::A Geek in Korea::

I’ve been teaching in the same area of the city now for three years. I work a few blocks away from where my old school was, but I occasionally run into people I know from my last school. None of my students from my last school were attending my current school when I arrived, but I think one of them has joined my class. The only problem is she swears she doesn’t know who I am.

The girl joined my class last Thursday for a "trial" session. That way her parents could check her level, the book materials, and the teacher before deciding to go to the school. As soon as she sat down, I swore I knew her from one particular class. I can remember the room she was in. I can remember the book she studied with me. I can remember her classmates. I couldn’t remember her English name, and I never knew her Korean name, but her glasses, haircut, and general appearance looked really familiar. I did a double take and said, "Hey! Your….uh, well, Don’t I….know you?"

She looked as if I might have been insane. I don’t know what it would take for her not to recognize me. I look the same as always, except with a wedding ring and glasses. It’s not like I’ve altered my appearance somehow. This was only a little more than a year ago, so if  she did forget me, I’d be surprised. She kept denying she knew me, and I kept thinking she did, but since it was only a trial, I decided not to dwell on it too much. She might not come back for the next class, and if she was the person I thought she was, I wanted to have a chance to get the proof.

She came back today for her second class and I had the exact same sense of dèjá vu. This was someone I knew for sure.  I had forgotten her name, and since she didn’t sign the attendance sheet on the first day, I had a way of getting more information out of her. I had her write her name on the paper, and she chose her English name as well. As soon as I read the name, it sparked another memory. It was the same English name as the girl I taught at my last school! This had to be the girl! Clearly she would have remembered me by now if I had taught her before!

She still claims she doesn’t know who I am. English names aren’t exactly legally binding. You can choose whatever name you want, and change it whenever you move to a new school, new class, or whenever you feel like it. Still, once I saw her name, it jogged the memory of what the girl in my old school was called. I’m fairly certain this is an old student. If not, we were dealing with something else. Denial? Amnesia? Mental Suppression? Clones? Alien replicants? Magic Curses?

I refuse to believe I am this forgettable.

When I was first starting my working life as a lowly corn picker in the countryside of Ohio, I got paid under the table. I’d work twenty hours a week, get a dismal amount of money that in no way justified waking up so early, and spend my money on comic books and music. Since I wasn’t legally employed, as I was underage, I couldn’t complain about the terrible conditions of the job anyway. I’d like to never been in that situation again.

The last job I got paid for in cash was my first job in Korea. My boss would "total" my utilities, stealing about four hundred dollars a month, give me a huge stack of cash, and send me away. I was fresh faced, never got a real salary before, and didn’t know any better than to spend what money he did give me. Eventually I got a bank account set up and started to actually save some money, since the temptation to go on a shopping spree is reduced when you don’t have your monthly wage sitting in your apartment at all times.

Today our manager came into the teachers room with a fat bag of money for us. He had owed us money for bonuses, for overtime, and also it was our payday.  For some reason, the upper management had gone to Seoul, and wasn’t able to authorize the transfer for us. Oddly enough, he could still withdraw a large enough amount to pay us, but couldn’t send it to us automatically. We all expected to get paid via electronic transfer, but he had the cash in hand, counted out and waiting for us to check. Since the largest Korean denomination is only around $10 USD, a month’s worth of pay is a large pile of money. It makes you feel much richer than you really are.

We all counted our money, and while we got paid our whole salary, we had no deductions taken out for things like the Korean pension or the medical insurance provided by the school. While normally this would be a good thing,  the school would just take twice as much some other month, or we’d be without insurance until they figured out this accounting mistake. This is not a good thing. We told our manager about the problem, and he took out money back to deduct the items. It’s hard to hand back that much cash when you know you’ll get less back in return, but there would be too many headaches otherwise. It’s best we all decided to be honest about what happened and turned it in before someone was able to spend or lose some of it.

Last night a coworker had a birthday party for his girlfriend and invited the English teaching staff at our school, as well as some of the professors at the main college campus to attend. I’ve never really met any of these people, but I’ve heard stories about them from some of the people I work with on occasion. We went to a very nice restaurant not far from my apartment. The dinner was excellent.

