So long, farewell, anyoung hee gyeseyo (or you stay, I go).

One spring morning, we woke up to the brightest and clearest day we had seen in Korea this time around. Decided to visit a park along the inlet that we had seen on our Costco runs. Taking a wrong turn, we wound up on the opposite side of the expressway from the park and discovered a seaside-y sort of place full of seafood restaurants, seaside walkways, and street vendors. Upon further investigation, we found a tiny amusement park with an arcade (including Time Crisis!), a mini aquarium, and two old naval ships which we could go into. One ship had previously belonged to America and had been through WWII in the South Pacific, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War before being turned over to the Korean navy in the 1980s. Not feeling like eating octopus, we drove to the nearest Burger King in Dangjin.

The next weekend, being four days long, gave us enough time to visit Andong and Cheongsong-Matt’s old stomping grounds. Drove for nearly five hours directly east. We easily found a love motel in Andong and enjoyed exploring the area again. The next day, we drove the forty-five minutes to Cheongsong, along a road we had never been before. Cheongsong was a great trip down memory lane! It has changed so much, with more posh coffee shops (for rural Korea) and some more restaurants. Heard someone calling out Matt’s name as we walked down the street. Turned to see one of Matt’s old students running towards us—he actually remembered him! We tried to find Matt’s old landlady, but she wasn’t home.

Spent the rest of the day hiking around the foothills and around town. Cheongsong and Andong were more beautiful than I had remembered, with clear skies and huge green trees. Returned to Andong along the bus route, finally stopping at the giant grasshopper park we had seen many times from the coach window. It was getting dark and was quite scary, being the only people there. Finished off the night successfully eating 1 kilogram of pork, not recommended to eat that much in one sitting!

Before returning to dreary, dirty Shinpyeong, we stopped at Korea’s highest stone pagoda, located right in Andong. I was a nervous wreck the entire five hours home, hating Korean drivers who love to come to a sudden crawl inside a tunnel and then go crazy after the tunnel to make up for lost time.

Started cleaning the apartment, cupboards and such, a week early, which was good because it took several hours at a time to do minor tasks. One day had to drive an hour away to the pension office, just to spend half an hour filling out paperwork. By the time we returned to Shinpyeong, we had to go to work. Another day we had to go to Dangjin to open a bank account in order to transfer money to America. What a mess that was!

South Korea has often been applauded for its technological strength of late. I don’t really get how that could be. Many of the computers are ancient, still using XP and a really old version of Internet Explorer. Anti-Virus programs are never updated as soon as the free subscription runs out. Many of the websites consist of broken links. When Matt asked why Korea has the oldest versions of everything, he was told it was because no one had the money to upgrade, even though most of the upgrades that can be done are free.

Non-the-less, it was still surprising when Matt spent an entire day going around to local banks trying to find one that would transfer money out of the country. Instead we had to visit other banks in Dangjin and set up new accounts. This isn’t easy, it takes hours to fill out the paperwork, go to your other bank and transfer the money to the new account, go back to the new bank, and fill out the wire-transfer forms. We were at this for two hours producing ATM cards, bank books, Alien Registration cards, passports, and bank numbers, only to be told that we couldn’t transfer money because we had transferred from different banks in 2012! After another two hours, we were able to transfer money, with the warning that we couldn’t do it again this year because we had already transferred the limit, which I can unfortunately say, isn’t true.

After returning to Shinpyeong, we headed to work, where the students were a mix of sad and happy that we were leaving. I was for one, relieved, especially after our boss had decided to forgo the insurance from the car wreck, making us pay $400 for the car. Upon questioning an unclear statement from our boss, he flipped out and accused us of being argumentative and we were the subject of scorn for the next few days.

We were told to leave the apartment a day early, so we did. The boss “kindly” gave us a ride to Dangjin bus station and made sure we had purchased the tickets out of town before giving us a surly goodbye and driving off. We waited around the bus station for several hours, sat on the bus for another two hours, and arrived at the airport, exhausted. Concluded that it would be cheaper to stay at the spa in the basement of the airport and catch a movie at the movie theatre, rather than pay the $30 taxi ride and $50 hotel fee. Didn’t catch a movie in the end, because apparently, it costs $18 to leave the spa for longer than an hour.

Plane luckily arrived on time, and we fought old Chinese ladies for over-head space and foot space thanks to their yen for duty free crap. In no time we had arrived in China, where we had made it in time to get a free hotel room!

It was a grand hotel with a beauty pageant and another conference going on. We tired ourselves out waiting for various south East Asians to check in. They were all herded to the basement rooms (no windows), while we westerners were ushered to the higher floors. We giggled at the window between the bathroom and the bedroom and settled down to sleep, only slightly disturbed by the scratching and gnawing of a rat in the closet. Woken up early to catch the shuttle bus past abandoned hotels and four-story houses for the next part of the journey to the UK.

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. 

English Books

Last Tuesday, the full-time Korean English teacher quit. Apparently, he had sent a text message one hour before he was scheduled to work. This is the third full-time Korean teacher in the four months we have been here. Not wanting to scare mothers, our boss has taken it upon herself to teach all of the classes and run the business.  And I thought things were stressful before!

As a result, many of our classes have been combined. This is very confusing for everyone. One class is the perfect example of chaos and confusion. Five girls have been put together into a class. Three girls are in the middle of book one, one girl is in the middle of book two (but is smart enough for book three), and one girl has just started book three (but needs to review book two).

I ask which book to use, I get “Use their normal book of course!” (They have this way of making you feel crazy for questioning these things). I explain to my boss that they are using three different books, perhaps it would benefit all of them to use book two. This is impossible because parents will complain that their children are re-doing books and jumping ahead. So, we just need a new book. So now it my responsibility to go through the hundreds of sample books to find a suitable book.

Fantastic. None of the books have been kept in order, so grammar, reading, listening, high school, middle school, math, Korean, and used books are mixed together. As I am searching, my boss comes in and picks a book off the shelf, “Use this one.”

