Today, in one of the new, randomly put together classes, a student says to me: "Andy teacher! Your 전화번호 있어" (rough translation "I have your phone number") and points to his phone. I... was... amazed (in a bad way). I never give out my phone number to students, unless they are damn decent students, and never elementary school students. So then I ask who he got it from. He got it from the boss' wife, who teaches maths in the hagwon. So, I grabbed his phone, and deleted it.
WHO THE FUCK GIVES OUT A PHONE NUMBER OF AN EMPLOYEE TO A 9 YEAR OLD STUDENT?
My boss' wife, apparently.
It's not her number to give out. Why would I want random students calling me? How the fuck would she like it if I gave out her number to random students?
Why would I want to talk to a 9 year old, outside of work? Even if he calls, what is he gonna do? Say my name, say some random shit in Korean, have a bit of a laugh, waste my time. No FUCKING thanks. I work at work. Once I leave work, I leave it all behind. My work life and social life have a large wall between them, with a very small gate being the only way though. There are very rare instances where I let people though from the work side, to the social side. The boss' sons being an example, since i see them in class every day, and if they're not busy on the weekends, I'll take them to Gwangju to see a movie. Another student, who has recently moved to Gangwon-do, has made the transition, coz I saw him every day at Geomdo. So, basically, these three students, are more like little brothers than students.
It was very difficult for me to look at her today, because if we did make eye contact, I would have said a few things that I probably would have regretted. I think, from tomorrow, I will be checking other students' phones to see if they have my number. If they do, I'll be asking a few questions. I don't mind giving out my cyworld address to students, which then leads to Nateon (a Korean IM), but I don't add them to my list. Previous students who were once in my middle school classes, who have now moved on to high school, I have no problem with.
But, my personal phone number? No fucking way.
Other shit at work is the boss changing classes at random. Here's the deal. One school in the area decided to start up a bit later than the other schools. The boss knew this. Did he plan for it, so that he could tell me a few days (or even one day) in advance, so I know what kids would be in which class? FUCK NO. My first class, everyone sits downs, I start to hand out books, and just as we start the lesson, he comes in, takes a few kids away, and dumps a few others in my class, and explains what's going on. Luckily, on Friday, he told me that this one school was starting late, so there would be a re-shuffle of classes. Fair enough. Luckily, I also know my boss' style of management, which seems to be no management (can a lack of management be a style of management.. or is that like saying a lack of pregnancy is just a different style of being pregnant?). So, luckily, i had a back up plan, and just stuck with that.
It's one thing, even though I'm used to it now, still shits me. The randomness of being in Korea. Kids will come late, and the boss just dumps them in my class, even though the work I would do in that class, would be way too hard for them. Sure, I use Korean in class sometimes - according to their level (for general behaviour management, i use Korean - the students respond a lot more to that than English), but a lot of the work I do, they need to know what we've worked on before, etc, shit like that.
So, my normal plan of boss randomly doing stuff, is games, sometimes in Korean. On monday, in one class, I played 쥐를 잡다. If you're not sure, here's a vid of it:
I'm not a fan of Tablo's English used... but I used my own way before I saw this.
First, you sing the cute little song.
쥐를 잡지! 쥐를 잡지! 찍! 찍! 찍! (Catch the Mouse! Catch the Mouse! Squeak! Squeak! Squeak!) x2 (Only just found out that it's called 쥐를 잡자! not 쥐를 잡다! 자 at the end of the verb means "let's". No one corrected me until I saw a few episodes of it on Youtube and noticed
Then everyone shouts 몇마리?! (How many?!)
The first person then chooses how many mice that people need to catch. You can choose from 0 to 5, inclusive: 0마리: no mice 1마리: one mouse 2마리: two mice 3마리: three mice 4마리: four mice 5마리: five mice
After that, the next person can choose to say 잡았다 (caught it!) or 놓쳤다 (missed it). if you say "caught it", you should put your arms out in front, and make a "catching" movement with your hands. If you say "missed it", you have to move your palm towards your head while saying it. If there are mice remaining, the next person says "caught it" or "missed it", and does the action, and this keeps going until all the mice have been caught.
Once all the mice have been caught, of if someone says "no mice", everyone should put their arms in the air and say "만세!" (Wow! or Yeah!), and then it starts again, with the next person (the person after the person who caught the last mouse, or who said "no mice" will say how many mice there are to catch.