As we chatted over the meal, we went over a few of the same old topics you encounter with new people. I commented that I had a website. When I told them the title was "A Geek in Korea", they thought I was kidding. Some people aren’t aware that the general usage of the word has shifted meaning since the popularity of the Internet. I’ve gotten this reaction before with people around the same age and find it humorous.

I told them that I was genuinely calling myself a "Geek" and as the conversation went into a little more depth about my website, it’s pretty clear I picked a good name for this site. I told them that my site has gotten a few miillion hits since it was started. They people were fairly impressed, but also confused. They asked if I did this site for money or profit, or had some sort of focus that would cause people  to visit in such numbers. I replied that I only did this website for myself, and that I talked about my life, what it was like to be an English teacher in Korea, my hobbies, travels, and interests. I think this wasn’t the reply they were expecting.

They asked me if I tracked who was reading my site, and I basically told them it was friends, friends of friends, relatives, and anyone else that might stumble by from a search engine from time to time anywhere around the world. I distain from using the word "blog", but the idea of a "personal website for writing and sharing my ideas" is a cumbersome description for people who don’t really have a chance to see the site. It seemed like they didn’t really grasp what I do was for my own personal enjoyment and the act of communication was its own reward. It wasn’t an inquisition or anything, but it was a different reaction than I was used to when I talk about my website.

All the same, they seemed like very nice people, and had interesting viewpoints about life in Korea. They were older than I was, but have been here roughly the same amount of time. I think this sometimes makes a huge difference in how you approach issues about living in another culture. I find that people that are older that have come to Korea have a lot harder time throwing off the shackles of preconception and giving things a fair shot. I know that for people that have lived in this country for a while, you either stop trying to compare everything to home, or you eventually move back to where you are from. It’s also more difficult to learn the language, or frame arguements with people from the Korean, or non-national perspective.

Eventually after walking my wife home and taking the subway, we made it to the bar, and it was I who was out of my comfort zone. Everyone knows ten times more people than I do when we go out. I know a pitifully small small percentage of the foreigners we go out with. This is my own fault, as I could meet the same people a dozen times and still manage to forget everyone’s names. I get introduced to a flurry of peole I’ve never met before every time I go out. I did have some good conversations. Some graduate students and I had a confusing discussion of politics, and I met another person that disliked the movie adaptation of  "V for Vendetta". We watched some people dance, and some guys get tossed from the place.

We even headed over to the second location of "Watermelon Sugar", a new foreigner hangout not far from the original bar that opened up just this week. I stayed for a free beer, but it was clear that the group had basically done all it was going to do. The rest of the evening would consist of drinking, conversation, and being nailed in the eye with laser lights in a smoke filled room. I had heard, as they recounted their St. Patrick’s day activities, that they didn’t plan to get stop drinking until the sun came up. Binge drinking is really not my scene, so I decided to head out before the harder drinks started flowing. I wished everyone well and headed home.

It was good to get out and talk to new people, and get back into a situation where I am interacting with people and not just typing out a long post as a conversive substitution. While I don’t really ever make an attempt to go to bars on my own, the occasional meeting with coworkers or friends doesn’t annoy me. I had a good time, but don’t really think I understand what drives people to go to foreigner bars on a weekly basis.

I seek out conversation and communication in fundamentally different ways than someone that goes binge drinking at a bar. But I’m also not a person that goes to a PC room and spends the entire night playing an online game with friends either. I game, I’m online, but I never intend to have that become my primary means of communication. I have carved out something that works for me and they’ve gone about organizing their life and social needs in an entirely different way. On the few occasions where these worlds intersect, it leads to some interesting conversations, but I don’t see any changes in my behavioir, or that groups behavior that would lead me to believe it would be a common occurance.

I’m off to see a film tonight.

The review: Harry Knowles is a fat idiot.

