My little home

I've been asked to show you around my little room, so here it is. It's a pretty standard room for foreign teachers, with an ensuite shower room and a kitchen along one wall. Small, but enough for me. I also have a balcony which adds on a metre, and I do just fine when people come over :)

So if you were to knock on my door - the last one of three on the second floor of the right wing of Jupiter Block - you'd open the door to my welcoming call and see the view in the photo on the left. Before the fridge is a built in double closet, not deep enough to hang a jacket straight. On the right is my bathroom. This part is just wide enough for me to stretch my arms out to the sides and brush the walls with my fingertips.

The light is horrible, because there's a fluorescent strip light directly overhead - but it's ok, because you can now move further in to where Dad's Kenyan kikoi is doing duty as a lightshade, improving the atmosphere enormously.

Walk down between my computer desk and bed to stand at the sliding door, and look back towards the entrance.









I hope your eyes were first drawn to the beautiful pink lotus lantern hanging from the ceiling, because it's one of the most valuable things in this room! :)

My TV is also pretty important for late night viewing. I seek out Korean chat shows; I try to guess why the big man is laughing hysterically at the pretty girl who's singing, while 15 people of various ages sit in tiers behind her nodding sagely and saying what appear to be deep and meaningful things, or otherwise laughing with the big man, and computer generated words ("BANG!" "CRASH!") fill any empty screen space. It's great fun. I wish they'd subtitle it. My other favourite is a soap drama set in early 20th century Korea - except that every now and then the main dandy turns up in a modern Porsche. Can't wait to learn some Korean...

























Now stand at the end of my bed. Casting your eyes to the left, you'll see my workdesk where all the important day-to-day lesson prep and student report card writing goes on. Yeah, no, not really. 'Cause my job's great.

My favourite part here is the photo wall, which is slowly building up. I'm just waiting for a care package from Robyn, which will contain sticky-stuff, which has not as yet been invented in Korea. No, really.

On the right hand side of the room is my lovely bed, which is perfect for me after years of futons - it's about the same hardness as one. Many complaints from my poor colleagues who have to sit out evening activities because of bad backs from their hard beds. Actually, hang on a moment... I think there may be something going on there... The bed is a fold-out item with shelves - sticky-stuff may be too futuristic, but IKEA has certainly taken Korea by storm. My book collection is growing, as you can see - and there's a horribly tempting new-and-second-hand English bookshop Cait and I will be going to on Saturday in the foreigner sector in Seoul, so I'm sure there'll be a couple to add to it by that evening.

And that's about it! It's slowly becoming home, especially with all the people dropping in every 5 minutes for a cup of coffee and some gossip!

Now, I'm just off to have a chat with a coteacher about the Limbo class he had to spend sitting on a chair earlier this evening...

My favourite students

Yes, unlike parents, most teachers will freely admit to having favourites in the classroom. I was so thrilled on Saturday when my colleague called me out from the Cafe I was working in to see three of my all-time favourites who had come back to EV to visit me!

Bearing in mind that, if you are working the 9-5 shift, and are lucky enough to have the same homeroom all week, you will have one class you see twice a day, plus eight other classes a week, each with 30 students in it; that's 270 students a week on average that you meet. Since these girls were in my class, I've had somewhere near 1650 students!

And I still remember their names - that's how great they were!

So here's a picture of Hwa Young, Hye Ryeong and Yoon Jae:

And here's to students who not only study hard and are good at what they do, but also have fantastic attitudes ;) because all you teachers out there know how rare they really are!

My Tea Ceremony

On Saturday, eeeearly, and for once this meant early (5am. Ouch!) four of the Village Attractions gathered at the back gate to catch a taxi to Seoul. We arrived too early at Hongik University Station (being the overly anxious people we are) so we went for coffee; despite being just 6:30am on a Saturday, the cafe was so full we had to sit outside. This time my travelling companions were Cait, Leigh, and Robyn - a lovely American edutainer. At 7:30 we climbed on a bus for the south-east of Korea with 76 other foreigners - yes, ladies and gentlemen, I have experienced my first organised tour. Run by a Korean man with excellent English, Adventure Korea lays on tours to festivals and hiking regions for young foreigners. We'd thought about sorting out the trip ourselves but the cost of the tour was more than reasonable, and transport much easier...

We were on our way to the Jiri-san National Park in Gyeongsangnam-do (Southern Gyeongsang Province), where we would hike to the summit of the third tallest mountain in Korea, and then on to the Hadong Tea Festival for a day of tea drinking and celebration.

Unfortunately, the weather gods had something different in mind for us and as we crossed Korea it got darker and darker until, about two hours from Mt Jiri, it started to pour. Our bus puttered up the steep winding road to the "base camp" in thick mist, and when we reached the top we emerged to sideways rain. Cait and I set off after Leigh and Robyn with the best of intentions, honest, but when I realised my jeans were drenched to my knees after ten minutes, and Cait's hoodie wasn't going to keep her dry, we looked at each other and abruptly turned back, abandoning our walking companions to their fates. So at the top of a lovely mountain range with views stretching miles, and hiking trails meandering through thick forest, and dirt paths leading to little temples, Cait and I joined fifty Koreans in the cafeteria and drank coffee from paper cups for two hours until our damp friends rejoined us for the precarious drive back to the valley...