“Okay! Great!” Not even dwelling on why she couldn’t have just chosen that in the first place and saved me half an hour. The first unit is this: “Hi, I’m Anna. What’s your name?” “I’m Dan.” “Where are you from?” “I’m from America.” “What’s your favorite food?” “My favorite food is a hot dog.” The next page goes on to give four countries and different variables to favorite (sport, food, hobby, etc).

Grammar mistakes aside, I have to teach a class who cannot even remember “I like blue,” four different lessons in one unit. Yeah, that is not going to work well! Not only that, there is no writing at all, not even a vocabulary match-up. I go in search of a better alternative, finding a listening book that focuses on only one of those topics at a time and has some writing and a vocabulary section. I propose this new book to the boss.

“Yeah, that will be too difficult for them.” The boss replies. I explain how I feel about the book she had chosen, but she insists the book I have chosen would be too difficult and to just stick with the book she has chosen (Even though the listening book uses the exact same language with better grammar just broken into clearer lessons). I begrudgingly agree and set about trying to figure out how to teach the bloody book.

Ten minutes later, the boss comes back in, goes to the shelf and says, “See, you have some reading books here and some listening books here. You can choose one you think is best for that class.”

“Ok…what about the one I just picked out?” She again reiterated it was too difficult and pulls out a reading comprehension book, “This one is good.”

“Yeah, I can see that this is good, but they cannot even identify the words “pink” and “purple,” I don’t think a reading comprehension book is the way to go.”

“Well then you can choose the book! Just check it with me!” Face palm. It’s pretty much been like this for all fourteen classes.

I'm Living In a Children's Book

I have a class of six boys between the ages of eight and nine. They are the result of two classes combining together. Three of the original four kids get along well. The fourth boy is very, very odd and really has to work through some emotional issues (case and point, he’s severely addicted to Uno and has a mental breakdown if he cannot play it)—I think parents telling him “no,” would probably be a good start. Anyway, no one likes this child--except our boss. The second class was made up of two eight year olds, one boy is good-natured and determined, while the other kid is from one of those families—everyone groans when you talk about one of the three brothers. This last boy is toxic in a class of more than two.

I really wanted to do something fun with this class and most students like “running dictation.” In this version, I have written a numbered list of vocabulary words, I call two names and a number. The two students run to the back of the room where the list is, find the number, race to the front and write the word associated with the number. In a normal game, I’d make the team to do a Chinese whispers sort of relay, but since they aren’t exactly team oriented, I decided to skip that part of teamwork and just break them into groups for points. To make it “fair,” I wrote down team names on a paper and made the children blindly choose their teams—I wasn’t monitoring well, thinking probability would be in my favor—and the three best students, who like each other, got on the same team. That left the good natured kid with the emotionally disturbed boys. While Cooper and Bobby scowled at each other, Ted threw his hands in the air and went “Yeah! Fighting Team B!”

Ted volunteers to be first against Tyson. I call out the number, they run to the list and dash to the whiteboard. They are writing when Ted glances over to check his opponent’s progress. Tyson drops his marker and starts screaming, “Hacking! Hacking!” As far as I can figure out, this is Konglish for looking/cheating. Nothing I do calms him down while Ted just stands there with his spaced out smile and shrugs his shoulders, now teammates are fighting. Get that broken up and move on to Bobby and Dustin.

They run to the board, Bobby forgets how to write a U –the vowel we’ve been studying for two weeks. He starts to glance over, but Watch Dog Tyson calls him out. Bobby ignores my prompting, goes limp and drops the marker and scuttles back to his chair where he does his weird limp, blank stare and cries a bit. He is unresponsive to any comfort and the students are starting to poke fun, so to divert their attention I call on Cooper and Curtis. Number one down.

I call a number, Cooper runs to the board and realizes he doesn’t know the word and runs back, by this time, Curtis knows the word and is starting to write, Cooper takes one look at Curtis. Where Bobby goes limp and invisible, Cooper gets animated. Red gathers at his neck and creeps up his face, his already big head balloons out and his eyes turn black and jump  from his face, his fists ball up and he crushes whatever is in his hand. He screams “No!” I’m afraid he’ll billy goat Curtis, but instead sits down in a pout, breathing heavily.  Number two down.

Ted wants to go again, despite seeing his two teammates bite the dust. I call out the number over Cooper’s hyperventilating, the boys race to the front. Tyson finishes first. Ted stops mid word, gives a blank smile and a shrug and sits down. Man three down. I’ve made a huge mistake. However, looking at Cooper’s cartoonish face, Bobby’s corpse-like appearance, Ted’s blank smile and shrugging shoulders, and Curtis’s slightly evil glare over the retainer protruding cheeks, I can’t help but laugh. I have to take longer than necessary erasing the three letters off of the board.

Cebu: The Best Worst Vacation (Part Two)

Matt's photo of us at the beach at the resort!

Once on Mactan, wander around to several hotels (even the ones owned by Koreans and Japanese, which the locals warned us against), and with the help of locals and tourist police, find a room that fits our budget at Boyla Diving Resort. We chose the cheapest and least moldy room with a view over an abandoned pool for thirty-five dollars. Perhaps it was mostly destroyed in a typhoon or earthquake, but the “indoor pool” was just a tiled floor; the furniture in the lobby was ancient. Tried to use the TV, to find that it only served as a prop. Also, breakfast wasn’t included. The faucet in the plastic sink leaked all over the newly tiled bathroom.

We explore the “beach” in front of the hotel (really just garbage and rocks). This is where we learn that Mactan Island is originally a coral island, making it great for diving, but not for swimming. All of the so called “famous beaches” are really man-made for hotel use only. We were inundated by locals trying to sell us island hopping tours as we tried to find a spot to swim, looking a bit further down the “beach,” we see a blue infinity pool…I wanted to cry.