A stupid fat man said:
I was not prepared for V FOR VENDETTA. This is the most intense cinematic cry for Anarchy since A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. They made the comic. Alan Moore is a bitch for even thinking of bitching about this. It is fucking PERFECT! When you see them promoting it as UNCOMPROMISED VISION. That’s absolutely right. This thing doesn’t give two shakes of a pecker what the modern world is going to think. THEY NAILED IT! You never see V’s face. The voice - PERFECT. Natalie Portman - BRILLIANT. Everybody PERFECT. Adrian Biddle’s last film as DP is a revelation and a revolution! This was my favorite film of the festival. They finally fucking nailed ALAN MOORE! Wachowski’s - do WATCHMEN! PLEASE! When this film opens - this will be a political molotov cocktail. Absolutely fucking great! It isn’t the action film that the first MATRIX was - but it is easily a vastly more important and brilliant film.

I say: (Spoilers! Beware!)
The statement above me is false, or Harry Knowles can’t actually read. I don’t read Ain’t-it-Cool-News, as I loathe Harry Knowles, but this quote surfaced when I was looking into this movie. After reading the comic and watching the movie, I had to point out that everything he said is utter crap spewed out to build this movies credibility to get fans of the comics into the theaters.. Harry Knowles gets paid to write dirty lies. If you want a better "V for Vendetta" experience, get the comic. I am not a comic book snob. Please believe me when I say that if you want a real "uncompromising vision of the future", like this movie is being marketed as, the comic delivers much better.

Having actually read the source material, I can’t see anyone saying this was an "uncompromising vision" with any honesty. It clearly was far less complex, far less bold, and far less deep. It was a simpler version of V for Vendetta that was much easier to swallow. I don’t think that it would be possible to make an actual watchable movie based on the comics that would be completely true to it’s source. There is simply too much there. Too many characters. Too many intersecting plot lines. Too much stuff that works in comic books, but absolutely doesn’t work on screen. You can accept a man running around in a Guy Fawkes mask quoting Macbeth in a comic much more easily than you can on film.

I’ll give them points for trying. It’s probably easier to enjoy the movie if you haven’t read the comics it’s based on. Some of the changes made the story a lot easier to follow. The elimination of a few of the threads in the comic as a compromise in time might be excusable if they didn’t change the very nature of the story. I don’t think keeping the story completely true to the comic would have been possible, but changing things that add nothing to the story is seem pointless.

The whole romantic angle was a departure from the comic in a big way, and it rang very hollow on screen. The point of "V" is that he is an idea, not a man. This makes the movie cliché, "someone must fall in love" impossible, but that didn’t stop them from trying to include it anyway. The whole Matrix inspired fight scene seems extremely dumb and tacked on.It looked like it was used just to put in trailers to sell the movie, as it hardly fit the rest of the film.

Even worse, the call for, justification of, and realization of Anarchy in the comic was almost entirely glossed over.  This is the core of the comic, and it’s hardly explained in the movie at all. In the comic, you know why V wants to create his new society, and why it’s worth the fight. In the end of the movie, it seemed as though the people of England were switching one political system for the other for no reason other than the cool masks. The potential for some actual commentary on society seemed completely lost. This was probably my biggest disappointment. Instead of the final scene meaning something, it was just another explosion.

I think they pulled a lot of punches in this movie to make it more politically acceptable and more easily marketable. The comic was written in another time when the word "terrorist" meant something different. If this movie leaves you howling about the controversy, you couldn’t handle the comic at all. The movie turned the actual controversial source material into a slightly edgy superhero movie.

I’d still recommend it, as perverted as it might be from the source material, as it is a decent enough movie to justify watching. If they wanted to promote this as a movie "adapted" from the comic, I’d probably have been better with the changes they made. The fact that they changed things, then have people like Harry Knowles saying they "nailed it" makes me feel like I was lied to.

Today was the opening of the Daejeon city subway. It officially opened at 3pm today. I know the exact opening time because my wife tried to ride the subway to work today. She went to the subway station located directly behind our apartment (awesome!) and found out it wasn’t opening until the afternoon. Her bus line had been replaced by the subway as of today, so it was no longer running. She had to take another bus that dropped her off a few blocks away downtown instead and walk a little farther. Tomorrow her subway commutes will begin.

