Something

There's a strange feeling in the air at Yoon's.  Everyone (all the teachers, that is) can feel that something is happening.  Changing.  Maybe.  No one is really sure.

The "secretary" (there's a man who works at the Goam campus fixing computers, making schedules and doing the other odds and ends- my mother would remember him as the man with the shiny suit) told Rahee today that he saw a new schedule and that her and Stephanie's names were missing from it.  In fact, they weren't just missing, there were other names in their place.  But, Julia told Stephanie today that if she wanted to work another thirty day cycle that Rahee needed to work, too.  Somehow, they're contracts are contingent on each other's.  Neither Rahee nor Stephanie have any idea why.

I talked to Rahee for about a half an hour today.  She was told that someone would be sitting in on her classes today.  She couldn't remember the girl's name, only that she was Korean-Canadian.  But, when I walked by her class, no one unusual was there, just her students.  I wonder for what position this person is being hired.  Terry (Julia's son) is also back in Korea for summer break, so they'll probably find a position for him here, too.  The amount of excess baggage at this company is unbelievable.

Rahee's mother, who is a "home teacher" for Yoon's, has been ill recently, so she has been unable to take on her normal load of students.  David, Julia's husband and the real owner of Yoon's, has been pushing her to take a larger load.  Her mom has worked for Yoon's for six years, but she's seriously considered quitting.  She told Rahee that she may even leave before Rahee is finished.

Julia and her children lived in Australia for four years.  During that time, David was running the Jecheon Yoon's franchise.  Julia and her youngest (Terry stayed for university and to get out of mandatory military service) came back to Korea and the family went to work expanding their franchise to include hagwons (the Korean word for cram school).  Julia is in charge of the hagwons and David still runs the home-study portion of the business.  It seems that her management style has poisoned that division, too, because they are losing home teachers left and right according to Rahee via her mother.

I'm very nervous about our meeting tomorrow, but I'm ready for it.  I hope that the idea of firing us or "shortening our contracts" doesn't even come up, but if it does Ian and I are armed to the teeth with information.  My guess is that they do not expect us to know the laws.  They expect us to take everything they say as gospel and, in the beginning, that's what happened.  Julia and David think we're stupid and they treat us like children.  Because Korean workers rarely act on their own volition, they will be surprised if they end up  confronted with our appeal to the Labor Board.

I'm trying to find information on the web about Wonderland Jecheon (the hagwon that Julia worked at before Yoon's), but I'm not having any luck.

The Blame Game

Ian and I had a meeting with Julia this morning.  She was in great form this morning, laying the full weight of her company's financial problems on us.

As we sat down she brought out a sheet with the enrollment numbers for all three campuses.  She told us that, for Haso and Goam, the numbers were down 40 students from the beginning of the year (September).  She said that the "students don't want to come" because our classes are "not interesting or beneficial."  I talked to a student last week who told me he wasn't coming back next term.  When I asked him why, he told me that his mom didn't want him in classes at night, so they were going to find somewhere he could take a class an appropriate level class during the day.  It had nothing to with Yoon's itself.

Then she scribbled some math regarding our severance, airfare and remaining three months.  She asked us (and not hypothetically) how she should find the money to pay for that.

At one point, while Julia was chiding us for the seven months that we lazily "wasted time" ("Your teaching skill is fine now, but you wasted so much times," then she drew a time line from September to April, in case we didn't understand) Ian swallowed hard and told her that it was difficult to know how she felt about our performance during those months because Gene rarely spoke of it and when he did, he told us we were doing well.  Julia said, "But, Mr. Gene said he told you all these things, but you didn't listen.  That's why he choose to leave the company.  He felt he had no work to do here."  While I doubt that Gene actually felt that way, I do believe he may have said it to her, as he proved pretty spineless when it came to Julia.

This went on for nearly an hour.  Ian and I twisted uncomfortably in our seats wondering if she was just going to out and fire us.  Then her phone rang and she ran (quite literally) out of the room to take the phone call.  When she came back, she picked up one of the new books and started going over potential lesson plans with us.  We went through two books and then she dismissed us.  Just before we went to lunch, Ian tried to tactfully clarify that we were going to finish our contracts with the company.  She answered with, "Oh, just continue to do your best."  So, my guess is that we will be on our toes until August 31.

