The Adrenaline of Being Paid & New Photos

The Road to Bansong
Originally uploaded by Poetprince

So last week, we finally got paid. We not only received our base salary but we were also refunded the money for our plane tickets. The first thing I did was go to the camera shop to buy my new camera.

The only weird thing about buying my camera here in Korea was the fact that I had to pay in cash to get a lower price. In the US, cash is no problem. All you do is go to the ATM, pull out the amount in $100 bills and it's okay. In Korea, the biggest bill they have is a 10,000 won bill which is the equivalent of a $10 bill. Now, imagine you have to pay a couple thousand in cash but all you can do is withdraw $10 bills. I won't tell you how much I had to take out to pay for my camera but walking from the bank to the camera store with my pockets stuffed with 10,000 won notes was probably one of the weirdest moments of my life. All I could do was pray that I didn't get robbed along the way.

So now that I have a new camera, I've started posting pictures on the web, starting with Flickr. Here's a picture of the road to my school. If you click on it, you will be able to see the rest of the album. Tell me what you think. I'd love to hear your impressions!

Our 4th Sunday in Busan – feels like we’ve been here already so much longer!

We are going to have a flat warming this Friday and I wish you could all be here!

We get paid this Wednesday. Our first pay cheques plus our air fares into Korea. We’ve been budgeting and praying, because although it’s a lot of money, it could easily go quickly! We want to use it wisely, especially since God has already been so awesome in providing us here! Two weeks into our time at our schools and our three bedroom apartment was almost fully NICELY furnished! In ways that surpass what expected from our contracts or even thought to want! The only things we still need to get are a big chest of drawers for the majority of our clothes, a shower rail and shower curtain and air conditioning for when summer hits. We haven’t yet been told if there’s any school budget left for those things. We’d also like (at some time) to get for ourselves a small oven for baking/roasting (Korean apartments come with only a gas range and we want everyone to try pavlova), some bookshelves for the practice room/study and a new computer.

Another example of how God has provided for us is the new church home we’ve found through a married couple who were at our EPIK orientation.

Firstly, we haven’t found any bilingual churches here yet, which is a little sad for language learning. Ich vermisse unsere kleine aber kreative zweisprachige Gottesdienst!

On our third afternoon in Busan we visited the foreigners’ service (AIM) at the huge Korean church we can now see from our balcony (Soo Young’s the 2nd or 3rd biggest church in Korea) and we met some lovely people. Although this church is practically in our backyard, the format of the service just didn’t resonate with me. The worship team was good, the sermon was fine… Although I found the additional choir items to be a bit old fashioned and stilted in the context of the service, the people were friendly - but I was hoping for something more. We’ve made some good contacts that we’re maintaining there though. We still visit every few weeks and we’re participating in their married couple’s group.

For our second weekend in Busan we visited ICC (International Community Church). ICC started almost 2 years ago because some foreigners at the AIM service were frustrated that the service had to be in a certain format to please its Korean mother church. ICC’s a lot smaller with more native English speakers there, but it was the service that I really enjoyed. And what was surreal was that we already knew so many people there from our EPIK orientation and as we introduced ourselves to people we hadn’t yet met, we were handed new roles! No one was really in charge of the Mac for service production – they were looking for someone to really learn how to do it. Well Rob and I have been looking at buying a Mac, as well as the fact that Rob used to create the powerpoints for worship and announcements at Jesus Rockt. (We’re praying someone new has stepped forward to do that there!) At the same time I spoke to the worship team and found out that they have a bass guitar that no one’s been using, so they offered it to me to take away and practise with! So now our apartment has a huge iMac and an electric bass on loan, which we are learning how to use! It looks like this will give us more time to save money and more experience to use when purchasing our own ones.

