Still learning lessons from my students.

The other morning, about 5 minutes after I woke up, the phone rang. It was work wondering where I was. I said at home. They told me I was supposed to be at work. I said no I don't start until 7 tonight. They said that the schedule says I should be there now. Long story short, someone changed the schedule on my day off and never bothered to tell me.

Needless to say I was PISSED. I have never been late for work because I forgot I was working or hadn't checked the schedule. The only times I have been late in my life, and I can count them on 2 hands, it was because of forces beyond my control. The weather or traffic.

I am the kind of person that would rather be 30 minutes early than 1 minute late. It irks me when people are late and I try to NEVER be late. There are people at work who are habitually late and it screws up everyone who is working. To me being late is a sign of unreliability and I never want to be considered unreliable.

Needless to say I was working myself into a righteous fury on my way in. Not a good mood to be in when driving. Nor when working. Especially when you factor in that I am NOT a morning person on a good day and this was not starting off as a good day.

As I listened to myself rant I had an epiphany from my teaching days. I had just ranted to myself that "I am never late!" when I heard a little voice in my head start laughing at me.

Then I remembered how upset some students got because they didn't get a perfect score on a test. One student actually cried because she got 99 out of 100. Shen went on and on about how she never failed. She never got less than 100. At the time I thought she was just being stupid. Now I can understand it better.

"I am never late!" "I never get less than 100!" They are actually pretty stupid things to get worked up over. Whether it is anger or sorrow. Of course we are late at times in our life, whether our fault or not. In my case it wasn't my fault. It happens. Just like getting 99 instead of 100 isn't the end of the world.

Even in my state of pissed offedness I could see how much I was over reacting. It helped calm me down and get me looking at things from a more reasonable perspective. It also helped me understand, in retrospect, some of the stress my students were going through and why they reacted the way they did.

I always said that my students taught me things. Even over a year after teaching I can still learn from them.

Pucca Face

Last night I was sitting around a fire talking with some friends. We all started telling stories from our lives and I told them some from Korea.

One of my favourite classes only had 3 students but they worked well together. Their English was pretty good and they all wanted to be there. It was the kind of class where you can throw the book out and talk about anything.

One time I opened the class to anything they wanted to talk about and the subject they picked was Western music. I ended up bringing my laptop in and showing them some videos on YouTube. The last one was Lady Gaga's "Poker Face".

When the video finished one of the students started singing her version of "Poker Face". She called it Pucca Face. I can't remember all of her lyrics but as you can guess Poker always became Pucca. The students ended up doing some Pucca and Garu artwork and making a story up as well.

The next class one of them showed up with a Pucca face on a stick and ty started singing the song again. It was hilarious.

Anytime I hear Lady Gaga's name I think of "Pucca Face." I miss teaching that class.

Inside The Korean Classroom

(May 17, 2002 Chautauqua)

