Classes, Names, and Haircuts

As I've already said, this year I'm teaching Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten 1 and 2, which means two, three, and four year-olds.  They are completely adorable.  I teach three classes at each Kindergarten level, with an average of 23 students per class.  The Pre=Kindergarten class has only thirteen students because not all the parents opted to pay extra for those lessons.  Classes only last 50 minutes.  For the first month and a half, we had no supplies or curriculum, so it was essentially our job to plan out the structure of the lessons as well as the content.  So we had to figure out on our own what we were going to teach and how we were going to teach it.  However, at the beginning of this week the course books finally arrived in the mail, so now there's structure.  After doing the bookwork for the day, there's really only about 10 minutes per class, which I use to sing songs because hey, I'm getting paid and nobody really cares what I do.  Plus the kids love it.  Each class has lessons three times per week.  So I have six different classes three times a week, and Pre-K twice a week, meaning I only teach 20 classes per week.  It's a pretty sweet deal.

Before the books came I was teaching my students some basic introductory phrases.  My students can all tell someone their name (the full sentence, which took a long time because some of them couldn't even figure out their regular name... more on that in a second), their gender (which seems straightforward, but I messed it up a couple times.  Again, more on that in a second), and what color they like.

First, the gender thing.  I had three students that I could not properly identify as boy or girl, and unfortunately I guessed all three were girls and they all turned out to be boys.  Whoops.  There is a slight trend in boys’ haircuts here to have shoulder length hair with distinct bangs, which is honestly something I don't think I've seen on a boy before.  None of them were offended, and actually I think only one of them actually understood that I called him a girl.  However, seeing as he never really pays attention to what's going on and his spacing-out face looks really intense, it is not only possible but also highly likely that he was just staring at me without actually listening or being aware that I was addressing him.  So I'm pretty sure none of them realized I thought they were girls.  But the teachers did.  We had a good cross-cultural giggle about it.  

Beyond the long hair with bangs hairstyle, there's another strange trend that I've noticed with the boys.  Many of them have what appears to be a combination of a rattail and a mullet.  Rather than one small wisp on longer hair at the nape of their neck, all the hair along the top of their neck is significantly longer.  But only one thin layer.  I've been trying to find out if this is cultural, but so far all I've found out is that it's a popular hairstyle in manga.  One of my female students even has the same hairstyle, although hers is a longer rattail that comes out from underneath her shoulder length hair.  It seems interesting that so many of them have this hair cut (at least 6 of my students are rocking the look).  I also have one male student with one of the weirdest hairstyles I've ever seen.  His head is shaved, except for a small circle on the top of his head, where men generally get a bald spot as they grow older.  The outside of this circle of hair is short, maybe a 1/2 inch long.  The center of the circle of hair falls down past his shoulders, and is generally fashioned into two thin braids.  He's a new student, and speaks no English, though he's great at understanding that when I look him in the eye and say something slowly I want him to repeat it, so that's good.  No comprehension, but he always has the right answer once I feed it to him.  

 
There is also an interesting trend in names.

Many of my students use a Thai "nickname" which is just a shorter version of their given name.  Examples of this are: Boa (Boo-ah), Ang Pao, Gusjang, Krit, Patcha, Tonkhou, Seenum, Bi-O, Pun-Yah, Bai-Toey, Gam, etc.  There are a lot of them.

A few students have Thai nicknames that are somewhat awkward.  Examples of the awkward names are: Phu (pronounced "poo"), Poo-ri, Piew (pronounced pee-ew), Meew (like a cat), Khun (pronounced coon, like a racoon, or an old-timey racial slur), Parn (pronounced "porn") and Phuk, Volk, and Fluck (all pronounced either "fook" or "fuck"- I go for "fook").  I also have a student named Poon.  No comment.

About half my students have "English names".  I put this in quotes because very few of them are actually names.  Real names include: Jenna, Jean, Kevin, Leo, Angie, Minny, Micky, M.J., C.J., Meena, Austin, and Buck (who is pleasantly plump and always reminds me of John Candy because of that movie "Uncle Buck").  They also pronounce these names differently, always stressing the last syllable.  So it's not JEN-na, it's jen-NA, or min-NEE, or le-O.  It sounded a bit weird at first but I’m getting used to it.

The rest of the "English names" are not names at all, but random nouns, verbs, and adjectives.  These are, without question, my favorite names.  ALL of the students with such names are...