I was pretty tired after that meeting, but my classes went well.  The first day of a new term is always a little stressful.  The books make it easier to keep the students engaged and the time flew by.  I didn't have time to finish my lesson plans for tomorrow, but I should have ample time before tomorrow's begin.  I'm hoping things settle down enough for me to work on my article.

Good night!

Long Weekend

Tomorrow is Buddha's Birthday, so Yoon's will be closed.  I am looking forward to this long weekend, though not for any particular reason.  I just need some rest after this week.  I definitely have it better than Ian did (less Julia, less stress), but the schedule leaves a lot to be desired.  Five minutes between classes hardly leaves enough time to wipe down the board, let alone catch my metaphorical breath.

We don't have any specific plans, yet, but there are several things that we need to accomplish:  pay bills, begin the booking process for our South East Asia trip, do a little cleaning, get haircuts, etc.  We may go hiking on Sunday.  There are supposed to be a couple of good places around here.

Today has been a decent day.  I spent about an hour before classes just chatting with the other teachers (Angela, Sue, and Rahee/ Aileen [Julia made her choose an English name even though her real name is very universal]). It was really nice.  

Then I had four classes in a row, three of them pretty boisterous.  The second class, "Basic B27," was especially difficult.  Ian warned me ahead of time.  He gave me the names of three boys who disrupted class and disrespected him every week.  It didn't matter how he disciplined them, they'd find a way to continue being pains.  They were impossible to embarrass and showed no remorse.  They were trouble right off the bat, loud and obnoxious.  I couldn't get them to be quiet, so I used it to my advantage.  I put the students to work calling out sentences using the grammar and vocabulary ("Let's go to the _____.  Let's _____!") that they had been learning.  It worked very well.  Then, I divided them into groups and had them play a rock, paper, scissors card game, where each card had a picture of a place on it.  I didn't split them up because I figured one bad group was better than two and these guys were proving to be toxic.  It took me nearly five minutes to get them to play the game correctly (luckily the other group had a handle on it), but every time I'd check on the other group, they'd start buggering around again.  Then they managed to tear one of my cards in half.  That's not really a big deal, but I had had enough.  So, I calmly took all their cards away and made them put their heads down on their desk in silence while the other group laughed and played properly.  If they weren't going to be productive, then they were going to sit there and be bored.  They were a little better for the rest of the class, so I'm hoping I started out on the right foot.  I'm not going to kid myself and say that my one act of discipline solved the problem.  I'll be thinking of creative discipline solutions for next week.

*                       *                      *

My last two classes went pretty well.  The 7:15 class is a Phonics (lowest level) class filled with 11 year olds.  I wonder if the older kids that test at lower levels (or simply didn't start learning English at four like their peers) get teased by other kids that are the same age, but in higher class levels.  I had to work them through my/your/his/her and it was more difficult for them than it should have been.  Again I was disappointed by their lack of foundation.

The 8 o'clock class was a fluent class that has been working on the subjunctive (meaning: how one communicates that something is not certain or based in reality [would/could/should/may/might]).  English has very little subjunctive, but these kids weren't introduced to it very well.  Instead of learning what it means and doesn't mean, they were only shown phrases like, "I would like a hamburger." and "Could you help me?"  Not exactly concrete examples of what the phrasing actually means.  So, I walked them through simple examples sentences and then I moved them to "if" clauses.  That proved to be very tricky.  I hope I get to review it next week, because the class ended just as the kids started to understand it enough to have fun, "What would you do if you had superpowers?"

Ian met me at Goam after work and we went to Lotte Mart.  Our cab driver home was completely awesome.  He asked, "Where to, ma'am?" and then he told Ian he was beautiful and asked how old we are.  We asked him how old he was (completely acceptable in Korean culture) and he told us 60.  The man didn't look a day over 43.  He encouraged us to marvel at his youthful face and told us he was a grandfather.  It's times like that when I wish you could tip in Korea.

