Noeun-Dong

Noeun-Dong

This little area has been our home for the past 7 months now. Noeun-dong (dong means area) is a suburb of Daejeon. It is quite a small area, the entire picture you can see is only about 4km^2. The populated area is about 1km^2. By counting the number of apartment complexes and number of apartments per building (100 complexes x 80 units per complex x 4 people per unit), and by asking people, I estimate there are between 25 and 35 thousand people living in this area. That makes it about 2 million times more densely populated than Nunavut. Or 20 times as dense as Saskatoon.

To make this work, obviously most of the people live in multi-story complexes. You can see lots of these in the north, center, and south west. They are usually at least 18 stories high, with four 'apartments' per floor. As I mentioned before, this area is also FULL of every type of business you can imagine. A lot of these businesses (especially on the side streets) have two - five floors of villas like ours above them. Like these:
Otherwise you get something like the buildings below, where you get a wide variety of businesses occupying the same building. The long white sign is our school. We are above a bakery, a donut shop, a pharmacy, a jewelry store, a oriental medicine clinic, and a bookstore. Above us is someone's villa (you can see little trees on top of the building). The greenish stuff in the top right of the picture is a driving range.



It is really set up so you don't need to leave the area at all. In fact, as I said before, we don't need to leave a 3 block radius from our house. The only thing we are lacking in Noeun-dong is a large department store/supermarket (which is about a 40 minute walk from our place).

To the west of us (the green) we have a nice 'mountain' where we go hiking often. Further west (about a 10 minute bus ride) is Gyereong-san National Park, the mountain where we enjoy hiking. There are also two parks you can see to the east that we go to quite a bit. Further east there are lots of farms and LOTS of greenhouses. All the buildings on the mid-right side are greenhouses, and they go on for quite a while.

Probably the nicest thing about the area is how safe it is. I'm sure you have already heard this but we are still amazed at how kids can walk around safe by themselves or with other kids all day and night. I feel a lot safer at night here than I did in Silverwood (but maybe that's just because I wasn't allowed out of Trotchie Court by myself until I was 10).

Every day is starting to feel like a huge step towards leaving... already missing this place as we say our goodbyes and the house gets emptier.

Four more working days...

Living here for seven months has exposed us to a lot of Korean culture. We have been very comfortable living here but there are some things that still seem very different to us.

Opposites

• Grading papers -- Check marks mean wrong, circles mean correct.
• Food prices -- Restaurants are CHEAP (and no tipping... ever! It's considered rude. Makes sense.); grocery stores are expensive. On the plus side, taxes are included in the price.
• Passing while walking -- People pass each other on the left, yet still drive your car on the right.
• Eating -- Slurping and making other eating noises is considered more polite than being quiet. It shows you are enjoying the food.
• Thriftiness -- Koreans seem to be just as thrifty as Canadians. But with certain things, such as hiking equipment and cellphones, people will brag about how expensive it was, rather than how cheap.
• School -- Middle school and high school are hard (Anyone besides Angela remember studying 2-3 hours a day in grade 8?), while university is quite easy.
• Skin colour -- Whitening cream is a big seller here, compared to the tanning cream used in Canada.
• Beckoning to someone -- Always done with the palm facing down, with the palm facing up is very rude as it is how they call their dogs. Most of my students just say "Teacher, come on!"
• Public transport -- There is actually a functioning, convenient, and cheap country-wide public transport system in place.
• Birthday presents -- On your birthday you are supposed to bring small gifts for your friends.
• Spam -- Spam is some kind of delicacy here. Seriously.
• Engagement rings -- Typically, both the guy and the girl get a ring when you get engaged. The jewelry stores all sell "couple rings."
  

Strange Konglish

• Housing -- Apartments "Aparta" are large, clean, and expensive condo like places. "Villa"s are small, apartment like places.
• Free stuff -- "Service" means for free. We hear this one a lot at stores and restaurants when we are given free stuff.
• Exit signs -- Exit signs in the subways are labeled "Way Out".
• Various advertisements/slogans -- Example below.

