start of goodbyes

Today, my seventh-to-last day of teaching regular classes at Dongduk, I received a little going-away present from three of my students. All three are first year students (the equivalent of grade 7 in North America), and two of the three had been in a few of my after-school programs this year. None of them are strong students—at all—but they has never stopped them from coming to talk with me after class, which I’ve always loved.

They presented me with a small envelope. Inside was a letter and some earrings. I was immediately impressed with the length of the letter; it was much longer than any composition they had written for me before. In the letter, they introduced themselves as “3 girls who received candies in 1-1 class.” Apparently my prizes have made more of an impression on the students than I thought! They went on to tell me that they are sad to see me leave, and asked, “Will you be happy without us??” Knowing that I will miss them, they answered for me: “Maybe you won’t HaHa~”

The pink, candy-shaped earrings, the girls wrote, were “composed of [their] minds,” which, although I don’t quite know what they meant by that, I appreciate the sentiment. Not my usual style, but I gladly put them on and am currently wearing them with pride.

The letter ends with a request to think of them often—something I’ll have no problem fulfilling. How could I forget?

This has gotten me thinking about some of my old teachers. Some of them I remember for being great teachers, or for helping me learn about myself. I never would have gotten through math if I didn’t have Ms Chalmers in high school for three years. Or, though I wasn’t his biggest fan at the time, Mr Sardine pushed me hard in English, and I have to thank him for that. Keck, my drama teacher, supported me through my growing years in high school.

But there are also those I remember for telling us that they hated teaching. I never knew why a teacher would announce to their students that they hated being there with us day in and day out; it’s not like we didn’t know they were huge grumps, but to tell us straight up they didn’t want to be there? That’s harsh. Then why are you here? I would telepathically ask them from my seat.

Now, after being a teacher myself, I question their actions even more. WHY WERE YOU A TEACHER?? I want to scream at them. I have loved my job here since Day 1; I’m energized as soon as I get in the classroom, even if I was falling asleep on the bus on the way to school. I feel priviledged to be a teacher, to do my best to help these students grow as people as well as English speakers.

My students don’t need to ask me to remember them. I always will.

gangnam alley

there you are

No matter where you go, there you are.
~ Unknown

konglish poetry

Most schedulers, diaries, and notebooks in Korea covered with English quotations, usually about love, or inspirational messages. The imperfections of the writing tend to give these quotations a beautiful lyrical quality. I spent some time at my local Artbox store, writing down some of this “Konglish poetry,” which I’ve included here.

What is life if we have no time to stand and stare
No time to see and feel, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night

Love is here and there.

The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience
to the utmost, to reach our eagerly and without fear
for newer and richer experience.

inventions and recipes,
anger and sorrow,
letters sent to
not knowing…
this is the real part,
is yours. Write fast.
…write over them,
paint over them.
and let go.

Promise yourself to be strong that nothing
can disturb your peace of mind. Look at the
sunny side of everything
and make your optimism come true.

The stars in the sky, the fish in the sea,
the animals on earth everything has many secrets.

A good day is expected to begin!
Wishing you a garden full of happiness,
today and Everyday!

Are you doing good lately? Open now, don’t delay!
This could be your lucky day, you know what I mean?

Look under your feet.
The great opportunity is where you are.
Every place is under the stars.
Every place is the center of the universe.

Imagination is more important than knowledge
Memories with you is not lost. I do not want to forget.
However days and months may flow, the time spent
with you does not fade. You are still alive there. A
photograph can also shut up small temperature there.
It is memory accumulation equipment which the human
begins to forget various things produced.

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

Please always know that I love you more
than anything else in the world.
Being with you makes me feel so happy.
Ever since I met you, things
are looking pretty good.

The best and most beautiful thing in the
world cannot be see nor touched
but are feet with the heart. Happy the man, whose
wish and care a few paternal
acres bound, content
to breathe his native air in his
own ground. Whose herds with milk, whose fields
with bread, whose flocks supply him with
attire; whose trees in summer
yield him shade in winter, fire blest,
who can unconcernedly find hours, day and
years slide soft away in health
of body, peace of mind;
quiet by day.

Happiness
There is only one
happiness in life, to
love and to be loved.
Time
The busier you are,
the more time you need to take
time to do things right.
Record
We need to record words
for our learning.
Future
Have you given any thought
to your future? Let’s
do one thing at a time.
Hero
Everyone is necessarily the
hero of his own life story.

Life is a beautiful journey.
It is with great pleasure that I impart my
inspirational stuffs. I desire nothing else but
you’ll be richly blessed and powerfully
inspired by the thoughts and perspectives
as journeyer in life.

The quiet
water of a lake
Love is like the ripples on
a lake ever widening

han river at night

A painting of mine, inspired by the reflections in the Han River at night…

i’ll eat you up…so yum yum

Of all the K-pop songs I’ve heard in the past 22 months, this one is still my favourite. Kwon Boa was born just outside of Seoul in 1986 and was discovered by the head of SM Entertainment at the age of 13. Since then, as BoA (”Beat of Angel”), she’s had success as a singer/dancer/model in both Korea and Japan. This year she went to the good ol’ US of A in search of success there, as well.

I found out about BoA not through my students, like usual, but throughYouTube Live concert in Tokyo (yes, I am a huge nerd).  And the first time I saw this video, I became a fan. This girl can dance. I can imagine trying to break into the American music scene is tough for an Asian pop star (it’s hard enough for Canadians, for goodness sake), but I hope she makes it.

the star said…

[This is a story written by one of my Grade 1 (Grade 7 in North America) students for our annual English Speech Contest. I have copied it exactly as it was written, all errors included---but, impressively, there are very few. I not only liked the story and its theme of environmentalism, but she also performed it very well.]