We bought some doenjang (thick fermented soybean paste akin to Japan's miso).  So, tomorrow we will make doenjang jjigae (think miso soup, only healthier because doenjang holds its nutrients after boiling, while miso doesn't).  I'll be taking pictures step by step and posting the recipe.  You can probably buy the paste at any good Asian market.

Good night!

Humidity

It's been very humid since Monday night.  First, it just poured gallons and gallons of rain into the rice fields, so it was tolerable.  But, yesterday morning the rain stopped and we were left with heavy clouds sitting on us.  I am not well suited for humidity.  I grew up in Phoenix, where it is dry and very hot.  I remember they sold tourist trinkets with the slogan, "But, it's a dry heat."  When I was ten, my family moved to the PNW (where basically all of my extended family is) where it rains often, but you forgive it for the greenery.  At least I do.  I don't think I'll ever want to live permanently any place else.

We're not sleeping well because of the damp warm air.  Our apartment doesn't seem to get a breeze at night, either.  So, I start my day tired and then the humidity seems to slowly pull any residual energy out of my muscles.  I could hardly breath during my run this morning.  Our gym is a little like a green house.

Jecheoners can keep their mountain climate.  Get me back to the coast!  I'm sorry to complain.  I'm sure I will adjust.  After all, we did eventually adjust to the freezing inland winter. 

I'm going to try something new.  Since I'm often blogging in chunks throughout the day, I will employ the three asterisk marker after each chunk.  That way, you have a better chance of understanding my train of thought.

*                   *                   *

Julia told me that she wanted a foreign teacher that she is in the process of interviewing to teach my last class tonight.  But, that didn't happen.  Apparently, he taught one of the other teacher's classes instead.  So, I had my first "Leaders" class (the highest level).  The two girls, Sophie and Diana (Julia and the Goam principle's daughters, respectively) are very fluent.  Aside from some bad habits and grammar related issues, those girls can easily hold intelligent conversations in English.  The boys on the other hand, Evan and Daniel, can hardly string sentences together.  Evan can hardly read.  Needless to say, the girls ran circles around them in class and it made any sort of progression on the topic ("careers") impossible.  Next week we will start on speeches and then I'm hoping to move them through a several week long lesson on debating.

My second to last class was much more fun for me than it was for my students.  This is only because the lesson was very difficult.  The students were practicing giving directions.  The patterns they had learned ("go straight and turn left/right at the corner") had only given them enough to make vague, unhelpful directions.  So, I was pushing them past their comfort zone and into difficult waters.  But, I tried to make it fun and pertinent (though not necessarily at the same time).  We started with giving directions to landmarks in Jecheon (the movie theater, E-Mart, Yoon's, etc.).  I concluded the class by giving them maps and having them work in teams to give each other directions from a chosen "point A" to "point B."  To amuse myself I gave them maps of Disneyland, Pike Place Market and The San Fransisco Wharf.  I truly enjoyed listening to students describe how to get from Critter Country to Space Mountain.

It's steamed mandu for dinner tonight.  They're pretty much Korea's dimsum or dumplings.  I'm excited because Ian gave me a bite of the filling and it's garlicky and fantastic.  They can be steamed, fried or boiled and made into soup.

Some of those went into the freezer for later.

Good night!

Rhythm

Today went very smoothly.  I wasn't as nervous or frazzled as yesterday.  My only major problem is adjusting the classes so that they fully conclude in forty minutes.  I'm not leaving the kids enough time to finish their worksheets and tape them in their notebooks.  When these two weeks (and term 3) are finished, Goam students will have books for my classes.  I'm looking forward to that.  It's not difficult to teach the lessons without them, but as the system runs now, it's damn near impossible for me to stay organized.

