2 full weeks with no writing from me, eh? Whatever will you all do? Probably read everything else that you need to read, I guess. As life falls more and more into a rhythm, I find that I have fewer and fewer pressing things to write about, so you can expect a slow down at this point. So today I've promised an email full of smaller interesting things things for you. Here goes:
my only experiences with kindergartens came from my time at McKenny-Harrison Elementary and the subsequent time my siblings spent at that same school, so there've been a number of different things that happen here than what I'd expect from a kindergarten back home. First, little boys and girls use the same bathrooms each day. These are not segregated by sex, and I found that to be very interesting. Granted, I haven't gone to all the bathrooms, but in the ones I've seen, there are both urinals and stalls so that either could be used. Additionally, even though there's a bathroom on each floor, the only one that men can use is on the first floor. Fortunately I work primarily on the second floor, so I don't have to go so far when I need to use it … and I'm also not nearly as hydrated these days, thus I find that I don't even have to go too often (oh, no … I'm becoming more and more like Aimee). haha. Ok, I think that may be my first inside joke here -- I've tried to steer clear of those throughout my writing so I'll explain: Aimee is a good friend and coworker from the Red Cross, and last year, there were many times when after we'd leave work she might use the bathroom and make some off-handed comment about how that was the first time for the day. Some people might exaggerate here, but Aimee never did -- she literally hadn't used the bathroom before that point. Now although I haven't reached that point yet, I feel that I'm getting closer and closer to falling into that downward spiral. I will admit that I did bring along one smaller Nalgene with me, and I've taken to class a couple times, and the kids find it funny because either a) I have it attached to my belt with a carabiner, or b) they simply find it odd that I'm using that kind of bottle.
Another difference: most of the bathrooms don't have hand-drying implements. I don't think that any of them have air hand dryers, and I'm pretty sure that none have paper towels. Instead, each student has a towel that hangs just inside the door, and after washing hands, the kid will come back and dry off before sitting down again. This is really a great system, and I wish it would be adapted more widely back home, so if you can make such a thing happen, do it. It's so much more efficient, cost effective and resourceful. After lunch all students go and brush their teeth. In a few different places around the city I've seen little UV sterilizing cabinets used. Each class has one of those for tooth brushes, and all the students go and clean up after meals. Again, this makes so much sense for the students … especially when they're in the class all day long and they spend so much time with the single group of kids. Back home, we only had half days, so we were never there for a meal, thus I don't really know if other places would do this kind of thing. Not only do students brush teeth, but so also do many of the teachers. It's a good practice that many back home wouldn't go out of their way to do.
What's next … crayons (which may technically be called colored pencils). In each of my Haba classes each student has a set of crayons that we use for coloring, and it's not a box of crayons as we'd expect at home, but instead it's a pack of crayon-like colored pencils. Basically, there's a long stick of crayon that runs down the center of a plastic shell, and one can twist the bottom end to make more crayon come out as the end is used. In this way, the crayons are protected from breakage, and the kids don't get quite as messy when coloring. I think it's a pretty sweet system. Each student's pack also has a different theme … like one boy may have Power Rangers on his, while a different child may have Hello Kitty on hers. Each pack somas with nearly the exact same set of colors (and I even bought one for myself … so I'm going over it right now): brown, black, purple, blue, sky blue, green, yellow green, yellow, peach, orange, pink and red. I've also seen gold and silver in some packs. Notice that I did specifically say "sky blue" and "yellow green" because that's what many kids know those colors as. Now I remember having packs of Crayola crayons as a child, and I know that sometimes I would use the "super-duper-awesome-pack-of-more-colors-than-there-are-flavors-of-Jelly-Belly-jelly-beans" that had all the colors a kids could hope for -- and a few more, and maybe in a case like that I would differentiate between, oh, midnight blue and sky blue, but that only happened because the crayons all had labels. Without those labels providing specific direction each time I picked up one of those crayons, I'm sure I would have simply distinguished one from the other with the basic "light blue/dark blue" terms. But here, even without labels, the kids consistently use that much more specific term -- sky blue. Now maybe this seems like such a triviality, and there's really no reason for me to have spent a whole, solid paragraph (short essay?) recounting this single issue, but here's what really interests me below the surface: I find it intriguing when I bump up against something that's common knowledge here -- even if what it's based on is actually something else back home … or in a place where English is the native language.