The game stops when someone fucks up. If someone takes too long to chose an action, or if they do something else than what they're meant to (like saying "caught it" or "missed it" when everyone should be saying "yeah!").
For the students who enjoy English games, they like this game. It's good for using singular and plural words. I've played it with other animals as well. "Catch the Pig!" and "Catch the Elephant!" are always good for the sounds the animals make during the opening song.
For the Korean word nerds:
마리 is the counting word that accompanies the number (it's the 개 for animals. 컴퓨터 1개, 쥐 1마리 - one computer, one mouse). 몇마라 in a question is asking how many animals are there. For example: "동물원에서 사자 몇마리 있어요?" would mean "How many lions are there in the zoo?". Also, in a regular sentence "몇" before a counting word, can mean "several". The 사육사 (zoo keeper) might reply: "글세... 잘 모르겠는데 몇마리 있어요", meaning, "Well, i don't really know, however, there are several".
P.S. If my Korean is wrong, please say so in the comments. *^^*
If you have been living under a rock for the past year or two, then you won't know who these five lads are. They're Korean Pop Boy band sensation, Big Bang. If you're not sure, and you've been in Korea for a while, you're teenage middle school female students would be all crazy over them, and you would have heard a line from one of their songs "I'm so sorry but I love you, 다거짓말 (it's all lies)" and million and one times. If you're interested, you can check out their latest song, 하루하루, 거짓말, 마지막 인사, and the only Big Bang song I like, Always.
I don't mind the occasional well-produced Korean Pop song, and well, for me, I'll be honest, Big Bang only make a good song occasionally (in my opinion, Always is their occasional good song). But, every time I see them, I always always reminded of this segment from John Safran's Music Jamboree:
Anyway, (as if I was writing for a Korean Children's newspaper), Let's meet the members of BigBang.
Taeyang (태양) To keep with the N-sync analogy from the Joey Fatone Experiment, Taeyang is the Justin Timberlake of the group, meaning, he's the one with potential that when the whole boy-band thing wears off, and he thinks he's better than all the others, he's the one that will have the best solo career out of the five (which he might be trying already, with the release of his first mini-album). Within the band (and the five different personalities they have), he's the guy with the tough exterior, but is a real softie on the inside. He's also done the very fashionable thing of late in Korea of going to the gym and bulking up a little. It suits him, in my opinion.
G-Dragon (지용 / 지-드레곤) He's the troublemaker. I mean, just look at him. He's fashionably rebelling. Such a rebel. He even (most likely by not paying attention to what he was told to wear) wore a shirt with some bad English language on it on a recent performance. Anyway, I've heard him sing. He did 나만 바라봐 part two, a sequel to Taeyang's 나말 바라봐. Personally, I don't like his voice. When I first heard 나만 바라봐 part two, I was not a fan at all. I think i said to my Korean friends "그의 목소리가 똥처럼 울려" (my direct from English translation of "His voice sounds like shit."). My Korean friends try to convince me that it's just his style.
Daeseong (대성) Look at him... Just look at him. If your a Korean mum, and your daughter brought this guy home, she'd pinch the hell out of his cheeks (and would probably have a quick feel of the other cheeks as well) until she ripped off his face. He's the cute guy in the group. You know the friend that you had in high school that was cute, and all the girls liked him, but at the end of the day, he was always single, and was still a virgin until his last year of uni. Yep, that's him.
Seungri (승리) If you watched the John Safran's Music Jamboree clip above, this guy seems like the Joey Fatone of the group. Enough said.
Then there's one member remaining. He goes by the name of T.O.P. His real name is Seunghyeon (승현). Now, for me. This guy is the anomaly (and also the reason for the title of this blog post) of the band. I'm just trying to figure out which personality of the group he's meant to be, but then it hit me.
He's the vulcan.
It's probably the eyebrows that do it, and how well he does the blank look. But every time I see him, I can't but think "Vulcan".
Here's some other pics of Vulcans.
