Hi
The week felt longer than 4 days for some reason, but now it is the weekend. In my last class a food topic came up. I am not sure if it came up just to see my reaction or not. Actually, I think it came up honestly. I had just talked about Ruger and Sheba, and how much I love them. So, a student mentioned that he loved dog for another reason. He eats dog meat. My view on it is c'est la vie. Some Koreans eat dog meat. Usually it is eaten around 3 festival periods in the summer. Men will eat dog penis mainly for its rumoured boost to a mans virility, much like bull testicles are eaten out west (prairie oysters). (Ruger would want to keep the lipstick in the tube here. ;)) While I can't see me going out and eating dog meat, if someone enjoys it so what. It is no different than people in Newfoundland eating seal, flipper pie. Or people in the US and Canada eating bull balls. Or any other animal that gets eaten. It doesn't make a person evil, although the thought may be repugnant to some. The topic got a lively discussion in class, with all the students participating. It was interesting.
Before my 1st evening class I had some pung eo bung. It is a pastry in the shape of a goldfish. Very light pastry. Inside is red beans. It was ok. Mary, my boss, also gave all the teachers a bag of Tangerines, probably 20-30 in a bag. I love Tangerines. Normally in Dartmouth we only see them, at an affordable price, around Christmas time. Even then they are pricy. Here they are very cheap. They grow them in Korea.
I also found out 2 reasons why we had the pastry and the tangerines. Mary is looking out for our health. Red beans are supposed to help build up your resistance to cold, and the oranges have vitamin C. Cold season just started a couple of weeks ago. This is Mary's way of helping us with some prevention. It helps the school to have healthy teachers too, but it isn't for just that reason. I like Mary, and her husband Don, and just about everyone who works at the school. She trys to take care of all of us. It is nice to see.
Friday night, after my last class, I went out for a gathering with some of my students. The Soju was flowing freely, and they tried keeping up with me. 9-10 bottles of Soju later 2 of my students had pretty much passed out, and the rest were on the verge. Except for one who showed up later, and didn't drink any alcohol. For supper we had a souk (soup) with rice. It was very spicy and had a mix of veggies, meat (pork/ham) and hard boiled egg slices. Plus kimchi, quail eggs, dipping veggies, and a nice dish called Du Bu Kimchi. It is tofu (dubu) done with sesame seeds and kimchi. It comes piping hot and you wrap the du bu with kimchi and eat. Very tasy. The student who didn't drink much made sure everyone had a way home, and made sure I got to my door ok. I could have been sober and he still would have done it, my "state" wasn't why. I was their guest, and they take care of their guests. The food was great, the drink was great, the company was great.
I didn't go out to dinner tonight with the other teachers due to some miscommunication. Which is kind of good because I know my mouth would have gotten the better of me with another teacher. They went to Il Mare, an Italian restautant. The owner-chef studied in Italy. Very good food. But I digress.
The waitress mixed up one of the orders. So the four people there didn't get their main course at the same time. Then they went to order coffe after the meal. Hilda and John did the ordering. John can speak Korean fairly well, and Hilda got him to explain ordering multiples. There are 2 types of numbering systems in Korean. The primary one for 1,2,3,4,5 and another when ordering food or items. It can be confusing. So, after John's lesson for Hilda, and having ordered 4 coffees one of the teachers (South African) showed just how intolerant some foreigners can be. She always assumes the Koreans speak no English and will talk down to them. She said: That is 4 coffees now dear. 1,2,3,4. F-O-U-R. Four. The girl was VERY embarassed and a little humiliated because she speaks pretty decent English. I would have let the teacher know exactly what I thought of her comments. Hilda and the others bit their tongues. This teacher has a penchant for pulling crap like this, the only time she did it in front of me I put her in her place. I hate it when people act like that.
Tomorrow Mary is taking us to see a traditional Korean dance. I will write more about that in my next email. I will be picking up a disposable camera to take with me. If anyone is interested when I use up all the film and IF I can get the pics scanned I will make them available. Maybe put them on a website rather than email them. (I got this idea from my niece who does that. I always enjoy looking at her picture site.)
Thats all for now.
******
In retrospect the guy who told me he loved eating dog after I talked about mine was just being a dick.
Also in retrospect our boss wasn't worried about our health per se. She was worried about having the foreign body in the classroom. If she was really worried about our health she would have actually provided the health insurance she was supposed to. At the time I didn't
know about that though.
Holy shit I was really giving people the benefit of the doubt back then.
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