Just Some Very Korean Things

As we only have twenty-one more days left to go, and have cleaned the bottom of the sink for the thousandth time, I want to write a blog about some of my pet peeves about being here.

In no particular order:

-Cleaning the sink. Now, we clean the sink every day after doing the dishes and empty out the two-inch deep food trap, just like normal people. But what isn’t normal, is the three-inch deep dirty water reservoir underneath the food trap. I have no idea what the purpose of this thing is, maybe it is a way of trying to break down grease or something. There is a pipe that sticks up out of it which is corroded in pink slime and nothing will get at that, this slime loves to creep up into the water reservoir while I’m at work and stink the place up. WHY?

-These bathrooms. Korean bathrooms are wrapped in plastic and tile, the idea is that they can be hosed down instead of scrubbed. This means that there is a drain placed somewhere outside of the shower. Smart idea, even if the one hose (the shower head) isn’t long enough to reach the entire bathroom. It means, that the shower drain isn’t banked well and most of your shower water goes all over the bathroom floor. Also, it means that when you use a public bathroom after cleaning, you have to wade through inches deep water and hover on a dripping wet toilet, which isn’t too clean… yuck!

-Korean makeup (Won’t even go into the animal product testing).  It is becoming widely touted as the best makeup. Maybe they send the good stuff abroad, but this stuff you get here is just a step up from the stuff we used as kids. It doesn’t last too long and smears easily. This means that my co-workers come to work with an obvious foundation line, and are constantly reapplying the darn stuff. My students are continually applying tint, a watery dye that gets all over their hands and teeth—making them look like old ladies.  We won’t even go into how terrible the nail polish is, at least the “nail remover” works.

-Appliances. I’ve mentioned this before, but it is worth mentioning again. They are so noisy! The dishwasher lets out this high-pitched whistle for an hour of its two hour cycle (we’ve stopped using it), and acts like an ancient machine, having to prewash the dishes before putting them into the dishwasher. The washer isn’t much better.  Also the fridge has this awesome “The door is open,” high-pitched wail, but it only comes on as I’m cleaning the fridge, not when the door has accidently been left ajar.

-Packaging. Korea makes it mandatory to recycle. I’ll not complain about that. But why do they allow manufacturers to make packaging that is non-recyclable? I have to pay a lot of money for these tiny garbage bags, I don’t want to have it filled with non-necessary packaging. Non-recyclable plastic bags house anything bought in pairs, many takeout containers are non-recyclable (luckily there are still restaurants that will bring you actual dishes to return).

-My paycheck. Ok, so it isn’t much different than the US in this case, but still irritating. Health care has gone up, and I get quite a chunk of my pay taken out each month, yet I still have to pay nearly $100 for a checkup and medicine. I’m always dubious about these checkups—wait for an hour in the waiting room, and spend less than five minutes with the doctor who sticks strange things into your body and shoves you out of the room without a so much as a how do you do.

-Childrearing. Even though Koreans are so easily embarrassed, they have this no discipline policy with their children. Sure, at home they’ll beat them senseless (if our upstairs neighbor is any indication or the bruises on some of my students), but in public the children are nightmares. It goes beyond the “give me” temper tantrums –these kids deliberately pull items off the shelf, run around your tables, knocking food over, and run out in front of cars. I’ve seen a kid swing a racket at another kid and smack him in the face—the mother didn’t even bat an eye.  Public parenting policy is just to ignore the kid. Or better yet, if you are playing badminton, just bring the annoying four year old into the gym, put him on a treadmill and leave him unattended. Somehow the kid actually survived and didn’t break anything.

-Supermarkets. Most of them are Mom and Pop stores and carry the exact, same thing. However, you never know how much anything is. There are no prices anywhere and prices change drastically every time you buy it. One day, juice will be one dollar, next the same juice will be five. Also, every supermarket overcharges on produce, so expensive and most of it is covered in mold!

-Feminine products. What is with selling a package of four tampons for $12!?! I feel like this is early 2000s Russia. Luckily, I can go to Costco and get good old American brands for less. Located in the baking isle of the markets, you can choose from seventy thousand different kinds and scents (except for unscented) types of sanitary napkins. There will always been a salesperson to help you through the traumatic ordeal that is choosing the pads. I’d rather have someone help me through the horror of no one being able to wrap a used pad and dispose of it properly.