Matt suggests we go back to the hotels and see if we can use their beach for a fee. We walk back to the main road, all the while hearing shouts “Where you going?” “Tricycle?” “Sir, Mam, how about island hopping?” “Sir, food? How about Maribago Grill?” Only “yes” is an acceptable answer, to which we wouldn’t give, so they followed after us until there was another innocent tourist to irritate or we turned onto a hotel drive.

After several inquiries, and suggested prices of $100 each per day for a crowded dirty pool and a tiny beach packed with locals selling tours, we settle on the local five dollar beach, with dirty water and sand and the same three guys coming up to us every fifteen minutes to ask about island hopping or jet skiis.

On the way to our hotels.

We march determinately back towards Boyla, over the potholed mud road between goats and dogs, trying to avoid wading through puddles. We walk past the “dressing room,” the only remnants of a building, beyond Boyla, and around the corner. We quickly come to a high cement wall with some wooden doors advertising “Nordtropic Resort,” knocking on the door, a guard lets us in. We enquire about rooms, fully booked, but one room, which costs two hundred dollars a night, cash. Seeing what little hope we had in our eyes vanish, the manager offers a fifty percent discount, as long as we don’t use the kitchen or the extra bedroom. We agree, deciding that if nothing else, we’d have a decent hotel room for New Year’s Eve.

Back at Boyla, the electricity in the entire neighborhood goes out. We feel our way down the stairs to the lobby, where the emergency lights aren’t working and the maid has to give us candles from Santo Nino’s shrine. We sit outside for a bit while locals again try to sell us tours. Finally the power comes back on. We give up and go to bed over the sound of a generator being used somewhere next door.

Wake up at six in the morning to the deafening sound of roosters. So many roosters!  Cockfights seem to be a major source of entertainment for the locals and their roosters are big and mean. Still, you feel a bit sorry for them tied up in the lawn with only a six inch tether.

Check in early at the new hotel and jump into the pool. It is clear that this hotel is owned by a western, because of the little things (like light switches being where you’d expect). Eat dinner at the hotel restaurant, loving vegetables. I can never get over how fruit and vegetables are not so easily accessible in the tropics. Enjoy the dance music over the loud speaker, eat cake and a traditional Filipino dessert, Biko (a yummy brown sticky blob of rice, sugar, coconut, and mango) that the hotel gave us. At midnight, go up to the roof to watch the fireworks show. All of the papers and news stations had many stories warning against lighting your own fireworks, complete with gory pictures, but this didn’t seem to deter the locals. In fact, some of the fireworks nearly missed us, and hot ash landed on our clothes.

New Year’s was such a relief with nice people, a clean hotel, and a lovely pool. Even the sky turned blue after we had been in the hotel for a few hours! We decided to save the holiday and stay at the resort. The next few days are happily filled with swimming in the pool.

We attempted a couple of trips to the hotel beach, but being new, the sand kept washing away and the water was dirty. Matt and I rescued a starfish, who a year previous could have latched onto the coral rocks, but now gets washed up on the cement sandbar. This along with the large amounts of tourists I saw bringing back starfish and large sea shells back from island hopping makes me question how environmentally sound all of this resort tourism is.

Being a Korean resort town, Maribago has very little to offer in the way of food. You can either eat at the expensive resort cafes or at the expensive Korean-style hot pot and seafood restaurants. Other than Maribago Grill, which is a terrible place if you have food allergies because they sneak chicken in your dish and call it pork, there isn’t much for “normal” food. As a result, we had to walk a few kilometers to McDonalds (we would have happily eaten at the resort, but we felt like we needed to get out of our own world once in a while). We didn’t make it, made it as far as a jeepney stop—a palm and metal pipe shack filled with goats and pregnant ladies, and decided to turn back to town. The next day we succeeded in getting to McDonald’s via jeepney.

A typical local store

It quickly becomes clear why locals hate Koreans. Not only do Koreans only stay at Korean resorts, ride in Korean buses with Korean tour guides, and eat at Korean restaurants, there are several Korean grocery stores stocked with Korean detergents, chopsticks, water and cola brands, things than can easily be purchased everywhere in the world at cheaper locally-made prices.  This means, Koreans rarely put any money into the local economy—except help paying a few salaries—which seems to go more towards Cebu City since some of the resort workers find it cheaper to commute back and forth to Cebu City than rent a room on Mactan.

Check out on Sunday, and head north to the Lapu-Lapu and Magellan Shrines. Again, locals follow us around trying to get our business… they are willing to follow you kilometers out of their way. After the shrine, get mistaken for wealthy tourists and get shown new condos for investment—well worth the clean bathroom (but where is the toilet paper in such a posh place!?!). Then head to the airport, where the relief we had felt after checking in to Nordtropic vanished and we find out that we have to pay a thirty dollar terminal fee to exit—which means scrambling for a cash machine at the last minute. 

Cebu: The Best Worst Vacation (Part One)

Everything was going smoothly, until we got on the plane. It was an Airbus 320, so even my knees touched the back of the seat, Matt and I were practically on top of each other. Since we were flying from Korea, this meant that the other passengers immediately filled up the overhead compartments, leaned their seats back, and kids incessantly kicked my seat. Flight attendants took several minutes to get all of the phones off and the seats upright. Find out that no snack, food, or drink is provided for the four hour flight. An eight ounce bottle of water costs two dollars on this not-so-cheap airline. Sleeping was next to impossible.

Arrive in Cebu at four in the morning. None of the Koreans have filled out an arrivals card, and stand in confusion as the passport control shouts over the crowds telling them to fill out the card. Once out of immigration, duck into a tiny bathroom and attempt to change clothes, instead just take a layer of shirts because the bathroom is covered in pee and the smell is nauseating. Luckily an exchange is open, since no bank outside of Seoul exchanges Pesos. There is no tourist information desk and I remember why it would be nice to have a smart phone.

Once outside the airport, an attendant repeats “Merry Christmas, Happy New Year” over and over, hinting for a tip, while we wait for a taxi. Decide to tough out an all-nighter, and go to Basilica Minore del Santo Nino in Cebu City, which, to our surprise is completely packed for a five AM service, held outside because the 2013 earthquake nearly destroyed the church.

