Subway Fights, Silkworm Larvae, And Cultural Sights...All Part Of A Day's Work

As I had previously mentioned, the group of Koreans we practice English with had decided that once a month we would do something touristy so that the foreigners could see the city and they could get some more practice speaking. They decided that for our March (and first) trip, we would go to the Gyeongbokgung Palace. The palace was built in 1395, three years after the Joseon Dynasty was founded and it served as the Dynasty’s main palace. It was reduced to ashes in 1592 by the Japanese and finally rebuilt in 1867. The Japanese destroyed 90% of the palace in 1915 during their occupation, claiming to need the land for an exhibition. The palace didn’t start getting restored again until 1990 and was just finished in 2007.

There were 6 foreigners and roughly 18 Koreans on the trip, so we split into groups of 1 western to every 3 Koreans. The place was absolutely huge! It was difficult to keep all the buildings straight and even figure out what they were used for, especially because many of them looked exactly the same. The place actually reminded me a lot of the Forbidden City in China (at least from what I remember of it after seeing it 7 years ago). The style of buildings and layout was fairly similar, although the Forbidden City is much larger. My group was very beginner students which made communicating much more difficult, but we had a lot of fun trying to guess what each other were trying to say!

The National Folk Museum of Korea is also near the palace so we spent a little bit of time there. Unfortunately, we didn’t get much time after wandering through the palace so we were unable to see a lot of it. We did try our hand at a traditional game (you throw sticks at a little metal cup thing) and saw some artifacts from the Dynasty. Afterwards, we all wandered over to Insa-dong which is a nearby area. On the way we had a typical Korean street-food snack of silk worm larvae. We wandered through an open-air craft market that was on a store-lined street. Meg and I will definitely be returning to this area to do some shopping once we get paid!

On the way home, Meg and I witnessed our first subway fight which was a slightly nerve wracking experience since we had no clue what the fight was about and it took place literally 3 feet in front of where we were sitting. To our knowledge, an older man was talking to an older lady about something and then all of a sudden second older man was yelling at the first and a younger guy jumped in as well. The older lady as well as the lady who was with the second older man got involved somehow (we think they were just trying to calm people down?) and it honestly looked as if punches were going to be thrown. There was a little bit of pushing and shoving, a lot of yelling, and had a punch been thrown Meg or I could have easily ended up with a Korean on our lap and possibly a black eye (which would have been fun to explain at work the next day). While we never felt unsafe, it was just odd to witness a brawl like that, while riding public transportation at 8 pm on a Sunday night, between older people, and have NO IDEA what it was about.

Teaching at a school where everyone is licensed results in some interesting observations about being a teacher in Korea versus America. For example, the Korean teaching style is based around rote memorization. These kids are expected to memorize lists of words and phrases with no context and then spit them back out. Most of them can spit them back out at you, but since they simply memorized them they can’t apply the words or phrases into any different contexts. At any rate, another huge difference is the idea that it is unacceptable to be different and thus, parents don’t want to admit when their child may have a learning problem. Special education is nonexistent over here (as it is in Europe). Many of the teachers have had a child in their classroom who would be receiving services for something in the states (Autism, learning disability, ADHD, etc) but here they are viewed and taught the same way as everyone else. In fact, some moms have secretly gotten their child tested and diagnosed without telling the father because they want to be able to help their child but it is viewed as unacceptable to be diagnosed. As a teacher, it blows my mind that a parent wouldn’t want to do everything they could to determine what makes their child act the way they do and what can help make life easier for them.

Yesterday Meg and I stopped by our cell phone shops to charge up our phones. Since we got pre-paid plans we have to go add more money every month. Meg and I have different providers, so we stopped at hers (LG) first. Well, LG shops are all over the place so we walked into the one nearest the subway and Meg handed over her phone, some money and said “charge.” The lady took it and started typing away and then handed the phone and money back saying something in Korean. Meg and I looked at her blankly and she started apologizing to us for not knowing English! She then proceed to walk us about 10 minutes down the way to a LG shop where Meg could charge her phone and stood there while they charged it! Meg and I were simply amazed at her willingness to go out of her way and the fact that she kept saying how bad she felt that she couldn’t explain in English! Where in America do you ever witness something like that?! And for the record, we still have no idea why Meg couldn’t charge her phone at the first shop.

Today I went on my first field trip with my babies! CIS organizes a field trip for the kindergarten students roughly every month and I was excited to see what these trips entailed. Today’s trip was to Lotte World (the Disney World of Seoul). Lotte World is actually really close to where Meg and I live and has both and outdoor and indoor part. We were visiting the indoor part today (think Camp Snoopy…sorry, Nickelodeon Land or whatever it is now) to ride on a ride and make pizza. So anyway, we rode on a little monorail thing that takes you on a loop around the entire indoor park. My kids absolutely ate it up! They thought it was the most exciting thing ever, which was good since it took us more time to walk to the ride than to actually ride the ride (3-year-olds are very slow at going up stairs!) Then all the students crammed into a big room filled with tables to make pizza. Each table had 3 or 4 kids at it and they worked together to roll the dough and spread it on the pan, cut the toppings (green pepper, onion, ham, and corn) and spread the toppings and cheese out. While the pizzas were cooking we all went to wash our hands (a nightmare seeing as there are roughly 12 classes of 12 kids with 2 or 3 adults per class and only one small bathroom). On our way back from the bathroom, I witnessed the strangest part of a Korean field trip. Each child got individual pictures taken by professional photographers. Oh yeah, did I mention that we had not 1 but 3 photographers following us around all day? It was very strange, almost like our own mini-paparazzi. All in all the day was very fun and I consider the field trip a success since I didn’t lose any kids or have any criers.

Well, another Friday has come around and I am sure we will have some good stories to share come Monday! It will be hard to top last weekend’s escapades, but as usual, we will try our best!