Food Etiquette, revisited

Since my first post on food etiquette in Korea, I've made a couple more mistakes that may be of note... I'm just telling myself that these are useful rules to know and that even if I think they're odd, adhering to them is cultural capital and a win-win for my homestay family and me.

from Wikipedia

1. Don't eat 김 without rice.

김, or kim, is dried seaweed. It's a common side dish in Korea, Japan (nori), and Taiwan (紫菜, although my family calls it nori, too). While some people unfamiliar with the taste may raise their eyebrows at the idea of eating seaweed, I've grown up eating this stuff and, if I'm in the mood, simply eat it like chips.

It was my host mother who first told me, however, that one does not eat kim by itself. You must eat it with rice. ("But it's so good! And white rice is so bland and carby!" I think. Oh well.) Because it's easy enough to greatly reduce the ratio of rice to kim, this isn't really a problem at all.

2. Keep your soup bowl on the right.

Some kind of soup (국/soup, 죽/porridge, 찌개/stew or 탕/also soup) is an essential at every Korean meal. It's not Korean if it doesn't include something delicious (and often spicy) in a bowl. Why keep it on the right? I don't know. 그냥.

3. Don't read at the dining table.

In fact, don't do anything at the table while eating except eat. My own mother used to be particular about this: no phones or electronics allowed at dinner. The same holds true for my host mother, who daily tells my host brother to put away his cell phone and stop playing the new fad game app of the week during meals. But when I was told to put my book (I mean Kindle, but whatever) away, I was actually the only one at the table, eating a late breakfast by myself. That left me kind of awkwardly bored for the remainder of my meal.

The way I make sense of this is by observing how absurdly quickly most Koreans around me tend to eat. Mealtimes can be long because there's a lot of food available (four-course meals are standard at most restaurants I've been to), but the food itself is scarfed down in no time at all. That said, something as time-consuming as reading a book not only leaves food uneaten, it also allows it to grow cold before it is consumed, and if that's not an insult to the person who prepared it for you, then I don't know what is.

(Well, except I do know many things that could be considered worse faux pas at the Korean dining table, only I haven't committed them and do not intend to, ever. If I accidentally make more gaffes, I'll be sure to document them!)

P.S. There's been wintry precipitation all over the peninsula today. As I sat in my office looking at a calm gray sky, I noticed my Fulbright peers' Facebook status updates announcing snow, freezing rain, and even some thunder and lightning. Way down south in Changwon, we only got rain for most of the evening -- and I came home pretty drenched. But my host mother just went outside and announced that it snowed! For all of like five minutes. And it has all melted now. My hopes are that it'll fall and stick at least once before I leave for winter break, but if it doesn't, I'm cool with that, too.

블루베리 - Blueberry

동글동글 (donggeul donggeul), a cute Korean phrase used to describe round things.

A blueberry tart at benybeny, a cafe located near the Junam Reservoir. Everything there is extremely expensive, but this tasted amazing. 베니베니 카페에서 모든 굉장히 비싸는데 이 블루베리 타르트가 맛있었네요! I can tell I'm going into winter hibernation mode because my cravings for chocolate and other sweet desserts has increased tenfold in the past week. Uh oh!

푸에치!

The disadvantages of having to teach when you've caught a cold (감기) include being unable to think on your feet quick enough, breaking out into cold sweats (식은땀) in the middle of your overheated office (교무실), and having your students not take you very seriously because you are noticeably loopier than usual and forget items you need for class three times in one period. Heck, even you can't take yourself seriously because you've already sneezed all over your pants once.

One advantage of being sick a miserable in front of an audience of Korean students, however, is that at least one of them will take pity on you and draw you this.

푸에치 is the Korean equivalent of "Achoo!" I'm totally keeping this forever. Look at my shiny bow tie. Look at it, I tell you!

주남저수지철새축제 - Junam Reservoir Migratory Bird Festival

Although I got off to a late start this morning due to 늦잠 (neutjam/oversleeping), I still consider today to have been a full and fun one. I went with my friend 은진 to the Junam Reservoir, a wetland, nature preserve, and park located north of Changwon for the 5th annual Migratory Bird Festival.

