This weekend was a good one.  On Friday I went to a Samgyepsal (pork) restaurant with some friends, and then we headed to... the Live Jazz Bar!  Now, Pohang certainly doesn't have the reputation that Seoul, Busan, or even Daegu has.  It's smaller and it's dominated by Posco, the huge steel factory that pollutes our air and water.  Changsong-dong, the neighborhood where we live is somewhat trashy - meaning there's lots of garbage on the ground, everywhere.  And I've even heard of Pohang being referred to as the armpit of Korea.  But despite these things, this city has slowly been growing on me more and more.  One reason for this is that there are these cool little spots in the area that I find quite interesting, cultural, or homely - like Jukto Market, or Bogyeongsa, or Bukbu beach, or Tilt, or the Live Jazz Bar!.  The Live Jazz Bar is a small bar on the third floor of one of the many multi-storied-multi-purposed-multi-business buildings in that line the streets and that I find characterize Korean cities well. 

This is a pretty good example

The lighting in the Live Jazz Bar is cozy; we sat on tall comfortable dinning chairs; and we were only one of two groups of people in there.  Then, around a quarter to ten, four guys stepped onto the small stage and started playing really good jazz music.  I've never really gotten into jazz, but whenever I hear it, it always reminds me of driving home at night - it's a good, comfortable feeling.  And these were good musicians, which doesn't really surprise me given most Koreans' talent for music.  One guy played the keyboard, another was on a smaller electric guitar, another played the saxophone, and the fourth, the owner of the bar, played a big bass Cello.  I'm not a musician at all so I'm usually quite mesmerized by people who can play a musical instrument well.  We sat and listened as they played for quite a while; Larina, my co-teacher who has a beautiful opera voice, was brave enough to sing for us all; and we went home having experienced another something new.

Saturday morning I was woken up by Kory, with whom I had made a scooter repair date for 9:30.  He knows a guy who fixes and sells scooters nearby and so he offered to help me take my scooter to the guy so he could take a look at it.  Which was great because Kory has a car... into which he thought we could fit the scooter somehow... and we did! somehow.  We squeezed as much of it as we could into the trunk and then with most of it hanging out, held on by bungee cords, we cautiously drove down to the scooter guy who didn't seem all that surprised by our transportation methods (We were probably not the first to move a busted scooter like that).  Well, the guy fiddled with it for a good hour, communicating with me through a friend who translated over the phone, and eventually decided that there must be something stuck inside the engine which would mean it would have to be disassembled.  That would have taken some time and money, and I had gone into the situation with the idea that trading the scooter in for a better one would be an option.  And that's what happened.  He showed me the one that he'd be willing to trade, gave me a good price, laughed at me when I tried to barter, took my money, and that was it.  I have a new scooter!  It feels nice to have the freedom of getting around whenever I need to.
And that was just the morning.  That afternoon a group got together for some beech baseball (which I'm hoping will become somewhat of a bi-weekly tradition around here).  Baseball was fun, but it was a little too cold and we didn't have too many people, so after a while we decided to go to a game room instead.  Now, I don't think I've really written about Korean PC bongs, or Nori bongs yet, which will have to happen at some point, but something I find very unique to Korean life is the many different entertainment rooms ('bong' means room) that are found everywhere in Korea.  The place we went to was partly a nori bong (singing room) and partly a gaming bong.  So, around 20 of us just walked in to one of the rooms and played Nintendo Wii for a good 2 hours.  It's sort of crazy to me that there are these places with the sole purpose of giving groups of people a place to hang out and play video games.  But what's more was that this place was beautiful - that clearly someone had spent a lot of time designing and decorating it.  So that was fun.
That night, I joined people going to a friend's apartments where we played Apples to Apples - a good group game.  There I met a Korean guy named Moopy, who I ended up having a long and very enjoyable discussion with.  I found that him to be quite different from most Koreans that I've met, that he doesn't really follow the same cultural expectations (having to do with marriage for example) that I find others do here.  He is a very deep guy and we had a great discussion about love, religion, and life in general.  Afterwards, I went to Tilt where they had a mini dance party going and I got to dance the night away - something I've done quite a few times lately.

