Answer to North Korea- South Korea question.

One of my readers here asked me what my South Korean students think about their neighbors to the north. Here's You Tube video that captures the mood and sentiment of many, maybe even most. That's their family. Almost all want reunification. The only ones who don't only don't for pragmatic "it wouldn't work" reasons. Some picture the bloodshed and disturbance of the North's way of life that they are entitled to. Some say that they can't merge with them economically. But they tend to feel this way:


And that's their family, so they can critisize, but be careful what you say.
This video is from You Tube, and I was the first one to comment, if you want to go there and check it out, the poster of the video responded and said that she was just over there and the sentiment there was emotional for reunification (paraphrasing), if you want to see the exact comment, just go to You Tube. I think there's more than one of these videos, though. This one is called DMZ and Korea- A Nation Divided. One of the neat things about actually visiting You Tube is that related videos will come up on the screen, so if North Korea interests you, you can watch other things.

This next one is a "tour" of part of the DMZ zone...the Military guy is obviously American.

Strange Things Students Say

A student told me yesterday on his test (fill in the blank thing) that I am sexy. Hm.. He doesn't get a grade from me. Must be a translation issue.

Sad

This is a Korean actress who's father is American. I guess people in Korea recently found out about this and now her life is bad. I don't know the details because I can't read Korean, but one of my students told me the news story says that sometimes she wants to die. Nice.

Students read my blog now and again, so I won't be completely candid about how I feel. End Entry.

Interesting! Cave Survivors.

I'm reading Yahoo news and one of the top stories is: "Student cave explorers are found safe."

That reminds me of my guys here. They saw alot of things this weekend, one of the most exciting was the cave tour. The cave was a real Indiana Jones type experience. (Actually their travel just to get to these spots was pretty Indiana Jones!)

At some points they had to crawl...at some points they were in water up to their chests holding their backpacks over their heads. Gyu said he saw a crab with no eyes. There were a gazillion bats (actual number)and meters of bet guano underneath. At some points the rock was so slippery that they had to crawl, so they got nice juicy bat guano on their hands.

Gyu was a bit concerned because the guide had a gas light that he held with one hand and nothing else. If that gas light hit the ground and broke, that was it they were in a pitch black cave miles from the opening. Hopefully the guide would have bat vision and super bat-guide skills if he dropped the lantern.

There was also a waterfall. The guide cost was 800 pesos, so 400 each, which is almost 10.00 dollars each. Pretty good. Their entire weekend cost each of them 60.00.

Oh, the hospital bill: Gyu just went to the hospital this morning because this weekend a bug flew into his ear and lived overnight at least and may have flown out the next day, we don't know. But the "damned insect" as Gyu calls it...may have laid eggs, so he's getting that checked out. That story was funny because I think Gyu thinks that the name of the bug is "damned insect"...because he says it without inflection and he says it every time, the whole time he's telling the story. "So I go hospital second class check damned insect. Damned insect may have laid eggs." "I sleep then at 4am damned insect started crawl." He was just relaying the facts.
At lunch maybe he'll update me on the damned insect.

UPDATE: It was still there. One of the teachers told me the doctor removed it. Gyu didn't save it, and they didn't film it! Rats!

Friday

I don't know what this means, but that makes it cool.
My students on Fridays will do anything to watch a movie in class. So far today I've watched two movies halfway through. Our classes are long, but the students are coming REALLY LATE. They brought me Oceans 12 for the first period. I couldn't hear it because of the notebook computer volume...but if there's a movie that I can't hear...it's good that Brad Pitt is in it...something to look at.

Second period they brought me "The Holiday". It has Cameron Diaz and Jude Law, and I don't care for either of them. It's also got Kate Winslet and Jack Black. The first half of the movie is cute, but also reminded me how much I hate men, and how serious a problem it's becoming. Maybe Monday I can see the rest.

Next class will be a famous Korean movie called "Tatja" which is about gambling. Its English title is called "The Hoodwink".

My last class can't have a movie because it's got a certain format to it...they don't need one anyway.

