Final school year in Korea

I wanted to get down some information about how the end of a school year works in a Korean public school while it's still in my mind. Also, you'll find a bit of blab from me where I go off on a tangent to describe my experiences during and after our school farewell party. So here goes.

Korean school year officially ends in February...let me try to explain. Students and teachers finish on the 29th December and enter into "Winter vacation" for around 5 weeks. They then come back for 2 weeks at the beginning of February to finish off the school year. During this time, classes are taught for 2 weeks and the Year 6 students have their graduation ceremony. Then on the 16th February, students and teachers have a holiday for the "Lunar New Year" (Seol). This goes for 3 days (17th-19th of February) then the students immediately enter into their "Spring vacation" which lasts until the 2nd of March. It seems a little strange to have the winter and spring vacation times so close together and then only separated by 2 weeks of schooling?? but that's how it's done here.

Regardless, because I'd already taught most of the required lessons before Christmas, it meant I only had 4 days of teaching to do over the 10 days of work. Needless to say, I did a bit of organising around my desk and watching lots of documentaries on the computer to ease my boredom. Thankfully, my school has been wonderful and have let me take time for rest and relaxation over the spring break. As a result I have had some time to do a little bit more travelling which I will document in the next couple of posts.

What else, oh most of the teachers I worked with (Grade 1 & 2) are leaving....and are being transferred to another school. I heard that after 4 years a teacher must move to another school. It is up to the vice-principals (head administrators) to make the decision on where teachers will be placed next. Unfortunately for the teachers, they often only hear about where they are going 1-2 weeks before they actually have to transfer. That kind of sucks for the teachers I think, but it's the Korean way and isn't likely to be changed anytime soon.

Anyway, because the teachers were leaving, our school had a farewell dinner which was really good. It started off with 1/3 of a large restaurant being taken over by almost all of our teachers. We had the most delicious duck stew I've ever eaten. The meat was soooo tender it just fell off the bones and the thick rice soup was deliciously scented with a soft velvety taste of duck meat. I was completely stuffed by the end of the meal.

Next we went to a noraebang (Kareoke singing room) in which probably 50% of the staff came to. Korean people absolutely love to sing and they have so much fun singing together and sharing in each others music. I really enjoyed just clapping along to the Korean songs and painfully tried to read the korean lyrics on the screen to the slow ballads. Surprisingly I could do it ....sometimes. Of course I was called on to sing a song, so knowing the way things go, I decided to get this part of the equation out of the road quickly and called in a fellow Korean teacher to help me sing "More than Words" by Extreme. I chose this song because I'd heard it in my Korean teacher's car once before so knew he'd know it pretty well.

The vice-principal popped open a couple of bottles of whiskey and proceeded to take it around the room encouraging everyone to have at least 1 shot which most people did with grimaces on their face. Most korean people are fine with "soju" (rice wine) as it's their standard drink, but are not used to drinking whiskey straight. I really enjoy a good whiskey myself, but have to say I usually drink it with coke and never straight or without ice. But it was a nice change from "soju" for me.

After the noraebang, the group dwindled down to a mere 12 people and we headed off to a local restaurant for more food and drinking. I was soooo full I could barely eat another thing but was enjoying the chance to mix with and get to know some other teachers. Whether it was the whiskey at the noraebang or a few more shots of "soju" at the final restaurant or simply the lateness of the evening, I noticed myself getting more sleepy and was thankful for the night to end.

Apparently the next day, the school teachers were a buzz with gossip about the previous nights events. A few teachers mentioned they'd heard about me....but to the life of me I can't think what I'd done to cause any stir. But then I am always thinking from my western point of view so maybe from my angle there was nothing unusual about my behaviour, but to a Korean person, there could have been something?? Maybe drinking the whiskey like a man? Maybe singing the love song "more than words" with my male co-teacher (not that it was intended to be a love song to him....just a song that was slow paced and I thought he'd know). Or when one of my other male teacher's was really drunk, kept saying he loved me, which I just laughed of as a drunk man's talk. Or taking a rest in the car on the way home, maybe perceived me as rolling drunk??

Anyway, at first it annoyed me, to feel judged and not know whether the judgement was good or bad or indifferent. And after chewing my Korean boyfriend's ear off with all the details that happened and asking could it be perceived badly...I eventually gave up and just thought to myself. If I know I acted with a good heart and I'm not ashamed, then I'm no longer going to feel bad if other people perceive it differently. Though, it has made me think twice about my actions when I socialise with my teachers again.

