Teacher's Day Quandary

So... how should one feel when one receives a note on teacher's day that says:

Dear Roberte Teacher

Thank you the your Writing class. Without a your writing kind teaching I will having the terrible write, but now I'm gooder thanks to you.

Sincerrely
Sally

not that it happened to ME or anything, mind -- just asking.

Happy Chonji Day

I called it "Cheonji Day" instead of Teacher's Day because Teacher's Day is also known as one of the most common days for parents to give teachers cash gifts called "Cheonji" (촌지))... sometimes meant to be in exchange for "special" treatment of their kid (on the grade sheet) -- there have actually been laws passed putting a maximum on the amount of cash or value of gifts permitted to give teachers, because the old tradition of bribing the teacher had gotten so rampant. The practice continues today.

My favorite Teacher's Day moments in Korea came from my first year, when I taught grade school kids.

Being male, the usual cosmetics packages didn't suit, and there must have been a sock-selling truck somewhere on the bus route picking kids up to come, so over the course of the day, I received twelve pairs of the exact same socks. Totally interchangeable. I didn't buy socks once my first three years in Korea. Just when I was starting to run out and wear out, another teacher's day would come along. It was awesome.

My favorite teacher's day class was the class where one student gave me a bucket of rock candy, and another student gave me a bottle of Amway toothpaste. Perfect match.

My biggest teacher's day bung-up was the year I told the students that if they wanted to bring me Teacher's Day gifts, they could, but please remember that I'm allergic to milk, so chocolate presents make me sad, because I can't eat Korean chocolates (it's all super milky), and the mothers took my PSA to mean that I was expecting nice gifts from all of them, and complained about my overly expectant attitude. Since then, I've just taken the chocolates humbly, thanked people kindly, and passed the chocolates around to the other teachers in the staff room (who are all swimming in chocolate, too).

Thanks for the spelling correction, ROK Hound.

My Friend Cecilia

Last Saturday, I met Robyn, a food blogger from New York, and my ex-student/friend/Korean kid sister Cecilia. We had a great time trying some of the signature Korean foods around Insadong: one of my favorite moments was when Robyn went: "Wait a minute, holy crap... there's a takeout place across the street from my workplace in New York that serves dumpling-rice-cake soup" (ddeok mandukuk)... "but this stuff is so good I didn't realize until just now I'm actually eating the same dish!" So good she didn't even recognize it. Yeh. Roboseyo knows from food.

But also, my former student/friend/Korean kid sister Cecilia was there, and basically, she's liquified cute. Despite the language gap, her outgoing character and her charm made the day more fun. The amazing thing about this is, as cute as her pictures are in the video...she's always like that, and in the most amazing achievement ever in Korean cuteness...it's completely unaffected. There's never a hint that she's putting on an act, and I don't think she is: this is just how she actually is.

So much fun. Watch the video. You'll fall in love, but you can't keep her. She's taken.

My camera has a continuous function, so that it just keeps taking shots every half second until I release the button, so often I take five or six pictures of something and choose the best. This time, I just kept it down, because she and my friend Evan were having so much fun with the camera.

Roboseyo's Bliss-out of the Week: Belle and Sebastian

Wow! Totally overwhelmed by all the commenting after my rant...not that I didn't expect it, but...

I would like to thank everyone posting for remaining respectful and presenting arguments rather than personal comments. Keep it up!

Here's your reward:

Lazy Line Painter Jane, by Belle and Sebastian. Love the guest-vocalist's voice. it's not the most all-out chained-to-the-ceiling fan bliss-out, but when the dude and the lady start singing together on the last chorus, it makes me happy.

My favorite B&S song.

Happier News: My Brother Sultan Kebab Opens in Jongno

Know this guy?

Sultan Kebab, the wonderful "My Brother" place, has opened a second location right next to Jonggak Station, nearly across the street from Tomatillo. Look on your right when you come out of Jonggak Station exit 1 and walk toward Gwanghwamun on the main street front.

On the second floor of the same building is my favorite Indian Restaurant, Durga.

Omar, the owner,
has some new items on the menu, too: the baguette sandwich was nice, with a good chewy baguette, the revani was sweet and just heavy enough.



The grand opening is Tuesday, so I lucked out finding them open on Sunday evening. They were so new that some of the menu items hadn't even been programmed into the cash register yet...but the food was all there, readers. All there.

Buddha's Birthday...a bit of video.

The Parade in Seoul


The cutest float: Thomas, the Buddhist Tank Engine


outside Bulguksa Temple...
huh?


a kid playing ssireum with his mom in one of the parks in Gyeongju. Cute. Sweet bippy I envy Gyeongju their expanses of green stuff. (It had rained the night before, so it was extra pretty.)

Tell me how much I rock...

I showed Fatman Seoul and a few others' a nice little Ddeokbokki place Toppoki poktokpi place on Wednesday, and Fatman Seoul was kind enough to write it up. Go read it here.

I rule.

I also got what amounts to a shopping list from Robyn, a food blogger from New York (The Girl Who Ate Everything), and made her a map on Google Maps of all the places you can find the different foods she wanted to try in downtown Seoul. She's free to share it with anyone she likes, and I'm going to share it with you.

Go forth. Enjoy. Some of these are repeats from the food map I gave Brian earlier, and shared on this site in January. Some of them are new.

View Robyn's Food List in a larger map

Me likey this song.

Not a bliss-out, but I'm happy with Bill Callahan right now. His song "Eid Ma Clack Shaw" (he dreams the answer to his questions about life, and they are "Eid Ma Clack Shaw" haw haw haw). The rest of his album is soothing and spare, with just enough wit and pop to keep me happy. Imagine Nick Drake with a sense of humor and a baritone voice.

Go listen here.

I'm also happy because one of my favorite students from my last job just contacted me and wants to hang out, and I made another restaurant map for a pal, of places she should visit while in Korea, and she liked it, too. Also, I've been working out lately, and am starting to see the results, and I've recently developed the power of flight.* Yay me!

(* one of the sources of my current happiness may or may not be fallacious)

Corporal Punishment in Korea's Schools

Brian in Jeollanamdo's latest post calls bull on the education officials who claim foreign native teachers are not "ethically qualified" to teach Korea's children, when Korean teachers hit students with sticks, or humiliate them by forcing them to take off their skirts. Brian's article is rich with links to recent news stories and articles about the issue of corporal punishment, and a good place to get a quick primer on the topic.

see, sometimes stuff like this happens in Korea. (caught on cellphone camera) (warning: shocking videos of violence against children)


And this...



In response to public embarrassment over videos like this, rather than, say, re-training and firing teachers who hit their kids, teachers banned cellphone use in classrooms. ARGH!

yet the moral fiber of the native English teachers is called into question more often than the Korean teachers who do stuff like that. (read more about it at Brian) fact is, the foreigners working in Korea's schools are on a super-short choke chain leash, while the Korean teachers know that it's pretty much impossible for them to get fired, once they land that vaunted public school job.

I had a student once tell me that in Korea, the stick a parent uses to beat their child is called the "love stick," and the old trope that abusive teachers are the only ones who care enough to hit the kids still circulates from time to time.

Here's the Metropolitician's old post about his own problems with the Korean Teachers' Union.

And here's a picture of a white guy photoshopped into a picture of Anapji pond

And here's a picture of a white guy photoshopped into a picture of Anapji pond.
(to get the inside joke)