I'm not as tired today, which is a major plus.  My classroom here is much bigger, so I'm up on my feet and running around more.  I had a hard time getting out of bed this morning and my run suffered.  Ian and I are still trying to get fully back in weight loss mode.  While it's frustrating not to be on track, it's nice to know that our "off" still includes healthy eating choices and exercise everyday.  I remember times in college where I probably consumed twice the calories I do now and just sat around studying or watching t.v.  Then Ian and I would top it off with movie snacks and lots of meals out when he visited on the weekend.  So, though I'm frustrated that I'm not making the progress I'd hoped for, I'm glad that the lifestyle change has stuck.

I heard from Chun wha yesterday that Eun wha was fired.  She had been out sick and spending time with her family during a crisis.  I'm not sure what happened, but my guess is that Julia asked her to come in before she was ready and Eun wha simply couldn't.  I can't help but remember that Chun wha showed up to work in hospital pajamas after her car wreck.

Julia sat in a couple of my classes today.  She didn't say much to me, but she looks happy and Sue says that things are looking up for Yoon's at the moment.  Though she didn't say anything to me, she still managed to disrupt one of my classes.  Three boys sat in a cluster to my left.  I could tell right away that they had attitude problems.  Julia sat next to the alpha.  He spoke out of turn, in both Korean and English.  Teasing the other students and just generally being disrespectful to me and the whole class.  But, instead of helping me discipline him, she seemed to egg him on.  She would hit him and look at him with that "Oh, you..." attitude that is so commonly applied to boys here.  I finally kicked him out of class when he continuously abused the ball game to chuck the ball at girls' heads.  But, Julia was no longer around at that point.

A Korean-American teacher I've never met will be taking over my last class tomorrow; but, I am still responsible for the lesson plan.  I have everything but that particular lesson ready for tomorrow.  I need to talk to Angela about what her students are doing in that class.

I've survived another day in Julia's kingdom.

Good night!

New Schedule, New Life

Ian's schedule is very different from mine.  Sinback and Haso are relatively consistent, 5-6 in a row and then home by 8:40 at the latest.  But, at Goam, my classes are based on the Korean English teacher's schedules; so they vary.  Monday's classes start at two and I have four forty minute classes, then a break for an hour and a half (which is happening now, while I'm writing this), a forty minute class, then another fifty minute break and my last class ends at 8:40.  I'm not sure if I'll have to stick around for a meeting, but even if I don't, it's likely that I won't get home until after 9pm.  Everyday is different, but they all end late.

So, I will be trying to write during the day or write pieces of each post as I have time each day.

I am so tired.  I still have two classes left and plenty of time to sit and get sleepier and sleepier.  Ian's students are difficult.  His beginner students do not have the foundation that mine do (most likely through no fault of his).  This is probably because they do not use books and so their lessons are not as linear.  They had a lot of difficulty with simple possessive pronouns.  It took me nearly half the class to get them comfortable with asking "What's your/her/his name?/ What's your favorite animal?" and answering with the corresponding "My/her/his name is ___."  "My favorite animal is a ____."  Writing was another beast all together.  My Haso and Sinback students easily follow directions and write the sentences we've discussed.  Granted, they write very slowly, but they can still do it.  These guys needed to be coaxed through every word.  They took no initiative asking each other questions and very few students made it through worksheets that my other kids finished in a few minutes.  

But, I've decided that I'm not going to scale back my lessons just yet.  Maybe when they are more accustomed to me they will show more progress.  But, so far, it doesn't look like the Goam system is accomplishing what it set out to; in fact, it doesn't look like it's accomplishing much at all.

My first class was very young.  Toward the end of class Sue (who sat in a couple of my earlier classes) suddenly moved the littlest girl, Eva, over a seat and I noticed there was a puddle.  Sue quickly cleaned up the mess and I pretended nothing happened.  I'm not sure if she wet through her clothes or if she spilled something.  Someone did have a small juice cup in that class, but I don't think it had enough juice in it to make a puddle.  It was an interesting start to things, that's for sure.

I also had Ian's learning disabled kid in class today.  His name is Logan.  I really want him to get something out of the lesson, but it's very difficult.  I just tried to kindly lead him through things today.  I don't have much experience working with Special Needs children.  It's really a shame that he isn't being given all the tools he needs to succeed.