Sunday was the day of our first home soccer game!  After church, David, an awesome guy from South Africa, drove some of us over to Uidok University where our home games are played.  We were playing a good Busan team and I'd say our team hasn't yet reached it's full potential, so I didn't expect to win.  We didn't, win, but we played very well I thought.  We have some new guys and I have high hopes for this season.  Mostly it was just awesome to be playing soccer again.

It doesn't end there though - well, the weekend does, but the fun doesn't.  After school today I scooted over to Frank's apartment.  Frank is a guy from the upper penninsula, and one of the coolest.  He's also the king of games.  He's got lots of them.  Tonight, in his very homely apartment, he made me and 3 other friends some super burgers and then we sat down to play games.  We played two games that I've never heard of before (which isn't suprising, coming from Frank).  The first one, called "Slapshot", was made around 1983, in which each player manages it's own hockey team.  It's a simple game and very fun.  Then we played a Korean game which turned out to be very much like the card game called "President (or Butt)", which we used to play on the bus in high school.  It was another great night.

All in all, things are going well.  Summer is coming.  And someone else is coming too, but I can't talk about that yet - next week.

Thanks for reading.
Mike

The Week Mom and Dad Came

A good thing has come to an end.  My parents' visit to Pohang ended this afternoon. They took a bus to Seoul where they'll be staying until Thursday.  But it was a good thing.  It was wonderful to have them here.  It has made me feel more settled - a little more like I belong here - and that feels good.  And I think they enjoyed being here as well.
It turns out that mom and dad are more adventurous than I thought.  While I was at work during the week, they courageously braved the Pohang Public Transit System and explored the area quite extensively.  After being here for only 8 days, they've now been to a number of places that I've never been to myself.
They went downtown, to Jukto market a couple of times, which they enjoyed..

On Wednesday, they went to GyeongJu where Amber, a wonderful friend (and university professor with lots of extra time), gave them a tour...

 

And they went to Homigot, one of the most easterly points in Korea where people go to see the sunrise on New Years.  They said they enjoyed the eventful bus trip there and back more than the actual place, but at least they had a good time.  The eventful bus trip included waiting in a bus shack, on heated seats, with lots of chatty ajumas for 3/4 of an hour; a beautiful bus trip along the coast with a typical Pohang bus driver with bad driving habits; and a ride home in a taxi which they shared with a korean couple ...

And this was all done without me!  While I went off to work in the mornings, I was slightly jealous of their free time, but also glad that they were able to explore on their own.
Then on Friday, when I was finally free of work, I got to show them Tilt, the local foreigner bar.  I was able to introduce them to some of my friends and despite being a little embarrassed by Andy, the owner, who was a little drunk, we had a good time.  One of my friends, Chloe, even brought a birthday cake since it was the day before my birthday.

Then on Saturday, my birthday, we headed off to Busan.  Busan is the second largest city in Korea, it's quite a bit bigger than Toronto, and I had never been before, so I was excited for the adventure.
We first visited Beomeosa, an old and quite important Buddhist temple that is still in use. 

There we received a very happy call from Peter and Celina, my brother and sister-in-law.

From there we took the subway to Busan's busy coast, the 5th largest port in the world, where we walked around the Jagalchi fish market.  I've never seen so much fish in my life.  They had 2 large buildings with floors full of all kinds of fresh fish, dried fish, and sliced fish.  I've never been one for seafood, but this was pretty cool.

Then we subwayed over to Haeundae Beach, the most well known of Busan's beaches.  If we had come in the summer, the place would have been packed - many of my students' families spend their weekends on Haeundae Beach during the summer.  Afterwards, we took went back to the bus station and headed home, tired and content.