Culture

• Sitting/eating/sleeping on the floor is quite common here.
• Restaurants pretty much always deliver for free. Not only that, but they bring everything (by scooter) on dishes. When you are done with the dishes you put them outside your door. They pick them up later.
• Restaurants also tend to focus on one type of dish. Definitely not like Saskatoon where you can order chicken or a hamburger pretty much anywhere.
• Crosswalks pretty much mean nothing.
• People seem to be a lot more blunt about looks... I got a lot of "Teacher ugly" after I got a short hair cut.
• You are ranked according to age and gender. The older and more male you are, the higher you rank. You 'cannot' be friends with someone of a different rank, or so the kids tell me (though this doesn't seem to really apply to foreigners). I think Korean has a different meaning for friend though, because I think people of different ages are still friends, just not usually close friends. This has been carried on from the days when Koreans practiced Confucianism.
• When you are born your age is one. On January first, your age increases by one. I'm pretty sure this is due to the age ranking/respect/Confucianism culture, but if you are born December 31st you are two when you are only one day old.
• You can put your recyclable garbage out on the street in a bag and people will come and take it. Unfortunately for us, they take it across the street to a sorting lot which makes the view kind of ugly.
• Not really culture, but my students are taught there are only five continents. I can understand Asia/Europe, but America as one continent?
• After graduating high school males must go for 2-3 years of military service. Makes sense.
• There are some rules regarding drinking: you should pour other's drinks first, with hands positioned in different ways according to your ranking compared to the other person; you also are supposed to turn away from those higher ranked than you when you drink.
• Sales, which never seem to end at some stores, are advertised with the highest discount first (i.e. 40%~20% off!)
• Homosexuality and AIDS are considered by many to be a 'Western problem'. This has a lot of strange side effects. Guys are more inclined to wear 'girl colours' (sometimes matching their girlfriends clothes), hold their girlfriend's purse or stuffed animal, and hold hands with other men. It is common to see guys walking and holding hands (especially after a night of drinking). Also the no-clothes-spas.

Have a good Easter weekend!

Yellow Dust Season

Well we ended up out late tonight eating and drinking with our Taekkyon friends so it's going to be a short post tonight.

Last week we supposedly went through what was the worst yellow dust storm ever in Korea. For those who don't know, yellow dust storms usually occur in the spring. They are caused by strong winds picking up dust/sand in the Gobi desert in northern China. It has become worse lately because of deforestation around the desert. The dust storms apparently raise the death rates in an area by around 2%. So anyway, all this dust blows over from China and what do we do? Go hiking!
So yeah, it didn't seem so bad when we were at the top of the mountain but in hindsight it probably would have been a day to stay home. For comparison, here is a shot in our area of your average everyday pollution compared to the yellow dust.






























Daejeon is supposedly one of the least polluted major cities in Korea. I have really come to realize how much we take clean air for granted in Saskatchewan. Some days when it gets really windy the sky clears right off and it looks quite nice, but the air still doesn't feel very fresh.

Today it really has started to hit us how tough it is going to be to leave. I had plans to tell some of my classes today about leaving (we aren't supposed to tell the kids until a few days before) but I just couldn't. The kids have really grown on me. It's even worse with our Taekkyon friends. Tara said it best when she said how humbled we have been by the generosity of our friends. And I think that's really what it's all about. It is not about climbing mountains, seeing temples or taking pictures of tombs or waterfalls... it's really the people you meet and experience their culture with. And that is really the best thing we are going to take away from Korea.

Fashion

Hey Everyone,

Hope you've been enjoying all our posts lately. Now that we officially know what day we're leaving (Friday, April 13th - my mom's brought this to my attention numerous times) it's almost like we're in a race to do and see everything we may have missed out on in Korea. Also, strangely it seems like if we don't write everything down we might forget about it all as soon as we leave the country. I'm sure it's not true, but the sudden increase in blogging is definitely due to us feeling pressed for time.

Anyway, I thought that I'd blog about the fashion in Korea because it's not only unique but sometimes absolutely and utterly hilarious. I'll start from the basics:

Sizes:
I went from being a size 3/4 to being a size 95 in Korea. It's not really the biggest size, since I did manage to find a size 105 (the baggier, the better for traveling). It's probably the first time in my life that I've actually not wanted to go shopping. Who wants to ask for a "size 95 please." (Actually it goes down more like this - I hold up 9 fingers and then 5 and then say "choo-say-yo" which means "give me!")