Nothing is open but Jollibee (Filipino fast food). Find ourselves on Colon Street, the oldest and shortest national road in the Philippines, where there is a 7-Eleven. Wander a bit more, past all the children sleeping and begging in the street (once even a baby was left alone in a stroller), to find the few tourist spots are closed until eight. Find a table in crowded Jollibee and eat our breakfast surrounded by church families and smiling prostitutes. It is clear we were no longer in college and all-nighters are now impossible. Haunt the hotel, waiting for a room, dozing off on their porch while chatting with a local, who was complete genetic evidence of Spanish presence. 

Finally allowed to check in, charged an extra night, even though it is nine-thirty, and sleep until the afternoon. Walk the one kilometer to the main bit of town. I imagined having to swim to my hotel on vacation, however, I was not expecting having to balance on a handrail to avoid a lake of sewage on my way to the hotel. Walk along various paved roads, canals are full of garbage, people pee on the street in broad daylight, women scream at their children (who are dressed in only adult t-shirts) for dropping a five pesos coin, people pull water from a well on a corner, and it isn’t clear if that is clean water or the dirty canal water. Eventually end up at Fort San Pedro, only slightly damp from rain.

Managed to do all touristy things on Sunday. The fort was a slight adventure, having to watch our step because of rotting floor boards and crumbling walls. Marveled a bit at the glass encased 19^th Century Spanish flag, unidentifiable because of white mold. Magellan’s cross was not as interesting as I had anticipated. Ducked into McDonald’s to avoid the many hawkers and beggars. Hang around down town long enough to catch dinner at a BBQ place.

Wake up in the morning to a torrential downpour. It had typhoon written all over it, despite my checking the weather reports before leaving Korea. Ferries were suspended and panic began to rise among tourists. I really wanted to get to Bohol for our New Year’s Eve. Braved the water and headed to the Department of Tourism, a government office that is the closest thing to tourist information in the country. They warn us that we may not get to Bohol. Spend the entire day moping in a “mall” and then in our hotel with terrible TV reception.

The next morning dawns bright, sunny, and hot. With high hopes, wake up early, run down to the lobby for ferry news. An Australian is convinced that I’m Dutch because of my accent. No ferry news, so wait a bit before heading down to the pier only to find lines hundreds of people deep to refund their ferry tickets. No ferries until January second! Totally depressed with the idea of having to stay in Cebu City, we head to the tourism office, to find it is clos

ed for the holidays. We resolved that we’d head south to a few known beaches on the island and went to the tourist police to figure out where the bus station was. Walk into a tourist police convention—the room is packed. All seem to agree that heading to Maolboal is as far south as we can get because the typhoon washed bridges out, but I remembered trying to book for Maoboal online and all of the hotels were booked.

One officer suggests just going to Mactan, where all of the resorts were; there we’d get a nice beach holiday at some of the “most famous beaches.” Armed with directions on taking a Jeepney, ask several of the numbered jeepneys if they go to “Park Mall,” a big Jeepney terminal on the way to Mactan. The money taker says yes, the passengers say no, after we crawl over everyone of course. Crawl back over everyone and nearly step on a chicken, which clucks in annoyance. Give up and take a taxi, the driver gives us a tour of the various malls and resorts telling us not to go to certain places because they are owned by Koreans and Japanese.

Going to FUK-uoka

Japanese Garden in Ohori Park

Woke up at four in the morning to have Matt drive me to Incheon Airport. Shuffled between various check-in lines, security, only to have some orange haired, leopard –print legging clad middle-aged Korean ladies cut in front of me at the passport check. Being impatient, they quickly switched lines. I waved at them through border control, while they were stuck behind an old man fumbling for his passport.

Arrived in Fukuoka a bit late, thanks to the plane being delayed, and got stuck behind a group of elderly Korean tourists, identified by their insistence on wearing expensive hiking gear no matter where they go, who couldn’t figure out how to fill out the arrival slips. I race down the stairs to customs, only to be interrogated. Why did I have only one bag? Why am I only staying for three days? He then politely emptied out the contents of my bag, not bothering to search through my official documents, underwear bag, or computer bag (the place people would smuggle if they were to smuggle).  

Hop on the shuttle bus to the domestic terminal and was utterly confused as to why it kept switching driving sides. Lulled to sleep by the gentle rocking of the subway, I woke to the announcement of “This station, UglyBoy!” spelled “Ohorikoen.” My stop was next. Got off at Tojinmachi, raced around the underground maze to Exit 1, up what felt like one hundred steps, and zipped down the road.

The Korean Embassy was easy enough to find, but the guard wouldn’t let me in without a phone number. I tried several numbers, he finally grudgingly allowed the local hotel number. I still haven’t a clue as to what he was actually wanting. Finally allowed just before the cut-off time, and set to the odious task of filling out the E2 visa form.

After paying and given my receipt, I limp out of the embassy in search of food and plasters for my heels. Gave up looking for food, and ducked into the first shrine I came across. Several people came up and asked if they could take my photo, which I politely declined, as I was unable to get the camera settings adjusted just right. Learned to pray like a Buddhist at Jomanji Temple, which turned out to be a giant sand zen garden. After the short tutorial, I was left to gratefully sink onto the cushion on the floor for a rest.

Hunger finally won over, I continued down the road until I found a café advertising a six dollar lunch set. Dived into the crowded café, where the waitress didn’t moan and groan about having to talk to a foreigner, but actually came over, smiled, and managed to tell me how to order and where to get drinks, even though she didn’t speak any English. It was a painless experience. I ate my strange meal of Japanese meatloaf patty, tempura tofu, plain white rice, and shredded cabbage.

Stopped in a McDonalds for wifi, but had to be satisfied with staring at a “small” Sumo Wrestler eating his four Big Mac meals as he stared at me sipping coffee. I really wanted to take a photo, but I just cannot bring myself to be THAT person… though, I really wanted to be.