YESTERDAY: So I'm laughing at my post from yesterday, as if NO NEWS can come from Marinette or Peshtigo...like it's just not possible! But beyond that I think it's pretty interesting that Hmong Chinese live there. I can't imagine how they do it. I know that they came from Laos, but I'm wondering what Chinese they speak, if it's Mandarin or Cantonese.

The only way I would ever ever ever ever even consider moving back there ....the only way I would allow that thought in my head for longer than 30 seconds is to think about the possibility of teaching ESL to the Hmong. That sounds interesting. I'd love it.

The Courtship of Eddie's Father

It's pretty common for male students to tell me that their fathers don't really talk to them. Their mothers communicate their father's wishes. There are plenty of American tv shows and movies that could make a Korean guy jealous. I think that the Courtship of Eddie's Father might be one.

One student I had said he only got to have conversations with his father when he was drunk. They drank together, got drunk, had conversations. Interestingly, this student is an alcoholic.

5.18

The U.S.A. has 9-11, Koreans have 5-18, May 18th, 1980. When the students bring it up, they simply ask, "Do you know 5-18?"

Loads of my students come from Gwanju, South Korea and have told me plenty about it. So, when I heard the massacre story it touched me. Recently, we're sharing information about movies and the subject came up again. There's a movie called- in the English translation "Splendid Vacation". It's a fictional account of a few people's lives who were massacred on that day.

What happened? Well, basically it was a democracy movement. We know how well those go over, even in the USA.

I looked it up on the web, and there are some critical voices out there who say the movie overblows the incident, but then one person who said that strangely said that photographs of the incident are more gruesome than the movie. The particular blog that I read sounds really nit-picky if you ask me.
Here's photo from the movie and here's a link to an article in Seoul Times about it. The person who wrote the article was actually there.
Movie Review

Marathon

Director: Jeong YunchulCast:

Cho Seungwoo, Kim MisookGenre:

Feb. 23, 2005

Homepage: http://www.run2005.co.kr/

This movie, Koreans sometimes call Malaton. I think that's Konglish for Marathon, although sometimes they adopt strange new words into their language. This might be a real word over there.

UPDATE: The students said that the autistic guy in the film says "malaton" and that's why the name...

This is a true story. "Cho-won's intelligence is still that of a five-year-old boy. He farts everywhere, bows to his younger brother, and dances to music wherever he is. However, his mom dedicates herself to training him to accomplish a 'Sub-3-Hour,' which is completing a marathon below three hours, a dream for amateur runners." -Movie review website.

My son is autistic, but I don't know if they recommended this film because of that. The particular students in class didn't seem to know that fact when I mentioned it. Anyway, it's not hard to imagine how badly I'd like to see this movie. It sounds great. All the students interviewed gave it a 4, or 5 out of 5 rating, and all who had seen it cried.

Spot the Difference.

Konglish Alert!
So my students yesterday were telling me that they saw a movie starring Colin Powell.
ME:"Really?"

THEM: "Yes! Colin Powell!"

ME:"The General?"

THEM: Laughing.

They know who Colin Powell is and suddenly realized their mistake. A student went out to the lobby to look it up on the internet and came back, "Ahh, Colin Farrell!" It was pretty funny.I tried to get a picture of Colin Powell without his shirt on to make the comparison, but there were none available.

Hey, did you notice they both have beverages, though?

What? No Kimchee!?

Well I eluded to some issues with the Admin here at this school in my earlier post, here's more. The students put up with a lot here, and the Administration ignores them basicly. In fact, they're not even here today which is fun for the teachers, but there's nobody for the students to go to if they need something.

Here's the latest development that blew me away. They now have NO KIMCHEE in the cafeteria downstairs. Koreans eat kimchee morning, noon, and night. In Korea every family has two refigerators, one for stuff and one strictly for kimchee. The food at the college here is terrible, and the fact they had kimchee was one of their few redeeming qualities. Now...no more. The guy that makes it is in Korea, but the guy that makes it KNEW he was going to Korea, and this stuff is made WAY in advance, in fact that's how you have to do it. The older the better. Also, drum roll...it's sold here in the supermarket and they have a good relationship with Korean resstaurant owners here, and could get some that way also.

