Smack Down In Apricot

Normally, Tuesdays are pretty fun because I have my Apricot class all day, but this week was definitely the exception. This week, we have two more kids added to the class, Clare and Ben (who has since changed his name to Big Kevin) to make a grand total of 7 students in the class when originally we only had three. Its not too bad, they are all good kids, but trying to get them all to do something at once is really difficult.

This Tuesday was the first day for the new kid, Ben, and Clare's first day with me (I get off on Mondays). All was going well until I brought out the stickers. I blame the stickers. I was giving them out – this took all my attention – when the first blows were delivered.

I look up and Lukas is on the ground wailing like he lost his arm and Kris is smiling at me with his best I-didn't-do-it smile. Lukas isn't really one to cry for no reason but I had a crowd of kids around me (stickers, people. Serious business) so I couldn't go to him right away. When I finally got to him, he was still crying and I could see the long, red scratches down his face. Kris looked guilty as hell. To his credit, when I asked what happened he flat out told me. He put his hands in a claw and gestured to demonstrate (never to pass up an opportunity for learning, I informed him that that was 'scratching').

I took Lukas out to the lobby where Rachel teacher usually is stationed to get him fixed up with her little med kit she keeps under the desk. She wasn't there and I felt guilty for always bringing her these types of things (usually, its Kevin who I bring there for a change after he pees his pants – not in my job description) so I decided to try and take care of it myself.

I'm halfway through that when the rest of Apricot comes out. At first, I think they just wanted to see what's going on, but then I see the huge welt on Kevin's head and the scratches and bruises all up and down Kris' face, I'm thinking: seriously, guys?

Apparently, since I was gone, they decided to go for it and had a battle royale right there in the classroom. I've left the classroom many times in the past and this has never happened. At this point, I turned it over to the Korean teachers. There was no way I was going to figure out what happened and there was even less chance that I would be able to reprimand Kris (the mastermind of this all, I was sure) properly.

We had to call Lukas' mom because the scratches on his face were very visible and even bleeding a bit. If I wasn't so good a compartmentalizing, I would have been worried about it. As it was, I was busy with P.E. class when they called and only thought about how much trouble I could have been in after the fact.

When I got out of P.E., though, both Christina and Lynn told me about the phone call. Apparently, Lukas loves Emily teacher. And he has been telling his mother this for weeks. So, when they called and said, “Emily Teacher let your kid get his face scratched up,” (although I'm almost certain they didn't phrase it like that) she was like: “But we love Emily Teacher! She draws funny pictures for my son!” and that was basically the end of the conversation.

Still. I blame the stickers.

ON SHOT ONE KILL

More team building took place tonight. I got the impression that they had such a good time at the impromptu dinner the other night that they decided to arrange a potluck with all the teachers.

I made tacos! And they were a big hit; everyone took some home with them. The other English teachers made Caesar salad, pasta and red sauce, brownies. The Korean teachers brought it various Korean dishes - the names of which I know not. We had the same pork wraps there were the last time and this weird salad-type thing that had everything in it. And I mean everything. There were: grapes, shrimp, cherry tomatoes, lettuce, red peppers, corn, apples and some other things I could not identify all in a creamy yogurt-like sauce. Debbie made these things that tasted like potato pancakes but had no actual potatoes in it.

Rachel was drinking again - she seems to be the office lush - but shes a funny drunk so its okay. After about a bottle of the rice wine we were drinking she started treating the little dixie cups we were drinking out of like shot glasses. Lynn, another Korean teacher, was not helping anything by yelling "ONE SHOT ONE KILL!" at Rachel every time she got another cup. This, by the way, is my new favorite saying.

The best part of the evening was when we were all full and just trying new combinations of foods. Jonathan had brought sour cream for the tacos and Rachel put a LOT on her taco. So, in order to... I don't know, spread the taste around? she put, on top of that, some pasta and some red sauce in the taco shell. Then the other Korean teachers, liking the taste of the sour cream, started putting it on the corn bread. The Americans at the table were all shaking their heads, telling them not to try it, and were all completely disgusted when they ate it. Christina, a Korean teacher, then put the sour cream on a brownie. I actually tried it and it wasn't so bad.

Jonathan was thoroughly repulsed by this but was not about to be out sour creamed by a girl (especially after the other teachers had said, in Korean, that he wasn't manly because he wouldn't drink and didn't eat very much).

So he got one of the fried potato pancake-like things in his hand and asked for the sour cream. Because, normally, you have sour cream on potato pancakes. Immediately, all the Korean teachers were shouting at him like they were trying to talk him of a ledge. They were so grossed out by the prospect that many of them refused to watch. The ones who did gave a collective groan as he downed the thing.

Its so weird how taste buds are so different from culture to culture.

Something I really like about Koreans is that they are not self-conscious when they eat. They just shove food in their mouths as gracelessly as they want and no one judges. They really liked tacos.

By the end we were so full I felt like I could have rolled home.

Korean Team Building

So I had my first taste of Korean team building today which actually involves a lot of alcohol. I was one of the last teachers to leave and was invited along with some of my Korean co-workers and Jonathan to eat dinner before I left.