Let's break this down: 주남저수지철새축제

주남 - Junam, the name of the reservoir and wetland

저수지 - jeosuji, a reservoir

철 - cheol, season/seasonal

새 - sae, a bird

축제 - chukje, a festival

Junam Reservoir with some egrets, some swans, some cormorants, and a lot of dead-looking reeds.

Birdwatching (들새 관찰/deulsae gwanchal) is not particularly a hobby (취미/chuimi) of mine, but my homestay parents encouraged me to go. Although they disliked the idea of the festival itself (because, as my homestay mother insisted, the masses of people that flock to the reservoir frighten and endanger the birds themselves), they said I'd be able to get pretty photos of the reservoir, and maybe even see something like this.

Well, I didn't, but that's quite all right. It was a lovely, if cold, afternoon, and there were lots of interesting things to see in addition to many beautiful birds. There were swans (고니/goni), mallards (청둥오리/cheongdong ori), egrets (백로/baengno), geese, cormorants, ducks, and many more whose names I totally do not remember. Aside from waterfowl, there was a row of tents that had more exotic birds like budgerigars, parakeets, and an African gray parrot (like Alex!)

Yo, birds are gorgeous. How is thing even an animal and not like... a work of art?

By edface.

There was one event where kids (and adults too, I guess) were allowed to catch a bunch of Barboach -- I mean, loaches (미꾸라지/mikkulaji) from a giant tank. I was under the impression that we were catching them in order to feed them to some birds, and thus I felt a little bit bad about it. As it turns out, however, we were to catch them simply to set them free in some muddy ponds... maybe the birds just weren't around? Regardless, it felt stupid but also nice to let the fish go.

Some other stray attractions: donkey-drawn carriages and solar-powered carriages (because this is Environmental Capital Changwon, of course), huge pinwheels, and about a dozen super intense bird photographers whose telephoto lenses were larger and longer than my arm.

Yup, caught a bunch of Barboach. I'm gonna teach them Earthquake. (Korean name: 미꾸라지, and I have eaten them before.)

It was cold, and more than once I registered that yes, it really is December already, how odd. But that didn't prevent us from having a great time. It was a nice part of a chill weekend, and maybe next year I'll be able to see more awesome flying bird formations? Maybe? Okay, photo dump!

A potter (도공/dogong) teaching a Korean kid (they're the cutest) his artisanry. (Yes, Blogger, that is totally a word.)

은진 하고 안성

Solar-powered rickshaw. Three cheers for green energy! (친환경 에너지원/chinhwangyeong energy-won)

Beast photographers, stealthily camouflaged (위장/wijang)

Eunjin amongst perfectly golden hour reed-ish plants.

NaNoWriMo: Conquered!

Thirty days ago, I started co-writing a novel with my friend Sara. Yesterday, said novel surpassed the fifty-thousand word goal for National Novel Writing Month. We won!

It was somewhere between nine and ten-o'-clock in the evening, Seoul time, when I checked the word count on the Google doc we were using, and it clocked in at somewhere around 52,000. I have to admit I felt pretty good about it. Technically, I only wrote about 25,000 words in the span of thirty days, but I have to remind myself that even that's an achievement. I may not have written as much as the other thousands of Nano winners this year (so that's why I'm not going to display my winner's web badge or anything), but the important thing is that Sara and I set our own goal, and we reached it. High fives from halfway across the world are in order, I think.

Our novel is still unfinished, actually. We hit the fifty-thousand mark right at what I would consider to be the climax of our story, when our two protagonists meet unexpectedly manner in a park in the city. But I'll be honest, I don't know what happens next. We've written the book in a rather unconventional manner; each chapter alternated between Sara's character's point of view and my character's world. It's almost like two different plots taking place in the same book, and we never had time to sit down and think about how, when, and why they would finally collide.

