New Digs

My new apartment is smaller than the last, but cozier.  And it’s got cable.  I’d heard that Koreans had television shows dedicated solely to video game competitions but had dismissed it as a rumor.

No, they exist.  And they’re stranger than they sound.

Update: After taking a walk around my hood, it turns out I live right behind the Seoul Hooter’s (“Hoo-Teo-Su!”).  (Previous link is NSFW-ish.)  So if you come visit, wings are on me.

(Why do they have a kid’s menu?)

Transit

Training is over and I’m moving tomorrow from southwest Seoul to southeast Seoul.  My new apartment has been inhabited by a really nice Canadian couple with whom I’ll be teaching (they’re moving into a single bedroom place, as opposed to my new studio).  Apparently I’ve got a nice bed and a kitchen stocked with decent utensils.  Second-floor walk-up, desk and kitchen table but no couch.  Koreans have a conflicted relationship with couches.  My former boss and his brother are going to help me and my three other former co-workers, all of whom are transferring to this new hagwon, move our stuff, which is really great of them albeit a little awkward.

The Party of Lincoln

RNC chair Michael Steele has a new “hip-hop” vision for his party, and the ever ghetto-fabulous Minnesotan wingnut Michele Bachmann obliges:  “Michael Steele!  You be da man!  You be da man!”

Ex-Monk

A Mefi post on South Korean poet Ko Un.

Ahead Or Behind

There’s no difference as far as I can tell.

Turnover

I met my new kindergarten class yesterday at an all-school graduation ceremony for the oldest (American age seven) kids who are now moving on to first grade at other schools.  I was really impressed with their English, as most of them have been at this hagwon for over a full year, some for two.  My class will be now be the oldest and most advanced among the “kindie” groups.

I knew that most of the current foreign staff were leaving, but today I realized it was all nine of them.  This sounds catastrophic, but it’s not that uncommon.  You get ten days a year of vacation time teaching hagwon (as opposed to public schools), and this includes your week off at Christmas.  It’s common for foreign teachers to go back home or travel around Asia for a spell before re-upping.  Usually a month after the Korean school year starts in March, there’s a spike in demand as the first wave of wayguk saram flake out or, perhaps more generously, realize that living and teaching in a foreign country just isn’t for them.

International Nerdgasm

Ya know what’s cool?  The trailer for Watchmen with Korean subtitles is cool.  And the fact that it’s having a simultaneous theatrical release here in the Land of the Morning Calm, meaning my nerd-lust will not have to wait to be sated.

Since Nobody Asked Me

I liked Slumdog Millionaire, despite the criticism of those who didn’t think its audience would be smart enough to tell the difference between a documentary and a romance.  But I was pulling for Mickey Rourke, Waltz With Bashir (Best Foreign Film), and Happy-Go-Lucky (Best Original Script, for a director who encourages ad-libbing) to bring something home as well.

But now I’d really like to check out Departures.

Yong-o Panda

I’m done with my first day of training for my new school, and important things first — I am now in charge of Panda Class (Dolphin Class and Reindeer Class will be fronting, no doubt, but we’ll keep them in check).  They’re seven in Korean years, meaning six in Western years (you start off at age “one” in Korea).  They’ve also have a full year of English under their collective belts which might not sound like a lot, but I’m betting many of them are quite strong in their spoken acuity (not so much in their reading and writing, understandably).

It’s a big, established school in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Seoul, and more importantly my new boss has a lot of genuine enthusiasm for education and learning.  Not that my last one didn’t, but the whole program seems to be fine-tuned in a way that my last one wasn’t.  Or couldn’t have been for that matter, since we were only open for six months before we were waylaid by “investor difficulties.”

Tomorrow I’ll get to meet some of my actual kids, and later this week we’ll do an observed class on our own.  This weekend I move across town and then Monday things get rolling, sort of.  There are a bunch of introductory type activities to usher in the new Korean school year (March 2), but then again a lot of my kids have already been at this hagwon for a year, so they’ll probably be teaching me as much as I teach them.  Typical.

Seoul Metro Adventures

I met a friend for lunch in Sinchon yesterday (Saturday).  Coming back home on a typically crowded metro, I was doing my usual thing and listening to my iPod and practicing my Korean by trying to read the advertisements inside the car.

I suddenly felt a hand on my face.  A very well-dressed middle-aged Korean man was stroking my left chin and smiling at me.

It took a very long second for me to realize that I had red sauce from my ddeokbokki still on my face.

That was funny in itself, but the sight of me wiping my chin with a spare napkin and using my broken Korean to explain the faux-pas was downright comedy gold.  I managed to make half a car-load of Koreans laugh, at least.  Both with me and at me, no doubt.