I can still remember the fear I felt when I walked into a classroom for the first time. It was just this morning.
Seriously, I can now feel fairly comfortable in a classroom. When I first started, I had no experience aside from some labs I took in university. I was expecting to receive some kind of direction from the school that I was working for, but all they wanted was a native speaker to give the kids some exposure. How you spoke, and what you did to capture their attention, was pretty much left up to you.
Now the morning kids in the typical Korean "hak won" are pre-schoolers. They have no attention-span to speak of, and the Korean teachers keep them in line through fear. It's not corporal punishment, so much as the shame of being made to stand against the wall with their hands in the air.
The most profitable way to keep their attention is to be a bit of an entertainer. One teacher likened it to performing like a professional wrestler. You have a flashy entrance, some music and movement to attract attention, and a lot of loud vocalization to keep the kids centred.
The first class I teach in the morning are five-year-old boys. They are probably the most difficult to handle. They are more pre-occupied with making sure that their pencil is the longest in the classroom. It's harder than it seems, as the pencils also have to be sharpened after each individual letter is written. These points are then inserted into the erasers and broken off, necessitating more sharpening, and on and on in an endless cycle.
My next class is composed of 7-year-olds. I share that class with a Korean Teacher, and we do story-telling. I read the story, and the kids repeat my words until they can tell the story in English. The Korean teacher, Jenny, translates the words into Korean occasionally, so the kids can better understand the action. I also teach the kids phonics every other month. The other foreign teacher, Aurora, is doing that this month.
My last class in the morning is 3-4 year-olds. There is not too much I can do with them but colour, and try to introduce some English letters, numbers, or words along the way. These kids are very sweet. One boy, David, is like a pudgy little doll. He usually has a big smile on his face, and the other kids play with him as they would a doll.
The afternoon kids are elementary and middle-schoolers, ranging in age from 7-15. When I was in Korea last year, I had to do quite a bit of prep work each day. I was expected to draw up a syllabus, and do lesson plans. My first school had limited resources, and I relied on the Korean teachers for direction. My second school was a bit better organized, with teacher's manuals, games, and supplements that made planning a lesson so much easier.
The school I am at this year does not require me to do any prep work. I just walk into the classroom and the Korean teacher shows me a couple of pages in the book to do. The Korean teachers do not even leave the room. Some of them do a little interpreting of what I am saying, some do work on their own, and some sleep.
They work long hours, and I do not envy them. They are all young women, in their early twenties. There are not a lot of opportunities for women over here. It is very much a man's world, though it is slowly changing.
Some of the afternoon kids can be a little bratty, especially once you start dealing with teenagers. But most of them are very smart, and are keen to interact once the initial shyness (on both sides) has worn off.
Usually, the earlier in the day it is, the younger the kids are. Some of my last classes of the day are composed of 15-year-olds. These are kids that speak English fairly well, but need some help with polishing, grammar points, and forms of language. I've gotten a bit better at deviating from the book if a line of inquiry opens up, in order to expose the kids to as diverse an experience as I can.
It amazes me to think how far I've come from those first days, and how much more I have to learn about teaching. Although I can do a pretty basic lesson without too much thought, I hope I can learn enough to be of more use to the kids coming to me for knowledge. I'm working for them, and I want them to "get their money's worth".
------------------------------------
Even tough I sound pretty confident about my abilities, I never really shook that fear that I had going into a classroom for a long time. And now that I've been out of work so long, I think I've forgotten how to teach altogether!

The Pill

I only had two room-mates in the ten years I was in Korea (whew!). The second was a pretty good guy, but the first, who worked with me at my first school, was the worst!
Imagine a depressed, angry, paranoid individual and multiply him by ten. That was the man I'll call The Pill.
When I arrived in Korea, my director, Mr. Kim aka The Kimmer, and his assistant James dropped me off at the apartment I was to share with him. We chatted for a few minutes, and then The Kimmer left, and I turned to see if all of my bags were in my room, or something, and when I turned back, HEY PRESTO! There was a Korean girl standing next to The Pill.
It turned out to be his girlfriend, who I will call Two-Na. She had been hiding in The Pill's room while the director was there. I wondered why.
The Pill started to reveal somewhat about their relationship (and his nature) as we walked to the school that first day.