Mr. Kim, the owner of the school had cooked some sort of pork dish with some ramen and set it up in one of the classrooms. It ended up being me, Jonathan, Rachel, Debbie (who is our go-to-girl because she speaks the best English) and Mr. and Mrs. Kim.

We were told to wrap the pork (which was really greasy and fatty) in these leaves which we were told were sesame leaves. Add in some pepper paste, some chillies and garlic cloves and stuff the whole mess in your mouth. This was all accompanied by two rather large bottles of rice wine. It was actually a lot of fun seeing them when we weren't all working though I couldn't really speak to the Kims because they barely speak English (ironic, no?). Debbie was telling us about the food and the way Korean people think about food.

Warm food is supposed to be better for your digestion because it is closer to the temperature of your body and thus helps your body be at peak performance. Therefore there is very few foods that Koreans eat that is cold. I can't really think of any other than kimchi. The rice wine they were serving was supposed to be good for your digestion, like yogurt, and kind of had some sludgy stuff at the bottom.

We were all drinking, but Rachel seemed most affected by it. She kept on starting a sentence in English and then finishing it in Korean like she didn't have the mental fortitude at the moment to think of words in English. At one point she was trying very hard to convey something to us (this was after she made me promise to call her 'older sister') and kept staring with "I..." and then trailing off.
"I.. I am.. I.." and she waved her hands in the air like she could catch the word if she just tried hard enough. finally, she turned to Debbie and said something. Debbie turns back to her with an amused look on her face and enunciates clearly: "Drunk." Rachel turned to us and nodded solemnly.

Whoever thought a ropes course would be better than this has clearly never been to Korea.

Secret Suji Foreigner Smile

Yesterday, I found out just how far outside Seoul we really are. I mean the area is pretty commercial and everything with lots of apartment buildings and shops, but there are still things like parks and hilly stands of trees. Every once in a while you will see an ex-patriot - actually I've figured out that there are about five foreigners I see on a regular basis - wandering the streets and it a little bit of a shock. But when we went to Itaewon in downtown Seoul it was like every other person was an ex-pat. Where I live, if I see someone who doesn't look like everyone else, my mind goes FOREIGNER! - you know, to alert me - and I at least try to smile at them. We have all developed that same smile that's like 'Fancy meeting you here, fellow countryperson. Isn't this a situation we have ourselves in?' that we only use on each other.

In Itaewon, however, my mind was like FOREIGNER! FOREIGNER! FOREIGNER! and I was startled every single time. There was no sharing of the Secret Suji Foreigner Smile - I don't even think they knew the Secret Suji Foreigner Smile! It was very unsettling.

My friend, Jonathan, wanted to do some shopping so we were going in and out of shops looking for shirts that would fit him - he's a big guy so buying things in a district that catered to foreigners was his best bet of getting something that fits. Jonathan, however, doesn't seem to understand the concept of 'haggling' and bought two shirts for 30$ each before I had to stop him. It actually physically hurt to watch him pay that much for t-shirts. The rest of the day was spent in Lessons on Haggling with Emily. I taught him the 'I Don't Know if I Really Want it' look, the 'That's Way Too Expensive!' gasp, and the ever classic Good Cop, Bad Cop where one person seems interested in the object while the other tries to hurry the first away or get them not to buy the object. This causes the vendor to lower the price rapidly. He was very impressed with my chicanery (I done gone and used my GRE words, ma!). The lesson, however, wasn't too effective because I wasn't sure how much things should cost in Korea, which affects how hard you haggle.

I did end up buying a pretty headband that seem to be all the rage in Korea - when I wear it it looks like there is an embroidered sequin-y flower in my hair. I paid 8$ for it and I haven't figured out whether or not this is a good price. Originally, the lady wanted me to bay 10$ so I guess thats something.

In other news I am making headway in Emily-Korean relations. On Friday one of the Korean women I work with (Rachel) came to sit down with me at my desk and we started talking. She didn't speak English very well but she was really being very nice. At some point she was trying to tell me something that seemed very important but she couldn't find the words. "There has been a lot of talk.... People talk about you... They say..." and she would seem to be searching for the words. I was freaking out on the inside because I have found that this is how Korean start bad news. They are nice to you and then they get all serious and try to tell you something, always stopping to try and find the right words that won't offend.

I was quickly sorting through my mind what I could have done that was bad - I was picking apart my last week furiously trying to figure it out. By the time she came out with what she had to say I had convinced myself I had committed several fire-able offenses just in the last 6 hours and that I was going to be sent home.

"They say you are very smart." ... wait, what?

Apparently, they had all been talking about my transcripts from college and even though I was never impressed really with my grades in college, I got all A's and B's so I suppose that is pretty good. From what I have heard of Korean Universities, its no joke getting in but then its like a four year vacation. No one cares about the grades, its about the connections you make. Which reminds me a lot of Eckerd, actually. So, Rachel and I had a long talk about how smart and nice I was (good topic) and she said she wanted to be my friend so I should come an visit her at her desk more. I was really touched and pleased that she had sought me out, and not just cause she said I was smart.

Also, the effects of The Incident which I have mentioned in previous posts (where I cut off Mrs. Kim in the hallway) seem to have disappeared completely and she is back to giving me candy when no one else is around. This is a status quo I can live with.