Generally, these students are a lot ruder.  They say a lot more cruel things to each other and once the shock wears off, I'm sure they'll test them out on me as well.  The "Basic" level classes were hard to control.  It wasn't that they did anything specifically bad, but they didn't listen and I had to be on top of them constantly.  These kids have your garden variety attitude problems, but when there in a group it can be tough to handle.

The Fluent students were not as "fluent" as one would hope.  But, with the exception of one kid that I had to put in a make believe "silence box" they listened and cooperated.

I talked a lot with Sue today and Julia occasionally made an appearance.  She is happy.  From what she said to me, it seems that she wants Ian to be the shiny, happy, fun candy coating that attracts students in and from me she expects a more robotic, boring but educational approach that will send the students home having learned something.  We are two halves of a whole to her.  Sue told me that there are some new students signed up for next month, so that partially accounts for her good mood.  As long as she's not threatening to fire us, I'm happy.  For right now, it seems we're safe.

Today was exhausting, but feasible.  My new mission is to tame Ian's students.  I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Good night!

A Saturday Romp

Yesterday was a blast.  We got up, went to the gym and then to E-mart to get a few things for the picnic.  Then we got all the food together (onigiri, chopped veggies, apples and imported beer).  We met Ben and Amy at their apartment and walked toward Uirimji where there's a small park tucked in the rice paddies.  I forgot to take a picture of the food we brought.  When we picnic again, I'll be sure to document it better.  We ended up sitting to the side of the pagoda (where everybody else was) because there wasn't much room, but we still got to see and talk to everyone.  Amy brought snacks and delicious homemade peanut butter cookies.  I ate two.  That's where my joyful spiral into a day of overindulgence began.  

A Korean guy who I hadn't met before (and called himself "Mountain Man") came and sat next to us for a few minutes.  His English wasn't very good, but he was pretty cool.  We offered him an onigiri and he ate it in one bite, struggling to get it down since the rice was a bit water logged and gluey.  He made quite a show of it, but then he ate three more.  So, we gave him a beer, figuring he needed and deserved it.

Here are some terrible photos of each of us, none of which feature the meal in the slightest:

Basically everyone showed up to say goodbye to Hayley, Kate and Pete (at the picnic and then later at SJ's and the bar), so it was nice to see everybody.  A few of the many, from left to right: Kate, Hayley, Pete, Liz, and Andrew.

Ben, Amy, Ian and I left to go see Robin Hood and everyone asked us to come to SJ's after, so we obliged.  After the movie, we walked to SJ's and decided to detour up to a hilltop park which is lit with lanterns right now for Buddha's Birthday on Friday.

Then we hit SJ's apartment and the evening ended in soju, juice and a streetside encounter with a few Indian men and one Korean that ended with us giving him a small banana; our gift prompted a "Who's on First?"  episode in which the Korean guy asked me about a hundred times (in Korean) how you say "banana" in English (it's "banana" in both languages). 

As usual, everyone ended up at Metro.  At one point, Ian ran to Buy the Way to get cash to pay our tab.  He got in the elevator with Jamie's wife (a Korean woman) and she asked him where we work.  Ian told her and she said, "Oh!  You're boss is crazy!"  Apparently she had heard about her when she worked at Wonderland.  It's too bad we didn't know how Julia's reputation preceded her, but it's nice to know we're not alone.

It was a long, and very fun day.

Good... afternoon!

Repackaging

Ian and I went to the Goam campus at 11 this morning for our meeting.  When we arrived, the place was dark and no one was there.  At 11:20 Julia called my phone and, sounding distressed, asked if Ian and I were currently at Goam.  I confirmed that we were there waiting and she told me she'd be there "ten minutes later."  I ran to Dunkin' Donuts to get some tea (and some air before what is always an exercise in anxious hand wringing these days).  Ian called as I was walking back to the building to tell me that Julia had gotten there about five minutes ago and was at the computer, meaning we were probably going to have a video conference with Terry.  Terry is Julia's son, for those of you who aren't familiar, who attends university in Australia.  In no official capacity is Terry attached to Yoon's English Forest, but he translates/ composes Julia's hateful, condescending letters to us and he has recently started translating for her via video chat during our meetings.

