(Finally) Loving Korean Food

Generally speaking, Ian and I are lovers of international food.  While we love burgers and fries, our true favorites list is as long as my arm:  Italian, Mexican, Thai, Indian, Japanese, Catalonian, and so on.

So, when we moved to Korea and began to have difficulties eating the native food, we were pretty disheartened.  Gochujang has it's good points, but when things are smothered in the (sometimes too) dark, spicy flavor, it can really ruin a meal.  Vegetarianism is it's own problem.  Not only do Korean's consume huge amounts of pork, beef and chicken, but fish is considered a seasoning here.  So, it's difficult to find anything that is truly animal free.

Lately, we've been cooking our own Korean food and we've really started to love it.  When we have control over the details, it's a lot less frustrating.  We're American and therefore our versions are naturally Westernized.  But, I wouldn't say our food is worse for it.  Korean cuisine lacks flavor depth.  Not enough acid, sodium or any sort of brightness to the taste.

There are quite a few resources on the internet for cooking vegetarian Korean food.  One of my favorites is a blog called "Alien's Day Out."  She chronicles her food life as a vegan in Seoul.  It helps me choose restaurants and find out how to cook Korean dishes that are both delicious and meat free.

Here are a few things we've made in the past few days.

Egg white bibimbap (rice, cucumber, fern, carrot, cabbage and lightly fried bellflower root).  In the bowl is a banchan (Korean side dish) courtesy of Alien's Day Out.  It's pretty much kimchi pre-fermentation (cabbage, vinegar, soy sauce and gochujang).  Delicious.

A better look at the bibimbap.

A better look at the faux-kimchi banchan.

Today's lunch was amazing.  Those pancakes are actually pumpkin pachingeh (easy Korean veggie pancakes made with a simple flour batter).  We had steamed veggies and some more faux kimchi with them.  Dip the pachingeh in soy sauce for the most delicious results.

As you can see, we eat very well and very healthy.  All colors represented.  Low on the caloric intake, but very high in nutrients.

We have more recipes to try out before Mom gets here, so stay tuned.

Good night!

Thoughts on Teaching Requirements in Korea

One of our fellow teachers here in Korea posted something on Facebook today that got me thinking.  He got in trouble with his director for physically retaliating when a child threw a book at him.  Unfortunately, when he through the book back, it hit the child's lip and busted it.  I'm sure that he was pushed to the brink, as I've spent time with this particular teacher, I don't imagine him as the unnecessarily violent or even aggressive type.  But, I do agree with his director.  The retaliation was not only wrong, but pointless.  The kid learned nothing other than perpetuated violence from the episode.

But, what exactly do we expect from young teachers with no Education training, let alone psychological or developmental knowledge?  Degree specifics need not apply when teaching English in Korea and don't expect to get any training on working with kids when you get here.  It's all on the job with real kids and real problems, no theories and no hypotheticals.

Ian has some pretty difficult students, including some handicapped ones.  He is fantastic with kids and a far better teacher than I am, but without that training and applicable knowledge base, he is still left with a pretty small tool kit in the classroom.  I know that I've handled situations poorly at times, usually by simply not handling them.  If I punish a child, it usually gets me in the hot seat, so I choose to let chaos reign sometimes.

We are glorified camp counselors here.  Except that counselors receive training on not only entertaining children, but also keeping them safe and not scarring them mentally, intellectually or emotionally.  Counselors are also held accountable to someone, as well.  And while we are responsible to Julia, her main concern is whether we are affecting Yoon's bottom line in any way.

I'm trying to find out more about the Korean educational system as a whole.  I don't even know what the Education Programs are like at Korean universities.  I'll be doing more research and writing future posts for sure.  If you anything about this topic, please post it in the comments.  Or if you know a good source, please do the same.

Good night!

Happy St. Patty's Day

Today was completely devoid of green clothing, pinching and cabbage soup.  It was business as usual over here in Korea-ville.  I'm sure if we lived in Seoul there would be bars advertising special drinks and more people willing to party in the middle of the week.