But this is all perfectly fine, since NaNoWriMo is really more about quantity than quality. How often do you hear that about creative endeavors? I love it. Sara and I are going to continue working on this novel, although now at a less breakneck pace, and when it's finally done and titled, maybe I'll share it with you all. But now: time for celebratory dance gifs!

And... happy first day of December! T-22 days until I'm home for winter break!

More Drafts

I had to deal with a case of cheating today. Fortunately, it went as smoothly as I could have hoped for! Here's what went down:

My students are writing reports on their scientific research (Research and Education project, or R&E) that they must present in an oral exam styled after speech-giving. We've been working on this for the past five weeks, actually: the result of my seeing each class only once a week, plus the massive amounts of free work time I gave them, because I wanted these speeches to be as perfect as possible. Well, I shouldn't have been surprised that some students still had very little to work with after a month, and accordingly, some of the speeches have been horrendous. Others have been absolutely perfect, which brings me joy.

But one student in particular, who will remain anonymous, showed essentially no effort. He handed in a first draft that was just a few sentences, and didn't bother to hand in a second draft. Two weeks later, he had his speech test, and stumbled through it, not really having memorized whatever was on his paper. And it was when he turned in this paper, the third and final draft, that I noticed something was up.

The final draft the student handed me was written in nearly impeccable English and I instantly suspected (more like knew) that the student had not written it. Or if he had, then he had to have written it in Korean and had someone else translate it. What I read simply could not have been produced by this student, a hunch I confirmed when I asked my co-teacher, and she said that this student normally had extremely low scores in her class.

We briefly discussed what we should do, and we knew we had to confront this directly. My co-teacher said, "You know, if this makes you uncomfortable, just know that it makes me uncomfortable, too." There are two things I'm sure you all know by now: grades in the Korean education system are the Most Important Thing, and parents can be insane. In extreme cases, the opprobrium a student caught cheating for good grades faces is nothing compared to the scandal churned up by the parents against the school, as if teachers are somehow responsible for students who have to resort to such measures.

In any case, we called in the suspected student, and I asked him to sit down and tried to deal with the problem as professionally as possible. I showed him his paper and asked him, "Is this your final draft?"

He knew what was up immediately. He said, "Yes, but... someone helped me to write it. But, I-"

I interrupted him. "Who helped you write it?" I asked, fearing that it might have been another student.

"My father," he replied. His face was completely expressionless, but there must have been a lot going on behind it. "He is a teacher at hagwon."

"Well, your father has very good English," I said, relieved, "but this is not good. I want you to write another speech, by yourself. And you will give your speech again, next week. Do you understand?"

He understood. In fact, he told me that he had already begun to write another speech. I let him go, and when the door closed behind him, my co-teacher (who had been in the room, watching and listening) chuckled. She said he looked so cute when he confessed. We were both glad that it didn't turn into anything uglier. I mean, part of me really wants to call up the student's father and chew him out for what he did, but I'm going to let it slide. He's going to be punished enough by the points deduction; in fact, both of them are being punished by this, in a sense. And this way, I was able to give him a second chance.

- - -

So, just because they fit thematically, and because I'll never get around to posting them otherwise, here are some choice excerpts from my students' first drafts. They're funny. (And they've all improved dramatically since.) Enjoy.

#1: First, make a box
There are so many surface structures such as honey comb, lotus leaf, etc... and it's very useful in many ways. In order to research about this, we made some surface structure by chemical experiment. We'll test many things. Materials: Many types of polymers, water. Method: First, make a box in which we will do experiment [...]

#2: We meet propessal (professor)
Title: "beams go down and Tables go down with Glass" -- we start our R&E since September. We already study force's blance. I will explain go down, beams, go down is [Korean] beams is [Korean] our R&E which search go down table with glass we studied material physics to reaseach and we meet propessal. We don't finish experiment. so we don't have data. Our R&E find out Glass and table is go down when our R&E finish, the table which have glass on elastic is not important

#3: We've released a lot of chlorine when junior tied the goat (The Google Translate Essay)
Title: "English Speech Drart1" -- The angle at which the subject of my math R&E traces of the endpoint of the segment under study for a change. In this study, we've released a lot of chlorine when junior tied the goat comes from the problem of saving the trace to move. Moons of the planets also orbiting around the planet and at the same time orbiting around the Sun when I was wondering about what draws the traces. Research first, computer programs to obtain a graph satisfies the condition. [...] Three ways to save a relationship with us through trillion, depending on the ratio of the segments of the expression cos values yielded different anchor points increases, the coefficient in front of the cos value has changed.