This was the building our school was in. It occupied the fourth and fifth floor. The name of the school was "Wonderland," which is a fairly large franchise in Korea. There motto (prominently displayed everywhere) was "Everyone Smiles In Wonderland." I ended up working at three different Wonderlands. One was good, one was okay, and one was very bad. I suppose I was lucky in that I got the one that was very bad out of the way first.
One of the reasons this school was very bad was because of The Pill. As we walked there on my first day, he began talking about it (and its director) as if it was the bane of his existence. He felt that they were always spying on him, and that they didn't believe foreigners should be "involved" with local girls, and that is why Two-Na was hiding that night. I could see that he was in a very bad place, and it coloured my perception of my new job.
I had expected to receive some kind of training before I would be expected to teach. I think that this belief came from things the recruiter said. I didn't know at the time that recruiters will do and say anything until they drop you off and get their money, and then you are on your own.
My "training" consisted of following one of the other teachers around for a couple of days before being asked to do it on my own. Apparently The Kimmer and his aides felt that a person completely untutored in managing a classroom could absorb enough knowledge to do it alone in that time. Eventually I became comfortable in the classroom, but those first months were filled with terror that began as soon as I walked in and continued until the end of the day.
Besides The Pill, there were only two other foreign teachers at the school, who I will call Dolly and Marty. Both were Americans. The Pill was a Canadian who had moved to Texas at some point, and he constantly talked about how great it was there. I began to consider him as an American as time went by.
Marty's contract was up at the end of December (I started with about a week left in November), and he was counting down the days like he couldn't wait to get out of there. Dolly seemed happy enough to be there, and I believe her contract had until the following summer to run. The Pill's was about the same.
Dolly did a runner within two weeks, however, and after Marty left, The Pill and I were left to handle the workload alone.
The head Korean teacher was a man named Jay, whose job it was to look after the curriculum and any questions a teacher might have about it.
The disorganization of the office became apparent almost immediately. The books were crammed helter-skelter into shelves. Supplies were sometimes available, sometimes not. Teachers were given a basket with which they were to carry their supplies to whatever room they were teaching that day. Each class had its own room, and the teachers were to go to them rather than have them come to the teacher's room. There was only one school I taught in that allowed us teachers to set up in our own room. It was brilliant, and I missed that at every other school, which all asked you to "chase the students."
My poor performance as a teacher eventually revealed Jay's real role, which was to blame the foreigner any time anything went wrong, and heap abuse on them until they felt like shit. If a parent complained, or a student wasn't being coddled, Jay would descend like the wrath of God on all and sundry. It didn't help that I knew my skills were non-existant, and my performance was shite. There was no way I could defend it.
But what did they expect? They knew I was inexperienced, and they hired me anyway. Did they expect me to turn into a good teacher overnight? According to the Korean government's parameters, I was qualified enough to be allowed into the country to teach English. I knew I needed more experience and that I would not be able to be effective in the classroom without more training. I expected to receive this training from the school, but I did not. When my performance suffered as a result, who was to blame?
It didn't help that as time went on, living with The Pill became more and more difficult. His paranoia eventually brought him to include me among his many enemies, and he began to take every opportunity he could to be critical of anything and everything I did. When he saw me reading my Bible, he quoted the verse in Matthew that admonished a person to go into his closet and study privately. When I ate the last portion of rice left in the cooker, he reacted as if I had stolen the last bit of food left on the earth. I liked my toast darker than him, but he expected me to reset the toaster after I had used it to his own preference.
When we returned to the apartment at the end of the day, he and Two-Na usually closeted themselves in his room, and did not interact with me at all. I was left to my own devices, and expected to be out of their way if they wanted the apartment to themselves.
The Pill was very protective of her, and he revealed why about a week after I had arrived.
He told me she was pregnant with his child.
I did the math, and this must have been accomplished about a month after he had arrived in Korea. Fast work!
He was pestering the Kimmer for his own place, and as our relationship deteriorated, I began pestering the Kimmer, as well. It had gotten to the point where we passed each other without speaking, even in the apartment.
When he moved out, I fell to my knees and thanked God in Heaven above. Deliverance!
But the Pill had one last trick to play on me before he left my life for good.
New teachers eventually arrived, including another male who became my room-mate. He was an Australian who I'll call Gargamel. Two British girls named, um, Carol and uh, Di, as well as a Canadian girl called... Barbie rounded out our group. Life actually became bearable after these people arrived. They actually knew how to converse with other human beings. They were willing to explore Korea with me, and they were more than willing to have a good time.
Within a few months I began to enjoy my time in Korea, and my job as well. It helped to have somebody to talk to and lend a helping hand, as well as commiserate regarding the daily helping of bullshit we all had to eat.
At the end of May, all the Wonderlands in southeast Korea were coming together at a conference in a hotel on Haeundae Beach in Busan. Each group of foreign teachers had to make some kind of presentation about lessons/lesson plans. We came up with a skit about making a car and teaching the kids about directions. The Pill didn't contribute too much. He made a dramatic speech at one of our meetings that Two-Na was experiencing complications, and he had to be there with her. Then his mother died, and he had to go back to Canada to be at her funeral.
All lies.
Our presentation actually came in second at the convention and we divided a cash prize amongst ourselves. It was a bittersweet time, because I was about to leave that Wonderland and start work at another in Changwon.
Our school had six teachers and their school had five. The Kimmer explained that we had one too many, and they had one too few. I was elected to make the move.
I don't know why he picked me. Maybe he thought I was the weakest teacher, and the school'd be better off without me. It would have made more sense to oust The Pill, as he was the outsider in our group. We all worked well together and got along, whereas he separated himself from us as much as possible.
Maybe a smarter man could have figured out a way to convince The Kimmer of this, but I was not that man. His mind was made up. He didn't want The Pill to go. He wanted me to.
The weekend after the convention, The Kimmer and Gargamel loaded up my stuff into The Kimmer's car and drove me down to Changwon.
On Monday, The Pill did not show up to work. He had pulled a runner, and now The Kimmer had to find someone to take his place. He didn't ask for the other Wonderland to send me back, but went about recruiting someone else.
The Pill had fucked me over but good. The times he said he was looking after Two-Na he was looking for another job. And the trip home for his mother's funeral was actually a trip to Seoul to interview for that job.
I have never seen The Pill since that time, in spite of my intense desire to meet him in a dark alley and find out how many pieces I can carve him into. I have to content myself with the knowledge that every day of his life he is going to wake up, look in the mirror, and realize he will always be what he is, a complete and utter waste of skin.

