Just a Short One

A short message here to say that I am still thinking about my podcast. I want to interview an expat and I had someone lined up but they declined the interview. It just wasn't their cup of tea. ;)

Time is of course going by and everyday I feel I am getting closer to my next job. I am starting to get a little too engulfed in thinking about what my next house will be like. Since I am pushing for a good one I keep imagining things like space and a big window that looks out onto some mountains or a city.

But it seems there are some pains to this leaving a school process, and that is the kids. Just today my little 4th graders were hurrying home and waved goodbye to me. I could feel my heart ripping apart that in a month and a half they will have a new teacher to start over with. But they are kids and their minds will grow and forget about me.

The sun is hiding quicker behind the skyline as the days ease into Fall. I am trying to figure out when I should take out my long sleeve shirts but I figured I will do it when the days stay cooler than 75 degrees F.

All this community building stuff has me nervous. I feel like I am the only "woman voice" in the group and also the one that doesn't really think along party lines. I tend to become idealist and creative when working in a group. Well it is fun to be a part of something even if it is run by mostly guys. Something in me wants to start a Woman's group here in Korea but it just sounds too cliche.

Well that's the news from this side of the globe...till next time.

Survey Says

Please take the time to fill out this survey. It will greatly benefit our research in trying to form a community for expats here in South Korea.

Eastern Adventures

Last Friday I left work and took the train up to Seoul. There I met JH for dinner and a little visit with his old school pals. It was fun to sit at a table with all male Koreans while they tried hard to talk to me in English. Mostly they just made jokes, but it was very warming to have this experience. Also it was great to get to know some of JH's friends.

After socializing we headed out towards where Ocean World is because the next day JH needed to visit a work site there for his job. JH works for a ceramic tile company and usually makes trips out to new development sites where the tiles are being delivered. Even though it was cool and rainy when we got there I could see some people having fun inside Ocean World (which is a water park).

Behind the trees you can see the new condos the resort is building. 

 JH finished within an hour and since we were half way to the East Sea we decided to head out that way.

We arrived in Gangneung and went to the Sun Cruise ship, which is literally a life-size cruise ship plunked on top of a sea-cliff. Inside it caters to weddings and events, there is a restaurant and souvenir shop. JH told me a little about the history that it was made from real ship parts. And along the outside of the ship there are sculptures.

Inside the "moat" there were wishing bowls that granted different types of wishes. Some for more wealth and others for a fruitful life.

 

We went inside and made our way to the restaurant. The interior was beautiful and the view immaculate. One's hope for a great menu were high, but it seemed the menu was atypical of a Korean fusion restaurant. 

I ordered the grilled salmon steak, which came out to be all right. The vegetables were obviously heated up from being frozen and I had a feeling the salmon wasn't fresh too. But hey one can't pass up enjoying a nice meal by the sea with your sweetheart.

We finished lunch and went to the souvenir shop and then a walk around the deck. Afterwards we found ourselves in a small cafe and had a piece of cake. 

The weather was starting to turn on us so we figured it was a good time to leave the ship and try to get to the beach before it rained. On the way we went through a few of the sculpture parks.

Here you can pretend to make yourself into a stamp. I felt a little shy because for one people already stare at me because I am a foreigner and two they were going to stare at me for being inside the stamp sculpture.

 

But I had more fun at another sculpture park where there were over sized hands and circles. 

  

From the sculpture park you could look out on the Sea and also see some Korean Army guys on their post. JH told me they are looking out for North Korean submarines. It felt a little creepy and odd to be standing near cheerful sculptures while on the other side there were soldiers with guns pointed eastward.

We headed away from the ship and went to a beach nearby. But the weather beat us and soon enough it was pouring rain so we headed home.

On the way home we passed a museum warship. JH told me that it was a North Korean ship that they captured and thus turned into a museum. We wanted to stop and take a look but I was already feeling the car trip haze.

 

 

It was a fun getaway and reminded me that there is still so much to see in this tiny country.

Job Hunt Update: So since last week a few things have happened. The job for Paju dissipated as the recruiter never heard a response back from them, which was fine by me since I am shooting for the Bundang area anyways. Speaking of which I currently have two offers for Yongin and all in the same neighborhood. So we will see which one pulls through. As for Guro in Seoul I didn't go to the interview because I figured it would have been a waste of time and traveling, since I wasn't going to really say yes. So I called the recruiter to let them know ahead of time. With these offers for Yongin I am hopeful and would like to see what kind of housing they would give me. Well we will just have to see!

Building a Community for Expats

I have been here over a year now and feel I am part of a group of expats. The Hub of Sparkle group let me in and we have had great times.

But we feel it is time to extend outwards and build a community that gives back to expats and Koreans.

The way I feel about it is that we all have really great ideas, but that our ideas need to be heard by more people than just us. So I am going to post the very rough notes from the first meeting.

Please provide feedback.

An informational one
A community building one
A public relations one.

Further, we all seemed to agree that this should be a non-political, non-advocacy group, for reasons I will list in a moment.

