A Cosmic Coincidence

Sometimes in life, you just run into something that shocks you.  Sometimes they are horrible actions or events that change the very fabric and nature of our lives.  Others are moments where love and compassion ring through and they reinforce our belief in humanity.  Sometimes they are no more than a bunch of coincidences which are important only for a day or so, but still are quite shocking and entertaining.

This Sunday, I had one of those moments, a moment where the odds of it happening were so astronomical that if you had bet a penny on it happening, you would be a billionaire today.  Sunday started off like most normal Sundays do in Seoul, with the sun shining through the motel window and an aching head.  Well, ok, my head wasn't wasn't aching, but most of my friends were beginning to regret their choices from the night before.  Normally Sundays in Seoul are a good way to spend a day.  The choices are limitless, but they normal consist of some form of shopping, a non-Korean lunch and maybe a little sightseeing.  However, this weekend I had to get back to Seosan early because I was taking part in a Halloween party at a local company.  Needless to say, noon still rolled around far too quickly and I needed to be on a bus no later than 1.


After leaving our motel Hana and I headed to Central City Terminal so that I could catch my bus back.  Instead of taking the subway we decided to take a taxi.  It's only about 3 dollars and it's much faster than the subway provided there is no traffic.  As we hop in the cab and start on our way to the bus terminal it's just a normal taxi ride.  It's a ride I've made too many times to count and at this point I've pretty much tuned everything out.  Then, it happens.  I hear a bell ring as we make a turn.  I thought to myself "That was strange."  I didn't see a bell when I sat down, where did it come from.  As I begin looking around I check all the normal places for a bell to be, and finally I see it, right in front of me.  It's a small replica Liberty Bell, sitting on the dash.  At first, I don't really pay it any attention beyond just a simple "Huh, it's the Liberty Bell." 


Then, all of the sudden, I pay a little more attention to it, and it hits me all of the sudden.  This isn't just a replica of the Liberty Bell, but it's a pencil sharpener also.  In fact, it's the exact same pencil sharpener that I had in 5th grade.  While it's not the one I specifically had, what happened to that I don't know.  It's probably somewhere in a landfill.  However, this still is the exact same thing I had as a child.  At this point I start acting like an idiot because I can't believe that it's the exact same pencil sharpener I had as a 5th grade student.  It'd been almost 20 years since I'd seen anything like it.  I don't even think I saw it the last time I was in Philadelphia at the Liberty Bell Center.  Yet, here I am, in a taxi in Seoul, South Korea, and this taxi driver has one in his car.

Besides the trip down memory lane, the sheer probability of this was boggling my mind.  When you think about it, in a city of 10 million official residents, and almost 25 million in the capital area of Seoul and suburbs, and out of all the taxis in Seoul (easily over 100,000), I found the one taxi that had a replica Liberty Bell pencil sharpener in it.  On top of all that, it's the exact same one that I had when I was in 5th grade.  Now I know it was probably made in China, and the Korea is really close to China, but there really is no demand in Korea for Liberty Bell memorabilia.  What were the odds of this?  Honestly, what were the odds?  1 in a billion, 1 in a trillion.  This was just one of those random events in life, where the chances of something happening, or ever happening again are astronomical.  I have a better chance of winning a lottery I never played in Africa than ever having this happen again. 

Needless to say I remained shocked for the entire day and just marveled by the odds of all of it.  I guess I should have bought that lottery ticket after all. 

Essential turnover

It's been a rough two months here in Seosan.  In the span of two months it seems like half of the veteran teachers here departed for either greener pastures or headed back home.  In the span of these two months I went from one of the longest tenured teachers, to the longest (visible) tenured foreign teacher in Seosan.  I say visible because there are a couple of teachers here who are married, or never venture out, and a few of them have been here longer than I have.  However, as far as someone who is active in the social scene, I'm now the godfather.  It's a weird position to be in.  Before the role has always been filled by multiple people, but by sheer attrition I'm not the longest tenured public school teacher in Seosan that I know of. 