Yesterday it rained in the morning, the only bad weather of the week which we were thankful for.  But the rain let up in the afternoon, which was good because after church, Mr. Lee, a Korean friend who I'd met at church, was going to take us to Bogyeongsa, the nearest temple to Pohang (where I had earlier saved a woman from drowning [lest we had forgotten]).  Except, before taking us to Bogyeongsa, Mr. Lee first wanted to show us around his part of town.  He took us to a pretty nice park that I was happy to find out about, and then he invited us over to his apartment for coffee.  And, though I couldn't help but feel a little like he was 'using' us to help his family practice their English, it was nice to see the inside of his apartment and meet his wife and son.  We then finally did make it to Bogyeongsa and I was glad to be able to show it to mom and dad.  It's a beautiful temple and it's become one of my favourite places in the area. 

By then it was too late to make it to the waterfalls.  So Mr. Lee took us home and we had supper at the small soup restaurant right beside my apartment.

Today, after lunch, we said goodbye and they were off this afternoon.

For me, the highlights of my parent's visit were:
1. Eating meals with them.  Mom made a couple of super suppers, which I had been missing.  And they joined me for most of my lunch breaks so that I could show them my 2 lunchtime joints.
The buffet lady:

And 'Yabez', the small toast/gimbap place nearby:

We also went out for dinner a couple of times.  Mom really likes the open style, do-it-yourself restaurants here; dad isn't so sure he does.

2. Fixing my clogged toilet: It turned out that it wasn't ready for 2 extra people living in my apartment so it became 'jammed up' early on in the week.  I didn't have a plunger so dad and I had to temporarily steal/borrow the one from the Family Mart bathroom.  Happily, my toilets back to working order and Teagan bought me a plunger should the problem arise again.

3. Sounding out GyeongJu: dad never quite got it, along with a number of other Korean words, and I couldn't help but giggle every time.

4.  An impromptu conversation between dad and a very cute and brave Korean girl on the Busan subway:  Dad sat down beside her and, building up her courage, she boldly started a conversation with him by asked him where he was from.  I just thought it was cool that such a young girl would feel confident enough to ask a stange man of another culture a question.

5. Showing them my school and introducing them to some of my students.

6. Watching CBC news at night in my apartment.

7. Being able to hug and say goodnight to them.

It was a blessing to have them.
Thanks for reading.
Michael

Our neighbours to the east have been hit hard with an earthquake and tsunami.  If this would have happened while I still lived in North America I would have been aware of it, but it wouldn't have sunk in like it has now, being in Asia, quite close to it.  This might be the closest I've been to a large natural disaster and it's interesting to me how physical proximity makes such a difference in situations like this.  I think it's often easy to allow physical distance to be our excuse for not giving proper thought or concern for major world events.
Korea itself wasn't affected by either the earthquake or tsunami, being shielded by Japan.  But I can't help but realize that things would have been a lot different for the people of Pohang had the earthquake happened on the other side of Japan.  As it is, I'm safe, but there are thousands who are suffering not far from here.

On another note, mom and dad arrived late Saturday night and are currently asleep on my bed.  They've had a pretty busy two days so far.  Yesterday dad was the 'last minute' substitute guest pastor at my church.  He preached on the importance of drawing the line in those parts of our lives that can become too important to us.  Many people in the church, myself included, thought he did a good job.  Then, after buying some groceries, we walked to the beach.  It was a beautiful day, the nicest so far this year, so it was perfect weather for me to show them the very popular summer hangout spot for the foreigner crowd that is Bukbu Beachee (which is how it is pronounced in Korean).  We ran into a couple of my friends and then continued on to the Indian curry restaurant.  I felt a little bad about not bringing them to a more traditional Korean place on their first day, but the Indian place reminds me of Toronto and I'd wanted to go there with them at some point.  After supper we walked home and fell asleep early.
Today I met mom and dad for lunch and we went to the local Korean buffet where a busy Korean lady daily serves a variety Korean side dishes (kimchi and some things I've never seen before) as well as soup and sometimes fish, both of which I find to be the best I've ever had.  I've been going there quite often lately.  Mom and dad found it an interesting cultural experience, and didn't eat all their kimchi or funny brown things.  Tonight, the other English teachers at Poly and another local teacher joined us at a duck restaurant, which I think mom and dad enjoyed a little more.
While I was at school during the day they wandered around the area a little and also got some work done in my apartment.  Maybe tomorrow they'll venture downtown on the bus.  They're being good sports about being left alone in a foreign country for most of the day.
Having them here is great for me.  I'm very lucky to have such a loving family.