First a discussion of the missions:

The informational mission – We would like to become a useful portal for newbies and lifers to find information about Korea, teaching in Korea, and Korean resources. This would likely be primarily web-based and would include the kinds of things that Chris is already doing on his website (e.g. his posts about how to use the lockers in the subway stations).

It would also include a “where to go, what to do section.” These are the sections that drive readers to expat magazines, and we felt that not only would this do the same for our project, but would also be the most useful single thing for us as individual members.

The site would also include a blog-aggregation function, as well as a facebook aggregation function. The site would be a front-end not only to on-site information, but to the wealth of information that exists out there on the web.

Experts – we would identify our own special areas of expertise (Joe’s foodieism, Charles’ books/literature thing) and these would be reflected on the website.

The community building mission - This is simply to ensure that we all see and get to know each other. For the time being we see this as the creation of the electronic site, but more important the creation of opportunities to meat face-to-face. We tentatively agreed to initially meet twice a month, and then when the project is more underway, to reduce this to one meeting per month.

The public relations mission – this is multiple.

1) Building awareness of the project through existing sites such as Dave’s ESL café, recruiter websites,

2) Organizing positive interactions between the expat and the Korean communities. Rob, for instance, offered to spearhead an effort to increase the number of single-mothers in Korea. OK, maybe not. ;-)

3) Building a relationship with the English-speaking press in Korea (and down the line the Korean press) to ensure that expatriate views get out. Also, this might help our members (e.g. James Turnbull becomes the “go-to” guy for expat commentary on gender issues in Korea)



ORGANIZATION
After Rob winded himself with a 20-minute oration on the advantages of anarcho-syndicalist management models, we had a discussion of organizational structure and how it relates to mission. I think we all agreed that this will be a non-advocacy group, in the sense that we will not be lobbying the government, forming unions, or anything explicitly political. Our feeling was that his approach would also help save us the trouble of having to create a super-detailed organizational chart with specific assigned duties.

PLATFORM
We discussed, in general terms, where to place our websites and without getting into too-much detail, I think we are down to either Hub of Sparkle or a Joomla site we just called “The Joe Project,” which is under development.

And if you are still with me here are my ideas for the project:

Everything sounds great.

My idea is that I think it would be great if we started canvassing and
surveying expats who aren't really in touch with our main websites. I
think we should come up with a way to shoot out a survey to other
expats out there so that we can start getting a sense for what
services people really want. Also we can get an idea for how many
hours they would be willing to participate.

My other idea is when we start building a central website to house all
of our ideas that we do it in a way that reflects www.yelp.com.

At this site you can review restaurants and businesses and get
feedback. IT includes a map and address. This way someone in a
particular part of Korea can go into their area and check and see what
is good to eat, where they can go to the dentist.

The website also caters to events and groups. Someone could start an
event and ask people to join, kind of like in facebook but open to the
public. Also there is a forum for people to discuss issues.

I use to use this site when I lived in San Francisco and it was very
popular. There were certain groups that got together regularly. IT was
also a good way of knowing what businesses are popular or not.

I think we should do something like this where it is live and amiable.
So that any expat can know of this one site that includes everything
and can help them "today" and not with a review that was written 3
years ago. Let's face it a neighborhood changes stores quickly.

I would also like to add about our goal. I think one of our goals
should be to perform our duties in a way that will allow current
expats to consider staying here a long time. I feel if we offer
services to new expats to help them ease into the community and life
in Korea that they will be more likely to stay longer than a year.

As for giving back into the Korean community I feel it shouldn't be
about language exchange but cultural exchange, which is obvious. Again
I think this should require us surveying Koreans as well. We could get
help writing a survey in Korean and canvas the streets and see what
people want.

Some questions:
How can we help senior Koreans be more comfortable with Foreigners?
Is it possible that we can use the skills we graduated in college with
to extend it to Koreans?
How will our group expand beyond the Zenkimchi, HubofSparkle, Roboseyo
crowd? (When I talk to local teachers they don't know about you guys.)
Not to sound feminist but.... Is it possible to reach out to women
expats and their possible needs...? Maybe unnessasary anyways.

thanks! Sorry for any spelling or grammar mistakes.

That's it for now.
;)

 

Berzerkeley Memories

Have you ever heard of Berkeley California? You know that place with the University of California campus. The one notorious for its hippy culture and leftist politics.

Well I lived there for two years, while going to college in San Francisco. I miss it now of course, what with a huge organic produce and health food store down the block from me. Great restaurants to frequent and lovely weather during the spring and summer seasons.

But living there was intolerable at times. The "hippy-ness" in my opinion was seen in the way they let vagrants and homeless roam about freely, which I guess they are allowed to do. When you first go to Berkeley you see a homeless person and feel bad for them. Yet, after living there a while you see the same homeless person in the same spot over and over. And you begin to wonder whether giving out your change is going to actual change anything. I won't go into the whole debate of how to help the homeless here. I just want to point out that Berkeley is one crazy place on many levels.

It's so crazy and liberal that there is a parade where people try to show their "Berkeley-ness". Everyday I read the San Francisco Chronicle daily and it always brings back memories when I read the rants of Bay area people arguing over local stuff. So it is that I encountered an article about how this parade has been canceled due to the Berkeley government disagreeing with some of the things expected to go on during the parade.

