how most foods are cut in Korea

Scissors! It makes sense in that you won't risk little kids hurting themselves with knives. Even meat and most of their Korean foods are cut with scissors like these. Of course, there are different scissors for cutting stationary.

i need to upload a picture/video of them cutting meat and fruits with scissors!

random picture galore

i love the families with matching orange pants .. hehe ^^



.. do you want to ride the "Good bus"?! :) Also, if this is the "good bus," then where is the "bad bus"



this just made my day! but one correction, can = toilet, if you put the toilet paper down the toilet, what is described in the picture will happen haha (oh and its true) Koreans usually have a little trash can on the side for toilet paper.. it amazes me how Korean bathrooms don't reek



it's hard to see but at a foreigner's bar, there is a drink called "pine, thank you" because when you ask any korean, "how are you" - the response about 85% of the time is "pine, thank you"





this is the art street in Seogwipo - its really cute .. this picture doesn't do justice




happiness!



.. sadness :(

Strangers !

i love strangers! i was just minding my own business near a window of a coffee shop and these two guys from Italy and Ireland knock on the window and hold up a piece of paper against the window, saying "What is your favorite Led Zepillin song?"

That has always been a toss up between "Kashmir" and "Stairway to Heaven" so i scribbled that on the back of my coffee receipt. All of a sudden, they rush in to give me a hug because they were just debating about the two. Next thing I know ..we end up chatting for 3 hours about every topic under the sun from dogs to the death penalties hah. Turns out they were pretty cool guys that are recording for songs for their first album, which is pretty damn sweet. They live with the mantra of "No drugs, no alcohol and no caring what about people think."

The latter can be very easily demonstrated with the video below. We said goodbye with plans to meet up later. After a few minutes , my head is buried in the book was reading again and I look up and all of a sudden see them back in the coffee shop with doing this:



There was a crowd of old Korean women staring in deep confusion. I am not sure which was funnier - their dance or the look on the Korean women's faces.

student's armwear?

Korean girls wear this around their arm so that when they writing or doing art work, the pencil on the paper does not stain their white shirts

.. which in my opinion just goes to show how much Koreans study/work (mostly from writing things over and over and over again) that they need to invent/wear this

but then again, it might just be that it is adorable and fits perfectly into their cutesy culture

Discovering gold

well, it feels like i've discovered gold because i think i've figured out how to make the most rebellious smart-alec students speak English. I was telling some of them that I didn't know much about Korean history and voila ..



.. the most English I have heard (30 minutes worth) from these students all year ! I think it goes to show just how passionate Koreans are about their country. It seems from the stories I hear from my students and other lectures that a lot of their nationalism stems from years and years of victimization from Japan and China, as well as constantly being behind the shadow of China and Japan in the world's eye.

can you tell where in the picture S.Korea, N.Korea, Japan and China are?!

English Skit Contest :)

the 2nd graders won 3rd place at an English skit contest !! :) .. they called themselves "Sexy Cats" i swear i had no influence over that ^^



a 90 degree bow was my student's reaction when they were told they could go to norebang (korean karoke - its a big deal here)

"Overweight program" & beauty lesson?

Idk why I was surprised when I found out that our school has an "overweight program." After I thought about it for a little while, it makes sense given Korea's idea of beauty. Maybe I was surprised because there aren't that many overweight students in my school.. Maybe a few here and there, but not enough (in my opinion) at all to create a program for it. But anywho, I was informed that I was invited to go on a hike on an Olle (a mountain/hiking route) with this program, especially since the school is really dedicated to improving the student's English and so me going would mean the students would be speaking English. Regardless, I was pumped about it because it was an opportunity to get closer to some of my students. Actually, I spent that week making sure I memorized the names of the "overweight" students in my head so that when we went on the Olle, I could get the whole name remembering talk over with quick and get to some real stuff, you know how i'm all about the real talk haha.