-Selfies. I know they are incredibly popular everywhere, but please tell me they aren’t to the extent of Korea! My students must take a selfie every five minutes (that is not an exaggeration). It is like Whack-a-Mole trying to get these kids to keep their phones in their bags for a lesson.

Please don’t feel sorry for me, this is just so you can be in Korea with me.

Korean Pie

Since teaching a gaggle of middle school girls, I have become inundated with Korean dating information. I thought I’d share some of it with you.

Korean teens aren’t allowed to date, so of course sneak around. Somehow these kids find ways to see each other between school, academies, and family get-togethers. Because it is forbidden, their young romance seems ten times more involved than that of western kids at that age. These girls can tell you down to the minute how long she has been dating a guy. Two of my students have been dating for over a year—they are 13—and feel very deeply for each other.  Two other students have quit the academy because their parents have found out about the relationship—the girl has presumably been shipped off to a convent, and the boy has been forced to change academies.

It can be very difficult for both parties during a relationship. Females are told from day one that they must have boyfriends. They feel a terrible sense of failure at being single. I think the boys feel it to, but not to the extent that girls do. In some ways, I think the boys find it a terrible relief not having a girlfriend, mainly because having a girlfriend here costs A LOT of money.

There is at least one day a month (the 14^th) which requires someone in the relationship (mainly the guy), to fork out money. Let’s start with the first month: Diary Day this is the day where a girl gives her boyfriend the diary she has kept the previous year (I’m assuming about their relationship). Some people say couples will give each other diaries to record their moments.

February of course is Valentine’s Day. Only, the girl gives the guy chocolate. He reciprocates the following month with White Day. May is Rose Day, Pickle Day, and Yellow Day all in one—basically you give your someone something fresh—like a rose or a fruit, not sure what pickles have to do with this. The next month is kiss day and hold hands day (because you aren’t allowed to do such horrid things in public). The man gets to fork over extra money in July on the couple’s ring with Silver Day. August 14^th is both music day and green day—so take a walk in the park followed by a night at an expensive dance club. September is the beloved couple’s photo day (the result of which will be slipped into the back cover of their phone case).

The poor guy has to fork over even more money in October, starting with the 4^th, apparently on that day you must get 104 roses, ten days later, is wine day and you must take your lover out for dinner. November has Peppero Day followed by love letter day.

Finally the boyfriend gets a reprieve in December with Hug Day and Dutch Pay Day. April is a break  from all this madness to feel sorry and advertise you’re single. It is called Black Day—basically you eat black food, like Jjangmyeon.  Many of the girls seemed to be in terrible spirits as they went off with their friends to eat this black, thick, sloppy food.

Between these holidays, buying birthday and anniversary tidbits, and the dates in between, how do parents not know about the relationships? How do young men manage to save enough money to purchase an apartment or a house--a requirement that must be met before the family can even dream about giving their daughter away.

Catching Up With Korean Culture

Back in Seoul!

I’ve really been neglecting the blog.  So much has happened, I don’t even know where to begin! Bring on the novel!

We went to Seoul for Lunar New Year in February, which I don’t remember entirely because I had a terrible cold. We went around the old stomping grounds—some things have not changed and some things have. My apartment is still there, as well as the school, but the Smiling Jesus homeless shelter has gone and is being replaced with some high-rise.  Many new buildings are going up, just as many of the older buildings are emptying. It was great to be back in the city, but not as nostalgic as we had anticipated.

The weekend after Seoul, we went east to visit Matt’s friend, Tyler. He is now married to a local and lives in her parent’s “old” apartment, built in the 1990s. It has nearly the same layout as our apartment which was built three years ago. We reveled in the mother-in-law’s taste in decorating: a different wallpaper pattern for every wall.

After we recovered from the new bird flu, we put in our sixty-day notice at our school. This comes after many, many trying and mind-boggling “policy” changes at the school. Not wanting to stay a moment longer than we had to, we suggested an end date of the 15^th of May—cutting the month practically in half (exactly 60 days).  Ten days later, the boss says that the accountant doesn’t like having to calculate unfinished months, so could we possibly stay until the end of May—they pay for the ticket change fee, etc (up to $200 each). We agreed, but after several attempts at changing the ticket, we were told it wouldn’t be possible.