"The city saw a bunch of long-haired people having fun and they said, 'Uh-oh,' " said organizer John Solomon, a retired Berkeley restaurant owner. "The city is being very controlling. They want to turn this into the Solano Stroll."

But what was more fun was reading the commentary. One thing about living in the Bay Area was that people loved to sound off their opinions on stuff like this.

"Solano Stroll"...I'm still laughing! This is like something KCRA, channel 3 in Sac. would highlight. Their live reporter would interview a local merchant who sells massage oils made from locally grown lavender or something, kids can get face-paintings and pretend their a different kind of brat-for-the-day while they text their friends about how bored they are.

This really sucks. As a Berkeley resident, I was planning on taking my kid this year and every year. We have enough sanitized events like the Solano stroll. Sanitized events are just an excuse to go outside and buy stuff from the same merchants who set up at all the farmers markets. HBCYB will be missed.

Isn't every day a parade in Berkeley?

 After going through my memories of living in the Bay Area I can't help but feel it would be nice to have some kind of liberal patch of existence out here in South Korea. I can feel it sometimes when I go to Hongdae or Itaewon, but of course it isn't exactly the same. However I didn't come out here to find familiar things.

Yet it would be wonderful to experience a more liberal Korea coming to life, if this is even possible. Anyways, if you are ever in America I suggest a tour around the Bay Area and to check in with Berkeley. I still wonder if that homeless guy on the corner, near the entrance to the BART station, is still there. (If not I hope he is in a better place.)

One More Year?

Here is a funny little story. On Friday after all the classes were finished and I was chilling in my office doing oh so important office stuff...(wink)... the Principal called me into his office. My coteacher told me to go down to the Principal's office. I immediately asked whether I was in some kind of trouble, but she didn't know.

It is rare I am called into his office. On the way there I contemplated what may be the reason, and the only thing I could think of was maybe to thank me for working there or something like that.

I walked into his office and found him sitting with the Nurse, so then my thoughts changed to maybe they were going to talk to me about the H1N1 scare.

I said hello, sat down and went through what was quite an extraordinary experience.

It turned out the Principal was asking me to continue my teaching at his school for one more year. But he doesn't speak very good English and so used the Nurse (an ahjumma who can speak English fairly well) to translate.

She asked me, "Ummm the Principal wants to know if you want to stay here for another year?"
Me: "You want me to teach here for another year?"
Nurse: "Yes, that's right. The Principal is having a hard time finding a good new teacher because of the time of year. He thinks you are very good and the children like you."

The wheels and gears in my head were needless to say spinning. I had accepted the fact that a group of people including the Principal and Vice Principal agreed to not keep me for another year. Because of what my coteacher wrote in her report. I was a little shocked but also not fooled.

Because my coteacher was not asked to join us and he had the Nurse being used as a translator I had the feeling that the Principal was asking me because it is the easiest solution to his problem of replacing me.

So my answer was something like this:

Me: "I don't know if I can. My relationship with my coteacher is very bad. We have had lots of arguments and I think our relationship is broken."
Nurse: "Broken? Really... I didn't know that."
Me: "Yea, it's been pretty bad. I just don't think she likes me. So it would be hard to stay at this school because we don't work well together."
Nurse: (Speaks Korean to the Principal explaining my answer.)
Principal: "You just say YES or NO. Don't worry about the coteacher that will be fine. You worry...just...YES or No."
Me: "I'm sorry it is just not that simple. I could stay till February since you will have more choices at that time."
Nurse talks to Principal.
Principal: "Just YES or NO." Then he gets up and makes a phone call. The next thing I know my ex-coteacher comes into the room to help translate. She explains to me that I would get a new house and that he just wants to know my decision today.

Me: "I am going to have to say No. I just don't believe it would work between my coteacher and me. I believe she doesn't want to work with me anyways and she wants to start over with a new teacher. I really enjoy this city and the children and it would be easy to stay at this school another year but working another year with my coteacher would be too much stress."

Ex-coteacher: "Oh, I didn't know it was that bad. Well okay."
Me: "And I want to add that I overall have had a hard time at the school. I can't stand living in my house one more day and it seemed no one cared about this."
Ex-coteacher: "Ah I know. You had a hard time here. I feel it is mostly my fault. I am so sorry."
Me: "It's okay. I understand at that time you were very busy.

And we all kind of nod our heads and say thank you. The Principal comes over and is given my decision. He takes a deep breath and sighs then shakes my hand and says thank you. And we all get up and leave.

I couldn't find my coteacher after that but I have to wonder if she knew he was going to ask me. Apparently, she is having a hard time finding a new teacher and I think it is because the Principal is being picky.

Now if the Principal had called us both into the room, and I was able to sit with my coteacher and talk to her about our work together then maybe I would have said yes. But he went about it in a sneaky way and was doing it like a business transaction. But this is how this guy ticks and I wasn't surprised.

I had a feeling this might happen after hearing about the problems they were having picking a new teacher. The thing is they should have made this decision back when they had their meeting. I am already jazzed up about leaving this school and starting fresh somewhere else.

All in all, it felt good to be able to say No.