It's just one more middle finger to the students.
Plus, I'm pretty sure some of them are going into withdrawls. Some Koreans only travel on package tours with companies that can provide kimchee while they are abroad. It's a big deal.

OK, everyone will survivie, but I just hate what these guys go through when they get here. Thankfully, they almost without exception love the teachers and the classroom part of it all. My class that was acting up the other day not only apologized and did a complete 180...but they also love me to pieces. Nyah.

Russian Chopsticks

One of my students has been to Russia, touring St. Petersburg and Moscow, which the Koreans call Moscaba. He said there are Korean restaurants there, so he ate Korean food in Russia. I said to myself, Ok, new dream. I still want to go to the Great Wall, but add Korean food in Russia to the list. Kimchee and vodka baby.

The Korean language is actually related more to the Russian language than to Chinese, except for the written characters. Koreans are closely related to Mongolians,and not as close to the Chinese as one might assume.

They also drink a clear beverage called soju, not as strong as vodka. It's interesting to listen to Koreans from Kwangju or Busan talk after slamming shots of soju. Their speech is strong and slavic sounding, I picture these guys in furry hats when I see them drunk on the clear stuff.

You Live In A Zoo...

Add this to the list of exotic creatures in my house.
We have lots of cockroaches. We have mice, lizards that scale the wallls, and we've had two frogs so far. Add scorpions, and some strange insect with huge pincers that looks like a scorpion, but is not a scorpion. Add spiders that are so big and strange you'd think they were laytex. I went into the kitchen yesterday and a little brown bat was hanging from the cabinet. My son was fascinated with it, and I have Jeff Corwin to thank for my son not being terrified.

That's all I can think of for now, I'm sure I've forgotten something. We sleep inside nets, I wouldn't dare sleep without a net. No way. I've already woken up several nights with a mouse running around my bed inside the net. Yikes, that's scary at night. Anyway, there it is. My students told me, "You live in Jew!" and that's exactly how they say it. Me:"What?" Them:"You live in Jew!"
Jew! Jew!
OH ZOO?
"Yes, your house is Jew!"
If you say a Z like a J you are speaking Chinese, not English. Then we practice the Z sound, which is hard for them, as that sound is not in their language.

I Miss Morro Bay- Phobias?

This is a Great-blue Heron photo that I stole without permission from http://morrobaybirdfestival.org/photos.htm The Morro Bay Bird Festival page. It's an easy to load page full of photos of local birds, amazing.

I don't really miss the U.S., but I have fond memories of Morro Bay. I used to go up there all the time.

I absolutely love birds. Currently I have one student who is terrified of birds, we don't know why. Usually phobias come from a bad experience, but in her case she hasn't had one that she can remember. Last night on Animal Planet there was a show about phobias, and it was very interesting. People that have suffered from phobias for years sometimes decades can be cured in hours. Basicly, it's just exposure to the object that cures the person. I have two phobias that are a bit strange, and they can't be cured because I can't be exposed to the 'objects'. I just live with it.

This is a Yellow-rumped Warbler, love the name! How could someone be afraid of this?

Never Heard of It

My students have no idea that most of the world calls this "The Great Wall". In Korean they call it something that translates to million mile castle. The word mile there literally translates to something like unit, but when they speak English, it sounds good to say 'million mile'...even though most everywhere in the world, miles are not used as a unit of measure. Interesting.

When my students ask me what this is called in English, it very often to degenerates to a "Who's on First" skit. "What do you call that?" "The Great Wall"

"Yes, what do you call that in English?"
"The Great Wall of China."
"Yes, what is the English word?"
"That's what we say, it's called the Great Wall of China."
"How do you say it in English?"
By this time the class is separated in to two teams. One side has started to understand and is now on my side trying to give an explanation. The Korean starts flying. If they are successful convincing the others that this is indeed what it's called:

"Oh! That's the name? The Greatest..."
"No! The Great Wall."
"Just The Great Wall"
"Yes, The Great Wall of China"
"Oh! So simple!"

The next part of class consists of students trying to convince me they have one in Korea. No, you don't. Yes! We do it's in North Korea. Ok you win. I'm sure it's just as big and wonderous and not just a "wall".

