tofu and dormitories

i teach preschoolers up to 11 year olds (keep in mind, 11 in korea is 10 in the U.S. so yup, that makes me 28 and an "old maid" here...., hence the cabbies always asking the "why aren't you married" question). this week the themes in my syllabus were tofu (cooking on tuesday) and dormitories. pretty random and frustrating. i'm sposed to stage some vocabulary quiz over words like "dormitory" "cafeteria" "roommate" etc, when my kids don't even know the alphabet. don't get me wrong, they know the song, but if i show them letters and ask them what they are--no clue. i've found myself reprimanding them for things that aren't really their fault. are they to blame that they've been put in a school where they're sposed to already have a background in english? are the parents to blame? is my school to blame because it really just wants some money from whoever is willing to pay? i dunno. but it's frustrating. it would be easier to meet the kids halfway if i spoke any korean or they--conveniently--spoke any english. in the outline of the school it says specifically (yet vaguely, go figure) that the english i'm teaching will be conversational. so i spend most of my time here speaking truncated english and removing all articles and adjectives from my speech. but i still curse freely, because they don't know what i'm saying. it's all about those small comforts.

i also feel like i'm a joke to my students because i don't speak korean and therefore can't reprimand them when they are blatantly disrespectful, not just of me as their teacher, but of me as a human. i've noticed that a lot of my students, as well as other random koreans i've encountered, like to play dumb when it's convenient for them. i realize how judgemental i sound with this statement, but i can be because i'm not speaking korean only when it's convenient for me--i'm the first to admit that my korean pronunciation sounds like spanish and i really have no idea what i'm saying. that humility expressed, i am also in the unique position as an english speaker, hired expressly as a commodity, to be judgemental. when my students actually want to learn i am placed on a pedestal as some sort of english-speaking goddess, but when they don't it's "teacher is so dumb because she doesn't speak korean. ha ha. let's make fun of her because she's so stupid." also, i guess the korean culture is not one of disciplining their children, no matter what they do. so even if i assign homework, it's a joke because theirs is a culture of absolutely no consequences until a certain age. i've seen kids do some pretty terrible stuff in full view of their parentals, and the adults don't even blink.

blah blah blah. went to a bar called millertime where you can drink liters of mgd at a time. i don't know if that's something to be proud of or not, but right now, i choose to brag about that. even if i did have to give a lot of my beer away.

like i mentioned earlier, the cooking theme for the week was tofu dishes. but we were missing half the ingredients, so as per usual, i had to come up with something on a whim. julie's classes actually made some edible things, but with my classes, i just put all the shit in front of the kids and let them mix it all in a bowl, whatever amounts they wanted. so our tofu "stir fry?" ended up tasting like a salt lick. and who gets blamed for that? teacher. i'm not the one who mixed the tofu with two cups of soy sauce. the moreal is, if you add enough parmesean cheese, anything's edible. i guess i did teach my kids something this week...

so not much to report for the past week really. there's a new kid in one of my classes whose teeth are pretty much rotten. dude's not even 5 years old yet, but his whole grill is silver. yup, i just said "grill.." i guess i'm getting settled into some sort of routine, and even as i type that i don't like it. i've been here a month and the city is already starting to seem small to me. i haven't even explored too much of the touristy historical stuff. i do find that i'm the most excited when i go to a new restaraunt, because that seems to be the most real korean experience i can have here. but i balance out the authenticity of said meal but consuming copious amounts of shitty cheap beer. in that respect, it's just like i'm at home drinking a lot of keystone, be it ice or light.

i am excited about tomorrow night. i'm going to see live music in chuncheon. when i tell any natives that, they look at me like i said i saw a dinosaur walking around in my apartment. apparently, live music does not exist here. call me a paleontologist...