What the ... phone call?

Phone teaching has got to be the worst thing I ever did in Korea. It just isn't that effective for every student. Except for my first and last year every job (Hagwon) had phone teaching.

The worst was at my second job, that hell known as Ivy School in YongAmDong (Cheongju). We did phone teaching for ... kindergarten! These kids were still learning their Korean but we had to call and try and engage them on the phone. What a colossal waste of time.

The Korean teachers would spend the day drilling the kids on the questions they would be asked on the phone. It was the Korean teachers job to come up with questions to ask. We had no input. Our role was just to ask the questions. And what questions they came up with soemtimes.

"What are you wearing?"

"what is your mommy wearing?"

"Is your mommy pretty?"

At times I felt like a perv calling the kids and asking them questions like that. Even with the drilling, surprise surprise the kindergarten kids would have trouble answering questions.

Even with the higher level students phone teaching was pretty much a waste of time. Some, a few, it would work with. Most would just give a one word answer or you would have to pull an answer out of them.

Then you had the parents answering the phone and not understanding any English. I can't recall the number of times parents just hung up when we used English. Then they would have the audacity to complain that their kid wasn't called for phone teaching. What the kimchi??? Fucking mooks.

Why did my hagwon do it? Because another hagwon did it and you had to keep up with the Kim's. Once you started doing something like phone teaching it was almost impossible to stop ... because now the parents expected it.

I have been ...

I have been damn busy the last couple of weeks and it will probably go on for a couple more weeks. Unfortunately, it means I have been neglecting the blog.

Why have I been busy you ask? Ok, you didn't ask, I did. I am getting my TESOL certification through The TEFL International Corporation. It was recommended to me by my buddy Spock.

After 9 years of teaching I figured what the hey. It may help me get a teaching job at home, or I can go abroad again. I am leaning towards abroad. Mind you, Mr. Wonderful's doom and gloom is scaring me off of South Korea. ;)

I held off getting the certificate for years. Part of it due to arrogance. I had taught ESL for X-number of years why the hell would I need a certificate? What could they possibly tell me that I hadn't already learned?

I managed to choke the arrogance down and convince myself to get certification now. There were still nagging doubts and I would be lying if I said I wasn't expecting to find it a waste of time. Luckily, I fought past those thoughts and dove into the work. It was a good decision.

I wish I had taken the course before I went to Korea in 2001. Even after 9 years of teaching there are things a person can learn. Sure, I know some, maybe even a lot, of what is being taught but I learned it through trial and error without learning the theory behind it. I have also learned some new things thus destroying the old adage about the dog and new tricks. ;) The review of what I do know has been helpful as well. All in all it is an interesting course that is worth the time and money I have invested.

If you are thinking of working teaching ESL I highly recommend getting your TESOL certificate first. It would have made my first year, or even years, easier.

Pet Peeves

One of my nieces is a teacher. The other day we were talking about teaching in Canada and South Korea. Now my experience hasn't been in Public Schools and there are some distinct differences between Canadian and South Korean Schools. But there are some topics that work to get kids (and adults) talking everywhere. Pet peeves is one such topic.

Everyone has a pet peeve. Something that drives them crazy. Whether it is people picking their noise, tapping their toes, or even wearing stupid clothes. (Ok, for some reason I wanted it to rhyme and that is the best I can do.) Some peeves are rational some aren't. Regardless I have found that no matter the level of the student (English level. This topic won't work with Kindergarten kids.) people will try and talk about what annoys them.

It can be used as a discussion topic or a writing topic. Or both. The main difference would be the level of expectation based on their English ability. Low level ... well getting them to express their dislike and make a sentence with help would be about what you could expect. Mid level ... express themselves in a sentence and write a few sentences giving some reason why they dislike it. High level ... it is a good paragraph writing topic, or even short essay depending on their ability.

I have had this topic work with everyone from mid-level Elementary school kids to business men. From low level ability to very high level ability. My niece mentioned she has used it as a writing and discussion exercise too. She teaches English at a Junior High (Middle School).

What the ... qualification?!?!?

I have to start off with a big thank you to Gusts of Popular Feeling for translating and providing the transcript of Lee Eun-Ung's interview. Enjoyed the post too.