Back to the end of the school year in Korea, apart from the teachers transferring or retiring. There is also a huge shuffle of all the teachers and their teaching positions. The vice-principal and head teachers decide where everyone will be placed and once again, the teachers get to find out which class they will be teaching approximately 1 week prior to the beginning of the new school year. I'm interested to see who the new teachers will be and who I'll be co-teaching with this year. Fingers crossed, they will be just as lovely as the last group. Wish me luck.

But after all that is said and done, I have to say I'm one of the luckiest teachers I know. My school is pretty good considering. The teachers are usually really nice to me and try their best to communicate in English. My co-teacher is very helpful and kind to me and allows me a lot of freedom and my principal allows me to take time away from school during the vacations, just to rest and relax or explore more of Korea. Mum will vouch when she came to visit Korea, how nice my school was and their kindness to us both. So I'm really satisfied in working here and am looking forward to another year. Again, wish me luck hey!

Chaoi for now
Kirsty

Travel to Beijing - Feb 07

This is my first attempt at blogging and am keen to keep it up so as a way to keep in touch with family and friends and share photo's of all the fun things I'm getting to do in and near Korea. I hope you enjoy.

I thought my first entry should be my recent trip to Beijing with Gil. I'll attach some photo's with comments and hopefully the story will tell itself. The decision to travel to Beijing was made quite quickly and we were lucky to find a really good package tour with "Hana tour" for only W300,000 for 4 nights/3 days which included flights, 4 star accommodation, transportation, tourist attraction entry fee's and meals. We were obliged to visit 6 "souvineer stores" but it was up to us whether we chose to purchase goods or not.

Tiananmen Square facing the entrance to the Main Gate of the Forbidden City.

In truth we really only had 2 full days of sightseeing and the first afternoon/evening. The most of the 1st and 4th day were taken up with travelling to and from the airport in Incheon and back to my hometown in Daegu. But still we managed to pack in a hell of a lot of sites in that time and I have no complaints considering the cheap price we paid. A few friends of mine said they also travelled to Beijing during "Chusok" (Summer vacation) and the cost was around W800,000.

I really was desperate to travel to some other countries near Korea while I'm living here and I really wanted to have a holiday with Gil. He'll be really busy with his final year of studies this year and looking for a job, so I think this was our last opportunity to take a nice holiday together for a while anyhow. Anyway, let's get onto showing some photo's, yeah!

Our first stop after getting off at Tianjin Airport was to head directly into Beijing city centre to the "night street stalls". Here they set up a long row of stall that sell all sorts of Chinese foods. Basiscally anything you can stick on a skewer is sold here. As you can see from the photo, they are selling starfish, not sure what the spikey things are but I assume some kind of seafood, the long tenticles are squid and top right is salted lamb. We felt safe about trying the lamb and prawn skewers and have to say they were delicious.

The Chinese tour guide said that Chinese people will eat almost anything that moves apart from humans (thank God!!). When I say almost anything, the guide said spiders, bugs and mosquito's eyes!!! Yup, you heard right!! Mosquito's eye's are a delicacy and it is very expensive to buy. Now if you're like me, your inquisitive mind is pondering how on earth you go about obtaining a mosquito's eyes and then how on earth do you get enough of them to even make 1 teaspoon??

Well, let me tell you what I was told...are you ready for it!! And, no they don't go around and hunt down thousands of mosquito's and then pluck out their eyes!! Luckily nature does most of the work for them. In China, their owl likes to feed on mosquito's during the night. As it turns out, the owl digests most of the mosquito except for it's eyes. So the chinese people go and hunt the owls, then cut their stomachs and low and behold, they have approximately 1 teaspoon of mosquito's eyes. Crazily, they toss the owl and only keep the mosquito's eyes as that is the most costly item. OK, I hope I haven't grossed you out too much, but the story simply had to be told RIGHT! And in case you're wondering, I decided to pass on searching out a place to eat this particular delicacy.

Next, we went to a traditional teahouse and tried some famous Chinese tea's. It was nice to try the different tea's, but felt a little sorry for the poor girls trying to pitch their products to us. It was no use trying to sell tea to Koreans who can get the same tea for similar or cheaper prices in Korea. After some nice tea was our first Chinese buffet. Oh my goodness!! I thought Korean people ate a lot of food, but the Chinese surely beat that record. The buffet was huge and we barely ate 1/2 of the food supplied. I managed to get a picture with one of the Chinese girls dressed in full costume. Pity I look so terrible next to her, but forgetting my vanity, thought it might be nice to share with you.

