'm taking Hapkido.
Korean TV. Basic cable would give me maybe 3 tv channels, but I have a step up from that and get perhaps 25 or 30 channels. There are a couple of really good movie stations. I'm watching "Spiderman" right now. I've seen "Shallow Hal" (which I liked a lot), "Schindler's List" which I've seen before, but it's one of those movies I can't stop watching once I start. OCN, the station I'm watching now isn't commercial free, but has far few commercials than back home. In a 2 hour movie there might be 4 commercial segments with 3 or 4 commercials each. Not too bad. Three other channels...CGV, MBC, and XTM also have movies.
Then, there is "Series TV" which shows some of the pretty good and pretty awful shows from the 70's and 80's, i.e. Rich Man Poor Man, The Six Million Dollar Man, Air Wold (Ick! Jan Michael Vincent had to be the worst actor in the universe!), Highway to Heaven, Cosby, Miami Vice, The A-Team etc.
There are a couple of channels that seem to be devoted to religion and have western style televangelists. But, to balance them out there's a station that for the most part is just a buddhist priest sitting crosslegged on a small stage answering questions from a small crowd of students or followers. If I were to follow any organized religion,buddhism would be it. The last time I watched there was a priest who spoke English who said that in Korea psychiatry is nearly unheard of because being a predominantly buddhist society, they don't really recognize the reality of "ego" or "mind". When a child comes to a parent and says, "I'm having weird thoughts." the parent is more than likely to simply tell him, "Stop. Don't think that." . End of story. Okay, that's a very simplistic example..here, just as anywhere else in the world, there are undoubtedly damaged people , people who have been physically and emotionally wounded, but it serves to illustrate the cultural difference.
Another little cultural difference that's reflected by what I've seen or rather, not seen on TV..I haven't seen a single tampon commercial here.
There's a station devoted to nothing but some kind of board game, a strategy type thing with little round pieces that seems to be very popular. Believe it or not there's a station that shows nothing but people playing either "WarCraft" or "CounterStrike" against each other. Okay, enough about TV.
Something occurred to me today about perfect strangers offereing to towel off other perfect stranger's backs in the shower. In the first place I haven't actually seen this myself, and in the second, the towels they use to dry off their bodies here are quite honestly not much bigger than the average wash cloth in Canada. Drying off your own back with one of those would be difficult, so, I can understand why people would offer to towel off a perfect stranger. I'm the only person I've seen who goes to the pool with a person sized towel. I'm sure glad I brought a couple of those with me, because finding towels like that here would be a big challenge.
One last TV note...before coming to school this morning I watched Bruce Lee's first big movie, "The Big Boss" in Chinese. I've watched all of his movies so many times that I know what's going on even though I don't understand a word. But, it was nice to hear Bruce Lee speaking his native language and in his real voice rather than the stupid, overly husky voice they dubbed over it for English audiences.
Okay, one last cultural note...I thought turning 46 was bad enough, but in Korea they count birth as your first birthday, so by their reckoning I'm 47. Geez!
I'm definitely going to check out getting an internet connection in my apartment so I can avoid coming to the sweltering and choking "PC Bang". I know now that my monthly expenses here (excluding food) won't be more than $200/month. A high speed connection in the apartment shouldn't cost anymore than about $25-$30/month. It's worth it! Not only for communicating with folks, but for searching the net for teaching resources and info.
G'night.
|
