Anna and Acupuncture

I have a sixth grade student who's name is Anna.  On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, her class is the last one that I teach and she's the only one in it, so lately, instead of doing book work, which is what I do all day, we talk to each other.  I figure, the ability to have a conversation in English is more important than anything she'll learn in a book, and she does need to work on this ability, so it's ok.  I also really enjoy talking to her.  She's taught me quite a bit about Korean culture just by telling me about her family and friends and public school life.
As I've mentioned, I haven't been feeling great lately.  With the help of a co-teacher I made it to a doctor who told me I have bronchitis and gave me some midications for it.   Around that time, Anna told me about a traditional medicine clinic that she goes to pretty often.  She didn't know the terms for it, but she explained that they treat people by using acupuncture and herbs (I, of course, taught her the terms... see, she's learning).  And by her description, the doctor at this place sounded like a miracle worker.  She said that he could identify a person's ailment just by taking their pulse.  Moreover, she claims that, with acupuncture, this doctor cured her pink eye overnight!  I was flabbergasted.  But I also knew that Anna can be somewhat dramatic, as middle school girls tend to be. Still, I'd always been a little bit interested in acupuncture, so I decided I needed to check this place out for myself. 
Saturday I got myself out of bed and scooted off to Kim's Traditional Medicine Clinic (or something like that).  The first thing I noticed coming in the door, as Anna had said I would, was the smell.  This place had a great herby-earthy smell.  It confirmed that I was actually in the right place since I hadn't seen the sign on my way in.  The receptionists, after I explained, with actions, that I wanted to have the acupuncture treatment, directed me to the doctor's office.  The doctor, who was very nice and spoke English quite well, asked me what I wanted treatment for (unfortunately not proving Anna's first claim to be true), but then did also take my pulse, and explained that if I were to do the acupuncture and take the taditionaly medicine that he'd give me, I wasn't allowed to also take the 'western medication' that I had gotten from the other doctor.  I said that was fine with me, so they brought me to another room, sat me on a table, and put eight small needles in me.  I hardly felt them go in.  I sat there for ten minutes, they took the needles out, handed me a packet of herbs and I was on my way.  It all took 30 minutes and only cost me five bucks!  How did I feel? Well, I know the placebo effect is pretty powerful, and I might have just been feeling happy about how cheap it was, but either way, I felt pretty good afterwards.  And now, two days later, I feel like I'm just about back to 100%.  Whether it was the acupuncture and herbs or not, I'm glad I did it.

Now two quick stories that either show that Koreans are really nice, or that foreigners get away with a lot here.  After the acupuncture place on Saturday, I joined Alisa and our co-teacher Roman at an indoor rock climbing wall downtown that they had been to before.  The wall is small and only meant for bouldering (climbing low enough that you don't need a harness), but still a cool find for Pohang.  We introduced ourselves to the korean guy who was there and after asking us a couple of questions asked us if we wanted to join him and his friend at the very large outdoor rock wall down the road by the river.  We did of course, so we drove down there, they set up the ropes for us (which requires climbing up without a top rope but instead clipping the rope in as you go up), they let us climb for a good long time, and they didn't charge us a thing.  They just seemed happy to do it for us.  Pretty cool.
The other story is about my fridge.  Last week I decided that the ice in my freezer was getting to be too much.  So I started chipping away at it with a small knife when, accidentally, the sharp end of my knife punctured the flimsy wall of the freezer as well as one of the freon tubes.  Before I knew it, potentially dangerous gas was leaking into my fridge. (I've looked it up online and some sites say that freon is dangerous to breath while others dissagree. But they all agree that it's bad for the ozone layer. I'm not feeling any ill side effects.)  I didn't really know what to do so I left my fridge closed and opened my windows.  At school I told my director about my situation.  He called my apartment host who took my fridge that night and gave me a better one the next day for no cost.  (Moral of the story: If you're teaching in Korea and don't like something in your apartment, break it and ask your director for a new one.  Just joking.  Moral of the story: don't use a pointy object to clear the ice out of your freezer.)

Thanks for reading,
Michael