Saturday, December 22, 2007

Take That

Christmas has come around so quickly. It signals my five months in Korea. I have no complaints at all. Someone asked me what my biggest culture shock was. Theirs was when they headed to Canada and discovered ‘The Jerry Springer Show’ – I can empathise with her on this. However, I haven’t experienced a culture shock that has stuck in my mind so much that I feel I can express it to another person. Does this mean that I have settled in well and that not much fazes me? Or does it mean that it’s all one big culture shock and I’m still living within the bubble of the shock? Who knows? I don’t really care to be honest.

Anyway enough sappy shite. It’s a mere two days or so till Christmas starts and a further 24 hours later it will be finished. So why the hell do we all look forward to it for so long? Moving on…..

I’m more excited about the arrival of Manksi Pants from Himley Towers, Tooting Broadway, London. (I won’t divulge the postcode as there’s no need – if you’re cool enough to know where the ‘towers’ are, you’ll have been there already). He arrives at 8:05am on Sunday. Giovanna, Myself and Chris Utton are going to make the journey to the airport and surprise him with a professionally made banner. I say professional as we are all kindergarten teachers now and making things look fun and childlike is second nature to us – and if you know Manksi Pants then you will know that he’s ‘fun and child like’.

Then the fun will begin. Not much planned yet. Just see what happens and where the day will take us, but I’m hoping to get MP some good food, drink and then whisk him off to a Norae-bang to stretch his vocal cords to some Take That.

To Be Continued……………………..

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Excuse me, can I have some Mango Chutney?


The picture has no relation to the writing below - just another image of something Korean. A flashback to my birthday, and a quick drink in South Korea's hooters.

My Canadian neighbour, Riley, took me to an Indian restaurant on Wednesday evening. To put it ever so simply, it was lovely. We had samosas, Naan bread and three meat dishes. It wasn't too spicy though, which was a shame as I was kind of hoping to sweat a little bit. The meal lasted just under an hour. It was a pretty event less hour of decent eating. One thing that did come up was the response I got from what I thought was a straight forward and fairly acceptable request.
We had polished off the three meat dishes, and I mean we were like three licking dogs working our way round the saucy dishes. We had some left over Naan. So I got the waiters attention with a simple nod. Over he came. I asked "Can I have some Mango Chutney?" I got the smelliest look I have ever had from anyone. It was as if I had asked him If he minded that I washed my feet in his mouth. Then he said "No".
It was an Indian restaurant run by a team of Indian men - but no Mango Chutney. So I decided that MC must be an English insertion to the whole Indian dining experience. For those of you who have been to India - Could you please clear this up for me. Do they have Mango Chutney in India???

Monday, December 10, 2007

Writing for the sake of writing

Apologies if my blogging pace is too much for the faint hearted. I just am so bored at the moment that all I can conjure up in my horrible life is a few words on this pitiful web-space. OK, I'm clearly exercising some of my built up wit. As fun and enjoyable that my job is the one thing I do lack is a good old wit battle with (change to Aussie accent) 'the little blighter's'. I'm used to vegging in front of Rick's wide-screen TV, with himself and Manksi and a constant flow of anecdotes to keep us from turning into the cast of Jeremy Kyle (AKA Rick).
On a slightly alternate tangent, I discovered two rather interesting facts today. The first being simply interesting and the second has a smidge of humor to it, which is likely to make you forget the first. Here we go.
OK, so a lot of my kids speak in the following sequence. "Hockey Spelling is what?" This clearly should be organised like this "What is the spelling of Hockey" (kind of) - I realised today that because the Korean language is, literally, backwards the kids use their structure when using our English.
I said the second would be slightly more entertaining - so, one of my older kids has a very funny electronic sounding American voice. Most would liken it to our good friend Stephen Hawkin. Well today I discovered why. For weeks now I just thought that it was his style. I just thought that he spoke slowly and very rigidly to make sure he sounded clear and precise. But, during today's exchange of vocabulary he pulled out a little hand-held computer and typed in a word and pressed enter, and out come what can only be described as a carbon-copy of his voice. I literally spat out my Aloe Vera juice!! I couldn't believe what I was hearing. He clearly sits at home types in words, sentences and paragraphs and then just recites them to himself in this horrific electro voice.!!!! I'll be doing my best to convert him into a Hugh Grant sounding gentlemen.
I fear this poor chap is going to grow up with a terrifyingly peculiar, but somewhat unique, language sound.

Sunday, December 09, 2007

Fun-filled-weekend

Picture One: Kids Herald School kids working their magic on stage.

It all started off with our very large Christmas show. I had to work on Saturday. It was the schools annual show. I had been nominated at the last moment to be the MC. At first I was a little stressed at the thought of having to present the show in front of hundreds of eagerly waiting Korean parents, but I settled into a fit of excitement about it and took it as yet another experience to tick off my list.
So Saturday morning arrived and soon passed without too many hitches. The show went smoothly as can be imagined. We were then invited to a teachers meal at a very nice, and expensive, Chinese restaurant. Dinner started at around 5pm. Everyone was there. The owners of the schools, the buildings, chairmen, executives, the lot. Speeches were made and thanks were given. Then it was my turn to speak, again without much notice, I was thrust up to the plinth and was asked to serenade an onlooking crowd of largely non-English speaking Koreans. I opened with a light hearted joke - "Only about 10% of you will understand what I'm going to say, so would everyone else please just smile and nod when I do" this of course wasn't understood by the 90%, which is what made it funny. Kind of. Anyway my speech ended and then I was asked to walked around the head table and offer them a shot of this vile Chinese spirit. It was vile beyond all vileness. It was a thick transparent liquid that tasted like moldy cheese, onions and a twist of earth. I was challenged by one old Korean man to drink a shot with our arms linked. He then proceeded to put my, what I thought was empty, glass on my head. The remaining dribble of vile substance then worked its way through my hair, down my forehead and into my nervously waiting right eye. The sting was reminiscent of when I got champagne in my eye at my Mothers wedding. Although this time I had around 30 people (Korean) starring at me. However, they were all smiling and nodding so my communication was clearly effective. I made my way, embarrassingly, to the restroom and bathed my eye in purified water.
Sunday arrived and Giovanna and I took ourselves to Insadong for some Christmas shopping. A nice chilly day in a very culture packed area of town north of Han River.

Picture Two - I kindly received three flower gifts from kids parents. How Nice!!!

Pictures Three, Four and Five - Shots from Insadong.