After a full day travelling (5:30am - 9:30pm), it was nice to finally arrive at the hotel and relax for the night. I was pleasantly surprised to see the hotel was in fact 4 star accommodation and very tasteful. Here's a night shot, didn't get any pictures from inside but be assured it was quite plush and welcoming. The name of the hotel was "Spring Hotel" in case anyone comes to Beijing and is interested. The only downfall was it seemed to be a little bit out of the main city but because we had transportation hooked up, it wasn't a major problem.

The next morning we were up at 6:00, ready for Buffet breakfast at 6:30 and out the door by 7:30am off for a full day of adventure. Our first stop was the Ming dynasty's 13 tombs. Due to time restraints we only visted 1 of the biggest tomb sites but it was enough to get a feel of the temples of that era.

Our next destination was the "Great Wall of China". We went to the Badaling" section which is the most touristy part, but has a cable car which takes you most of the way up the steep climb of the wall. Let me tell you, the cable car was a life saver if you don't have a lot of time to spend and even the short amount of walking we did up the last section of the wall was really, really steep and required a few stops to catch your breath. Check out the grade of the slope on this photo.


Next we had another huge Chinese style buffet and tried some famous chinese "rice wine" which is like Japanese "sake" or Korean "soju" except the Chinese wine is a whopping 56% alcohol. And let me tell you from one who has had some experience with "sake" & "soju", this stuff knocks the socks off your feet, puts hairs on your chest and turns your lungs into dragon fire. I think the main reason Chinese people don't get sick is because one shot of this stuff down your gob will kill off any germ hanging around your body. (Dad & Seamus, I'll be sending a small bottle to you soon with my next post so you can see for yourself).

Next was some mandatory souvineer shopping. (Jade factory and general souvineer store). Luckily we weren't obliged to buy at these stores (I've heard with some bad tour companies you are forced to buy products or join in additional activities with unreasonable costs). Just as a side note: the reason we had to go to some of these stores was because the Chinese government made it mandatory that package tour guides must take tourists to a certain number of different tour sites. The aim of the government is to show some positive aspects of Chinese culture (tea house, herbal medicine centre, jade factory, silk factory & traditional chinese souvineer store) and of course allow opportunity for tourists to purchase goods from these government run stores. Just a note to the wise: the products in these stores are priced 3-4 times higher than the actual retail price in regular chinese stores. But saying that, even with the inflation of prices, the quality was pretty good and the costs were still quite reasonable. For example, I ended up buying a traditional style royal blue chinese satin embroidered top for approx $35 which I thought was reasonable and I could afford to pay. The picture here is me trying another top which as you can see was not the best choice. Liked the colour but not the style.

Our final destination for our 2nd day was an "ice festival". I love the snow and and pretty lights, so I was in my element. It was really beautiful, check out the photo's. I don't remember the name of the place but apparently it has the largest set of elevators in Asia....see the picture of the dragon climbing the mountain below...well that is actually a set of 7 escalators going up the mountian. Good idea I say, better than having to walk the whole way up.

On the way back down, Gil and I decided to be a little adventurous and took a "bob sled" style car (with brakes!!) down a big slippery slide. It was fun and Gil being a typical boy wanted to go again. Unfortunately we were pressed for time and had to make our way back to the bus. On the way back Gil managed to haggle with some of the street vendors and we purchased some souvineer items at bargain prices. He definitely has more of a talent for getting a good deal than me. I just think if the price sounds OK, I'll take it, but Gil always wants to get the best deal...which is how we managed to find such a cheap but well organised trip.

Our tour group was relatively small (only 11 people) so we were able to get through each days activities relatively quickly. We got home around 8:30pm that night, so Gil and I decided to sneak off and explore some shops near the hotel. Gil said the tour guide mentioned a number of times to our group that we shouldn't go out on our own and if we wanted to explore we should let him know and he would take us out. At the time we weren't sure why he was so strong about this and thought he might want to prevent us from seeing the real price of items in the stores?? So of course we were desperate to check it out. We managed to find a local convenience store not far from the hotel and discovered the prices were about 3-4 times cheaper than at all the other souvineer shops we'd been to in our tour. So we stocked up on some chinese alcohol, coconut juice, snacks and cigarrettes to give to our friends upon returning to Korea.

It wasn't until the next day that we realised one of the main reasons we couldn't go out on our own was because of the type of visa we had entered China on. We had entered on a "group visa" which meant we must always stay in the group and with the tour guide. We do not have permission on this visa to go out and travel on our own, only with the guide. As it turned out, one of the families on our tour had some personal problem in which they really needed to travel back to Korea urgently. But because of the "group visa" issue, they were not able to leave until the tour had finished as they had to enter Korea with the whole group.

