My Chinese trip hangs in the balance now as the new principal overturned something I had organised with my manager 2 months ago (specifically to avoid this happening). Her power within the school overrules whatever my contract might say. This Friday she will tell us if we can begin winter camp on December 27, as we already planned, or if she wants to shift it to the middle of January and ruin my plans.
And my 6-4 class went haywire too. And they did it the moment my co-teacher walked out of the room too. After I'd said my piece, and sent them packing, 4 students came to apologise to me in my staffroom. "Is there anything you want us to do to make it better?" they said. I think they had candy in mind. God knows, but that's how it is over here. Angry people are placated with chocolates and other items of food. I however, actually want them to change. Their attitude is rubbish. That's why I repeatedly ask them for their attention, and say they shouldn't do this, or that, or whatever. Do I want anything? Yes - change your behaviour. That request has always be the same.
I think this generation of Korean kids has been raised on a collection of electronic items that don't get shitty if you ignore them and they therefore struggle to change their attitudes for the classroom, where there is a real human being at the front. They often seem genuinely repentant if they realise they've pissed off the teacher; the problem being that I have to change the tone of my voice or shout to grab their attention in the first place. Anyway, I'm no longer angry. It must be the wine from HomePlus.
A shitty class and a crappy employer. Big dicking deal.
On this weekend past I travelled with the lovely Joelle to South Korea's second (or third perhaps) largest city. It is in the south east of the country and is home to the 5th largest port in the world (what is this obsession with the size of things?). Gyeongsan-do province has historically been one the rich provinces, along with Gyeonggi-do, where I am. That makes for a kind of northwest-southeast line of traffic in the country. We booked for the 7:03PM Seoul-Busan KTX (very fast train) on Friday night, which reduces the 379 km journey to a mere 2 and a half hours. Between Daejeon and Daegu the train noticeably picks up speed and is said to reach a top of 300 km/h. Outside of those areas it goes alright too, but just at the speed of a normal intercity train. Even so, it doesn't take long to traverse this country.
Once again my camera was shitting itself for the big occasion so I didn't record the magnificence of the weekend in all its...magnificence? Truth is, it was an absolute belter of a weekend. Jubes and I squeezed a lot into a short and precious period of time. I feared it was going to go belly up for a moment however: Joelle's body clock is all over the shop as she doesn't work. On Saturday morning she was sleeping in and I worried about how much of our short weekend we were going to lose to Captain Snooze. Then I remembered that we weren't in a relationship and I had no obligation to stay! Oh the miracle of being single and lonely and having forgotten what affection is!
So I told her I was off to find this temple I'd read about in Lonely Planet and I'd catch her at lunch. They made it sound like a real mission to find but that it was worth every bit of effort. I later discovered that only one of these statements were true. It was indeed a true gem and a genuine nugget of Buddhist beauty; one of those rare "so-not-everything-in-Korea-is-draining-of-spirit-then" moments.
Seokbulsa temple is tucked up in the mountains of Geumjeong park. I took the cable car to the top of the mountain, followed the signs to South Gate, then followed the directions of Lonely Planet down a ridiculously steep mountainside, then up another one. There was of course a much simpler, unpublished way of getting there just on the other side.
On the mountaintop I meditated. Fancy that. Me, in a foreign country, meditating in the epicentre of a remote and beautiful Buddhist temple perched on a mountaintop. I need these reminders. Meditation is what saved me after all.
Then I was accosted by a group of about 12 middle school girls who acted as if I was the 2nd or 3rd native English speaker they had met. Possibly true. I heard them coming and shuddered. By the end of our acquaintance I had cheered up enormously and wished I been placed somewhere outside of Bundang, where you can find these kids that delight in asking simple questions to foreigners. My students are all jaded and fed up with English this and English that. I don't really blame them. These girls did all the cliched things: asked where I was from and did I like Korea (a little white lying never hurt anyone eh?) and could they touch the hair on my forearm. I forget how hairy I am in comparison to Korean men. The other day I stretched in class and my midriff was exposed.
"Teacher you look like chimpanzee" was the call from the back.
"Like A chimpanzee, whoever that was" the reply.
Haeundae Beach, where Joelle and I watched the people and talked about stuff for an afternoon, before starting the walk over to Gwanganli, only to realise it was much too far and that we should just get a taxi to Jagalchi fish market.
This is Joelle! She's about to tuck into an oyster at Jagalchi. We have our differences but seem able to talk about them without me getting too shirty. We've gone on two trips together now and we're still friends. Actually she's a wonderful person and one of the 3 or 4 here in Korea that have truly made life better for me over here.
At Jagalchi I ate a few live octopus tentacles and survived. They were wriggling around on my chopsticks and stuck to my tongue as I tried to grind them up with my teeth. It's funny how the claim of the just-landed - "I'd never eat that" - becomes "Yeah sure" just like that. The deal is, you walk around the bottom floor checking out all of the fish in their tanks and then select from your chosen vendor which one you'd like to eat. Sometimes they don't even kill it for you which kind of makes the service charge a rort but other times (like when we were there) you get to watch the vendor chop off its head and blood spurt all over him and I believe that is included in the service charge.
This little gem was just near Busan station. To paraphrase Tony Martin's joke, I believe you get a 50% discount on your room if you can prove it actually exists.
No comments:
Post a Comment