Not Quite Vietnam

Although I promised the post on Vietnam today, I found myself quite ill after a lunch of giant pork-spine soup . I could do little but lay in bed when I came home and try to keep other foods down periodically. That said, I will use this post instead as a kind of preface to tomorrow's real post on Vietnam.

The week before we left Korea, it finally snowed in Andong (the first real accumulation of the season). Two main things can be said for how the city handled snow: the public buses shut down, and the snowmen sprang up. As for the first, it didn't much affect me because I live close enough to school to walk, but I felt bad for the clusters of people huddling around bus stops, when I didn't see a single bus run for 2 days after the snow hit. Luckily, there are cheap taxis all over the place and I imagine it was a good few days for them.

The snowmen were much more fun. The only people I saw making them were middle aged men, which made me smile. With snow being so infrequent, it isn't a season of play only for the young. Actually, the children were probably all in school for the day, as they continue to take classes through their winter breaks.

I took these on my phone walking home from school:


(This one is modeled after a Korean "yangban," a traditional aristocrat (you can tell by the black hat style. It's hard to tell in this picture with the truck, but the hat also includes the wide brim sticking out on either side).

Although it was sad to leave behind the snow of Andong (and I dearly missed the epic Michigan snow this winter), I definitely looked forward to the warmth of two weeks in Southeast Asia.

The only problem was figuring out how to make the 3+ hour journey to Seoul (with the Han river being frozen up there) from Andong without excessive bulky winter clothing, since each of us only packed a single backpack for the trip. Socks with sandals? Oh yes.

Back in Korea

I'm back from Southeast Asia! With all my pictures now sorted through (over 10 gigs...it took a bit of time) I'll be posting on Vietnam tomorrow, followed by Cambodia and then Thailand.

As for this week (yes, guilty, I've been back since Monday), I made it through my last English camp in Elementary school. I'd say it was bittersweet, but I'm also glad it's over. Unlike the others, where the gender spread was equal and the student count was about 8-10, this week I was gifted with 11 extremely energetic boys and 2 shy girls from the 4th grade.

Like the other two English camps I had at my school this winter, I was alone without a co-teacher. Usually I find the freedom kind of liberating from the routine of the school year, so I don't mind being completely in charge. In this case, teaching was near impossible when the boys refused to go near the girls for circle or team work, and wanted to spend most of the time swiping mop handles from the supply closet and having sword fights.

Even though it was tempting to play movies all week, I resisted (limiting it to one- Home Alone, a popular choice for little boys) and added more race and guessing games to tire them out. Using newly taught vocabulary and words they already knew, a popular game was one where two students faced off with a bell between them. With hands on their heads and backs to the TV screen, I showed the other students pictures to act out, and the opposing students had to hit the bell and say the correct vocab word. I put the girls on separate teams so they could pair up in the face of time-consuming opposition from the boys. Another variation was to use the same team and bell format, but show them scrambled vocabulary words (after, as a warm up for the day, giving them a word worksheet so they were familiar with scrambled words). In this case their teammates weren't acting, they could look at the TV screen this time, it was just a race between the two students to figure out the answer first.

Another invaluable activity I found was Highlights (the magazine for kids) hidden pictures. The kind where a bunch of little pictures are hidden in a big one, with a picture and word key at the bottom. After a search online I found plenty of places to print them out. A great way to get them to speak in English without noticing (because in looking for the pictures they would say the English words when talking to their friends). Very fun and surprisingly challenging. Meanwhile, I could covertly hide the mops.

Now I can rest. I really will miss all those kids, no matter how difficult they are.

Losing Daylight

Of all the things I knew I'd miss when I left America, I hadn't counted on Daylight Savings Time being on the list. My co-teachers said that Koreans tried using it back in the 80's, but it never caught on so they cut it. I can't imagine why. When I get out of work at 4:40 every day, the sun is already out of sight. By about a quarter after 5, it's black. That means all of my daylight hours are spent at work, and no matter how exhausted I am on Friday night I can't allow myself to sleep too late on Saturday. At least school is ending so I have less to stress about. I already thought of winter as a cold dark season, but it's far darker without that extra hour.