Shapes:
Also, it seems like clothes are intentionally made too small or too short. Really, I've seen t-shirts that literally look like a giant balloon and come down to your knees. And, I've probably seen some of the shortest skirts I ever have in my whole life. Andrew and I always laugh because if there's a girl wearing a short skirt there always seems to be a Korean boyfriend following closely behind to make sure no one's getting an eye-full. Funny.

Colors
It seems like the color swatch is somewhat switched in Korea. Men wear pastel pinks, blues, yellows, and purples. Women on the other hand wear black, red, white, orange, and brown. I mean what girl doesn't love a striped orange and brown balloon t-shirt that comes down to your knees? Whenever Andrew and I have gone shopping I have instinctively gone towards the "girly" colors only to discover that it was a guys t-shirt. I have yet to convince Andrew that pastel pink is his color.

Styles
Also, Korea gets a winter, and it really does get cold here sometimes (ot Saskatoon cold, I should add) but you still see girls sporting miniskirts when there is a blizzard outside (again, not a Saskatoon blizzard!). I usually saw these girls this winter when I was dressed in about 3 layers and a jacket on top of that. And I was still cold. These were the days that I wished that I could speak Korean to A) ask the girl what inspired her to wear a miniskirt in a blizzard, and B) If she would like to borrow a coat, or some tights, or let me buy her hot chocolate, or something.

Korean women definitely have a heel fetish. You will see them sporting heels in the strangest of situations - like running, walking up steep hills (almost hiking!), or yes, in the winter con miniskirt. They're really pretty and fancy, but as a girl who has pretty much lived in runners her whole life, I just can't understand it.

Sayings
This is probably the funniest and cutest part of Korean fashion. You will see the strangest (and often most inappropriate) sayings on shirts that absolutely cause your jaw to drop. The funniest part is that you will see these "cool" Korean guys that are sporting shirts that have random sayings in English that either don't make sense (at all) or are rather feminine such as "Cutie University." It makes me smile every time.


Anyway, that's all for tonight. Andrew's got a blog "schedule" for the next week, so you'll be hearing from us a lot more!

We miss you all so much!

Love, Tara
XOXO

Food

One thing we really enjoy is the food in Korea. Not only is it cheap and plentiful, but it's healthy! We've probably been scaring some of you with the strange food we have mentioned but most of it is actually pretty normal. On Sunday we went to Gyereong mountain. After a 4-5 hour hike we were pretty hungry (even though some people shared their lunch at the top with us!) and so we stopped at the bottom for some food.

After going through the usual 'Andrew translating/Tara deciding' we decided on mushroom soup/stew. It was about 10$ a piece, a little pricey, but the mushrooms are really tasty here.

This is what came out:

Starting bottom right we have kimchi. This is the staple Korean food, fermented spicy cabbage. The next column to the left of the kimchi is various types on vegetables from cucumber to mushrooms. A lot of them often look the same but they always taste different. The next column we have more vegetables, a vegetable/seafood/egg type pancake (they are really good!), and some fried fish. Further to the left we have more vegetable dishes, a large salad, and then a bunch more vegetable dishes. I'm sure it would be easier to remember the names than to remember what they all taste like. Oh yeah, and I forgot, the burner was for the mushroom stew which hadn't come out yet. Oh and some rice too. Starving as we were, we barely finished half of this.

All the food from restaurants which is unused is placed into large bins. The bins then supposedly go to feed livestock. So something ends up eating all this stuff that we don't. Anyway, this has been the typical experience we have in Korea. The night before we had a really elaborate meal. There were 4 of us and it all cost under 60$ complete with 4-5 course sushi/fish meal (including several unidentified seafoodish foods, and some live octopus!), tons of side dishes, and drinks.

Since we only have 30 minute dinner breaks, during the week we usually go to a small 'fast-food' restaurant called "Kim-bap-na-ra", which basically means rice and seaweed country. This restaurant serves various noodle and rice dishes. Their specialty is kim-bap which is like a sushi roll with vegetables, egg, and ham/tuna/beef or other meat inside. We usually order a dish called bibimbap. I'm pretty sure this means vegetables and rice. It is really just that: a bowl with rice and raw vegetables with an egg on top. For 3$ it is pretty tasty. It comes with soup and 5-6 vegetable side dishes.

Seven more working days left...