Thanks for reading,
 Michael

Family

The moon is smiling tonight.  No kidding.  It's a crescent moon, but the crescent is on the bottom of the moon, so it's as if it were smiling.  I've never seen that before.  It's possible that it doesn't happen in North America.  I don't know but I wonder what it's happy about.

My parents are coming to visit me this coming weekend! I'm very excited for it.  They're so good to me.  And this has reminded me that I've wanted to write about families, and family life in Korea, so that's what I'll do.
One very prominent way that Korea holds to Confucian values is in it's family life.  To Koreans, the family is the most important group that one is a part of.  A person's family plays a large role in their life - much larger than in western culture I would dare to say.  One particular way that I've seen this to be true has to do with the amount of influence that parents and grandparents play on their children's (even adult children's) decisions.  In conversations with a number of Korean co-teachers, I've been surprised by how much say their parents have in things like where they go to college and what job they get.  A number of times I've heard them say, "I'd like to do this, but my parents want me to do that instead."  Also, I've found it somewhat true that Koreans live with their parents longer than in western culture.  I believe that, traditionally, children continue living with their families until they get married, which (according to wikipedia) on avarage doesn't happen until they are 31.6 (for men) and 28.7 (for women) years of age.  I know a number of Koreans who are around my age and are living with their parents.
Moreover, I've found that the importance placed on family relationships includes a person's extended family.  When I ask my students what they did over the weekend, the most common answer I get is, "I visited my grandparents."  I've found that a person's uncle, aunt, and cousins are usually quite important as well.  This can be seen when almost every business closes and traffic is crazy during Korean holidays like Chuseok and Lunar New Year because everyone is visiting and spending time with their extended families.
Finally, when you think of Korean families you have to take into account that Korea's Total Fertility Rate is 1.23, which is 219th among 224 countries, according to the World Factbook.  Most families in Korea don't have more than two children.  I only know of one of my students who is in a family of three children.  I had thought there might be a limit on how many children a woman can have in Korea, but I can't find any information to support that notion.
And that's what I've found to be true about families in Korea.

As for me, I'm slowly but surely adjusting to the recent changes.  My new class has had a reputation for being a somewhat uncontrollable class, but while I have had to be much more of a disciplinarian with them than with my previous class, so far things are going much better than I'd expected.  Also, I think having a tougher class is a good challenge for me.  I'm pretty sure I was taking 'having the the best class in the world' for granted, and I forgot about what it was like to discipline.  So it's good.

And my parents are coming. Yay!
Thanks for reading.
Michael

Ps. Here is a link to a good song that I've been listening to lately.  It's by Macy Gray and it's called "Beauty in the World".  (Hopefully it'll makes you smile like the moon)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qX7ZsxD3Ik

Change

Things have changed quite dramatically at Poly School.  We have just finished the school year which means that my wonderful kindergarten class has now graduated and moved on to bigger and better things.  The kindergarten graduation was on Friday and it involved a picture slide show, a handing out of diplomas and awards, speeches by each student, speeches by the three foreign kindergarten teachers and the three Korean teachers, a speech by the director, a speech by a parent, and many emotions and some tears.  I was happy with it.  It was done well.
Here's the slide show (made by Natasha):