Yet, with all of this, it brings to light an interesting problem.  How can an education system expect to succeed when it replaces it's teachers every year or two.  It really does begin to boggle the mind.  Considering the expense, I don't know how the schools are making any money off of having a foreign teacher.  I understand the visible image of having a foreign teacher, and how the improves the status of the school, but if we're truly trying to make a difference how can the school expect any tangible results with such high turnover.  Every teacher has a different style, different expectations, and different beliefs on what is important and how to run a classroom.  These things take at least 6 months to implement and considering the language and cultural differences they may take even longer.  I guess it goes further to illustrate the perception of foreigners are interchangeable parts, and not really essential educators. 

While this may seem like a negative assessment of our impact and bring into question the necessity of having a foreign teacher, the simple truth is that a foreign teacher can have a genuine impact in their schools.  In one year, you ability to positively impact a school and your students is very limited.  With two years, you can begin to see noticeable improvements.  I understand the necessity of a one year contract.  Most people would be hesitant to commit to two years of teaching in a country they know little to nothing about.  It's a catch 22 really.  If they require two year commitments they will not be able to fill their quotas.  However, if they do require two year commitments they will also weed out those who are coming here with the impression they can do nothing and get paid for it. 

Either way, turnover is an essential part of the Korean job experience.  Once you've been here longer than two years you assume pretty much everyone is going to leave at some point, and that your friendships, while important and potentially life changing, do have an expiration date on them.  Once we leave Korea, we end up completely scattered across the English speaking world.  We come from all over the place and it's rare to find someone with the same home town.  I guess it's all part and parcel of life here once you stay for a long time. 

The Book Cafe

This past summer vacation my classroom underwent a dramatic renovation.  It went from a classroom which looked like it belonged in a museum to a classroom that feels and operates like on in the 2st century.  Part of this renovation also included setting up a book cafe (library) at the back of my classroom for students to be able to use and enjoy.  The cafe is an offshoot of our school library and is stocked entirely of English books, DVDs and books on cd.  The awesome thing is that these books are registered as part of the school library and the students can check them out like a regular book at the library.

Today was the first day that we officially allowed for students to take books out.  Two of my better students were up here before I even knew the cafe was open for business looking for books to take out.  I hope that the cafe will serve two purposes.  The first is to provide an place for my students to be able to find and to read English books.  My school right now might have the largest collection of English books in the city.  I have no facts to back this up but I know that you cannot find English books for sale in this city.  The second is to possibly inspire students to achieve higher.  Simply put I'm going to start using the movies as rewards for students who achieve above and beyond.  We have 4 DVD players and I think I will start using coupons that allow the students to go to cafe and to either read a book, or watch a movie.  I may even allow them to do this during certain classes due to the fact that they probably already know what I'm teaching them. 

All in all I am excited to see how the cafe works.  Simply put I think that exposing my students to these materials will help those students who want to study at their own pace or want to come here and learn on there free time.  This also gives us a tool to use for motivation.  Some students will want to come here and spend time, if they do, I can use access as a motivation tool in class.  Already today I have one of my students who has trouble focusing in class watching a DVD.  If I don't sit him up front he can't pay attention, yet here he is quietly watching a DVD in English. 

Baseball...the Korean way.

It seems strange that given my affinity for baseball, that I waited three years to attend my first professional Korean game.  However, this Sunday, after a three year absence from the presence of a professional sports stadium, I ended my holdout and attended a game between the Hanhwa Eagles, located in Daejeon, and the Nexen Heroes, located in Seoul.  The season in Korea ends a little bit earlier than the baseball season in the United States and these two teams were battling for the last spot available.  By last spot available I mean they were fighting not to be in last place.  Both teams had miserable seasons, and even with no chance at making the playoffs the atmosphere was something quite unique. 

First, the stadium was miniscule.  It might have held 10,000 people.  I equated it with a good sized college stadium, and I know the stadiums in Seoul and Busan hold more people, but Daejeon is not a small city.  The stadium was small, to give you an idea, here is a picture of it.  According to one website it holds a little under 14,000 people.  I think that might be pushing it a little, but if you include standing room I could see it. 

