I wonder what will happen next...


My school has gone a bit crazy. Not a good kind of crazy, but a weird kind of crazy. It all started because enrollment was down. My personal theory of why enrollment is down is that people are not stupid, and they realize that the teaching our school requires us to do is ineffective. Making kids memorize over a hundred words a day is not realistic. Having kids use college textbooks when they are in fifth grade is ridiculous. Any normal person could see that these methods of teaching are not going to work. Any normal person would realize this. However, the owner is not normal. His theory for the low enrollment is that we don't make the kids sit up straight in class. Yes, that is right. Good posture = learning. Nevermind that these kids go to school for 12 hours a day and on average sleep 4 hours a night. The slouching kids are not just tired, they are disrespectful brats who aren't paying attention. The owner is fixated on this slouching theory. He has gone so far as to make part-time workers go around and check that the kids are sitting up straight. If there is unacceptable posture in a classroom, they come in and yell at the kids (in Korean). The part-timers also get the super redundant job of checking the kids' homework (as teachers, we check the homework also and already fill out a sheet of who didn't do their homework). So maybe 3-4 times in a 45 minute class, the part-timers barge in and bark Korean at the students. This is supposed to make our teaching more effective. I am starting to think that there is no word in Korean for "effective," and that is why my boss can't seem to figure out what effective is. On the other hand, I think that the part-timers have an inkling. Normally, they just shut up, do their job, and collect the $2/hour that they make under the table. That all changed last night when they were told that they had to wear some silly arm badge that said "English Only." One part-timer refused (I can't blame him. I wouldn't be humiliated for $2/hr). The owner promptly called the obstinate worker into his office and fired him. I picture the scenario in my head (but I imagine it happening in English which I know is not a reality). The owner yells in a rage that someone would have the audacity to disobey him. The part-timers stands there with a smirk. Finally, the owner throws in a few more choice words and points a finger at the door. The part-timer saunters out the door without looking back. As an added bonus, the other part-timers realize that one of their kind just got fired over an armband and follow him out the door, throwing down half-graded tests and meaningless papers. That is how I picture it going down, but I am sure it wasn't as heated as I imagine because I am in Korea, where people are normally too polite to quit. They have to ask for permission to leave. I know that the guy was fired on the spot, and I know that the other part-timers quit and walked out. What I don't know is what will happen next. Now there is no one to yell at the kids for slouching. How will the students ever learn without the added discipline of 19 year old Korean boys interrupting my class every five minutes?

How much kimchi can you eat?


When kids write essays about traditional Korean stuff, they often write about kimchi. In case you don't know (just as I didn't before I decided to move to Korea), kimchi is spicy fermented cabbage. It is eaten constantly in Korea. My students ask if I know what kimchi is, which is a ridiculous question because it is eaten at every meal in Korea. You can't go to a restaurant and not have them grab for the large tupperware and dish out kimchi into a bowl. It doesn't matter what you are eating, you get some sort of kimchi. There are actually many kinds of kimchi, and they are each served on their own little dish. A typical Korean meal involves a table covered in small dishes. I would hate to be a dishwasher in Korea, and oddly enough, most people don't have an automatic dishwasher in their homes. As usual, I am going off on a tangent. Back to the importance of kimchi in Korean culture. Koreans love the stuff. Kimchi is eaten with all kinds of food. Our Korean "mom" serves us kimchi with spaghetti, cookies, and pretty much everything we eat at her home.


Yesterday, we had the delight of making kimchi with Korean "mom." Of course, before making kimchi, we had to eat brunch. In case you are wondering what brunch means in Korea, it was kimchi (of course), rice, meat, broccoli, oysters, peanuts, and eggs. It's not what I would normally think of when someone says the word "brunch," but hey, I am in Korea. After eating, we sat on the newspapers laid out on the floor and got to work. Korean "mom" busted out a huge tub of salty red pepper paste and garbage bags (yes, that is plural, there was more than one bag) of salted cabbage. At first, Paco and I were only observers because we "might get clothes dirty." We watched as "mom" took the heads of cabbage one by one and covered each individual leaf with the red pepper paste. After a while, we convinced "mom" to let us help. We put on plastic gloves and started rubbing the paste onto the cabbage. We did this for a few hours before we had to leave to go to work. When we left, there was a sizable garbage can filled with our newly made kimchi, and "mom" showed no signs of stopping until all of the cabbage was used. I asked her how long it would take her and her son to eat that much kimchi. She solemnly replied "six months." I was blown away. This tiny Korean woman is going to eat a garbage can worth of kimchi. I am guessing that the garbage can ended up weighing as much as she does.

On a random note, Korean "mom" just got accepted to teach Korean in Ecuador for 30 months. So Paco and I will likely head to South America net year. Anyone want to go to Machu Picchu with me?