Here's another illustration: last week during cooking we made little bread pizzas. We took sliced sandwich bread, added some pizzas sauce, threw on a couple veggies, ham and cheese and toasted it. I did manage to burn my thumb during this whole endeavor, which was such an annoyance, but all in all it was great. We only used 2 vegetables -- onions and paprika. What? Paprika's not a vegetable? Oh, that's right, I mean pepper, or green bell pepper to be more specific. Frankly, as I sit here in my apartment away from the Internet and type, I realize that I didn't look into the issue to verify that these aren't called paprika in British English, but regardless of the source, somewhere along the road many students and some Korean teachers here learned that bell peppers are called paprika. I found that very interesting. A little bit of my wanted to let the students still call the peppers paprika, but I quickly got over that impulse. When we covered the ingredients, we definitely called them bell peppers. I'm excited to keep encountering these little things, and I'll try to pass them along as I find more.
Something else: air conditioning. First, if you were to visit this area, I'm not sure if people would know what you're talking about if you said air conditioning or simply AC. When in these parts, you should always say "Air Con." That's the one and only name I've heard for air conditioning since I've been here. At first I thought it was a brand name for the wall unit, but I've come to realize that that's simply what AC is called here. Remember that for your next trip to Korea ;). Also, I find this interesting: I haven't gone to many places yet that had a central air system (I'm sure those are used in bigger buildings, but I just haven't spent much time in those). Most places I've visited (my motel room, school classrooms, my apartment bedroom, restaurants, etc) have wall-mounted air con machines. In school, both at Haba and Oedae, there are a number of remotes that will work with any of the Air Con machines, and these units are easily turned on or off as the temperature in the room dictates. At Oedae, because teachers visit multiple rooms among the different floors, each teacher actually has one remote assigned to him/her, such that, for example, when I first arrive each day, I'll grab my remote, and it will accompany me to my classes. Usually I start the air con in my first class, but in the others, the machine is already running, and the class is nice and cool. Now, I don't actually know how energy efficient it is to use this system throughout the building, but in a more practical day-to-day way, it seems pretty efficient -- when I go into a room and need to cool it down, I use the air con, but when I'm finished with that room or I don't need the cold any longer, I can simply stop the flow. It seems to make sense to me, really.
This last one may not be true for all of Korea, but in my experience with a half dozen of these, it's always held true, therefore I believe that: all elevator buttons respond more quickly in Korea than they do in America. haha. But seriously, you know how sometimes you step into an elevator (I did this a lot during my last year in GR because of my job at Van Andel where I'd go up and down elevators a dozen times or more each day), and because you're in a hurry you press the "close doors" button, and it still seems to take ages (truly, milliseconds) for the doors to actually close? Yeah, that doesn't happen here. Here, you step into an elevator, push the button and *bam* the doors slam shut … or at least they actually close then. There was one day that some other teachers started to go up, and I tried to slip in before the doors shut, but I couldn't make it, and I was a little afraid that the doors might just crush my arm, so I quickly gave up and used the stairs. Ultimately, it was for the better. This is, of course, such a minor point … but isn't it usually those seemingly insignificant details that make the difference and the sell? Yes, that is why I shared this with you -- so that you might revel with me each and every time the elevator actually listens to and follows my command. Ah, so wonderful. haha.
Ok, part of the reason it's taken me so long to write this message is that each time I sit down to spew forth these interesting tidbits, I've encountered that age-old rhetorician's bane -- writer's block. I've tried to jot down notes when I encountered something, but I've exhausted all those things either here or in a previous email, so I'll leave you for today with a couple things from this past weekend: my most significant purchases since arriving and a cool trip I took on Sunday.