We headed for a hotel 30 minutes away where brave Cait and Leigh stripped off and went to the jimjilbang - a hot spa. In Korea you go in absolutely naked, which is not something the three of us have had the courage for before. They wore bikinis, but had elderly ladies plucking with concern at the extra clothing and suggesting that it might not be good for the health to be wearing so much. Eventually the heat got too much and they came back to the room to join Robyn and I for dinner. We found a little restaurant nearby where the three of them had seafood soup and I had a lovely tofu soup with a couple of clamshells thrown in. Would have been better had it not been for the unpleasant Australian man who joined us and thought we'd appreciate his derogatory slang for Koreans and negativity towards the working conditions here. He also talked for around ten minutes on how much various other people had appreciated his "chip on the shoulder" joke (involving, yes, a potato chip, yes, on the shoulder) until Leigh, leaning across me to fill up her bowl from the soup pot, caught my eye and we both fell about in complete hysterics while Robyn bravely kept the conversation going with a man who'd ignored all her previous contributions to it. When he looked askance at Leigh and I, I managed to splutter that his chip joke had just bumped a funny bone; he, believing us, repeated it. Leigh and I were unable to talk for ten minutes.

The next day, after a comfortable night on the heated floor, we drove for 30 minutes to a school where 16 of us got out - the previous day we had all won in Rock Scissors Paper competitions - the favoured mode of decision amongst students and adults in Korea ;) - and were now to take part in a tea ceremony. Our bus drove off to deposit the rest of the group at the Festival. We entered the school, leaving our shoes at the door as usual, and were shown to a classroom separated from the corridor by frosted glass sliding doors. Inside, we met four Korean ladies amongst bookcases full of tea-making paraphernalia. I asked our Adventure Korea guide about the school; apparently it is a normal Middle School, but one which offers tea-making classes to its students - reflective of its position in the centre of Korea's main tea-growing region. I wish I could have been there on a regular schoolday, as I can imagine the vibe is very different to our manic schools! We were instructed to kneel down on a little cushion placed in front of a tray with the teaset arranged on it, and then we followed the instructress as she led us through the very complicated Korean tea ceremony. The speed at which you move, the height of the teapot as you pour, the process of warming the cups and pot, and even having the perfect amount of water in the pot to pour out the three little cups; all these are essential parts of tea etiquette. It took about 15 minutes to pour three cups, drink one, and then return all the pieces to their positions and drape a cloth over the tray. Bowing also plays a large part, and it's vital to hold your hands at just the right position, slightly below the belly button but not touching the body, during the entire ceremony.

I found it very relaxing - even with journalists hovering at my back and applauding every time I got something right (presumably, when I got something wrong it was just to be expected of a foreigner and therefore not worthy of mention). Also, the tea was divine! I kept wanting to drink one of my "guest's" cups, but that would have been grossly impolite. The tea set was beautiful with little tools for everything from resting the spoon to holding the teapot lid while you filled the pot.

After the rehearsals we were dressed up like dolls in "hanbok", the traditional clothing of Korea. Unfortunately, unlike dolls, we foreigners were neither short nor petite. Luckily I was one of the shortest and was given one of the longest hanboks - but some of the girls were showing their knees! It's not something I would wear every day - it definitely made me look even shorter than I am, and that's not an image I care to cultivate.

We were taken for a lovely Bibimbap lunch (that's the vegetables with a runny egg on top) where the usual table water jug was filled with cool green tea, and the street scene replaced with a quiet courtyard. The rural architecture was quite different to Paju's modern glass-fronted stores and restaurants - little wooden structures teetering on the edge of the river, or hideaway hanok-type homes where the family serves customers in the front rooms.

Then it was a brisk walk through the village to backstage where we were once again dressed in the hanbok. Up on the stage, men and women from the Tea Association were preparing tea-trays, and soon we were announced by the MC. We went on in groups of four, each with an assistant by our sides. The Korean audience members were ecstatic, and applauded every imperfect bow we made - probably trying not to scream with laughter at our clothing.

The tea ceremony competition was a tiny self-enclosed bubble for me - I remember bowing at the start and kneeling down, and from then on it was just me and my assistant, who muttered instructions to me as I fumbled my way through the tea-making. I was lucky enough to get a lady who spoke excellent English but I still picked up the wooden coaster with the teacup when I drank (tsk tsk), and I poured too fast (really, these foreigners). My friends were all in the audience, and Robyn managed to film part of the ceremony - you can see it at http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=72858141701&subj=793900351 if you want. I was so relieved when we finally bowed over our tea trays!

After the ceremony we had an hour or so to wander around the Festival site. Armed with strict instructions from my tea-fanatic colleague at EV, I tested several green teas at different little stalls (all kitted out with beautiful tea sets and smiley tea maestros) and finally bought a few bags and boxes of Hadong's finest to take back to Brian and his wife, as well as a couple for me. It was hard to resist the beautiful ceramics as well, but the tea sets are so unsuited to our way of tea-making, and I'm proud to say I talked myself out of it.

All too soon it was time to be herded back to the bus, with a quickie taken on the bridge by our lovely tour guide.


You can see a little in this photo of the lush green hills, thickly forested. Even in the more urban areas of the province, it was rare to see any kind of building on the hills - although the valleys between could be farmed or built-up to within an inch of them. So different to my province, where the rice fields are squeezed between high-rise apartment buildings, right up to the border with North Korea. What a pleasure to see a more laidback part of Korea It was also interesting to see that the only farmers around were women.

There followed a 7 hour bus journey back to Seoul, broken up by visits to roadside petrol stations - and these require a post all to themselves, they are so fascinating and different! Back to the English Village finally at 11pm, we all fell into bed - in my case, thankful that on Monday, I didn't have to get up till 11am. This month I am working 1pm to 9pm - a whole new kettle of fish - much less teaching, many more games and activities.

I'm leaving you with a photo from the day before our trek down to the southern reaches. Ross organised a braai for the members of our content area (Sciences). It was a lovely evening, and an unusual chance to spend some time with our Korean co-teachers outside the classroom. One of the highlights for me was discovering, as you can see in the picture, that yes, you can eat potato salad with chopsticks. Hooray!