Now, given that both of these teams were fighting for last place, you'd expect in the last week or so of the season for no one to really care.  This however, was not true at all.  The home fans were loud and boisterous.  It was their duty to not only cheer on their players, but to heckle the opposing pitcher.  In the middle of the game the crowd suddenly shouted out "(insert pitcher's name) You're the shame of your team."  While not as creative, or dirty, as British soccer chants that's still pretty mean to shout at someone while they are pitching.  Imagine going to a baseball game back home and the entire stadium starts chanting an insult to an opposing player.  Besides the random quips and insults thrown at the visiting players, each player also had a cheer for when he was at bat.  Utilizing the ubiquitous thundersticks (picture provided for those that don't know) you would chant and cheer for the home team while they were batting.  Each player had at least one song/chant and this was also follwed by a little-league style chant that went "clap clap clap (insert players name) we want a hit."  Having attended countless baseball games as a child and an adult this level of devotion to cheering went against everything I knew of attending a baseball game.  This was an interactive experience not a passive one.

Another thing that added to the atmosphere was the entertainment between innings.  They had your standard activities: get up and dance, kiss cam, listen to music, watch the mascots do something funny, etc.  They also had a couple of things that seemed to belong more at the minor league stadiums back home.  My favorite, although I didn't participate was the beer chug competition.  They also had something that while not uniquely Korean, I'm pretty sure is uniquely Asian to the sport of baseball.  They had cheerleaders.  They had one guy whose job it was to lead the chants and cheers, and then they had several females, in various costumes throughout the course of the game, who would dance and do things like that. 

Perhaps the last thing about the Korean game, besides the interactiveness, the atmosphere, and the entertainment, was the price.  The best seats in the building cost 20 dollars.  The average seat price was below ten dollars.  Lets not even talk about the tall boy cans of beer for $2.50 or the whole thing of fried chicken for $15.  I know, it seems like hearsay but you actually don't get ridiculously overcharged at a stadium in Korea.  Quite simply, a family of four could come to a game, eat, mom and dad could drink, and have fun for under 50 dollars.  That's pretty ridiculous and awesome.  

Baguio, Banuae, Batad, Vigan

The Philippines.  What can I really say about it that hasn't probably been said a million times before.  The country is lush and green, and seriously humid.  The heat attacks you the second you walk off the plane.  Outside the airport, chaos reigns.  Taxi drivers jostle for fares, drivers cut each other off, and everywhere the exhaust seems to seep into your skin.  Welcome to Manila.  A city I spent only a few hours in and honestly, while I want to go back to visit a few things, I think it will destroy my concept of the Philippines.

For those that don't know I have been spending my time north of Manila.  I started off in Baguio.  Baguio is an old US military resort city built in the early 1900's.  It is nestled amongst the mountains and is, for a tropical country, surprisingly cool.  The high was only about 75-80 degrees and the humidity was almost non-existent.  I arrived at the bus terminal and met up with Hana.  We headed back to her hotel so I could get a shower and wash the airport, airplane, and bus ride off of me.  After that we grabbed dinner at Camp John Hay (old US military base).  We spent the next day exploring Baguio and viewing a couple of its sites.  Baguio is a crowded polluted version of an American alpine town.  Take Big Bear, but give it a population of 200,000.  Add on top of this countless exhaust belching vehicles and you have an idea of what this city is like.  The biggest shame is that this city is very pretty, and surrounded by beautiful nature, however the air is really polluted.