Deer (who is tiny and deer-like, so well done parents)
Raifel (pronounced like rifle)
Gun (subtle)
Corn
Blue (I have a few students named Blue)
Japan
Plum
Worm (yup)
Sunday
Make
Mine
April (which she said to me "like, May April" so I think it's the month, not the name)
City
Bonus
Grate
Ink
Mobile
True
Spy
Pure
Proud
See
Chain
Pun
Nut
Mint
A-care (random letter and word combination)
Note (one of my cutest kids)
Kiwi
Tree
Song
Be My (be your... what?)
Pay (pronounced "pie" for some reason)
Tide
Finch
Time
Tan
Fight
Fighter

Tigger

And my favorites:
Captain
Earth
Guitar
Boss
Pepper
Mickey Mouse.  (Yeah, Mickey Mouse)

And the Pre-K triplets Sun, Sand, and Sea.  Yeah, triplets named Sun, Sand, and Sea.

Adorable, and completely absurd at the same time.

Notable students:

Blue (the younger one) who cannot say any word other than his name, and yet cannot identify the color blue.

Finch, who cried every time I even looked at him for the entire first week, and yet would still say "My name is Finch" through the tears.  He has stopped crying when I look at him, but still goes from a pleasantly blank facial expression to one of unflinching abject terror every time I look at him.  I'm going to call it an improvement.

Pepper, a boy who is extremely smart, will follow me around the room trying to put his hands in my shoes because he is in love with my toes.

Maiklong, Volk, and City, the boys I thought were girls.

Still unnamed child with the two-braid hairstyle, who doesn't know how to say his name so I have no idea what it is.

Bonus, a heavyset girl who gleefully sticks her belly out and drums on it every time we sing a song.

Note, who is a simultaneously adorable and obnoxious child. (haha, Note is notable)

I would write more, but it is feeding time, so I must jockey for my position next to the trough.  Next blog's topic: TBD when I write the next blog.  Perhaps Thai language.

Pagan Magic

The view from our middle apartment window.

So, I Moved to Thailand

My blog before was a bit more diary than cultural exploration, so I'm going to try to rectify that to the best of my ability now that I'm older, though not necessarily wiser.

I am no longer living in Korea, but in Thailand.  I moved to Thonburi, a part of Bangkok city just across the river from western Bangkok, about a month ago.  So far, I have been lazy and have not done much to update people on my life here.  My facebook posts have mostly been intellectual jems such as, "I was just listening to a song from the Pocahontas soundtrack, and looked off to the side of my Facebook and saw, "People You May Know: John Smith." Coincidence? Probably" and, "My inner How I Met Your Mother fan LOVES that I have a student named Captain."   My brilliance is astounding at times, even to me.  It's a little out of control.

For now, I'll shoot out some of the basics of my life here and within the next few weeks I will hopefully get my act together enough to note some of the cultural differences that have jumped out at me.  

 
I live, like I said before, in a part of the city called Thonburi.  It's not in Bangkok proper, but my apartment is about a ten-minute drive from Bangkok, so it isn't too much of a stretch to head in on weekends.  I teach at a primary school, but I teach Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten 1 and 2, which means I deal with two, three, and four year-olds all day.  I'm hoping that my English becomes accordingly accomplished.  I still have students that cannot even repeat after me if I sit directly in front of them and say "Hello!" very slowly to just them.  Instead they tell me their name, as if I've asked.  Silly children.  I have three classes of each age, and I teach each class three times a week for 50 minutes each time.  The language level is extremely different from Korea, and I'm still adjusting.  Don't be surprised if, by the time I return to the states, my English is halting and broken, my vocabulary has reverted to that of a five year old, and I've lost the ability to read and write.  If you're so inclined, I invite you to witness firsthand the eventual loss of my mother tongue here, on this blog.  In fact, it's already begun.  On my first pass I misspelled "tongue."   But I digress.  School is good.  Teaching fifteen hours a week is in many ways preferable to the 29.8 hours per week I taught in Korea.  I have a lot more time in the office to plan.  Mostly I spend this time doing nothing.  Maybe now I'll start spending more of it writing blogs!

You might have noticed that staying on topic is not my forte.  I'd apologize for it, but I've already forgotten what we're supposed to be talking about.