Julia looked very frazzled this morning.  She wasn't wearing any make up and she sat with her head in her hands for minutes at a time and there were long, awkward pauses in which no one said anything and Terry just sat in Australia, staring at us on his monitor with dogs barking in the background.

She has decided to switch Ian and I.  I'm not sure when it will take effect, but soon (as in, any day now and probably with little warning) I will begin working at Goam and Ian will take over Sinback and Haso.  I asked to be told a week in advance so that we could train each other, but they ignored me and moved on to discussing Ian and my faults as teachers.  Julia is concerned with the low number of students at Sinback (she lumps in Haso, as well, but Haso isn't losing students as far as I can tell) and she believes that I have a critical lack of enthusiasm that is causing this problem.  To be completely honest, when I first started this job I had to learn how to be 'on' all the time.  It took me several months to learn how to engage my students and have the same amount of energy at the end of the day as I do at the beginning.  It took me a long time to adjust and that is one of the reasons I will cite when I tell you I've figured out that teaching is not for me.  That said, I did work it out.  My classes have been running splendidly for months.  We have a rhythm, my students like me and they seem to really enjoy themselves 95% of the time.  Julia suffers from academics might call a "consistency bias," as well as a "self-serving bias."

Julia thinks that if the parents see a different English teacher at Sinback and Haso, that they will be more likely to renew their student's enrollment.  She's repackaging the foreigner, changing it up and creating interest.  You know, like when Coca Cola or Pepsi redesign their labels. 

It's trade places or face being fired.  We have no choice and no right to an opinion or input.  But, I'm completely against it.  I love my students.  I've worked hard to bond with them, I expected to spend a year teaching them and they think that they'll have me for the entirety of my contract.  They are the only good thing about this job.  And while they are not stupendous across the board (I've got some rotten buggers), I'm quite attached to most of them.  Ian's students are a lot rougher.  They're hard on him and I expect no different.  By the time I get to know his brats and start to like them despite their attitude problems, our contracts will be ending.  Being forced to start a relationship with a new teacher will set the kids back at least a few weeks.  They'll have to get comfortable enough to talk freely and without embarrassment again.

One of my students, Natalie, came up to me just before class and excitedly said, "Casey teacher!  I want to see you!"  She grabbed my arm and excitedly shook it up and down.  There was a sub for me last week because Ian and I took Mom to Jeju-do (it was someone named James and I have no idea who they are or if they're a foreigner or a Korean or if they even work for Yoon's).  She was glad to have me back and she cared enough to tell me.  This was probably my last week as her teacher.

Daniel, a problem student of mine who my mom probably remembers sticking white stickers into his glasses and pretending to peer at the people near him, gave me an idol card today.  It's a picture of one of the members of a Korean dance pop group called Shinee.  That's all I know about it.  I'm not even sure which member it is.

I have a new favorite snack food in Korea (not that it's particularly Korean).  I had it for the first time when we went to Iron Man 2 again on Sunday.

Super Mix Kernals Popcorn.  It's a mix of plain salted popcorn, caramel corn and chocolate popcorn.  Man, is it delicious and it's only 190 calories for the whole 45 gram container.  I am also currently in love with M&Ms.

Ian, however, loves a less healthy snack.

Potato Sticks.  I think they smell like fatty death (they're way too oily for me), but Ian loves them more than any other snack here.  They are 320 calories for 70 grams, so about the same calories, actually (I can't read the labels well enough to figure out the fat content).

What is your go-to movie or night time snack?

Good night!

A Break from Reality: Weird Things Koreans Eat

Note:  I can't fix the font sizes. I don't know what's wrong.  I apologize if it makes your eyes cross.


 The drama continued today with Julia making Ian's life very difficult.  He went to work a half an hour early to do more prep.  Julia chose not to look at the material that Ian gave her yesterday until this afternoon.  So, she was giving him suggestions (read: demands) on his worksheets (that he put hours into and gave her ample time to look at) minutes before his classes started.  She also changed her mind about many of the lesson plans and worksheets she okay'd yesterday.

