- Firstly ill show you some pictures of the latest beach ive been too. This one is far closer to Jinju, only 40 mins away. Its called Samcheonpo. Not nearly as big as Busan, but a beach none-the-less, and with a sun that is more than strong enough to burn this fair skinned boy. Water here was actually really nice, unlike Busan which was frigid.
- Had the most uncomfortable situation this week where one of my female students allegedly said something bad about/to me. I had no idea what she said but her friends reaction suggested it wasnt very good. Next thing I know I can hear her getting caned and berated from the next room, and her classmates are in the hall looking back into the class in shock. She came into the teachers room to apologise to me, in absolute tears and under clear distress. She gets chewed out by the 4 teachers in the room while she stands there head bowed. Im sitting there wondering what the hell is going on and could i please leave the room. So uncomfortable. Then my English co-teacher who is the teacher all the kids fear walks in and finds out what happened. The situation then went from bad to worse. It felt like a was watching a movie where there was an English spy who had been caught by Asian police and he was getting harshly interogated. It was dead silence broken up by periods of yelling and screaming from the 2 male teachers. Even I was scared. I then heard my teacher open a desk draw and I had images running through my head of the Asian police searching through his desk for the instrument or tool that can inflict the most pain and torture. This was then followed by the most akward conversation where my co-teacher translated between the student and I saying she was sorry, what do you think of her?, what did she say?, do you feel anything about this student? and all I could say was "I accept her apology, I dont know what she said" which I did say about 8 times. Finally after about 25 minutes it was over. I dont think shes gonna say a bad word about anyone for the next 15 years. It was just so akward because I dont know what she said and she got the crap beaten out of her.
On the lighter side of school children canings I walked into the yard of my school on Friday via the High School yard (often the Middle and High schools are on the same property) and saw a student in the push up position but with his arse raised higher in the air then normal. He was at the entrance to the school - not out the back or to the side - you couldnt be in a more clear or obvious view. There was also a pretty solid line of students next to him and a teacher with a massive stick in his hands. Didnt take me long to figure out what was going on and sure enough the kid copped an absolute hiding on his arse from the teacher. The teacher wasnt holding back and it looked like he was wielding a baseball bat. I didnt want to be in that line. Such a good impression to be showing visitors to the school.
- I had the pleasure (no not really) of eating dog for the first time this week. Yes thats right dog (I had to ask my teacher 3 times as well, "So, D, O, G, DOG?"). Now my thoughts on it are I dont have a fundamental problem with eating dog - we eat other animals, and why should I feel any better or worse for eating this one - but I tend to think that if given the option of eating dog or, say, eating pork, why not just eat the pork?. I mean, eat dog if your desperate and have nothing else, but when chicken and beef are readily available and cheap, just go with them. We ended up having Dog Soup, and I have to say, it really wasnt very enjoyable. The meat was just meat, it had been cooked for so long that it tasted like any meat thats been cooked and tenderised for hours. Cant really give you a description of what it tasted like, other than there was tonnes of fat and it definately DIDNT taste like chicken. But as with many soups, the taste doesnt come from the meat but from the 82 ingredients in the soup, and it just wasnt a nice soup. Only one I havent really enjoyed over hear. I did enjoy having my principle and his assistant pour me Soju while at lunch though (Soju = Korean Sweet Potato Alcohol (Very similar to vodka) but half the alcohol content). The biggest problem with the meal though was this; you know how when you go to some seafood resturants they have fish tanks out the from to display the fish and lobsters, etc and you can choose which lobster you want to eat? Well at this resturant they took you out the back to a small kennel and you got to choose which dog you wanted to eat. Well, no, not really, that didnt happen. Sorry.
- Its election time in Jinju and I have a short video of what its like to see Koreans campaign. This doesnt truly capture what these people are like. Now this definately is no catchy slogan - ie "Kevin 07" - mixed with some talk about policy - this is a full fledged attack on the people of Jinju for their vote. For at least a month, nearly every single street corner has been taken over by volunteers for each candidate that dance the macerana, the hokey pokey, and the tutti frutti for HOURS on end. Nearly allways with loud techno music. The more subdued people wave, bow and shake their wobble boards, again, for hours on end. The acutal candidate will be out the front bowing and waving at absolutely every car that drives by. Not a car is spared. They literally bow 4,000 times an hour and wave every second that they arent bowing. Sometimes they stand in the back of a converted van and yell and scream whatever it is they are gonna do while there is chants and music going on in the background. Truly bizzare stuff. Not nearly as bizzare as the volunteers though, who I reckon are there all day long. The theory with campaigning must be "be as loud and obnoxious as possible" because there isnt anything subtle about it. It also always seems to be a competition and as soon as one group tries something different, the other group needs to move quickly to match. For example, if one street corner stated going with a "wave to the left, wave to the right, then go with a YMCA motion for 10 seconds" you can be sure the group on the next intersection will be doing the same thing within 5 minutes. In This video they are pretty subdued except for the candidate who is giving the "peace" sign and looks more than a little inebriated to me. Also notice the dude in the green shirt who is "co-ordinating" the kooks, er.... i mean volunteers with his whistle.
- Finally, here is a tasty little treat for you. We had a camera crew come out to one of the schools recently. They made a news report that i think was aimed at getting the school more funding or something like that. Its good to see what the teachers and students and the school looks like over here. Its also good to see a monotoned and clearly out-of-place Westerner speak for about 2 seconds right at the end. Hey, they wanted to leave the viewer with a good impression right?
robbo you're a celebrity!
ReplyDeletei love your blog, v funny and interesting. you write really well too... it is providing me with hours of procrastination material. cheers for that
love from jane (and josh)