Went in search of the hotel, hoping for some wifi there. I wandered around a bit, trying to follow the crappy hotel directions my boss had given me, when I found a tourist desk. She easily directed me to the hotel, and I went up to the lobby. Unfortunately, my boss had neglected to notice that the reservation was unpaid, so I had to pay. My jaw dropping a bit at the price. I was especially enraged when I opened the door to my room.

The room was stuffy, smelled of stale cigarettes, there were burns in the carpets, the walls were yellow, and everything had a thick layer of dirt and grime. Even the pajama shirt they had laid out was looking pretty bad. I returned to the desk to figure out the wifi password to be told the only wifi was in the form of a thumb drive device, which downloaded strange malware onto my computer and prevented most of my aps from opening.

Too sick really to care much, I passed out on the dirty bed to awake in the dark. I decided to go in search of food, finding a McDonalds to relax in. Headed back to the hotel and passed out again.

The next morning I woke early, plastered my feet, and headed to Starbucks. The air was crisp with fall, the shopping centers decorated for Christmas. Surrounded by well-dressed, considerate people and with a belly full of coffee, the negativity of the previous day fled and adventure won over.

Headed to Ugly Boy once again. This time I got out and walked around the castle ruins. The sky was so blue, but a storm was building, so I rushed through the park to the castle, feeling excited. Snapped pictures every so often. Stopped to watch a girl agonizing over her tripod and rush to pose for the photo in a typical Asian style. Climbed to the top of the ruins, meeting a group of Japanese tourists who took my picture and gave me plenty of room to admire the view. Coming down, I climbed over some of the larger rocks, feeling like Indiana Jones in the city.

Finally decided I had spent enough time at the castle and wandered back through the park, waving at the Asian model who was now wearing pink instead of red—where she changed, I have no idea. Walked past the tourist information center and the men in “traditional” soldier outfits only to be nearly run over by a baseball team running its laps.

Head back to another part of town to see the Giant Wooden Buddha (everyone claims to have a giant Buddha). Somehow find it, only to be disappointed about the not being able to take photos, as if that somehow diminishes its splendor. Shoot some photos of the pagoda and move on down an alley of nice apartments and villa-like houses.

Enter into a promising looking temple, where even the grounds’ workers smile and say hello. Follow a kitten up to the grave site, to find two old women feeding kittens. One woman starts speaking to me in perfect English, handing me a kitten. Apparently, she comes every day to feed and pay attention to the cats. Too used to being scammed in other countries, I pet the cat, with one eye on my belongings, and make a quick exit. However, I think they were quite genuine.

Spent the next morning walking around Ohori Park and the Japanese garden, before collecting my passport and visa. Spent the next few hours in McDonalds playing computer games while the rain poured down. The calm of the trip died as soon as I reached the airport and was surrounded by non-Japanese. 

Playing Uno, the Korean Way

 Seems like all I’m being paid for is to watch the kids play Halli Galli, Go Fish, and Uno. Like any game, each person has a different way to play, but these kids take it to a whole new level when it comes to Uno.

First, don’t shuffle the deck… who cares if you’ll get all yellows. If you are young, go through the deck and find all of the good cards and give those to your friends (if your teacher is playing, give her all terrible cards). Step two, deal five cards, not seven. Dealing here is giving five cards to one player, then the next, not dealing one card at a time to each player (the cards really never get mixed).

Play “rock, paper, scissors” for five minutes to see who goes first (there will be some confusion as to whether to say it in Korean or in English. Also, they will argue over someone not making a clear selection or waiting until seeing what everyone else has chosen. This means they will start over. Finally, when the first player is chosen, he or she may then choose the order… however some students will complicate things and try to continue “rock, paper, scissors” to find the exact order (similar to a star), meaning they’ll never remember the complicated pattern they’ve just created, because they can never remember the order, no matter if it is counterclockwise or clockwise.

Now that almost fifteen minutes has passed, the game can begin. But first, you show your good cards to everyone (some students will actually lay their cards face up on the desk). The dealer turns a card over—let’s say it’s a green three—here is when it gets tricky. Anything goes. If the player doesn’t have a three, wild, or green card, he/she will put down any card. If the students are feeling cranky, they will call the player on this, if not play will continue on that card. Some students will put down all of their cards of the same color… all of them. Some students may put down all of their same number cards. Another thing that could happen is, let’s say a red two is played, a student will put down a yellow six followed by a red six because they want to keep the red theme.

When a special card, such as reverse gets played, you can ignore it, or play a skip card to cancel out the reverse. If more than one reverse card is played at once, get super confused by the order. If there are three reverse cards played, argue for three minutes on the direction. Skip cards, as mentioned before can cancel things out, such as reverse and plus cards, however, not another skip card. Skip cards can also be ignored.

Plus cards can be built up (each player places a plus card on top of the last). If a draw four wild card is placed, ignore the color completely and place a draw two card on top, then choose the color, after everyone yells at you for not choosing a color.

They’ve added another rule, that the person who doesn’t shout “uno” first, must draw a card. This means, that when a player is down to two cards, there is a standoff on who is going to say it first, this could take up to a minute. If the person with one card says “uno,” first, the other players must take one card each.

Not only are the “rules” completely impossible to follow, the students don’t seem to grasp the strategy of the game. They will miss obvious plays, drawing more cards while they have at least three cards they could have played. This means, I win every time I play with them and that includes playing with official rules while everyone else plays their way. Ok, so I loose when they play drop every card of the same color… but any other time, I win.

Have fun if you are going to play the Korean way. Don’t forget to check your phone every few minutes. Especially if it is near your turn, you have to make everyone wait for you.  If you have fringe, you must flatten it and check yourself in some sort of reflective surface before your play. Oh, and scream at the top of your lungs at every possible moment. Boys are not excluded from any of these activities.  Oh and never, ever, ever dream about playing Uno with a deck of cards other than Uno cards! It is sacrilegious. 