Our St. Patty's Day acknowlegements will happen on Friday night.  Chelsie is having people over for a "sports wear" themed get together for the holiday (I believe it's also her birthday).  We often crap out when it comes to getting together with most of the other teachers, so we figured it was time to say hi to everyone again.  Afterall, a few people will be leaving in the next couple of months.

Today stretched on into eternity for me.  I teach a full 6 classes on Wednesdays and three of them are Beginner 2.  So, every other class is 8-10 year olds.  They're my favorite, but it's pretty exhausting.  Plus, teaching exactly the same lesson plan three times in six hours is enough to make me want to crawl into a hole.  What's worse, I get to teach that Beginner 2 lesson plan at least twice more this week (I taught it twice before today, as well).  Long story short, Yoon's doesn't organize it's schedules very well.  Come to think of it, that sentence sums up my last 200 posts pretty well.  Thank you for bearing with us.

You may have read an interesting episode on Ian's Facebook yesterday.  He had a ten year old student continuously put his hands down his pants, root around, and then pull out his hands to smell them.  The other students didn't even notice.  Or if they did, they ignored him.  Though, when Ian forced him to use hand sanitizer after each episode, they did beg for some of their own.  My aunt replied to his story by telling him about one case in which they managed a kid's similar behavior with coveralls and a private room.  If only behavior management was even a thought in Korea.  Just to give you some perspective, this kid is also the sticker eater.  Koreans write off young kids as "strange" very quickly.  It isn't until middle school that the school system begins to strip them down to just what is necessary for their society.  From that time on they are fed a steady diet of "Study and work hard and you will get everything you need in life.  Nothing else will ever be as important."

That's about it for today.  We're pretty worn out.

Good night!

Korean Soft Drinks

By the way, yesterday's post was my 200th.  Man, time flies.

Ian brought home a couple of canned Korean soft drinks that we've been curious about.

"Birak Shikye" (Nostalgia Drink) and "McCol."  Just to clarify, I mean 'soft drink' as in nonalcoholic.  Most Korean canned beverages aren't carbonated.  Here's another random tidbit for you:  upon Googling the Shikye, I discovered that there's an entire blog dedicated to "drinks with chunks."  Enjoy.

I tried the McCol first.

Making sure it's not too odorous. 

The smell made me nervous to try it.

My instincts were right.

Ian's not too stoked about the scent either.

I think he put it best: "It's like flat Coke ass and burnt rice."

Next up: Nostalgia Drink.

No smell.

Oh my.

"It's hummingbird food."  It's pretty much water sweetened with sugar and rice.  There's rice in the bottom.  No thanks.

Congratulations. You just looked through a dozen photos of us drinking gross stuff.  Happy 201!

Good night.

Of Meetings and Pajamas

Ian and I went to the bank and then to our meeting at Goam this morning.  I'm not completely convinced that my presence is necessary at those meetings anymore.  For the last two meetings (since they moved them to Goam) Gene has reported one note from Julia meant for the both of us and then the meeting turns to Ian's schedule, material and notes.  I didn't even receive my books for the new term until today.  It's going to be an interesting three months, as it seems the staff forgets about Haso and Sinback a little more with every passing day.  It's understandable, since the Goam changes are so dramatic and the new system is their brainchild.  But, it's a little frustrating that there are very few resources and even less energy for the other campuses.

When I got to work today Haso was without a principle and even without a sub.  I asked Eun wha how Chun wha and Chang su were doing and she vaguely told me that they were still at the hospital.  Chun wha showed up around 4 o'clock and waved at me through my classroom window.  She looked very tired.  When I got out of class, I approached her to see how everything was.  It was then that I noticed she was wearing hospital pajamas and flip flops.  The hospital pajamas even had a little bloodstain near the buttons on the shirt.  It was so strange.  She usually dresses very conservatively and professionally.  Her state of dress made me think that maybe she was just stopping by to grab some things, but she was there until I left, taking student interviews and filling out paperwork as if it were any other day.  Chang su is still in the hospital.  Chun wha said not to worry, but Koreans are very uncomfortable with empathetic anxiety; so I'm still completely unsure of his condition.