As far as the apartment goes, the set up has some huge benefits and one really huge... not benefit.  See? I'm already losing words.  I live in a real human apartment, as opposed to my shoebox studio from Korea.  It's a two bedroom, 1.5 bathroom place, with a kitchen (sans stove and oven because food is so cheap here that people don't often cook- more on that in a minute), living room/dining room, laundry balcony (it's definitely not a room, but whatever, it's in home laundry) and a nice balcony in the big bedroom.  Our building has a small gym and an outdoor pool on the sixth floor, which doesn't sound like it would work, but it does.  Our living room wall is made up of three huge windows, which look out at the river and the Bangkok skyline.  The view is actually one of the major benefits of the apartment.  I often get caught walking through the living room and have to stop and just look out at it for a while.  Again, saying I will post pictures will probably be a lie, so don't expect them.  If, by some pagan magic, they do actually appear on here, just be pleasantly surprised.  

I live there with two other teachers from my program who work at the same school I do.  Luke lives in the small bedroom by himself.  He's a funny, off-the-wall, good-hearted Scotsman who does AMAZING impressions.  I live in the big bedroom with Molly, another American girl.  She's really friendly and funny.  She and I actually are kind of stupid, and any time you leave the two of us together we end up laughing and giggling the whole time, generally at nothing, though occasionally we are talking about sad or disturbing things, but still laughing.  She's from Washington D.C. by way of Ohio, by way of California, with a little sprinkling of Mexico and Spain in there somewhere.  We sleep in bunk beds though, which isn’t exactly ideal.

For now, that is what I have for you.  In the future I'll post more about the actual day-to-day of the program, and catch you up on the first month in Bangkok.  I'm hoping that because I have more down time in the office I will be better at posting sensical things than I was when I lived in Korea.  This time I'll try to be saner.  The key word is "try."

Fan Death and Busy Weekends

I learned something new from one of the TPs at school this week, and I thought I’d relay it (I also did some research to flesh out how the whole thing started).  In Korea there is a very widespread belief in something they call “fan death”.  Basically, Koreans say that if you leave a fan on at night with all your windows closed it can kill you.  Scientifically the idea didn’t seem to have a lot of merit to me, so I did some research to see if there was even a hint of truth behind it.  Only one study was released on the subject, and it was done in South Korea several years before, by the government.  One article I read on the subject claimed that this study came out after an unsuccessful government campaign to get people to use less electricity in their homes.  The theory is that this study was released as a new method of getting people to use less electricity, by not leaving their fans running all night.  However, it is a very vehement belief for a lot of Koreans, so taking up the other side and saying that sleeping with a fan on is probably not harmful just seems to make people angry.  Moving on.

The last two weekends have been really eventful, which is great because they've both been amazing (and I've got another great one coming up) but at the same time it leaves me no time to talk to friends back home or post on my blog.

Two weeks ago I went to an orphanage in Anyang with Amanda and some other assorted friends. It was an orphanage run by the same people as Amanda's adoption agency (if I haven't mentioned it before, Amanda is Korean but she was adopted as an infant and grew up in Oklahoma, hence she speaks very little Korean). We met a bunch of little kids. When we first got there they said that they had too many volunteers that day already and we couldn't visit the kids, but then they changed their minds. We headed upstairs and some of the older kids were sort of roaming the halls and a few of them played with us. Pretty quickly we went into one of the rooms that contained all the three and four year olds. They were absolutely adorable. When we came in they had been watching TV, but they immediately came over to show us their half-broken toys and play with us. One boy bee-lined straight for me, wordlessly plopped down in my lap, and went back to watching TV. Then he started stroking my face and calling me "Oma" which means mommy. Uh, seriously, break my heart kid.

We went in and helped feed the one year olds during lunch time, though I mostly stood in the hallway and played with the older kids who were still roaming. By older I mean like six or seven. None of these children spoke a single word of English, by the way. Even the three year old who sat with me was talking about the Thomas show on TV, but he didn't know that Thomas was called Thomas and kept calling him "hamatchita" which is what they call Thomas in Korean, I guess. The others fed the babies, but I've never been big on children when they're that small, so I just hung back in the hallway. Then one of the little girls kept staring at me and reaching for me, so Holly called me in and I sat with the girl in my lap. She was adorable, and really only wanted to see my necklace, which she kept trying to pull straight off my throat. It was just an old chain with Sam's old nametag on it. Then she stopped trying to do that, and any time she thought I wasn't paying attention would try to jam one of her hands down my shirt. Fyfe was laughing at me the whole time, and so was Greco (two of the Air Force guys who came with us to help translate since Fyfe is a Korean linguist).