Afterward, parents and students came up to the classrooms and I was able to say one last goodbye, pictures were taken, gifts were given, and that was the end.  Some of my students I will see again because they will come back for elementary classes, so that's awesome.  But some of them I will not see again and that makes me sad.
Our new semester starts Wednesday (because Tuesday is a holiday, woot woot), and then I will find out who my next class will be.  I'm curious what age I'll teach.
Then we're also loosing some teachers.  Tim and Natasha have just finished their contracts.  Tim is leaving as we speak, I just heard him clomp down the stairs, and Natasha leaves tomorrow morning.  A new foreign teacher, Annalisa, arrived this week.  She's Canadian and has traveled a lot so I'm sure she's going to do a good job.  Also, four Korean teachers are leaving Poly.  We haven't met their replacements yet.
Tonight, we had a good last dinner altogether and then said goodbye.  I'll miss our group.  I liked them all and I'm never too excited for change.  Also, with Tim and Natasha leaving, I've become the second most senior foreign teacher at Poly, which is sort of different - not the newbey anymore.

And for the weekly Korean culture tidbit, I want to talk about military service in Korea.  Korea is one of only eleven countries who make military service mandatory for all males.  For a period of 21 months all Korean young men have to join one part of the military. Really, all I know about it is  from what I've read on a Korean's blog and the author, who had done his service, seemed to see it as a good life experience.  I think it's pretty interesting and it surely has an affect on the culture.  It also makes me glad I wasn't born in a country where military service is mandatory.

Tomorrow is Korean Independence Movement day where Korea celebrates gaining independence from the Japanese.  It'll be nice not to have school.  I'm hopeful that I'll be able to get the scooter fixed.

Thanks for reading.
Michael

Sports (and Extra-Curricular Activities)

It's about time I write about a very important part of any culture, Korean included: sports. 
The number one sport in Korea is soccer.  And as a pretty big soccer fan, this suits me fine.  It might have been the 2002 World Cup that was hosted by Korea and Japan, but whatever it is, soccer plays a pretty important role in the national pride and culture of Koreans.  The members of the Korean National team are quite highly regarded in their country in comparison to Canada where most people couldn't name a single player on the Canadian National team (I can maybe name 4).  Also, at least 70% of the broadcast time of two sports channels on T.V. are dedicated to soccer: mostly to the English Premier League, but also to the German Bundesliga and the Scottish Premier League.  Well actually, most of this time is spent playing and replaying and replaying the games of only a couple of the teams in these leagues - the teams that have Korean players on them.  Ask any Korean soccer fan who their favourite English Premier League team is and they'll say Manchester United (because Park Ji Sung plays for them) and Bolton Wanderers (because Lee Chung Yong plays for them). 
But soccer is a big part of Korean's every day life as well (at least if you're male).  Most of my male students have weekly soccer practices and games.  And at school, during every break, there are boys playing soccer either inside or outside.  Some of my kindergarten boys are especially fanatical about it - to the point of planning the teams for each game and then arguing later about how the teams weren't fair.  One student, Brian, sometimes has difficulty paying attention in class because he day dreams and I'm positive he's thinking about soccer.  Each week he asks me if we can play soccer in gym class.
Moreover, Futsal, the version of soccer that is played on a smaller field, is played all over the place in Korea by men of all ages.

Second in importance among sports in Korea is baseball.  I think I've mentioned in an earlier post how past Korean baseball victories over Japan are replayed over and over on T.V.  Well outside of these games and the televised Korean baseball league games, I certainly don't see as much baseball as I do soccer.  My kindergarten students have much more skill in kicking a soccer ball than throwing or catching a baseball (which is what we've been practicing in gym class lately - much to the chagrin of little Brian).  This isn't to say that it's not important though.  I recently met a Korean guy who didn't like soccer (which was shocking to me) but played baseball pretty regularly.

In third place I'm going to put Speed Skating.  If you had watched the winter olympics you might have noticed that this is the only event that Koreans really do well in.  And when I've been to the ice rink, half of the ice is devoted to little speed skating toddlers.