We'll start with the most famous Vulcan of all - Spock (Leonard Nimoy). In this photo, Spock is sporting the hairstyle that I call the "Formal Vulcan". The rounded fringe/bangs, then the pointy bits on the sides in front of the ears. Now, if you compare Spock's hair to T.O.P's hair, there are similarities. T.O.P has what I like to call the "Casual Vulcan". Let's face it. The Formal Vulcan is outdated. T.O.P is just keeping it real. If you walk around Korea, you'll see so many young guys (and even a few girls) sporting the Casual Vulcan. Next time you check out a busy area with young Korean adults (if you're living in Korea, or a K-town somewhere), you are bound to see a lot of Casual Vulcans.
This is Zachary Quinto... You know, Syler from Heroes. He's playing Spock in the upcoming (yet another) Star Trek movie which is due sometime in 2009. He has a bit of T.O.P about him. Maybe it's the eyebrows again. But, you can see the Formal Vulcan hair style on Zach's head. He sports it well.
You see what I'm getting at. Here's a group of photos that I found when I did a search for T.O.P on nate.com:
I rest my case.
Like I said above, next time you're out, see how many Casual Vulcans you can spot. Would be a nice change from the "dodge the 아저씨's spit and phlegm on the sidewalk" game.
My friend from Jeonju wasn't sure if he was able to come to hang out this weekend (due to his military service stuff), so we cancelled. Also, on Friday, I wasn't feeling all that well, so after hearing that he wasn't sure if he could make it to my place, I was the one who initiated the cancelling. I'm really not a fan of last minute changes, but have become a lot more understanding about it, especially in Korea, since almost everyone seems to act randomly. In their defence, I think they plan, they just play their cards very close to their chest until the last minute, but comes off as completely random.
Anyway, since I had a free weekend, I decided to go to Changwon (about an hour-ish from Busan) and hang out with my Korean family. It's been a while since I saw them, and will probably be the last time to see them before I leave Korea. So, I got the bus from Gwangju to Masan (very close to Changwon) at 10:05. At the 휴게소 (Rest area thingie), I got a bit of a snack for lunch, and a few people laughed at the "나는 미국인 아니에요 / I'm not American" shirt. Generally, people found it funny, and a few quick conversations started up because of it (mainly: 글쎄, 너의 국적이 뭐에요? / So, what is your nationality). After arriving in Masan, I walked from the terminal to Home Plus and met HP and YS there. Now, this is the top reason why I'm gonna miss Korea - my Korean family. HP and YS got married in January this year (January 26, actually - Australia Day), and they're just awesome. We then went back to his parents house, and waited for SJ (HP's sister), who has been studying like crazy for the Teacher's exam that they have here at the end of every year. Like me, her time overseas (she was in Australia for a year) has really changed her, and has realised a lot of things about life, etc. So, we have a few life outlook idea thingies in common, including the study quality vs study quantity.
Well, when SJ got back to the house, we got in the car, and went to Haeundae (which took us 2 hours due to the traffic), and had 등뼈찜. I guess, the rough equivalent of Roast Pork, but you use the spine (like in 감자탕), but it has the thickened juices at the bottom, with vegetables and noodles. It was damn good. We then got some ice-cream from an ice-cream shop (like Baskin Robbins, but it was a different name), and then hung out at Haeundae beach for a while.
As weird as this sounds, because of where I live, I'm not used to seeing a lot of non-Koreans in one place. So, for me, going to a place like Haeundae on a Saturday night is a bit surprising for me. Basically, i go a little Korean and say "오와... 외국인 많다!". When I chill out in Gwangju on the wekeends, the places I go to, I rarely (if at all) see any non-Koreans. It will be a bit shock for me when I get home...
After that, we came home, HP and YS went back to their place in Jinhae, and SJ and I stayed up until about 12:30 talking a lot, which is something we haven't done in a long time.
Woke up at about 10am the next day, had a shower, and had breakfast. Today was the day I was to test out the "뭘봐?! / What are you looking at?" shirt. The verdict: If you walked around e-mart naked on a Sunday night, you would get more attention than the 뭘봐?! shirt, but the 뭘봐?! shirt would come a close second. That's assuming that, when you're walking around naked, that people would giggle and laugh. :p
Anyway, back to Sunday. We decided to check out a new shopping mall, called The City 7, which was damn big. We had 삼밥 for lunch, and then checked it out. It's big, with a lot of stuff (it was damn hard not to go into the Adidas shop and check things out). We checked out the book store, which was alright. I bought a pack of cute stickers, but I was disappointed that there wasn't any CD shop to be found. After a couple of hours there, we went back home, and relaxed for a while. HP's mum (who I call 엄마) insisted that she wash my clothes from Saturday, and in true Korean mum fashion, was not going to take no for an answer. So, had to go back and get my clothes and bag ready anyway. The bus from Changwon to Gwangju was pretty quick, 2 hour 40 minutes.