We left after lunch because it was naptime. On the way out we stopped at a bulletin board with babies pictures on it and little descriptions, and Ellie (Amanda's TP) started reading them to us. They were pictures of babies that had just been abandoned, with descriptions of where they had been. Every single one of us (except the boys) started crying. When Ellie (who is the sweetest, most gentle woman) got to one where the baby had been abandoned in a toilet, she got so angry and embarrassed that she punched the bulletin board and wouldn't read any more. None of us really wanted her to anyway. Then we stood outside awkwardly and silently for about ten minutes and cried.

Then it was Shannon's birthday that night, so we had a big barbeque and weekend out in Songtan with all the guys. Holly had revealed that week to us girls that she is pregnant and is maybe going home to the states in a few months to have the baby and then wait for her husband to finish his time in Korea and come join her at home. So she doesn't work at Maple Bear anymore. We found that out just before the party, so after having a great time at Holly and Chris's house, we went out without them. It was a pretty good night. We all came back to Holly's and fell asleep on the floor, then got up the next day, walked a dog on base (Greco volunteers at the shelter on base) and got some Taco Bell. Seriously, they are going to have trouble tearing me away from that. Then we played some soccer and hung out in the sun. The weather here has been beautiful here lately.

Last weekend was basically Nacho's going away weekend (he finished his time here a few days ago, and is now back in the states on a month's leave). Nacho is Cally's boyfriend, and one of the central guys from the air force that we usually hang out with. He's also hilarious and we're all going to miss him a lot, because he was always the life of the party. We went out to base on Friday after work and they got us passes to spend the weekend there. We had already bought tickets to go white water rafting with all the guys up in Northeast South Korea (that's a lot of cardinal directions really close together), so we left Saturday morning at 6:30. One three-hour bus ride later, we got there, and got out on the water. It was really fun. One boat was Fyfe, Greco, Nacho, Cally, Amanda, Winge, Doc, and me. Doc may sound like a dwarf, but there is no Snow White around, and he is from deep Alabama and has the accent to prove it. It was my first time meeting him and he's actually pretty hilarious. Winge is dating Amanda now (as of this weekend).

The river was fun, and we got soaked, mostly because we jumped in. I'm an idiot and when I jumped in to swim I freaked out for a second because the water was sticking to my eyes, and droplets were clouding my vision, but then I realized that I had jumped in with my brand new sunglasses on, like a moron. Don't worry- they're unharmed. We swam for a bit, and rafted a lot. Really we were just acting ridiculous the whole time. We had chants that we did any time we came up to any other boats, and a war cry. We also loudly sang Aerosmith "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" for most of the ride, and for some reason none of us can remember we at one point softly murmur-sang "On Top of Spaghetti" to one another. The whole time was hilarious and I am really glad I went.

Of course, we went out that night. Shannon came out and we went to our first Handsome Boy's Night, which is where the guys all get together and watch movies and get drunk. But they call themselves the Handsome Boys, so there you go with the name. Then we went out to watch Chris, Holly's husband, play at the local bar we frequent. Holly couldn't come because bars in Korea are super smoky and she has to incubate baby Baldwin (their last name) so she opted out. We all had a great night, but I don't think any of us girls actually spent any of the time together, because we'd all made tons of new friends among the guys that day. It was a great night.

Then the next day Holly, Shannon, Amanda and I went to Seoul in the afternoon with a few of the guys (Fyfe, Greco, Chris, and Doug) and met up with two of our TPs (the same two from the orphanage, Ellie and Faye). There was a huge festival for Buddah's birthday, which is this Friday. People were making little lotus lanterns and all sorts of crafts, and there was a bunch of traditional Korean dancing. We went to a Buddhist temple and took pictures. It was all really cool, but we were all exhausted. We took the fast train home, but it was so full that we basically all ended up falling asleep in a pile on the floor of the cafe car.

Monday was Nacho's official going away roast, as in Comedy Central style roast. Then Cally showed this 30 minute video she made for him made up of pictures and videos she'd taken while dating him. One of the great clips of video was a video of me speaking to Nacho entirely in Spanish while he refused to speak Spanish back to me. I don't remember it, mostly because it was a long time ago and I'd never seen the video before, but it was funny.