We left the next day for Banuae and the Ilfuago rice terraces.  These small towns in the middle of the Cordillera mountains contain some of the worlds most striking rice terraces.  They were carved from hand about 2000 years ago, and are still being used today.  Banuae is a small town surrounded by terraces.  It was however, a 10 hour bus ride (I thought it was going to be 5 or 6).  We arrived there and after strolling the two main streets found our place to stay for the night.  The town is a small mountain town and it is surrounded by gorgeous rice terraces.  The next day we chartered a jeepney and took a 1 1/2 hour 16 kilometer (10 miles) ride to the Batad saddle.  From here it was an hour hike down the mountain to see Batad.  Batad is quite possibly the 8th wonder of the ancient world.  It is a small town, accessible only by hiking or extreme mountain biking.  The town is surrounded by an amphitheater of terraces.  It was a stunning sight, and the only thing that stopped us from spending more time there was the 10 hour bus ride we had back to Baguio that night.  I have already decided that the next time I find myself north of Manila, I am headed back here to do this place right.  I think 5 or 6 nights, with no plans and tons of trekking will do a body and soul good.

After waking up in Baguio again we hopped a bus up to Vigan.  Vigan is an excellent example of the Spanish colonial style that used to exist everywhere in the Philippines.  Unfortunately most of it was destroyed by either the Japanese or the Americans during World War Two.  It turns out that carpet bombing doesn't do a lot of nice things to historic sites.  Somehow, though, Vigan was spared.  To that extent the old Mestizo district is lined with Spanish era colonial style homes.  They are crumbling and ill maintained, but that just adds to the experience.  Here we visited a traditional weaving factory, a clay pot factory, a zoo (I touched a tiger), and a garden.  The city is gorgeous, and everywhere I go I keep being surprised by just how pretty it is and could be if it was immaculately maintained.  I can only imagine that this is what old Manila used to look like.

Tomorrow we head up to the beach at Pagudpud to relax for three days and then head back to Korea.

Hong Kong.....Wow

By now, most people who know me or who read this blog know that I love to travel.  They also know that I find places where cultures have been forced together for many generations to be exceptionally interesting.  It was with this in mind that I chose to start my summer vacation in Hong Kong.  After spending about four hours camped out in the Manila airport, I arrive on Sunday morning in Hong Kong.  As I walked out of the airport the first thing I did was walk to a 7-11 to grab a quick snack and a drink.  It was here that I realized Hong Kong was going to be different from anywhere else I'd been in Asia.  I hadn't even left the airport and I already had realized this.  Why you may ask.  Well quite simply because they had Arizona Iced Tea.  I have not seen or drank that in three years.  I am being totally honest when I say that I have not seen it anywhere in Asia, but here in Hong Kong, it's everywhere.  If you were to keep your eyes at street level the whole time you were here you would have no idea you were in Asia.  You would think you were walking around Chinatown in London.  The streets are identical to London in names,style,and noise.  However, once you gaze skyward you realize you are in the heart of Asia, and China to be more exact.

While I know this is a sore point for some in Hong Kong, the simple fact is, that this place is everything China hopes to become.  It is fast, modern, western, rich, but still holds fast to tradition and family.  There is no concept of communism here, except for the fact that the Chinese army is here.  Everything else is free market capitalism.  Everywhere you go there are bankers, stock brokers, tourists, and shops.  If China is to be the world power of the future, it will have to model itself on what they have in Hong Kong.  Here, the culture is free of oppression and corruption.  Here is where people want to do business. 

Now that I have finished with the required government propaganda (joke), I guess I should get back to how my three days here have gone.  After exiting the bus in the middle of Kowolon, I sauntered off in the hot and humid weather to attempt to find my guesthouse.  After finding the building and then walking out of it because I couldn't find my block, I finally found my way back to the building and to my guesthouse.  I was lost, I admit it, but I eventually found where I needed to be.  After climbing into the British style midget elevator (anyone who has ever been in a lift in London will know what I mean), I walked into my guesthouse several hours early, but grateful to be free of my backpack.  Luckily my room was open and they checked me in early.  My room, however is honestly hysterical.  I have never seen a room this small.  Honestly there is a walkway for me to my bed, and the rest is all walls and bathroom.  I understand this is Hong Kong, but I think most prisoners have more space in their cells then I do in my room.  Ohh well, I didn't come to Hong Kong to sleep all day.