As of today (and yesterday, technically) I became the proud owner of a brand new refrigerator! Yes! The (now) old fridge in my apartment was a sorry excuse for a fridge because it could hardly hold condiments, some beverages and leftovers … let alone any real food, so I bit the bullet and bought a brand new machine. I made the purchase yesterday, and it arrived today around lunchtime (and right now it's post-dinnertime), so I have already let it cool down and switched over all of my food. I'm pretty stoked for this new addition to my place because now I can actually make food and store it. And especially for any of you who've lived with me or eaten with my, I tend to make large meals, so having room for leftovers is a must. As well as plenty of space for soup. haha. Yes! Not only did I get the new fridge this weekend, but I also finally made a real shopping trip to the "farmers' market." Really, there's one street where a bunch of local farmers (I assume they're farmers, at least) set up stalls and sell fresh fruit, veggies, eggs, meat, plants and a host of other goods. On Saturday I stopped by there and bought some food from the woman on the corner. It was such a great experience because I went there with about ₩25,000 (won ~$25), and I wanted to just pick up a few things. I started with 3 carrots (by the way, these carrots are huge … so think of your average carrot back home and triple/quadruple the thickness), and as the woman packed up the carrots, she added a bunch of peppers to the bag as well. As it turned out, that was the theme of my shopping with her. I asked for one thing, and she gave me that and more, and it was all really reasonably priced. I ended up spending only ₩15,000, and I walked away with carrots, red and green hot peppers, green peppers, vidalia onions, green onions, fresh garlic, a cucumber, 2 egg plants, potatoes, and a head of cabbage. Bam. Exactly. That's shopping at its finest. So I think that many of those things plus that really expensive beef I bought a while back are gonna become a great soup within the next few days. And now I need not fear making too much soup at once! Oh, which reminds me, in addition to the fridge, I also bought a bunch of new food storage containers. Whew. I'm very proud of all the things I can keep food in. Does that make me a little lame? Nope. haha.
Ok, on Sunday I went with Dianne to a tea shop outside of the city. It ended up being about ½ an hour away, and after we left the city, the view was gorgeous. I don't know how often I've said this before now, but Korea is a beautiful country -- especially when you get outside the city and see the more rural area. From my past experiences, I could only compare the scenery to something I'd expect from Appalachia, and that's part of the States I like a lot. Thus on this short trip there were lots of hills and forested areas and just beautiful things to see. I didn't take many pictures of this simply because (a) my ability to capture things while moving in a car is absolutely terrible and (b) a picture definitely would not do justice to what was actually there. Anyway, in the midst of this wondrous area was a small place off the beaten path. The tea shop is run by a woman and her daughter, and they serve only green tea, and it's a very traditional tea experience. When we first arrived we sat at a low table that had been made from part of a tree. We actually sat on mats next to the table because it's not high enough off the ground for feet or legs underneath it, so we each sat cross-legged next to the table. After we sat down, the daughter served tea for us the first time, so that we'd know how to do it ourselves, and then we spent time drinking tea, eating green tea rice cake and chatting. Dianne didn't think that they grew the tea themselves, but wherever it came from, it was possibly the best tea I've ever had. And I don't think my opinion is biased from the experience at all -- it was just that good. As many of you know, I am a sucker for sweet things; I pretty much only have sweet teeth in my mouth, and I don't ever remember straight tea ever being this sweet and pleasant before. Granted, I do primarily drink black teas, but still, the times I've had a green tea have never left as favorable an impression as this experience. After we finished we walked around the grounds a little bit and into a small shop where the family also sells some tea-related and other things. I saw traditional Korean womens' shoes for the first time and a bunch of pottery and tea sets around this little house, and it was pretty cool. All in all, this was a great experience, and it was a perfect way to spend a relaxing Sunday!
Much love to you all.
pfn,
bg
ps- If you want to see some updated shots, please visit:
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