Health Check

Every year, I have to go for the required government health check. It usually takes half an hour; it’s degrading, but mostly painless. This was the first year doing it without anyone’s help.

We wake up to a dreary, rainy morning and drive the 45 minutes to the bigger hospital in Seosan. Enter the hospital through the underground parking garage. The basement houses a GS 25 convenient store and an overpriced kimbap restaurant. One thing to mention about Asia, there aren’t any cafeterias in hospitals, so all able-bodied patients go outside of the hospital for food. That being said, I still flinch every time I see patients of all ages sitting in wheel chairs with IVs attached scarfing down instant ramen noodles and a coke at the 7 Eleven.

                                                                                                                                 

Once on the main floor, nothing is in English or our level of Korean. The information desk is empty, so I attempt to find out if I pay first and where the health check office is. No one speaks English. Call the boss (from the phone they had lent us for such an occasion), but no answer, it’s too early. Finally get the translator on the phone to work properly, but even that isn’t coherent enough. They keep asking “where have sick?” Fasting, along with the early morning, is wearing on the nerves and I’m on the verge of mania.

Finally, someone seems to understand and says, “two floor,” while holding up three fingers. Go up to the 3^rd floor to be directed to another area. Then go through the whole rigmarole again before someone understands the translation and gets a form. That takes 45 minutes in all. We sit there, nearly passing out, before they call me. First, they test the blood pressure, which is surprisingly normal, and then they check for color blindness (pinks and browns are getting harder to distinguish these days). I’m made to wait as some older lady comes demanding attention. I stand, in the middle of the room, waiting for a nurse.

She comes to whisk me off to check my chest size (why?), height, and weight. A serious explanation of how the hearing test works lasts several minutes, and I’m a bit apprehensive as it starts. But I hear the sound in the left ear and then the right ear and let it be known correctly. Then it is over—it was a three-second test. I struggle to distinguish the English letters on the eye chart as my head is spinning from blinking florescent lights, caffeine deprivation, and low blood sugar. I don’t even think of the fact that Koreans cannot even pronounce most of the letters on the chart.

Now it is time for the blood test. This is always the worst part. Usually, one can find my vein and the nurse rolls the needle around, or randomly pokes until she finds something, only to go for my hand. This time, I try to suggest that the vein in my hand is better, but the tourniquet goes on, the phlebotomist flicks my arm a couple of times and sticks the needle in—no pain. I sit there in a mixture of hunger and disbelief, forgetting the usual need to pass out.

Out comes the needle and I’m given an alcohol-soaked gauze and taken to the bathroom to give a urine sample. I am mid squat, thanking my lucky stars that I’m not  in danger of passing out in the squat toilet, when blood starts dripping from the gauze. I quickly finish my task, wrap some toilet paper around my arm and duck out of the stall to run into the next patient, who turns green looking at my arm. I wash up, grab some towels, and am bustled away to the x-ray lab before I can ask for a bandage, as the other patient notifies the phlebotomist that I’m gushing blood. Suddenly I’m surrounded by patients and nurses as they attempt to put a tiny bandage on the bloody arm, each spouting advice in Korean, while an older man sitting next to me starts doing those reverse arm presses off of the chair. My wound is clotting by the time they get my arm clean and the bandage on. I look around and notice I am the only patient in there not doing some sort of “exercise.”

The x-ray technician calls my name and asks me to take off my bra and put my shirt back on again. I come out in my tank top, but she makes me put on my sweater too. The x-ray takes two seconds, and I have to get dressed. The nurse checks my arm and with a satisfactory nod, leads me passed more reverse arm presses, to the doctor’s office. The doctor starts speaking Korean to me and I say, “no.” He curses in Korean and sits in silence. I look at him, “I’m hungry. May I go?”

He sighs and asks, “Where are you from?”  “America.”

“South America?”  “USA”   “Ah, USA, ok, ok, ok. North.” I nod.

“You ummmmm surgery?”  “No.” silence while he marks something on the chart.

Tobacco?” “No.” “Drinking?” “No” “Driving?” “Yes?” Salience as he thinks about how to say the next thing in English. He shakes his head and marks things down on the chart, “Nice to meet you, bye bye, see you next time.” He chants like a school boy. “Umm yeah, nice to meet you.”

We pay and eat kimbap in the hospital basement.

Back in the ROK

Took a three-month hiatus from blogging while Matt and I visited Idaho. We had big plans to see and do many things, but between family obligations and so many activities in my home area, we didn’t get around to as much as we had hoped. If you’re interested in our adventures, you can read his blog: http://lametayel.tumblr.com/ 

After almost a year of searching through terribly paying jobs, obviously crazy bosses, and impossible employment standards (no Americans here, no Brits there, no males anywhere), we had a couple of promising job offers in the dreaded hagwon (private afterschool academies) setting in South Korea. We were lured into a school owned by a Canadian who has owned an academy in S.K. for quite some time now. Three weeks after accepting the job, we are now in Chungcheongnam-do, a rural province south of Seoul.

View from old town towards our apartment complex.

We arrived a week ago Saturday night. Our bosses, a married couple, picked us up at the airport and drove us the one and half hours (or would have been if they hadn’t got lost) to our new home. They quickly showed our exhausted selves around the apartment before promising to collect us the next afternoon.

Our apartment is a spacious three-bedroom, two bathroom epitome of South Korean culture. Accessing the building is quite difficult. First, you have to go through a blind intersection, in which cars park in the middle (in order grab a bite at the convenient store). Then you have to choose which parking lot or garage you want to park in and carefully back into a spot, or if you are Korean, just park any old place and block four spaces. If you are of normal weight, you’ll have to crawl through the trunk of your car to get out of the vehicle.

Now you can squeeze between or crawl over parked cars to get to the doors of the apartment building, using a key card to enter. If it is windy, you have to physically wrench the automatic sliding door open and closed again. You wait for the single elevator that services the 18-story building and protect your nose from the kimchi smell until the 11^th floor. Another keycard (we have three key cards together for this place) will let you into the apartment.