Sadly for me, the current subway system is incomplete. It is two full stops away from completion of the closest station that is nearest my school. I’ll have to wait for the rest of the line to open before I’ll be able to make good use of the subway at all. Still, being as it was the first day to actually get a chance to ride, my wife and I took a walk and got on the subway two stops away from our apartment building.

The entire area is so new. People didn’t know where to line up for tickets when we showed up. I don’t recall seeing an actual person selling tickets at all, only coin operated machines. The machines don’t print tickets like in the rest of Korea, they serve out coins that look like poker chips. These must have some sort of electronic identification on them, as you wave the tokens on the entry gates to go inside. These tokens are your tickets, and when you leave the station, the exit gate takes them back. This is more environmentally friendly than printing one time use magnetic strip tickets. The same system that the buses use to handle electronic transfers from debt cards also works on the subway, so you can ride without even bothering with a token at all if you wanted.

We entered the subway and took a seat. The train had obviously been waiting to get a full load before departing. There were electronic station doors that opened and closed in sync with the subway itself. In typical Korean style, just as the announcement for the train to depart was made, a man tried to sprint into the closing set of double doors and got rebuffed. He was lucky as the outside doors closed first. He didn’t loose a limb or get dragged down the station due to his stupidity.

However, one family freaked out when the doors closed. From what I heard from the noisy gossiping woman that was openly chastising the family said to her friends on the other side of the subway car, they had let their young daughter walk in and out of the doorway repeatedly to take pictures of her. When the doors closed, she was on the outside, while the rest of her family was inside. The girl had this stunned expression on her face as the train left without her. It was funny in a Home Alone sort of way. Her parents will obviously be sending her to therapy years later because of this event. Her parents looked for levers, door opening switches, and eventually found the emergency communication phone to talk to the driver. I’m not sure what was going on, since it’s not like the driver could turn the train around, but they got off at the next stop. They probably were going to head back to the station by taxi I would guess.

We got out and found the exit that leads directly to the area behind our apartment. While I don’t have any daily business that requires the subway use, the entire city seems much smaller now. I can cheaply go downtown, or even farther if I need to, without worrying about bus congestion or the traffic involved. The city of Daejeon got a whole lot more liveable. I can’t wait for the subway line to be finished.

Our manager wanted to give the chance for the students to feel they "owned" their classrooms, so he told us he was going to prepare signs for the students, take their pictures, and then arrange them on our walls for us. He didn’t take pictures. He didn’t buy the materials. He didn’t prepare anything, and actually changed the "I will do everything," to "You will do everything," on the planning board. Seeing as I was going to do this as a class activity, I stepped up and offered to buy the paper myself if he would repay me. I went to the local supply store, got enough paper for all of the teachers classes (or, at least I hope I did), and some big thick color markers.

I tried to pick colors based on my class names. Today my classes were Lilac, Daisy, Banana, and Grape. These are easy, as all of them have a distinct colors. My first two classes, Lilac and Daisy, are full of young children. They couldn’t do their own art for the large board, so I told them to create individual "name cards" they could decorate. They colored these while I drew their respective flowers on the paper. They were very impressed with my artwork. I thought it came out pretty well. They got to choose the location of the signs. I will put them up tomorrow before class.

My older class, Grape, was supposed to make a family tree in class today. I was going to do the sign project later, but some of the students actually finished their family tree before  they came to class. Instead of telling those kids to go read their storybook, I pooled them into a "sign project committee". Their job was to create designs, choose the features of the sign, and ultimately make the sign themselves. I helped them with the initial spelling and requirements of what had to be on the sign.

They made the design themselves, which looked really good. They chose to use parts from different people’s work, and colored everything together. It was awesome to see the entire class giving ideas, sharing resources, and doings what they could to make the project work. They were working hard since they felt they owned part of the classroom, and this represented them. Teamwork, effort, results. Best of all, as they worked, more people got finished with their assignment for class. These students could join in and give ideas or help. Soon the entire class was squashed around the table admiring what they had done. When they found a mistake on something they had written, they used some creativity to fix it instead of complaining to each other.

