Teacher, there is war today

When I went into my first class, Basic 5, on Monday, the kids were all talking (more like yelling at me) in rapid broken English like they usually do. After I got them calmed down, a few students who sit up at the front of the room near my desk started mentioning war.
One girl, Lynn who speaks very well, looked right at me and very calmly said, "Teacher, there is war today." Several students immediately chimed in, "Yes, teacher, yes. Today is war." Somewhat puzzled I asked where. "In Korea" they all replied right away. I am starting to get a little nervous. This is news to me.
"Where in Korea?" I asked. This set off frantic gesturing and a strange mix of mumbled English and Korean. To help them out I offered, "DMZ? 38?" They got excited by my answer, "Yes, teacher, yes!" To clarify some more I ask, "Fighting with North?" "Yes, teacher, yes. North and South fighting." Now I'm starting to panic a little. Surely if there was war today, I would have heard something about it or even heard the airplanes or bombs themselves. Our city is less than an hour away from Seoul on the subway and Seoul is only 30 miles from the DMZ.
My mind was quickly going through all the possibilities. Did they mean military drills? Those are quite common, but no, the kids were insisting that this was actual war between North and South. Did the North do something crazy? If so, why we were still in school? And why were the kids so calm about the whole thing?
Finally, I realized that my kids were referring to the start of the Korean War - on June 25, 1950. Breathing a deep sigh of relief, I laughed and tried to explain to my students my mistake. Given their English level, I'm not quite sure they understood. My older and more advanced students definitely understood when I explaned the event to them and they found it quite humorous, as I do now. Technically, the war has not ended so every day I am living in a war country, although thankfully there is no outright fighting involved.

63 Tower

The 63 Tower is one of the tallest buildings in Seoul and a major landmark, sort of like the Eiffel Tower in Paris. I took these pictures from a park across from the Tower last weekend. As you can tell, I had a little fun playing around with my color settings.

Views from my Rooftop

As the title states, these pictures are taken from the roof of my apartment building. The roof is the equivalent of being on the 4th story - very short when it comes to Korea where 20+ story apartment buildings are common.

Deoksugung Palace

Today I went to Deoksugung Palace which served primarily as a palace for other members of the royal family from the 1500s up until the early 1900s. Elements of architecture and layout reminded me of the Forbidden City in Beijing, but not as grand or opulent. The best thing about the palace was the blissful sensation of peace, a hard thing to find in a densely populated country where the noise is neverending. I was also struck by the contrast of the old painted wooden buildings carefully preserved in the middle of multitudes of new shiny metal skyscrapers. It is a true picture of the past giving way to the future and a symbol of Korea's transition as a country.


I love the way Koreans use the English language. At least this sign makes sense, unlike so many other random things from signs to t-shirt slogans to sayings on stationary products.

Back to Basics

Here is a class picture from my Basic class: Soon Jae, Han Min, Jin Ook, Jay Q, Yoo Kyong, Lynn, Amy, Na Yun, Si Hun, Billy, and Chan Young (Max, Anna, Julia, and Lee are missing).
I have had these students since I first started and I will have them until the end of July. Over that time, they have slowly become my favorite class. They are my youngest students (Korean age 11 which is roughly American age 10) and they have so much energy. When I come into the room, they are always running away from the board where they have been drawing crazy pictures and then start shouting "Teacher, teacher!!! Look!!"
They are also my lowest level students, which means that we read books that are like "I have the ball. I am running. I am not falling. I want to make a goal." Because they are at such a low level, I can get away with playing more games and doing more creative activities with them than I can with older and more advanced students.
It is kind of fun to demote my English level into really simple sentences in order to communicate with these kids. Sometimes though, I can tell that they are getting frustrated because they don't know how to say what they are thinking. The other day, they were trying to tell me that watermelon wasn't a fruit and I was trying to tell them that it was, but both of us were stubborn and I couldn't make any good arguments so I finally just said, "In Korea, watermelon is vegetable. In USA, watermelon is fruit. Okay."
I also love this class because so many of the students have great personalities. One of my favorites (in an annoying but gotta love him anyway kind of way) is named Billy. He is a wild bundle of energy. Every 10 minutes I have to tell him either to sit down or be quiet. One day I had to take his desk away because he kept moving it. Unfortunately, that backfired because all the kids (including Billy) thought it was funny that he didn't have a desk and had to keep his book in his lap.
Lately, Billy has been bringing ants to class. That's right - ants - big, black ants. One day it is crawling around in his pencil case and the next day it's all wrapped up in a little square of wax paper, squirming its legs trying to break free. He insisted on showing me every day and every day I would tell him to put it in his backpack. In the back of my mind, I was imagining having to explain to my boss why I have an ant infestation in my classroom.
One day last week, Billy showed up with about half a dozen ants crawling around in an empty cassette tape box. I decided that I had enough of the ants. I told him that if he brought ants to class anymore, I would throw them out the window of our 7th floor classroom. Billy immediately looked horror stricken, "Teacher, NO!" "YES!" I replied as I stood by the window, mimicking shaking ants outside.
Today, as I'm leaving the teachers' lounge to go to class, Billy runs up to me in the lobby area. Quickly and rather loudly, he says, "Teacher, today I have ant. I sorry. Tomorrow I no have ant. Please no kill ant." My boss and the counter teachers heard his plea and started laughing. I showed some mercy and spared the 1 very large ant Billy had in his pencil case. But I do not want to see that ant or any ant again tomorrow.

Temple Visit

Today was the official day of Buddha's Birthday. We had heard rumors that if you went to the temples today, you could get free food and see some more celebrations. Wednesday night, we got some recommendations from one of the Korean counter teachers at our school. Armed with her information, we set out for what would turn out to be quite an adventure.

After 20 minutes of wandering around the station area looking for the bus stop, we then spent another 30 minutes waiting for our bus to come. Thankfully, it was the right bus and we made it to the temple. Despite the rain, we had a great time walking around the grounds admist even more colorful lanterns. It even turned out that getting free food wasn't a myth after all.

Lantern Parade for Buddha's Birthday

In honor of Buddha's Birthday, there was a lantern parade in Seoul this evening. It started right before sundown and as the natural light disappeared, all the lights in the bright lanterns lit up the street. The parade was by far the coolest thing I have seen so far in Korea. I can't even fully explain it - there was so much color and sound and energy. Afterwards, we went and begged some lanterns off of people throwing piles of them into the back of a truck. Then it was time to try to coordinate an hour long trip home on the subway trying to balance multiple lanterns.