Lee Eun-Ung, stalker of foreigners and founder of the Anti-English Spectrum group, now called The Citizen's Movement To Expel Illegal Teachers of Foreign Languages. (Of course they only seem to be going after those teaching English.)

One of the things that stuck in my craw from the interview is the talk of "unqualified teachers" .

Lee Eun-ung:

That's right. There are qualifications to become an English teacher. Have you studied for 4 years at a university in an English-speaking country? With that simple qualification, many unqualified teachers have had the opportunity to come to Korea.

Eh? Many unqualified teachers have the qualification? I knew the guy was a moron but jeeze. If they have the qualification then they are ... qualified. Just like if you have a habit of saying moronic things you are a moron.

Qualifications, you must have a Bachelor degree. You must come from 1 of 7 countries that are acceptable to Korea. Although that is being altered to allow a few other nationalities in to teach English for less money. You must pass whatever checks and tests that Korea decides to throw at you. If someone is here teaching on an E-2 (or F-2) VISA they are QUALIFIED.

To hear dumbasses like Eun-Ung spout off you would think that most teachers were unqualified. Especially when he makes up statistics. And his interviewer, in a stunning display of the lack of journalistic ability I have come to expect from Korea "media", just laps everything up.

Anchor Seo Du-won:

So a teacher’s criminal record should be accurately confirmed before [deciding] one is qualified enough to be a teacher.

Yeah that is more important than confirming they have a degree or even teaching ability. It is the criminal background check that gives them the ability to teach? This guy must work for the Korea Times in his free time. What a fucking idiot.

Lee Eun-ung:

People who have married Koreans and become the spouse of a citizen. If you look at such cases, it’s extremely difficult to punish and deport such people.

Anchor Seo Du-won:

So in such a case, those who are arrested can in the end only be fined.

Lee Eun-ung:

Yes.

Wow. I never knew that. Extremely difficult to punish and deport? I gotta get me one so I can go back to Korea and start kicking this shit out of assholes like these two twats with impugnity. Or maybe it is because of the use of blood money that it is difficult to "punish" them? You know, pay your way out your crime? Something the Korean variety of rapist will use to get out of trouble or to lessen his sentence. Of course it sounds like so much bull shit.

I love the way Eun-Ung would pull facts and statistics out of his ass and the joke of an interviewer would just accept it all. Oh well, the "interview" lived down to my expectations.

What the .... definition?!?!?

Hat Tip to Brian in Jeollanamdo for the post about a Korean TV show. It inspired me to post this.

Electronic dictionaries should be banned from use in Korea. I don't usually let my students use them in class. I would rather we try and figure out what they want to say together. They tend to remember it more.

This show is a good example of what is wrong with using the dictionaries, at least in Korea. The 1st definition used is NOT always the most common. In many cases it is a much older or even archaic meaning. Koreans tend to just go with whatever the 1st definition says without bothering to consider the context. Or without considering the other meanings. This often leads to stupidity and sometimes hilarity.

One of my old students was a great writer. His main problem is that he relied on his electronic dictionary too much. It would turn a good sentence into nonsense sometimes.

Once the assignment was to write about their best friend. As usual this student put together a good paragraph except for one sentence. He wrote "I miss having intercourse with my friend." It was hard but I managed not to break out laughing. He (the student) could see something was wrong, odds are I was getting red in the face trying not to laugh. All I said was that there is more than one meaning to intercourse than discussion, and discussion isn't what first comes to mind.

Being a keener he immediately opened the dictionary and started typing. His face turned red and he started sputtering "No teacher! No. Not sex! Just talking."

I told him I understood. Then we had a discussion about the problems with using a dictionary or thesaurus. The problems with using words you don't really know and the context they are being used in. I told him about the Friends episode where Joey used a thesaurus to look more intelligent when writing a letter for a friend. In the end he looked like a child because it looked so stupid.

This isn't even getting into the other areas of crappy English in Korea. There are a lot of them. Song lyrics, album names, signs, ads, t-shirts. The list goes on and on. Its bad enough the dictionaries don't help but the bad English they get coming from so many other areas just makes things worse. Like a student listening to Gay-Dragon or one of the other Gay-Pop singers singing and then thinking "Teacher come on me" is the proper way to say "Teacher come here please."

By not REALLY checking their English they are just going to continue to look stupid.