There are four closets on either side as you enter the apartment, however none have tension rods in them to hang up coats. After the closets, you have a handy switch to switch off your gas or all of the lights in the apartment (except for the lights in the living room), then you have four switches to control various lights in the bathroom and entry.

There is a bathroom to the right, which has an actual tub with a shower, but no shower curtain rod. If you go straight instead of going into the bathroom, you will end up in a bedroom (empty save a fold-up cot and a tennis racket) and a glassed-in balcony that runs the length of the apartment.

If you turn left from the entry, you will be in the kitchen/living room area. We have a couch and a 32-inch TV. Black and cream tiled gives a feature wall. The kitchen has a full sized refrigerator, a cupboard for a kimchi fridge, a four burner hob, a gas oven, a vegetable washer, a cloth sterilizer, and a dishwasher. Next to the kitchen is a room that houses the washer and a water spout for cleaning.

If you go through the living room, there are two more bedrooms (one has its own separate balcony). One is the master suite, consisting of a complicated lighting system. Our ensuite closet and bathroom is equally annoying with a strange motion sensored light that seems to only detect ghosts. Our master bath has a heated toilet seat with so many buttons for various streams of water, that is it quite terrifying.

At least Koreans but a tarp between the ground and their soybeans.

So what besides the kimchi fridge screams Korea? There are two intercoms to open the downstairs door and the apartment door which are conveniently located right next to each other and three steps from the apartment door. The washer is off the kitchen, but the drying rack is in the master bedroom. There are several sterilizers, but everybody dries their food on the street. Not to mention the tiles, wall paper, as well as wall outlets, are crooked, and the paint is chipping but the light fixtures have crazy amount of detail that can only be seen when the light is just right in the early afternoon. Oh, and there is a big plastic cover in the middle of the living room’s wood floor that has “AIR CON” in big letters. It’s Korea in a nutshell.

On Sunday, we were taken to the school to get a crash course on the classes we were to teach the following day. By crash course, I mean: “here is your schedule, here are the previous teachers’ notes, I think your books are here, you’ll teach from 3:20 to 10 tomorrow, make sure they have more fun than learning.” After this half hour “orientation,” they whisked us off to Lotte Mart to get our groceries. I hate shopping with people, even though they were trying to be helpful, you could tell that the guy was not having the most fun following us around. By the time we got back, jet lag had hit us and we were lucky to get the groceries put away.

No time during the week to do anything but work and sleep. We’re teaching between eight and nine, forty-five minute classes a day. More on school in a future blog post, after I’ve been there for a bit. However, I can tell you that it is clear no one has any clue what is going on at that school, considering the teachers weren’t even correct in noting the pages covered, let alone the books used. We’re quite excited for this new adventure. 

Final Countdown

Down to just a few hours in Taiwan.  Last couple of weeks have been fairly stressful with the boss changing our schedules five minutes before class. In the end, we just planned generic lessons and went with it. I had to tell students goodbye 18 times, because I never knew which would be the last class—chaotic for everyone.  Some students cried and some were kind enough to make me gifts.  

To add to the stress, Matt was hit by four cars in a matter of two hours. He was ok, just bruised and angry.  He was hit twice in Taichung in front of a police officer, who did nothing because, apparently in Taiwanese culture, if you move after an accident you’re ok, so in order to get a police officer to pay attention, you must sit down in the middle of traffic and not move—yeah that sounds like a brilliant idea.

We made it to Hemei, to food, and almost home when a car headed straight for Matt. It was so bizarre how every single vehicle was trying to run us over. The next day was nearly as bad, as Matt saw several accidents on his way to work and I saw one on my way home. 

Thursday went with the boss to the tax office. Met him at eight thirty in the morning in front of the school (who knows the last time we were out of the apartment that early) and drove right by our place on our way to a “short cut” that took 45 minutes for a normally 15 minute drive.  After discussing Matt’s injuries from the “car accidents,” G made a left turn in front of oncoming traffic which was blocking said short cut. We were in the middle of three lanes as a tanker came barreling towards us, narrowly missing the car, G kept his smiling countenance.

Finally made it to Changhua, only to park on the side of a busy road and wait for several minutes until it was made clear that we were waiting for the accountant. The accountant appeared across the street, wearing a purple shirt dress with some sort of cat on it and some pink shorts. She carried a manila envelope. G hopped out of the car, crossed the busy street and spoke with her for a few seconds as he checked over documents. Then the deal was done.

After the shady encounter with the accountant, we went to the tax office, which smelled and looked like an Asian hospital. The only difference really, was that the employees were wearing t-shirts and jeans of the most informal kind, some were just one step up from pjs. We filled out our forms and went to the ground floor where I realized my blouse had come unbuttoned and I was walking with my bra hanging out. I rushed to cover myself and failed to notice that G , typically Taiwanese, hadn’t held the door open, so I walked into the door. Drove past our apartment on our way to the school where we were let out.

Saturday, our last full day, started with a visit from the landlord. I had spent the entire week cleaning and gathering up our possessions. The landlord walked in and started complaining that he couldn’t possibly give us our money because how could he see from the “clutter” and we had better get that stuff (one pile of our luggage) out of the apartment. He then tried to knock off my lap top and overcharge us on the rent and then claimed we had stolen a magnetic fob from the spare key (which we had to have made because he wouldn’t give us spare keys). We did get our deposit back and a dirty floor to boot.

G kindly took us to the new teachers’ apartments to help unload their new furniture. G made sure all of their stuff was out of the car and drove off, leaving Matt and I to walk back home across town. Cooled off and then met with a couple of co-teachers for a farewell dinner in Taichung. Watched as bats flew out of the neighbor’s roof, like mice coming from a crack, and started devouring insects in the sunlight. 