Our 3rd day in Beijing started off early again and this time into the heart of Beijing's infamous Tiananmen square and entrance to the Forbidden City. The structure of the city is based on square blocks. The centre of the city being the main temple in the Forbidden city where the emperor ruled. If you started from the main temple and walk forward you would come to a main gate which would be the entrance to the emperors temple. The gate would extend to either side with a wall which would surround the temple in a square shape. This formation continues on and on at least 5 or 6 times from what I can remember. Each gate having a wall which would surround the previous gate in a perfect square. Unfortunately, all but a few sections of the walls have been destroyed to make way for roads. It is a shame and I've heard the chinese government is trying restore the walls but they look modernised and uniform.

Anyway, back to some pictures. The first picture is one of my favourites and is when we first arrived at the outer gates. The morning sun captures the brilliance off the golden carvings adorning the gates.

Now here's a picture of me in Tiananmen Square and you can see the entrance to the Forbidden City in the background.

The Forbidden City is sooo huge and grand. It seems everything in China is done to super huge scale. I don't know if it's because their land is so big and flat and open coupled with such a large number of people which lends itself to making all it's structures so massive. Japan and Korea tend to have grand temples also but on a smaller scale. I have to say I didn't feel much difference looking at the temples from Japan, Korea and China but regardless it was still very beautiful. I love the architecture, and all the detail put into the stone statues and wooden carvings and my favourite part is the splash of golden shimmer you occasionally see when the sun shines on some of the golden fixtures.

After the Forbidden City we moved on to the Summer Palace which was built for the last Queen of China. I don't remember her name but check out the picture below...she's certainly an interesting looking character....have to say, I do love the effort she's put into growing those fingernails....(Julie M...do her fingers remind you of anyone??... your favourite teacher??).

Let me tell you her story, I found it quite interesting. Apparently she was a very ambitious person and set out to capture the Kings heart through her singing. One day she went out along the path where the King normally walked and as he approached she started singing loud enough for the King to hear her but not close enough to be visible. The King heard the beautiful voice and was intruiged and went to search for it. She continued to walked out of his sight to lure the King to her for her voice was very beautiful and enchanting but her features were not quite as beautiful as her voice. Eventually she allowed the King to catch up to her and he took her to be his wife.

The King actually had two wives and she was the 2nd of the two wifes to inherit the Kingdom should the King die. Now the King had placed in his will that should she (the 2nd wife) try to kill the 1st wife then she would not inherit the kingdom but it would go to another person. The 2nd wife befriended the 1st wife and made her believe she was a kind and generous person and would never cause any harm, so upon the King's death the 1st wife to show she trusted the 2nd wife, burned the will. The 2nd wife then promptly killed the 1st wife and because the will was destroyed, she was able to move onto becoming the Queen.

This information was provided by my tour guide so I can't be sure of how accurate it is, but was interesting to hear anyhow. One more interesting thing he said that since this Queen's rule, China has become a more "matriachal" society where the woman is more head of the home than a man. He said that recently, China has been importing more Japanese and Korean drama's and movies and they are astonished by the differences of men and women's roles in these drama's. For example, in one episode a man hit and knocked over a table in anger. The Chinese people were amazed and the tour guide said this action would never happen by the hand of a man in China.

OK, back to the Summer Palace now. I liked this place and wished we could have spent some more time here. Unfortunately the day turned a bit foggy so some pictures didn't turn out so great.

Appartently this walkway is the longest in Asia?? So they say?? I wish I could put a video clip in here but I don't think I can?? But I got some hillarious footage of a Chinese guy playing a stringed instrument and was singing in what sounded like a strangled cat's wail which was meant to be singing I think. I'd read in my Lonely Planet book that the Chinese opera is very loud and ear peircing so maybe his singing really was the way they do it. Hmmm, one of those cases of you had to be there I think, but if you can imagine the strangled, wailing cat's voice then you've pretty much got what I witnessed only coming from a human.

Final tourist destination of the day was to look at history of some of the 56 tribes in China. Actually our tour guide is Chinese but his tribe comes from Korean heritage so he speaks Korean as well as Chinese. The most interesting was when we watched the Tibetian tribe do their traditional dance in their costumes. Another interesting one was to see photo's of a tribe that is obviously very "asian" looking but they are wearing very "middle eastern" style clothes and looked to be following more of the middle eastern culture.



We finished of a great day of sightseeing by settling down to yet another huge buffet with the famous Beijing Dish "Peking Duck". Yum, yum. Here is a nice shot of most of the people in our tour group.

I promise this is the end, I know it's been a long blog...but hopefully a little interesting?? Here are some final random shots in and around Beijing city, hope you like them.