#4: Last but not least, the one that was handed in to me entirely in Korean.

I don't know, A for Affort, I guess?

Admissions Exams for CSHS

I posted the following on my Facebook about a week ago:

First round of admissions results for my high school came out today. 285 middle schoolers applied for 96 spots, and today 50% of them got cut. My host mother has told me that the announcement page has racked up nearly 6,500 views in the two hours since it's been posted...

It's safe to say that the competition for admission into the high school where I teach is fierce. It is one of only two science high schools in this entire province (although are more in the Busan metropolitan area, which is technically not part of the province). It just so happens that the other science high school, located in Jinju, is the most respected science high school in the country, while mine is one of the newest and doesn't really have a reputation yet. A fellow Fulbright teacher, Ryan, teaches at the science high school in Jinju. I like how that makes us rivals!

Anyway, as I mentioned in the previous post, the admission interviews for the middle school students who want a spot in the incoming freshman class took place yesterday and the day before. It was two grueling days of interviews: the first was an oral exam to test their math and science know-how, and the second was an interview geared toward their character. Of the 130 students who were selected for interviews, exactly 80 will be offered admission (28% of applicants).

Having come from the public school system, I knew I'd be in for a few surprises as I got to know the system. It seems so similar to the hyper-competitive college admissions process. Everything is highly confidential; my co-teacher couldn't tell me what the questions of her interview were until they were all over. Even so, I do recall the teachers who were in charge of creating the questions on the math and science portion of the interview holding an urgent meeting on Monday to finalize (or come up with?) the exam content.

What surprised me the most was the helicopter parenting. Obviously, the middle school student applicants' parents were very keen on having their child do as well as possible on the interviews. How that translated to the parents' intent to hang around campus literally all day as they waited for their brainiac child, I don't know. I saw parents napping in idling cars (so wasteful!) and others standing in small groups by the school's entrance gates, just looking intently at the building. I really couldn't fathom why they didn't just go to work. My co-teacher said that it was a similar situation to the day of the 수능, when some parents hold onto the bars of a school's gate and pray for the entire nine-hour duration of the exam.

Nevertheless, I'm kind of second-handedly excited about the exams, because in about a week, I will know the exact makeup of the new first-year class that I will teach next semester! I'm sure they'll be bright, although I know now what to expect of their actual English levels. My co-teacher also says that due to the fact that middle school students can only apply to one specialized high school, the best of the best of the best all take their chances with the science high school in Jinju, and our school attracts what you might call the second tier. Well, to that I say: no big deal! I'm already looking forward to it.

An Empty Week

My host parents are listening to instrumental Christmas music and looking at old family photos in the living room. It's so cute! And I would join them, but I have a few thousand words left to write for Nanowrimo (having lowered my personal goal to 30,000) and only a few days left to do so.

Speaking of Christmas (성탄절/sungtancheol, or just 크리스마스), I maybe lied when I said the weather was getting colder. Or, at least, today proved me completely wrong. It was about as cold as a California winter today (which is to say, magnificently warm). Maybe God just wanted me not to complain so much. But honestly, it was really nice. 따뜻한 날씨를 좋아해요!

On the other hand, what's not so nice is the fact that I've been stuck in my gyomushil (교무실/teacher's office) literally all day for the past two days, and will be again tomorrow, even though I'd love to just chill outside or in a park somewhere. My school basically shut down for two days while a hundred-something middle school third-year students came for their admission exams and interviews (면접/myeonjeob, or just 이터뷰). It's serious business, one that I'll describe in more detail later.