Honerable mentions go to figure skating, basketball, volleyball, ping-pong, and golf.  Basketball and golf especially are growing in popularity in Korea.  There's even a whole T.V. channel dedicated to women's golf.  Also, one of the new buildings built near our school is a ping-pong building, with five or six tables and usually some pretty intense looking Korean ping-pong players inside.

You'll notice that hockey isn't on this list.  That doesn't mean it's nonexistent though.  I have a chubby Grade 2 student who plays goalie for a local team.  And I've seen kids getting ready for hockey practice at the arena.  Also, I've even seen a hockey game that had made it to television worthyness.  Korea beat China pretty badly, which is a good sign, and there were maybe 25 people in the stands.  So it's there.

I should also mention Korea's national sport: TaeKwonDo.  It's a sport that I don't know the first thing about, but that is very popular in Korea.  On top of soccer, many of my students, girls included, also have TaeKwonDo practices.  But I think it's safe to say that, in Korea, it's not as gamorous as the other sports.  It might be somewhat like Sumo for the Japanese - it's very important to the culture, but it's not as noticable.  But I'm just guessing, I don't really know.

Finally, in the extra-curricular catagory, music plays a very important part in Korean culture.  Most of my students, on top of soccer and TaeKwonDo (Korean kids work hard) also take some type of music lesson - usually piano, but also some string instruments (or sometimes both).  I've never heard one of my students play a musical instrument before, but I'm pretty sure they're amazing, I'd love to see it sometime.  And this attention to music has produced another very important part of Korean culture: Kpop (look it up).

Thanks for reading.
Michael

 Pohang is getting a lot of snow as I write this.  Today we had a snow day (woot, woot) and the snow has come down steadily all day, which causes me to hope for another tomorrow.  But nothing is certain here.  I really like the snow.  I think pretty much all the schools in Pohang had a snow day today because this might be the most snow they've had in hundreds of years.  But this meant that there were children outside playing.  And I liked to see that.
  I've spent my snow day being altogether very lazy.  I took a nice nap this morning, and this afternoon Natasha and I have just been watching The Lord of the Rings, which I'd say, though lazy, is a good way to spend ones time.
  Recently, I've been thinking a little about what I will do after my contract expires in August.  In my head my options are: 1. renew my contract for another six months or a year; 2. find a new job somewhere else abroad. (I really loved Vietnam, or the newest idea is to teach in France.  I think I'd love this and now Alisa has decided that we should do it together - which would be pretty sweet I think - though we shouldn't get our hopes up - we haven't researched it yet); or 3. come home to North America.  At this point I'm not really leaning towards any of these options in particular, except for France (but I shouldn't get my hopes up).  So I'll have to give this more thought.  And if you have any wisdom on the matter, please send it my way.
  On another note, the next two weeks will be the last time that I have with my kindergarten class.  The Korean school year ends after February.  This has snuck up on me and I'm sad about it.  I think a few of my students will take Elementary classes at Poly, so I'll see them still, but many of them I'm afraid I won't see again.  I've come to really love this class and I will miss them.
  Furthermore, I've discovered another difference between Korean and North American cultures - having to do with raising children again.  What I find is that children in Korea are somewhat more independent than children in North America.  I say this because I find children here are less whiny.  Play time at Poly school is a rambunctious and loud time where our children, aged 3 to 6, have a chance to move finally and let out some steam after 4o minutes in a chair.  So our students play hard.  But what I find very little of is children coming to their teachers complaining about another student or even that they got a little bit hurt.  They seem to know that when they play that way, they also suffer the consequences.  Though this sounds like a good thing - that Korean children are more mature (which could be true in some instances) - I think it also might be due to their being raised in a much stricter environment where they aren't given an audience to complain to.  Different.
 I'm going to end this blog with an awesome quote from Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
Thank you for reading.
Michael.

"It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. Because they were holding on to something." "What are we holding on to Sam?" "That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it's worth fighting for."
-Sam (J.R.R Tolkien)