I really liked this method of getting students involved in class. I’ll be looking for more ways to include it in my teaching style when appropriate.

One of my students told me that she went out to eat with her parents, and when they returned to their car to go home, it was covered in snow. Her father forbid her to touch the snow, because it was dirty snow! At first I thought this was over bearing Korean parenting based on the occasionally odd cleanliness habits some Koreans display. I asked her about why the snow was dirty, and she reminded me of the spring time yellow sands.

Spring in Korea brings the threat of yellow dust blowing in from China. Due to deforestation, industrialization, and the growth of the Gobe desert, these storms blow toxic sand into Korea every year. The worst I can rememeber was in 2002, where I was told to stay home from school and not to breathe too much on the way home.

This year was a special new treat however, we have terrible windstorms that coated the cars, streets, and everything else outside with toxic dust. We also had a rare snow storm during the yellow dust event. As a result, we had a yellow snow fall. It’s like snow someone’s already pissed on falling from the sky. Thanks China! You’ve made my "Don’t eat the yellow snow" joke entirely redundant!

My kindergarten class has gone remarkably well, considering I have ten students in class and haven’t required outside assistance yet. This doesn’t stop my manager from dropping in my class to see how I am doing. As if there is any pressure adding a manager to the mix when I have ten mothers waiting outside the door listening to my every word in case their child begins to cry.  I haven’t had a problem yet, and I don’t expect to when he’s visiting either. I know the material like the back of my hand, and I know how to teach a fifty minute kindergarten class.

My manager sat in to see what I was doing. He was supposed to take pictures today and arrange a class room "board" where the students faces would appear on the wall. This gives the students a sense of pride, belonging, and ownership in the classroom. I fully supported this idea. He didn’t actually do this however. He was writing little notes. Perhaps he was counting the number of times I talked to the students in Korean or something. Whatever. No one cried today, everyone had fun, and they knew the words to the song and flash cards when they left. My mission was accomplished.

The first thing I did today in class was teach them the "Hello" song. I had to bring my CD player in from my own classroom just to accomplish this. The kindergarten room doesn’t have it’s own CD player yet. The other teacher that shares the room has told me, "I don’t sing. I don’t do songs." I used to be the same way. Children learn with music incredibly fast, and it’s worth the effort to try with bigger classes that don’t let you do enough one to one conversation. Turn a boring lecture in a song, and they’ll pick it up by the third time you sing the song. It’s really worth all the embarrassment of singing to little children. I can’t carry a tune, but I had all the students saying, "Hello and Goodbye" right away.

All except one little girl. This girl give me a, "You have to be shitting me" face every time I go near her. She’s defensive, and is clearly not interested in learning English at all. I’ve taught her four times, and she has yet to say a word. That’s completely okay as she’s never spoken to any other students either, or caused any problems in class. We have an unspoken (obviously)  "Don’t mess with me" agreement going. As long as she doesn’t keep others from learning, she can be quiet as she wants. Eventually she’ll either quit, or start speaking. It’s not like there is much else I can do.

Today, this mute girl was using her new scissors to trim her new furry looking pencil case. She had sharp, non-child friendly "stabby" style scissors she used to cut the pencil case. Since my  manager was in the room, I told him that she was the only person remotely problematic in class because she was too quiet. He took it upon himself to try to get her speaking. He sat right next to her and started trying to encourage her. First with English, then with Korean. Nice try. If she doesn’t open up to  me trying the same thing for four days, nothing short of bribery is going to get her doing anything.

He simply wouldn’t give up, but she really didn’t seem interested. In fact, she started gripping her scissors in the "Dial M for Murder" Stabbing style grip. With my managers head down low, she could have totally stabbed him in the face. I think she was trying to warn him that the whole "Don’t mess with me or I’ll be bad" contract was in effect. He didn’t seem to notice when I backed off. It would have been ironic if my manager was the only person to cry when she went for his eyes.