Two days later, it was found out that new teachers could arrive on the 25^th of May, so could we call the ticket agent and beg to change the flight to just one week ahead. I questioned the feelings of the accountant, but they just asked me to change the ticket. The fee would come to $230 each which was too costly for them.  This past Monday, it was concluded that they’ve “had a change of heart,” and “may” be willing to pay that price, but they’d let us know for sure and shrugged off our warning that the longer they wait, the more expensive the tickets will be.

This constant indecisiveness is one of the deciding factors of turning in our notice. These bosses cannot stick with a decision. First it is “don’t play games in your class.” (not defining what they mean by games), and then a week later “The students are complaining, you better play many games from now on.” To be followed with, “The parents are complaining that you are playing too many games, so no more games.” Lately, our fearless leader has been having trouble motivating the Middle School students and has made a deal that if they work hard in her class and for twenty minutes in Matt and my classes, they can have 25 minutes of uninhibited phone time. She failed to communicate her thoughts to her husband, who then comes and has a go at Matt and I for allowing free time. Her husband says “don’t listen to her,” but then the wife has a go at us for not listening to her. We talk to them until we’re blue in the face, but the only decision is to listen to whoever told us last.

Wednesday, I taught a group of six graders. They are the oldest in their school, so that means they get away with EVERYTHING. No teacher wants to teach them, so the fresh graduate teachers, who are already overworked with odd jobs from other, older teachers, are put in charge of these guys. In short, no one stands up to these spoiled monsters.

Our bosses have continuously told me to send any of these students out of the room if they curse in Korean—apparently mothers have been complaining that we allow such a thing. Usually the kids curse, I threaten, and they stop. But Wednesday would have put a sailor to shame, so I threatened again and shortly after, a kid made another student angry, and the irritated kid screamed “She-Pal!” So, I sent him out of the room. The boss comes back and says “Well, he told me he was angry, so it is ok.” I told her I didn’t care, but to just figure it out and stick with a decision, so I could do my job. She ignored me.

This week has been possibly the most Korean culture has confronted us than in the entire of time we’ve lived in Korea.  

On our way to work Monday, we were nearing an intersection. There was a car, going incredibly fast, and no indicator, it of course, suddenly turned left, into our lane. Matt slammed on the breaks, but it was too late, we connected with the driver’s rear tire. Our driver’s front bumper was pretty crumpled, but no one was hurt. Of course a bus decided to come barreling down the road, so we had to move the cars.  The ladies in the other car, saw their opportunity and called their fathers. We called our boss.

When we all were gathered, the fathers tried to blame us for the accident and scam us out of money. We called the insurance, but apparently, older males usually win the insurance battle, even if they are no where around at the time of the accident, just because they are older males. There was a lot of shouting from all sides. Incredibly infuriating, and we still don’t know what has happened with it.

They have special lady parking.

Wednesday was April Fools’ Day. A favorite day for Korean children. They come up with all sorts of shenanigans, like putting their clothes on backwards, moving the desks around, writing on the blackboards—they laugh for hours about this. We decided to pre-empt the students and changed the schedules on all of the doors. The kids didn’t really notice, but the teachers did and our boss lost it. It took us three times of saying “April Fools’!” before it registered that it was a joke and neither she, nor the receptionist had messed up.

We’ve also been going to the gym to blow off work steam. If we’re lucky we can get there before anyone else does. Koreans love to exercise in freezing temperatures and with sad, wailing, ballads. It’s a real downer. If no ballads are playing, the old people usually turn on a TV to a really loud talk show for old people. Their “must get things done fast and inefficiently” culture is reflected in their exercise routines. They put the machines on a low weight setting and go 90 miles an hour. Bounce, bounce, slam, slam, clang, clang. I’m surprised the machines don’t break! The gym also has a driving range, so there is the constant “thwap” of golf balls on the wall.  Also curious, the weights are always disappearing from the gym, one by one. It is good though, I turn my irritation to workout motivation.

Spring is here. So we go from blinding yellow dust, to thick fog and rain mixed with yellow dust. Soon the eggs that the yellow dust has brought will hatch, and the insects will start feeding on the trees. In the meantime, the tulip trees are blooming, and they are pretty.