Great Korean Movies

I have asked gazillions of South Korean students what their favorite Korean movie is and I get lots of different answers, but there are three movies that get mentioned again and again. Here are two of them. I thought of this post because I just saw Robin Williams on Larry King Live and he was talking about hanging out with Martin Scorsese and he launched into an impression of Martin telling people about good movies to see, and he mentioned a South Korean movie called Old Boy in he middle of his schtick. I got excited to hear the reference, because I know Old Boy!

I don't know exactly what the movie is about, but I guess a guy gets put in jail at a young age and then gets out later, the same mental age as when he went in. The students don't really exaplain movies very well, even the ones who speak English well.

Another movie that's supposed to blow me away is Peppermint Candy.


I don't know what this one is about, but the students really like it. It's supposed to be one of the best Korean movies made.
Here is a still from Peppermint Candy



And here is a still from Old Boy...


I don't know, I'm just here to report.

Please Vote- No, Seriously!

Ok, this is serious. This photo on the left is Jessica's boyfriend, the photo on the right is Brian. These two are demanding to know who I think is the most handsome guy. I am constantly being begged here for this type of information. Who is the best looking student? Ergh.

So, today I said, hey, why don't I ask OTHER PEOPLE to help take the burden off me, so seriously, leave a comment here about who you vote for as the most handsome. Yes, seriously. (NO KOREAN VOTES ALLOWED).

I'm begging you guys to help me. They're driving me nuts.

Good Grade!

This is a universally recognizable symbol by Korean young people. It's a stamp everyone gets on their paper if it was a good one. No matter where the students here came from, they know and love this stamp, just thought I'd share.

Paksanjan Falls

Here's a place the students usually go when they're here. Pagsanjan Falls. They tell me that all the other people there are Korean except for the boat men. They tell me that the boat men are really fit, like the guys in the movie 300 are animated, and they are really handsome (actually a guy told me that).

I guess it's near here and it's really beautiful. I haven't been there.

Hey Farm Boy

We talked about our childhoods today, and James offered that he did the tradional Korean game with fire, where they make big circles. The way he was explaining it, I said, ew that sounds dangerous for kids, I wouldn't let my kid do that. And James said, "NO! Korean tradition!" like it's the best thing that ever happened. Juri, the girl across the table said, "No, I never done that.", James shot back, "She is not Korean."


Here's a picture of this tradition, looks pretty. The story is, that people in rural areas did this, and Juri is a Seoul city girl. Another student said that when he was a kid he did this and once he saw his friend's jacket set on fire, and sometimes they would accidentlly light a pile of rice that had been painstakingly harvested,"oops! ...and run away!" he said. The actually use big iron rods for this and then throw them in "the sea". I know that not everyone lives next to the sea, so maybe just some body of water.

When the students insisted this is a rural tradition, James argued, "No! All over Korea, people do this." OK James. We all know you're a farm boy, and there's nothing wrong with that.

That's Jack Fruit

What's that? Famous fruit of the Philippines, Jack Fruit. I'm assuming it can be found in other SE Asian countries as well. My students tell me this is expensive, but smells and tastes great.


Hey, what smells like garbage, did something die? No, that's Durian fruit. Some people say, 'oh it smells awful, but the taste is to die for.', NO...if you tell me I have to eat this again I might die, it tastes exactly the way it smells, and it makes your breath smell like garbage.

I had some Durian candy here at the school and it was so disgusting it was a joke to give it to people and watch their faces. First, the student is so delighted that the teacher has given them a candy, and then their face changes. It's pretty hilarious to see the reality set in. "What is this?" And then their breath. It stinks up the whole classroom. When new students arrived, if they annoyed the old students in any way, I would get a look from them..."teacher, he has not yet tried your candy". Man, we had fun, I haven't done that in awhile.

One classroom that I use is pretty small, it's for the 1:4 group and we had this really funny student named Young, she would purposely eat it and breathe it all over the other students, and we would all vacate the room. I'd bring in the incense.

I constantly heard from locals how great this fruit tastes, and I was like what kind of drugs are you guys on? Some of the staff here assure me that they do NOT like Durian, so it's not a Philippino thing altogether, just many people here are crazy.