My wife takes after her mother in the cleanliness department. She cleans a lot more than I do, and doesn’t procrastinate when she sees something that needs to be sorted, wiped, folded, or washed. I’m a spotty cleaner in this regard. When the mood strikes me, I’ll do laundry like everyone else, but after a long day of work I don’t usually lift a finger unless I make a big mess.

My mother-in-law is convinced I’m slowly being starved to death by my wife. I am a naturally thin person. Exercise, work, and general business are getting in the way of all my lounging activities. I maintain a rail like appearance despite the meals my wife cooks. This concerns my relatives, who blame my wife’s cooking for my lack of fat.

If we had the time to prepare the hundreds of side dishes my relatives are used to at the table when they sit down, I’m sure we would both be fatter. The truth is, we don’t know how to make them, and don’t have a chance to eat them all that often. She and I get plastic boxes of things to eat whenever a relative visits, or we go somewhere with the family, all in an effort to keep us well fed. I’m not complaining, as there are some delicious things in the house now.

My mother-in-law decided to stop by to drop off her next batch of cooking tonight. She gave us a call to let us know, and as soon as I heard what was going on, I jumped into "clean mode". We hadn’t made any sort of mess, but that doesn’t stop someone when the Mother-in-law is about to drop in for a visit. If I didn’t clean the few things that were out of place, my mother-in-law might. She cleans habitually at her own house, and she might just start doing the same thing here if we ever let things slip too far.

I also tend to clean when people I’m not comfortable around visit. I like my mother-in-law, but the fact that we don’t share a common language makes it difficult for me to communicate with her. I get very nervous and mess up basic Korean words and forget my honorifics. It’s embarassing, and it happens every time I see the woman. She must think I’m a huge, awkward, bumbling fool.

Anyway, my disorganization doesn’t follow into the digital land of computers, so I went out of my way to let her see the pictures from our wedding and trip to China. After that, they talked for a while, then the mother-in-law headed home to catch her television drama. I spent the rest of the evening on the computer further uploading pictures to my flickr account, organizing, commenting, and sorting them. I might not have a neat house all the time, but my pictures are well sorted at least.

Right now, I’ve added private pictures of my wedding and will begin working on pictures of my family’s trip around Korea when I have time. This would be around a thousand or more pictures I need to upload and sort. Add me as a friend in flickr to see tons more pictures.

My wife and her aunt are very close. We visit their house fairly often, and they have two great children we enjoy spending time with. One of my wife’s younger cousins from this family got a Nintendo DS. I’m probably the reason he got the system, as he saw me playing it at our family get togethers during holidays and when I visit his house to hang out. He asked me how much one cost, then told his mother that he was spending all his Lunar New Year money to get one.

Since he had made up his mind to get one, I wanted to  make sure he got the best deal possible from the store I recommended to him. We all went together to the shop near my house to sort out what he would get. I told him to wait for a new version of the system that was just released in Japan, called the DS Lite, which will be a little more refined, design wise, but the boy was happy with the model I had. He got the same "old brick" Nintendo DS I have, although in a different color (black! ). Hefollowed my recommendations on games and got Mario Kart as his first title. His mom bought him acopy of  Touch Dictionary (The Korean-English dictionary formerly known as Touch Dic) to extend the usefulness to something beyond games.

In the time he got the game, to the time I saw him a week later, he had already unlocked all the characters in the game.  We’ve had a few rounds of Mario Kart since then, and I’ve consistently beat him. He beats me at Bomberman DS multiplayer easily nearly every time I play it however, so it’s a hollow sort of victory. Because of the rivalry and the chance to play multiplayer with someone on a near weekly basis, I’ve started looking at games in a different light. Some of the games I had given a break are getting picked up again, and I can choose different games to play with him than I normally bring with me to work. It extends the life of all the games that can be shared via download play. He only has Mario Kart at the moment, and his mother isn’t allowing him any other games until he shows he can be responsible and study while also playing games with me, but it’s great to have another gamer around.