Year 1 - 1st Free Talking

Hi

It was an interesting weekend. A long weekend because Monday was a preparation day for all the teachers. Which means we had it off. ;)

Due to my hours as a teacher I don't see a lot of bicyclists. When I go to work it is around 6AM and not many people are on the streets. Traffic is just starting. When I leave after my final class of the day it is 9PM and they are all gone. (I do have time off in between but people are all at work.) However, there are the omnipresent bicycle stalls. Rows of places to park and lock your bike. While a lot of people use their bikes, the numbers pale in comparison to the number of drivers and people on the bus.

Speaking of buses. They run on time here. And they are efficient. Something I would never have believed possible having lived in Dartmouth. Mind you, as I mentioned previously, taxi's are so cheap it isn't funny. It is actually cheaper for 3-4 people going downtown to take a taxi instead of the bus! To go from here to E-mart cost me about 3500 WON, which is around $3 CDN. For those who know Dartmouth the distance is comparable to that from my house to Penhorn Mall, which would cost at LEAST $10 CDN.

Monday I bought my first ever cell phone. Which is kind of funny when you think of it. I worked for AT&T Wireless for 2 years, but never owned a cell phone. The phones are tiny compared to what we have in Canada. EVERYONE has a cell phone here. Mine was 2nd hand and only cost about $48 CDN. People change phones here like we change underwear. As soon as a new model comes out they HAVE to have it. So they trade in their old phones, which then get resold at a low price.

I still haven't gotten used to the driving habits of most people. While it is interesting to watch the traffic jams on the side streets, sidewalks can be dangerous. I almost got clipped by a motorcycle that was driving on the sidewalk. That is common, but dangerous at times.

My classes have been very interesting. Last Friday I held a Free Talk in every adult class. Free Talking classes are very advanced. The class is expected to do the talking, not the teacher. You just provide topics. My topics were fairly ecclectic.

My 6:30 AM class chose to discuss the culture of drinking in Korea, and abroad. What you choose to drink can somtimes make people think you are in a certain class, or wage range, or a certain type of person. What made the topic even more appropriate is that 1 student showed up drunk, and another hung over.

At 7:30 AM we were scheduled to discuss Blind Dates. Blind Dates are not common in Canada. However, in Korea they are VERY common. People even go on group Blind Dates. It has become an intrinsic part of their culture, as has internet dating. We also discussed relationships between men and women.

At 8:30AM the topic was relationships between men and women. Can a man and a woman just be friends? Is platonic friendship possible? The consensus seemed to be yes. However they would not want their spouse or mate to have a best friend of the opposite sex. Too much temptation.

My 5:00 PM kids class didn't get a free talking subject. they always try to talk about things other than the class material. ;)

My 6:00 PM class discussed cultural differences between Korea, Canada, and the USA. What do we need to be happy, what society tells us? Do we have to have a wife and kids to be happy? It was an interesting discussion. (As were all of them.) The consensus seems to be that although we don't need what society tells us we need to be happy, most people WANT it. See, brainwashing does work.

At 7:00PM the topic was Marriage and Divorce. Why is the rate high in Canada and Low in Korea? Korea is the most conservative of the Asian countries, and places a very string emphasis on the family unit. Divorce is not as easy to obtain, and contains a powerful social stigma. While in Canada it is acceptable, and a lot of people live together and have families out of wedlock. A Korean would be ostracized for being a single mother. Interesting differences.

The 8:00 PM class, last of the day, choose to compare Korea and Japan. If there was time left over they wanted to discuss the culture of drinking. While I enjoyed all the discussions this was the best. I learned a lot about Korea in this one. The differences range from historical, to geographical (an island is harder to invade), to cultural and economic. A lot of Koreans see Japan as being more advanced and a better place to live, whether that is deserved or not, but do not like them very much. The Japanese tend to look down on Korea, many still consider it a possession. Japanese businessmen will come over on sex junkets, whether it is with local girls, or Russian whores. It was interesting and enlightening.

Considering that my classes are either beginner or just after beginner they did amazingly well at free talking. Some of them will have no problems advancing. They all talked, gave ideas and opinions, and had fun. I will probably do it again in December or late November.

That was my friday, my weekend, and another little snippet of life in Korea.

Take care

Flint

*****

Damn ... I sounded kind of pretentious didn't I? "It is a very high level activity".

It was kind of funny that all the students in the 7PM class went on about how low the divorce rate in Korea was, and I drank their kool-aid, when it was really one of the HIGHEST in the world. The next year Korea's divorce rate would be the SECOND highest in the world. Yet Koreans, Koreanphiles, and apologists would drone on about how low the rate was and how sad it was that divorce was so common in the west.