This weekend for my birthday (which was Tuesday) we are all going up to an island off the coast of Incheon called Muido. We have a three-day weekend because of Buddha's birthday, so Shannon and I are going up Friday morning and everyone else will come up Friday afternoon after the guys get off work. I'm really excited about it.

Last note: it looks like I'm resigning with my school for another year which means I will be coming home for two weeks in August (probably the first two weeks) and then I'll be back here until August 2011 for more adventures.

The Air Force Base and New Kids

I want to apologize, first and foremost, for taking so long between entries. In March my schedule changed, and with the increase in teaching hours I am exhausted by the time I get home. It's not an excuse, but I'm using it as one.

One of the new things I have noticed about Korea, which I've noticed since the beginning of my time here but haven't yet written about, is that by American standards Koreans are extraordinarily rude. Culturally things are very different here in unexpected ways. For example, lines don't actually exist. People will walk right in front of you, and you basically have to push your way to the front or get pushed out of the way all together. Even my Koreans friends will walk in front of me if I don't push forward quickly enough. At stoplights, cars can go around the line and cut in front of the left turn lane, into the middle of the intersection. While waiting at a bus stop people will shove you aside to get on before you. Another example of what we would view as rudeness in the states: walking down the street people will bang into you hard enough to knock you over, but they won't apologize or acknowledge it. On the subway, men will push you out of the way to get to an open seat before you do. Men who are getting on the train when I'm trying to get off have literally shoved me back onto the train so they can get on more quickly. At first it was hard to get used to, but now it's become almost expected. Almost.

Since the last time I wrote I have discovered a magical new area of Korea. It's called the US Air Force Base in Songtan, and it's essentially a tiny slice of America set in the middle of South Korea. There is a Taco Bell there. A TACO BELL. I can get American products there, and everyone speaks English, and nobody stares at me because I look different from them.  Shannon and I have started hanging out with a group of the Air Force guys that we met through Holly's husband. The main problem I have been having in Korea is the lack of variety in food, but on and around the base you can find any type of food you want. There's a decent Mexican restaurant and an amazing gyro place, plus good Thai. After so long spent somewhere so different from home, it's seems magical to take a short subway ride and arrive somewhere so much more familiar. It makes me miss home because it's so close without actually having the people I love, but at the same time it definitely makes it easier to handle a week of non-stop Korean culture when I have that outlet on the weekend.

Amanda, Shannon, and I went and saw the cherry blossoms last weekend at a local university, and they were absolutely beautiful.  They are a big deal here, and there were tons of people walking around, spending an afternoon looking at the multitude of pink petal covered trees reaching up toward the perfectly blue sky.  There are cherry trees all around the country, lining streets, on school campuses, in the parks.  It was a nice, relaxing way to spend an afternoon with a few friends. 

Also, our schedules changed, so I have twelve new kindergartners, twelve Grade 1 kids and four kids of scattered older ages. Five of the Grade 1 kids are mine from last year, two were Tara's, and four were from Cally's kindergarten last year. There aren't many of them that set themselves apart.  They’re all great though, and I can tell that I’m really going to enjoy teaching that Grade 1 class.

I have a new kid named Jun, but this one is ADORABLE, unlike the similarly named Junsung from last year. This kid is dumb as rocks, but cute as a button. He’s already been studying English for a year, and today I gave him the assignment to draw a picture of himself as a baby and then a picture of him today. He came back to me with a picture of a tiger and a picture of a car. Well, sure. Okay, Jun. That's nice.

I've got another one named Peter who is beyond brilliant. The kid can read everything no problem, do any math problem you put in front of him, and speak with near perfect diction and grammar. He self corrects when he makes grammatical mistakes. He is polite and sweet. I'm trying to find the pod he came out of and see if there are any more children left in it that I can bring home.

Andy is the clingiest child I've ever come across in my life. He literally attaches himself to me in any way he possibly can. He grabs my leg, wraps his arms around my waist and his legs around my thigh, jumps up so I'm wearing him like a fanny pack with his legs around my waist, sits in my lap any time I stop moving. Once I was crouched in front of another student's desk helping them with their math work and he came over from his desk with his math book, sat on me while I was crouching down, and tried to sit there and do his math work on his lap. He almost tipped me over.  This is the same kid who was constantly touching me and being physical when I taught Thor’s class for a few weeks back when I first started at this school, so I expected this sort of behavior and affection.

All in all I really like my new classes and I think they will be a lot of fun.  I’ll let you know how things develop!