But, Ian seemed like he was in a better mood when I talked to him on the phone tonight.  Maybe she laid off toward the end of the day.

But, instead of dwelling on this business and telling you how inadequate and dehumanized we feel and how I can't stop thinking about all the sacrifices we made in the name of travel and experiences that might not happen, I thought I'd break from real life for a few minutes and show you some strange things that Korean people find delicious and nutritious.  I know we've briefly discussed these before, but here's another list for your reading pleasure (or gagging).

Beondegi (번데기)

Beondegi are boiled silkworm pupa that are seasoned and eaten as a snack.  Every mart has cans of them in stock (often in impressive numbers) and you can by them from a vendor stirring a big pot of them at any decent size outdoor market.  Nothing smells quite like them.  It's the only smell in Korea that still affects me (read: makes me want to vomit).

Dotorimuk (도 토리묵 )

This is one thing that Ian and I have actually tried.  I think Chun wha served it to us, but I can't remember when or where.  Maybe Chuseok?  Anyway, it's a starch jelly made from acorns (served in very geometrical chunks that make it look a bit like opaque brown jello).  It tastes a bit like tree, but the texture was too much to get over at the time.  Very slippery.  I wonder how we'd feel if we tried it again, now that we are more accustomed to Korean food.

San Ojingeo or San Nakji (산 오징어 or 산 낙지)

This one is pretty well known.  It's live squid or octopus (respectively).  It can be served chopped up (the tentacles still move) or whole.  There's a pretty gut wrenching scene in Old Boy featuring this cuisine here.  Considering research has shown that octopi have a consciousness similar to dogs and dolphins, it's not one something I like to think about.

Bosintang (보신탕)

Speaking of dogs, bosintang is a soup made from dog meat, vegetables and spices.  A heavy dose of spices, at that, to mask the pungent odor.  Manufacturing and/or selling dog meat has been illegal since 1984, but the practice continues.  People in this part of Asia have been eating dog meat for centuries, tying the practice to increased strength and virility.  The dish is most popular in the hottest month of summer, August (the "dog days," if you will).  Many foreigners are sold the idea of dog farms and slaughtering practices similar to that of pigs and cattle, but in reality, that's not so.  Many dogs slaughtered for their meat are kept in horrid conditions (or taken from the street) and then tortured to "release the adrenaline" so that the eater can ingest this "power."  I've read that the torturing practices have roots in the Korean War.  Any kind of dog can be slaughtered, despite common misconceptions that certain dogs are bred for it.  That said, may Korean people abstain from eating dog meat and protest the practice, as well.

There are plenty of other strange things to consume in Korea, dried squid, Army Base soup (complete with American cheese, ramen noodles, spam and hot dogs), burgers with rice patties instead of buns, and pastries with odd combinations like sugar and garlic (which, is a flavor duo I've grown accustomed to).

Sweet (or bizarre) culinary dreams. Good night!

A Very Short Update

My apologies.  I don't have much energy for writing tonight.

Ian had the most terrible day.  It's 9:40pm and he's not home yet.  Most likely, he hasn't even left the campus.  Julia rode him all day.  Everything he did was wrong.  He'd change something to her specifications, and it would still be wrong in some other way.  She is the master of contradicting herself.  Ian also caught a glimpse of Gene's grading sheets for his classes.  If he saw correctly, he's getting 50s and 60s.  Not the 80s that we need.  Maybe I was wrong to assume about Gene.  I'll have more details when he gets home.  I'll be sure to fill you in tomorrow.

My day went by as usual.  It's so odd.  No one came to watch my classes.  No one paid any more attention to me than they usually do.  When I gave my lesson plans for today and tomorrow to Chun wha (as Julia instructed me to do), she looked a little confused and politely smiled.  Do they have any idea what's going on?   Is this "termination" frenzy one of Julia's whims that she doesn't communicate to anyone outside her everyday circle?  Why was Julia happy yesterday and furious today?

I've had enough thinking about this for one day.  Things aren't looking good.  Good night.