Flea Circus

Came back from Dragon Boat Festival to find out that the teacher who had been here for only three months had gone.  Three weeks of G covering the lessons until the new replacements arrived on the 20th. As part of their training, they have to observe several classes.  The have only observed one of my classes. It is a class of 15 kids ranging in age between eight to eleven, who after being in school all day, have finally snapped.

I introduced the new teachers and encouraged the students to ask them questions. They asked the normal “How old are you?” “Where are you from?”  and they laughed at Minnesota, thinking it was “little soda.” During the questioning, one student randomly started meowing, followed by another cat, and a monkey. Joseph, the smartass of the class, asked in a high pitched, baby voice “Do you speak English” followed by a maniacal laugh. Completely ridiculous, especially paired with the looks on the new teachers’ faces.

At the end of the training week, one of the new teachers had to teach while I observed. It is a class of eight, six to nine year olds; a challenging class with moody twins and a hyper active six year old. The new teacher messed up and started to panic slightly. The six year old, feeling the rise in tension, stood up in his chair and started singing at the top of his lungs. Each class he takes the opportunity to stretch out his diaphragm, but this was particularly loud. The new teacher stood in shock as seven children ran to subdue the six year old, and the six year old started backhanding the students as he sang his finale. Stacy and I sat back in amusement.

One of my classes includes the aforementioned hula dancing kid, who has since developed a multi-personality disorder. When he takes off his glasses, he is no longer Angus, but his twin brother, Ongus.  The barking kid has calmed down a bit, but he still pants. That class also has a loud child who claims he likes to eat babies… I am a bit worried.  

The “gay” class is still at it, but is now including heterosexual relationships after they claimed I was gay and I said “No, I like boys.” and then had to hastily explain that I meant boys over the age of twenty. One boy offered to hook me up with his eighteen year old cousin and a girl offered to set me up with her dad. I should mention this is the class that draws pictures of me surrounded by ghosts, or me throwing grenades at students.

I will be curious to know how the new teachers handle these classes. I hope they don’t try to stifle their creativity and weirdness. These kids are the only redeeming feature of Hemei, let alone the school.

In other news, summer is here. Temperatures are between 31-43 degrees Celsius. The air conditioners only seem to be able to get the rooms down to 28 degrees. Despite the heat, we’re still walking around Taichung and Hemei. This heat is just plain useless without water to swim in.

Erecting an Egg?

Once upon a time there was an advisor named Qu Yuan who told the emperor to quit being such a greedy liar. The emperor didn’t take kindly to the advice and banished the advisor. Qu Yuan spent his days of exile writing poetry (because being a poet somehow makes you important in China). One day, a warring kingdom overtook the greedy, lying, emperor’s kingdom. The advisor was so sad that he threw himself into the river. 

One night, Qu Yuan came to a neighbor in a dream and complained that the fish were eating his body, why not throw some rice into the water to distract the fish. Well, rice brought more fish, which attracted bigger fish. The advisor came again and suggested that the village make sticky rice wrapped it in bamboo leaves, that way it would last longer. So the villagers sacrificed their meagre food for a corpse and threw these rice dumplings into the river. But this just attracted more fish.

Desperate to save his rotting corpse, Qu Yuan came again and suggested that the village make a boat shaped like a dragon, because everyone knows that fish are scared of dragons. So the villagers made a dragon boat, put a drum into the boat, and went about the river making a racket and scared the fish away. Presumably, because the fish got scared away—for an entire year, I might add—the villagers had nothing to eat, so they were forced to eat the rice dumplings.  Now every year, across China and Taiwan, they race boats shaped like Dragons and beat gongs or drums and make one hell of a splashing racket.

Other traditions to do during this holiday are putting out special plants to ward off ghosts and bugs, wearing a perfumed satchel made to look like the dumplings, and balancing a raw egg for good luck  (or as our school says: erecting an egg).

I get a three day weekend. The boss suggested a trip to Lukang, but the river is ugly and a teenage student told me there was nothing to do there during the festival but wade through people. Decided to go south back to Tainan, instead. Caught up with a friend from Korea, who has recently moved a bit north of Tainan. Got a room in a love motel for a whopping thirty dollars per night inclusive of a round bed, a clean bathroom stocked with one towel, a razor, toothbrushes, and a comb, not to mention the complimentary condom.

Woke up terribly early on Sunday to go to Guanziling, a famous hot spring resort up in the mountains. Judging by the one-lane road and debris littering the river below, we were just a couple of days shy of a mud slide. The town is built on the side of the mountain, the only safe pedestrian route is the historical “Hero’s Path,” aka 300 steps of hell.  I am no hero, I rode the bus to the top and walked up ten stairs for a photo op.

We wandered up a path to get a good jungle photo, but stumbled onto private property. The owner shared some of his bayberries with us (don’t worry, these are the edible kind).  We arrived at the outdoor spa covered in red juice from the berries, but they allowed us in anyway.

Enjoyed the mud and various other types of pools, but avoided the sauna, figuring we had already sweated enough for one day. Broke for lunch, eating local boar something or other and some noodles. For desert, we shared an expensive coffee from the famous Dongshan coffee plantations. Relaxed for a couple of hours in the spa, before heading back to Xinying.

Arrived at the bar in Xinying and ordered drinks, only to be told that the owner, Shou-ting  (aka Sue), was taking us and the bar tender to the night market. Desperately tried to down our beers, but Sue promised that someone would put the beers in the fridge. We wandered with our local guides through a typical night market of greasy food, strange clothes, and mountains of hair accessories.  When we got back to the bar, our drinks were still on the table, hot and flat.

Slept in a bit longer on Monday before catching the train an hour south to Tainan. The bus to the historical district took nearly as long as the train and the heat was excruciating. But we still wandered through the historical markets and sampled Asia’s version corn dogs. Watched the dragon boat race through a sea of umbrellas.  Gave up and decided to beat the crowd to the train station so we could have a seat for half of the journey, stood near the bathroom for the other half.

It was a well-deserved relaxing break!