When I got to Gwangju, that was when the effect of the "뭘봐?!" shirt kicked in. I think it's a combination of the following factors: Koreans never see real Korean on a shirt; Koreans never expect a foreigner to be able to understand Korean enough to know what is going on (unless your on the TV show 미녀들의 수다); and generally, which is something I'm convinced of, is that when Koreans buy shirts with bad English on it, the English is that bad, that they don't know what it means - it's just English on it. Also, Koreans stare at foreigners, sometimes to the point of where you feel like you're in a zoo, behind glass. This shirt is just a bit of pay back, in a fun way.
I decided to do a bit of shopping at Emart, which was good and bad. The shirt was creating a lot of attention, in a good way, but was getting a bit too much. This shirt is one for when you're in the mood for a lot of attention. It does make people smile and laugh, and they make the effort to tell their friend's what the foreigner is wearing. Imaging a group of 20-21 year olds at the beach, and they see an awesomely hot girl in a bikini walk past, and they something like "check her out, she's damn hot". In a way, it's kind of like that. Except that I'm not wearing a bikini... and i'm not an awesomely hot girl.
So, got back home, unpacked my shopping, and turned on the computer, and there were a couple of emails from a woman I emailed a while ago, about my job, on the behalf of my boss. She's been having issues with her agenty/recruiter, all because she asked for them to fax something to her in the U.S. As soon as she hit a snag, it was like half of the world shut down. I'll give you one guess which half did shut down... Yep, the Korean end. So, I wrote a very long email explaining things, and giving her a realistic view of Korea. The main advice being: by the time you think it's a hassle, it already is. And that she is way too overqualified for the job I have, so I was candid with her, in an attempt to keep it real. I don't want to waste anybody's time.
Thanks to my Korean family, I had an awesome weekend. If I had to make a top 10 list of things I would miss in Korea, they're number 1. Love you guys.
To keep with the N-sync analogy from the Joey Fatone Experiment, Taeyang is the Justin Timberlake of the group, meaning, he's the one with potential that when the whole boy-band thing wears off, and he thinks he's better than all the others, he's the one that will have the best solo career out of the five (which he might be trying already, with the release of his first mini-album). Within the band (and the five different personalities they have), he's the guy with the tough exterior, but is a real softie on the inside. He's also done the very fashionable thing of late in Korea of going to the gym and bulking up a little. It suits him, in my opinion.
G-Dragon (지용 / 지-드레곤)
Look at him... Just look at him. If your a Korean mum, and your daughter brought this guy home, she'd pinch the hell out of his cheeks (and would probably have a quick feel of the other cheeks as well) until she ripped off his face. He's the cute guy in the group. You know the friend that you had in high school that was cute, and all the girls liked him, but at the end of the day, he was always single, and was still a virgin until his last year of uni. Yep, that's him.
If you watched the John Safran's Music Jamboree clip above, this guy seems like the Joey Fatone of the group. Enough said.
We'll start with the most famous Vulcan of all - Spock (Leonard Nimoy). In this photo, Spock is sporting the hairstyle that I call the "Formal Vulcan". The rounded fringe/bangs, then the pointy bits on the sides in front of the ears. Now, if you compare Spock's hair to T.O.P's hair, there are similarities. T.O.P has what I like to call the "Casual Vulcan". Let's face it. The Formal Vulcan is outdated. T.O.P is just keeping it real. If you walk around Korea, you'll see so many young guys (and even a few girls) sporting the Casual Vulcan. Next time you check out a busy area with young Korean adults (if you're living in Korea, or a K-town somewhere), you are bound to see a lot of Casual Vulcans.
This is Zachary Quinto... You know, Syler from Heroes. He's playing Spock in the upcoming (yet another) Star Trek movie which is due sometime in 2009. He has a bit of T.O.P about him. Maybe it's the eyebrows again. But, you can see the Formal Vulcan hair style on Zach's head. He sports it well.