In any case, all classes were canceled (the students had to stay in the study rooms all day for two days; my deepest sympathies go out to them), every other teacher was busy administering interviews, and I had about eighty persuasive essays to correct. Aside from the Buzzfeed breaks, it has not been a terribly interesting or fulfilling two days. And tomorrow, since my new(est) schedule has left me with a free Thursday, I guess I'll be doing more of the same. So by the end of this week, I will have taught only four classes; two on Monday and two on Friday, and all four periods taken up completely by speaking tests. I can't actually remember the last real lesson I taught. Goodness.

Well, who ever said teaching would always be crazy and fun? Sometimes you hit unexpected doldrums, and you've just got to keep paddling.

I'm going to leave you with a (only vaguely related) Korean proverb (속담/sokdam) that my host mother told me a while back, for a reason I can no longer remember:

똥을 밟으면 재수가 좋다.
Ddongeul palbeumyeon jaesuga cho'da.
If you step in dung, you will have good luck.

And I have no freaking clue what this website is, but it looks suspiciously like a collection of proverbs, all related to poop and (or in?) dreams. "Restroom Proverbs". Korea, I'm mystified. Please explain.

The Ginkgoes Away

Ginkgo trees near my apartment, blazing yellow in autumn. (I took this photo on my cell phone!)

For the past few weeks, up until now, I've been meaning to go around the city, maybe even check out the local mountains, in order to take photographs of the amazing display of autumn foliage here in Changwon. There were innumerable ginkgoes and Korean maples which made the tree-lined boulevards in this city look like long halls in a palace trimmed with crimson and gold. Alas, I never actually got around to those photo shoots, and with December just days away, I'm afraid that all the leaves have dropped to the ground by now. Most of the deciduous trees I see on my daily commute have been left naked, dark, and spindly, as if the fiery fall colors literally burned away, leaving charred skeletons behind. And along with the loss of fire comes the loss of heat and warmth. It has definitely gotten cold here. As much as I look forward to the changing of seasons (I'm hoping it'll snow at least once in Changwon), a part of me yearns for summer again, back when everything was so fresh and new. This city is still beautiful, though. I really ought to show you sometime.

Small Talk

During lunch and the occasional dinner at school, more often than not I opt to sit and eat with my students in the cafeteria. Usually, I just grab my tray, look for an empty seat, and sit down, to the surprise of the students already at the table. They are always surprised by this, as if three months of making this into a habit hasn't really sunk in for them yet.

Unfortunately, I am a rather slow eater, and this means that I'm usually one of the last people left in the cafeteria. Some students feel obligated to sit with me until I finish, nudging their leftovers around their bowls and kinda-sorta participating in conversation with me while they wait. I've found that the female students are generally more willing to chat, and they ask me about my high school and college experiences, among other things. I really enjoy discovering what my students are thinking, or at least what they are thinking that is within the scope of their English abilities to articulate.

But the other day I was eating dinner at school when my young table-mates all excused themselves at the same time to go play badminton or something. I thought that I'd be left to finish my rice alone, when two second-year male students came into the cafeteria. It was pretty late, and I wondered if they'd been studying (or sleeping in the study room) for so long that they missed the dinner bell or something. I motioned to them to come join me, and then began the typical small talk.

But in my effort to make conversation, I ended up with the following exchange:

The student who loves yogurt.

Me: JH, what were you doing just now?
JH: Hm?
Me: What were you doing before you came to dinner? Why are you late?
JH: Oh... I was... taking poop.
Me: What?
JH: Poop.
Me: Oh! Okay, sorry I asked.
JH: Slowly, and carefully.
Me: Okay! That's good, that's enough. (thinking: Let me eat, please!)

JH laughed, and his friend laughed, and I finished my dinner, and then JH's friend proceeded to eat six cups of yogurt while we sat in a nearly-empty cafeteria and talked about things other than poop.

Moral of the story: so maybe I don't always want to know what my students are thinking! But regardless, it's endearing.