After taking a nap (I had only slept about 2 hours before I got to the guesthouse) I went off to explore and wander Hong Kong.  I started exploring Kowolon (the district across from Hong Kong island).  I went on a several hour self guided walking tour that included most all the sites in Kowolon.  It was hot and humid, but not miserable.  Also every indoors place had deliciously cool air conditioning and whenever I got too hot I could cool off by pretending to shop.  After several hours I found myself down on the waterfront looking at the Hong Kong skyline.  It is stunning.  I walked the avenue of the stars which is a walk along the water front with statues and stars for all the famous Hong Kong actors.  Later that night I headed back to my guesthouse to catch up on some much needed sleep. 

The next day I hopped across the bay and explored Hong Kong island.  This is the commercial heart of Hong Kong.  It is also the location of all the government offices and Victoria Peak.  I took an old tram up to the top of the peak and was greeted by an epic view of most all of Hong Kong.  After walking around I headed into the tower for lunch.  I'm not ashamed to say I ate at a Bubba Gump Shrimp Factory.  Not because I think the food there is awesome (it's ok) but because I needed a slice of home, and this place offered it the best.  After lunch I wandered into Madam Tussuad's.  It is creepy just how life like some of these wax figures are.  However, I think the highlight of the whole tour was a statue of GW Bush, Obama, and Clinton.  While this wasn't the highlight, the fact that the next closest figures were Gandhi, Hitler, and Hussein made me laugh a little bit.  Mao was on the other side of the wall, and while I think he should have been between Hitler and Hussein, this is part of China and I don't think they'd appreciate it. 

After leaving the tower I explored Hong Kong island some more and eventually, once again made my way back to my guesthouse to sleep.  Today started off much the same as it has every other day here.  I chose a island to visit, this time Lantau island.  Here I took a cable car to Ngong Ping and visited a giant sitting Buddha, and a monastery.  It is also where I purchased some awesome Chinese pork jerky.  Sorry folks, it's not going to make it back, being as it's already being digested.  After exploring Lantau I headed back to Kowolon to explore a little bit more and then finally ended up here, at an internet cafe writing to you.  Pictures will get posted eventually, but I think you might have to wait until I get back to Korea.  Tomorrow I head off to Baguio in the Philippines to explore the northern parts of Luzon.  I don't know how much access I will have to the internet so I wish you all a great few days and I will check back in with you soon.

Bring on Summer Vacation

It is that wonderful time of year again where teachers rejoice and students disappear.  Wait, sorry, that's in America.  Summer vacation in Korea is an entirely different animal.  In America I waited for summer vacation with baited breath because I knew it was a time where my responsibilities were lessened and I was able to relax just a bit more.  Even in college when I was busy working most the summer, it was still a time where I didn't have to study.  Well, ok, I studied, but I studied by traveling. 


However, in Korea, summer vacation seems to be a time for the school to offer the classes that it should have been offering all year around.  I will be running a summer camp which consists of two, two hour classes.  On top of my English camp there will also be math camps, science camps, etc.  These classes are designed to either help students who have fallen behind or to teach those students who achieve the highest achieve even higher.  I feel that these camps achieve more teaching in two or three weeks than the regular classes do in 2-3 months.  However, one strange thing, is the after school program run by this school is not cancelled.  I still have to teach the little buggers twice a week.


This summer I waited far to long to purchase my flights.  My heart was set on spending a week or a week and a half in San Diego.  I miss it dearly, as I miss my friends.  However, when I first started looking flights where a prohibitive $1,000.  Thinking that I could find a deal if I waited, I did.  unfortunately no deals were to come, and by the time I decided that I was coming home the cost of my flight was going to be $1500.  At that cost, I cannot in good conscience return.  I miss it dearly, but for $1500 I can pay for my entire vacation to the Philippines and Hong Kong.  For the total cost of a vacation back to San Diego (roughly 2000-2500 dollars) I can pay for my trip and potentially get eye surgery.  That and considering my more than likely return to the US in March I have to take the opportunity now to travel. 

Sorry folks, you're going to have to wait a little longer to see me.