Have you ever heard a star talking? Well, I did and I want to talk about it. Are you ready? I’ll begin.

When I was six or seven, my family went to a beach for vacation. The beach was beautiful; soft sand, white waves, lovely trees nearby. We played there like anyone else. We swam and made sandcastles during the day. We ate delicious food and slept peacefully at night. It seemed a lovely and ordinary holiday.

However, it was different. My parents woke me up at midnight and piggybacked me to the shore. I didn’t realize anything except they were carrying me to some place until mom said,

“Sumin*, look up!”

Stars embroidered the sky’s black cloth. The lights dancing against the black, coal-like sky. I just stared at them in silence. The only think I could hear was the cool sound of the waves lapping.

We walked by the shore, using the star lights as our lanterns and the waves and background music. That stroll by the clean and silent beach is one of the happiest memories of my life.

After some years, my family and I visited the same beach again. I remembered the bright stars and beautiful beach. But, it had changed. The shore was dirty and even made dangerous by debris of glass bottles, Styrofoam plates and paper cups. People had thrown junk onto the beautiful pristine sand and ruined it! I cursed an hoped those people never come to that beach again.

At that moment, I heard someone say,

“Who did you blame? Look at the sky and see how beautiful it is, just as in the past, But look at that shore, all ruined and dirty. While this shore was getting dirtier, what were you doing? Look. The skies, where human hands can’t reach, are the same as ever but the place where human hands have reached has been ruined.

Who was it that said this? There was no one at the shore except me. There was only a star staring at me. Yes, it was a star that just spoken to me.

“Who did I blame? Is it wrong to blame those people? “I wanted to answer the star’s question, but I couldn’t answer. I had done nothing for the beach. Does this mean that someone who has done nothing is the same as those people who made the Earth dirty?

That was it. I am the same as them. Sometimes I littered anywhere even though there were trashcans nearby. I was a part of the mess, even a small amount on this Earth made me complicit.

Now I realized the true meaning of the star’s words and felt remorse.

I made a promise in my heart, to clean up after the places where I stayed. Even now, when I go back home from institutes late at night, I stare at the star of Seoul in silence and believe it was the star who spoke to me. I try to keep the promise I made long ago with the star.

I hope you try to listen to the stars an promise them,

“I will help too.”

————–
* Name has been changed

5 new english proverbs

Strike while the person ignores you.
Better safe than alive.
Don’t bite the hand that touched something dirty.
Where there’s smoke, there’s no hope.
Children should be seen and not do that.

~ my after-school ESL class

sorry, sorry

Sorry, Sorry
Super Junior

“Sorry, Sorry” is the latest song from the K-pop boy band, Super Junior. And when I say “boy band,” I mean the biggest boy band of all time; Super Junior has no less than thirteen members: Leeteuk, Heechul, Han Geng, Yesung, Kang-in, Shindong, Sungmin, Eunhyuk, Donghae, Siwon, Ryeowook, Kibum, and Kyuhyun. And no, I can’t tell them apart yet. Even Perez Hilton has taken notice of this super-sized boy band.

Prior to the release of “Sorry Sorry,” Super Junior hadn’t released a song here since “Don’t Don” in late 2007. With no singles and lots of competition, they’ve been losing their place among boy band-loving teens like my students. TVXQ (also known as Dong Bang Shin Ki in Korea), FT Island, and especially Big Bang have consistently been ranked as the best by my girls. If I mentioned Super Junior, it was always met with, “No, teacher. Not Super Junior. They are not good.” But, judging from the dancing around my classroom, I’m pretty sure Super Junior is gaining in popularity once again.

My students made a cute video of the teachers for Teacher’s Day. It was styled like a music video for this song, with some teachers and students dancing, posing, or catwalking. Not gonna lie, I was disappointed that I wasn’t asked to dance; my part was limited to a goofy smile. But I found this video with all the dance moves so I can practice, and maybe I’ll be ready for next time.

how to use a toilet

We’ve all seen them: the signs on the doors with either an Asian-style squat toilet or a Western-style seat toilet. To a foreigner here, a squat toilet can be scary—it’s suddenly like you’re a toddler again and learning how to go potty without your mommy or daddy’s help. But for the Korean who is now getting used to the new, Western-style toilets that are creeping their way into Korean public restrooms, they can seem just as foreign and scary.

The Asian-style Squat Toilet

Since moving to Korea, I have not only learned how to use these squat toilets, but learned to love them. They’re comfortable and easy to use, but most of all, they’re clean. There’s no need to touch anything—no cheeks on the seats, no fingers on the flushers (they have foot pedals instead).

They’re certainly an upgrade from the squat toilets I experienced in Africa, which were usually no more than a hole in the ground. Some so-called “toilets”, in fact, weren’t even a hole, but a slab a concrete behind a door. Sandals plus a difficult target…you get the picture.

So, yes, I was pleasantly surprised that I could learn to love these little loos. To spread the joy, I thought I’d post this how-to picture I spotted in a stall during my travels in Japan. It’s the first time I’d seen one for the squatter, usually it’s the other way around, which brings me to…

The Western-style Seat Toilet

As the less-common toilet style here, these pictures are a lot more frequent. (The bottom-right picture always makes me laugh.) The plus-side for these Johns is their laziness factor—it’s certainly easier to take a seat than to balance yourself over the squatter-style ones. But, on the other hand, I know a lot of ladies out there don’t even sit on the seats for fear of getting booty germs or finding a wayward drop from the last user (you know they’re out there).

Now when you’re in Asia and nature calls, as it does, you can relieve yourself with confidence—no matter which stall you choose.