well turns out that when we got to the Olle, those very few overweight students weren't there!! The handful of students that were waiting at the start of the trail were actually, in my eye's at least, mostly normal/average weight students.. honestly, I think they just had a little bit larger bone structure than the petite, little girls (but that's bone structure, not actual fat). And when all the Principal (the one with the visor) wanted a picture of everyone, half the girls ran away and the other half that stuck around for the picture covered their faces as you can see below:




but here is the thing, i could not sleep that night because my mind was just racing with thoughts about how i wanted to teach the girls at school a lesson on beauty. I was talking to them on the hike and bus ride back and it just shocked me how some cute girls think that they are so ugly and fat and much much more. So, that night, i just couldn't stop thinking of ways to make them think about some of these questions:

Where are they getting all these ideas of beauty from? Who is behind these ideas of what beauty is? and is it right to just give in to what a someone else's standard of beauty is?

ah, if i don't succeed in teaching them English, then fine but at least, I want to succeed in making them THINK. but how to exactly approach giving middle school girls that have such a wide range of English abilities the tools to think is a bit tough.

I thought about showing them the Dove commercial (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U), but the other day I was at a Photo place with Erin and Liz and there were some younger girls there. They got their pictures taken (of course covering there face) and then without any request or anything, their picture was automatically put on the computer for touch-up, but not just any touch-up. Their eyes were widened and the sizes of their faces (jaw area) was reduced. And the girls were standing right behind the guy and were asking for more reduction and changes. So, I am afraid they would see the commercial and be like, "yeah, so what? of course they have to get that much done to look good." (ah well this would just be said but minus all the articles and with wrong conjugations of verbs)


Then, I got thinking of how this is the country where it is common for girl's to get plastic surgery as their graduation present from HIGH SCHOOL and 25% of Korean mothers will recommend that their daughters get plastic surgery (maybe this statistic includes sons too.. i forget). Regardless, it got me thinking of the TLC "Unpretty" video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeujqiv5i1g&ob=av2n)! It shows how a girl overcomes her boyfriend's pressure of getting plastic surgery and how another girl overcomes her not being happy with her weight.

But I am afraid that they won't take the message of the TLC video to heart because after getting up from my sleep to remind myself of the video - i noticed that all the scenarios that they are of African-Americans. I am afraid they are just going to dismiss this as something for darker skin people. I mean, it was just a two weeks ago that I had lunch with one of my students who is probably one of the smarter 3rd graders. We talked for a couple of hours on Korean History. She wants to become a diplomat and she knew so much about France, Italy, Japan, China, etc. But when Africa came up in the conversation, she said, "Oh, but it is very poor there and they have dark skin." I was shocked because this was coming out of the same mouth who had been thinking of ways to better the relationship between S.Korea and France. And of course I had to give her a lecture on skin color and just how diverse Africa is but after, I had to ask her what she or her classmates thought of me when they saw me. She said that half the class thought I was very pretty, but the other half commented on my darker skin color. well i knew that would happen but i just wanted to confirm it.

I digress but if they have a stigma implanted in their minds, then I don't think showing the TLC video is going to be as effective (and now i totally want to do a whole lesson on race, but I will really have to think how to go about it) but maybe doing beauty first might be a good starting point.

I was then thinking of having them think about those questions of beauty and show them the Christina Aguilera's "You are Beautiful" video, but after watching it again, i saw that it had two men kissing.. which i know would very controversial to show to middle girls.. at least at this moment. Sam morrow (shout out<3) recommended looking up the Glee video for "You are Beautiful," but I can't find it anywhere.

gah. does anyone have any other ideas about how to talk about beauty with middle school girls that range in abilities from being able to understand most of the things i say to others who do not know the answer to "what is your name?" or the alphabet.

take care,
Shreya

- p.s i am living off of 7,500 won right now. That is less than 7 dollars. Aug 25th can't come sooner

more pictures from the Hike:





girls washing off their feet because.. (next picture will explain why..)




THERE WAS COW POOP EVERYWHERE - who would have ever thought cows could navigate steep mountains?!






yay peppers!