Lets Do Some "Science"!

It has been a pretty slow week here in Korea (at least, slow for Meg and Me!) We have gotten so used to running around day and night that it seems strange to have had some down time lately. Of course, we will probably be looking back on this week fondly come May! As we have mentioned we have a lot of trips booked for May. We are spending the first weekend in Tokyo and the second on our hiking trip that Meg mentioned last time. We will be in Seoul for the third weekend (although I have to work on that Sunday for Gym Day so it isn't a completely free weekend for me) and then will be visiting the DMZ on the fourth weekend. At the moment we will be spending the fifth weekend in May around here, but as we have discovered, that could change rather quickly! It is exciting to look at our calendar and see all these plans and I am sure it will make June come rather fast!

Last Thursday I experienced the wonderful day we call "Science Day" at CIS. The name is a bit misleading as there is really very little science that takes place (or at least, that is taught and learned). Instead of doing a field trip this month, a company brings in all kinds of science items and "experiments" for us to do for an entire day. Sounds fun right? The problem is, the science curriculum we use for the kindergartners at CIS is designed by Koreans. This would be okay, except for the fact that the Koreans have a very skewed idea of what is developmentally appropriate. You may have already gathered this from some of our other posts, as it is very evident in their schooling. For example, putting "five" year olds in school for 5 hours a day. And in my case, expecting them to be able to read and write in English by the end of the school year (I mean honestly, my babies can't even read and write in their first language yet!) Thus, our science curriculum is based on concepts way over our their heads (for example, my babies have a lesson on centrifugal force coming up) and the students don't possess the fine motor skills to create the items. Speaking of which, these aren't science experiments as we think of them in the States. The science here is basically build some kind of toy that uses science to work (for example, a car that moves by the wind power of a paper fan). So science basically turns into Ms. Gaard building 12 toys, taping up ripped pieces that break, and being frustrated in general by 12 kids yelling "helpa may plaze!"

So on science day I constructed 12 of the following: alligator cars (you blew up a balloon to make it move), a dragonfly that balanced on your finger, a boomerang, soda bottle rocket and a capsule race. The only real science part of the day was when we went down to the gym to play with all the cool toys the company had brought in. There were things like a stringless harp, noise making machines, a hovercraft, tornado in a bottle, etc. So although the kids had fun on this day, no real science was taught.

On Saturday we convinced some of our Korean friends to come down to our neighborhood instead of hanging out in Gangnam (which is where we usually spend our Saturday nights). They took us to an awesome little place where we had grilled lamb skewers and mandu. It was super delicious and both Meg and I would love to go to it again...but probably won't be able to find it amongst all the back alleyways! Then a group of us went to noreabong at one of our local places. Now that we can read Korean we have discovered that noreabongs are all over the place in our neighborhood. Speaking of which, at Korean lessons this week I successfully wrote 'Rachel' and 'Meghan' in Korean! It was a very exciting moment for me and rather difficult because you can't directly translate sounds from English to Korean. For example, my name is read as Ray-E-Chayl and Meg's as May-Gawn in Korean.

We promised to touch on beauty in Korea, so here is a little snippet for you. We always thought America was completely obsessed with thin and beauty but coming here it seems just as bad, just in a different sense. The pressure to be thin is enormous over here! It is mind boggling seeing as Koreans eat a lot, but there are very few overweight people. In fact, they are also very vocal about people being overweight and discuss it at length. One of the former Western teachers at CIS was told by a student that the student's mom and her decided she was overweight because she "drinks coffee, eats doughnuts and doesn't play soccer" (and this teacher is considered slender in the States). Another kindergarten student at CIS told her teacher that she goes running every morning because her dad told her she is getting fat. Besides the weight issue, Koreans are also very blunt with how you look. The Korean staff has been known to tell Western teachers they look "not good" on days when they put less effort into their appearance.

Korean females are almost always in heels, no matter what the weather or what they are wearing. We have seen maybe one female in sweatpants in the two months we have been here. Seeing women spending an entire subway ride looking in their compact mirror, fixing their hair and makeup is not uncommon. Men are in suits 7 days a week for the most part (however this might be more of a generational thing because it is not as common among younger men). Many of the younger guys would be termed "high-maintenance" in America (that is, they look like they spend more time getting ready in the morning than most girls). We have also learned that Korea is the plastic-surgery capital of the world. Typical lunch-time conversation between the Koreans at my school is about who has had/wants/is getting what procedure. All said and done though, I don't feel like I am constantly being bombarded by beautiful people in ads and on TV. Perhaps this is do to the fact that everyone looks relatively similar (as far as being black haired, black eyed and skinny) so "beauty" is less noticeable.

Anyway, I am sure we will write more on this topic throughout the year, we just wanted to give you a quick overview. The Koreans are taking us out on Sunday for our monthly sightseeing trip so keep an eye out for pictures from that! As of now, the plan is to go to the Seoul Tower so we should have great pictures of the city for you to view in the near future!