As for whether it's normal for patients to be discharged with their hospital issued pajamas, I can't even begin to guess.  Ian did see a man walking down the street with a wheeled IV stand the other day.  No one else on the street seemed to give him a second thought, so who knows.

I got to teach one of my classes in two micro sessions today.  One student showed up at 5:30 (the proper time) for class.  Since it was only her and I, we got through the material in about 30 minutes.  Just as I began to explain the homework to her (at about 6pm) another student walked through the door.  I told him that it was too late (I mean, he was 30 minutes late for a 45 minute class).  I finished explaining the homework and dismissed them.  Chun wha asked him when he would like to come back this week to make up the class.  He told her that he was very busy and he'd like the lesson now.  And she sent me back into the classroom with him to give him a one on one of the class he'd missed.  Granted, I did have some time.  But, I had to cram the lesson into 15 minutes and he got a lot less out of it than he might have otherwise.  

On just about every level possible, there are societal expectations in Korea that implore a person (especially of lower standing) to work their schedule around everyone else's.  Compromise does not exist.  Our weekly meetings are a great example of this.  We've begged for them to be moved to a later time so that we can still go to the gym on Mondays, but Julia says no (even though she doesn't take part in our meetings).

On a better note, we had bibimbap and a bit of kimbap for lunch at Kimbap Heaven (the red kimbap place next to the Goam campus).  It was nice and fresh.  Better than the last bibimbap we had there.  They served us meatless kimbap without a fuss, too.  Good eats.

Good night!

More Like, "From Paris with Stilted Dialogue and Incomprehensible Plot"

We went downtown for some brunch (bagels and ye ole Dunkin' Donuts) and a movie today.  We had a good time walking around in the warm air (a few pictures to follow), but our movie choice wasn't nearly as enjoyable.  We saw From Paris With Love with John Travolta.  Warning:  there are some moderate spoilers in my complaints below.

I can't recommend this movie for any reason.  The plot is nonsensical (a Chinese coke ring somehow leads to a Pakistani terrorism ring who brainwash a non-Pakistani French girl into being a suicide bomber).  The two main characters, Wax (Travolta) and James (Rhys Meyers) are static action movie stereotypes.  All of the interesting subplot and character development happens off screen (in the characters' unexplored backstories) leaving the film witless and boring.

Before subjecting ourselves to yet another terrible movie, we made a day of it walking through the alleyways downtown.

Party shot.  It's tradition.

Drinking this shop's smoothies will make you beautiful.

I don't think there's a Korean apartment in existence that's big enough for this.

There's a photo studio across from the Home Mart downtown.  Actually, there are a lot of studios in that area.  Many of them have albums outside for people to flip through to see the photographer's work.  This shop in particular seems to specialize in baby portraits.  We first came across the unbelievably awkward photo within our first couple of months here, but we never had a camera on us.  Today, we did.  Remember, this is out on the street, used as advertisement for the studio.

I added the black bar, obviously.  If it were my kid, I wouldn't want their nudey pictures on the internet.  But, just to clarify, I don't take issue with children being naked.  Kids dig running around with bare butts.  The fact that the photographer and the kid's parents looked at this photo (which easily could have been laughed off and tossed aside) and thought that it was appropriate to display bugs me.  It makes me feel like they purposefully posed him that way.  It's just a bit exploitative.  I mean, could the kid sign off on it?  Obviously not.  The black bar might make it even more awkward, actually.  But, the pose definitely seals the deal.

Well, on that note.  Good night!

Slow News Day

There isn't really anything to report today, except these pictures of me in Ian's sweatshirt.

Good night!