Eight more working days! / My classroom

Well, we have exactly 1 Friday, 1 Monday and 2 more Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays left before we leave. To make up for a real lack of posts from Korea I will attempt to post something interesting for each day we still have in Korea.

This is my classroom. Well, most of it anyway. I spend 5-6 hours in this room each week-day. My name is on the door on the blue paper. Below it there is an orange sign that reads: "First we make our habits, then our habits make us." I'm pretty sure it's meant for the teachers rather than the students...

There are two rows of desks. The kids that sit in the far back row (where the picture is taken from) usually cause the most trouble because they are the hardest to get at and they can't be seen on the video camera (see top right). All the rooms (including the staffroom) have surveillance cameras.

Most of my/our classes are taught using the computer. They all have books (which they often forget, I seriously go through a ton of trees making copies in anticipation of this) that go along with the computer programs. The computer programs are pretty simple -- it just reads what is written in the books. This isn't really necessary for us other than to save our voice, but it does have one really nice side effect: if you turn the volume up loud enough the kids will stop and listen no matter how bad they are being. Seriously, I just put something on the computer/TV screen and the kids shut up. It even has a remote so I can be across the room dealing with particularly bad children while keeping the other kid's attentions with the computer.

There is an OHP screen and a whiteboard at the front. I use the whiteboard quite a bit as I usually write the answers to their questions for them. It's also another great way to keep kids quiet: just write something on the board and get them to copy it down. Although this usually takes some effort with some kids. For example:
Me: *writing on the board* "Okay guys, this is answer one. Writing!"
-Maybe half the students start writing... the others continue talking
Me: *going around to the students* "Number one! Writing! "
-About half of the remaining students start writing... by this time some of the students are already finished ("Teacher, finished!" ... or actually some of the students that have been around longer say something like "Teacher, finished, can you check it for me please?" ... can get annoying when I am in the middle of...)
Me: *individually to the remaining students* "(Students name), writing! Number one! Pencil!"
-There is still sometimes one or two students who don't write it down... can't win 'em all. They usually end up in detention anyway so they write it down then.

So basically, the challenge is that if they aren't occupied they will be noisy. And occupied means they must be either listening to the computer, writing something off the board, reading something from their books, or doing questions in their books. However, the book material is supposed to be gone through very slowly. Our books for the elementary students are intended to be taught over three classes but instead we have to make them last around 9-12 classes. Since the classes are 50 minutes long, even if I go over things twice as slowly as intended (which is very boring and difficult) I still have 25-30 minutes left after we finish the material. You can get through around 15 minutes of this just by getting them to read everything from their books as a review. The trick always is finding something to fill that last 15 minutes. I usually come up with something each week to entertain/teach the kids for this time. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work out as planned. So I need backups. One thing that works amazingly well is giving the kids word searches. They call them "puzzle games". They work like invisible duct tape. It is not only a game that 99% of the kids like, but also the only game I have tried that doesn't result in someone crying or fighting.

Finally you might notice the papers above the whiteboards. They are some common words translated into Korean. There are also two dictionaries I use. This shows the different approaches Tara and I have taken to teaching kids words they don't know: I learned to read/write Korean; Tara has become very good at charades. So when the kids don't know a word in their books I usually grab the dictionary. It usually goes like this:
Me - "Okay, here, selfish is 'i-gi-jo-gin'" *as I pronounce each syllable carefully*
Students - "What?"
Me - *faster this time* "Igijogin"
Students - *look at each other with confused looks* "I-yu-tag-ya?"
Me - *fast and annoyed this time* "Igijogin!!"
Students - "Ohhhhh, igijogin!"
After this happening numerous times (even with words they have already learned!) I can only conclude they need words to be spoken to them forcefully to understand. Or maybe they aren't really paying attention to what I say. Or they are trying to see how many times the English monkey will try to speak Korean before he gets annoyed.
Probably the latter...

So this is my classroom. Although it might not sound like it, I really have enjoyed my time in there. Even in the above situations I have a smile and a calm disposition. As I said, 5-6 hours in here each work day... that means I only have 40 some hours left in front of these kids... it almost went too fast!

I'll try to put something up here every day until we leave. If you have any suggestions about things you want to hear about, let me know! (and no, still no dog soup, Alex!)