Rob’s already taken on the role as main tech guy, so last Sunday he started doing the worship powerpoints and today he was given the church video camera too. I only got a bass shoulder strap today, so I’ll start rehearsals/services next Sunday. Rob’s been going to the mens' small group on Thursday nights. A new couple’s group (fortnightly) is starting up next Sunday, and we’re hosting it. I’ll visit a women’s small group this Wednesday night.

With free Korean lessons from a local university club on Mondays (both of us) and Thursdays (me only), that leaves our schedules really full already. But we still have time together because we both work 40 hours Mon – Fri. We travel to and from school together. Most of those evenings we have stuff together or some time together before and after the other things. Working in separate workplaces has definitely been a blessing, I reckon. God has really blessed us, with a new life situation that pulls us together as a family team, a home which we can open up to others, a clear idea which church family we should join, a big support network and already help to overcome my biggest cultural barrier currently – the language.

So with our first pay cheque, apart from general living and internet set up costs, some things we have to do are:

• get Rob his dream camera, especially since our old one broke as soon as we arrived in Auckland at the end of January.

You should all know how important this is to him. THE Canon 50D! It’s been sometimes difficult to hang out with him without a “good camera”, but to be fair, considering how important it is to him, he’s coped really well in these last two months with substitutes or ideas to sidetrack him.

• get me some decent music library accessories, since I could benefit from the tools for inspiration as much as Rob needs his.

I’m getting (maybe a second-hand) iPod with a lot of GB, new decent earphones and speakers for it and then I’m going to be spending a LOT of time organising (we have iTunes on the church iMac!!!), listening and using music every day. I’m especially excited about using this stuff for personal worship time, inspiration to practise bassoon or learn by ear/transcribe bass lines and piano parts and for motivation to exercise more.

• I’m also going to buy a new sturdy music stand and if there’s money for it, maybe a small second hand portable mini-amp. If I can find an English speaking bass teacher and time, I’ll have at least one lesson sooner.
• get our multitude of boxes sent from Karlsruhe, Michigan, Auckland and Wellington to here!

If you can remember, it was snowing when we arrived in mid February and it’s been around 20 degrees celsius for the last week now. It’s already too warm on the subway! Although it’s colder inside the schools than the outside temperature, we need summer clothes and more work clothes sent to us ASAP. Remember, they’ll take a while to get here and although we can buy tops here no problem, pants and skirts are a major problem to purchase here (unless you’re capable of ordering through the internet in Korean). I also want my bassoon stand and some bassoon music and we are looking forward to having some key books – all things that were too heavy to bring in our 20kg max suitcases.

• put money on my credit card and in our German bank account, since we drained them during our 2 month holiday.
• invest in a well-padded external hard drive, as this lap top is starting to crap out on us. We need to back up our data fast!
• invest a small amount of money in redecorating our EOZs, since our English departments don’t have fantastic budgets for that this year. It’s all about motivating the students.

I don’t know if I’ve made it clear yet: God is so good. The ultimate provider! We are so thankful. Really, this point is driven home to us time and time again when we talk to other couples and singles about their experiences to date in the EPIK program. We are so blessed here already. We are unworthy and wish to share all of these blessings with you. So I hope you’ll keep in touch and come and visit, if you can!

I miss you all, at the same time as making the most out of our new lives here! Aroha nui.

Korean School Kids

“Teacher is untie So, I look ghost But preety priness”

This was a written note from one of my better than average 3rd grade middle school students (14-15 years old). I couldn’t understand what she meant when she was saying the word “geäst”, so I got her to write it down for me.

I’m pretty impressed with this girl’s vocab. In class her listening comprehension is better than most. After me demonstrating how to pronounce “ghost”, I got her to read this sentence to me again and with her gestures that came with that, I came to understand that I have “ghost hair” (so either I need to get a hair cut, or else I just shouldn’t wear it out untied maybe, hehehe) but I still have the face of a pretty princess.

My colleagues at school keep telling me how incredibly poor people who live in Bansong are. One teacher said it’s one of the top ten poorest places in Korea. That means their English (and often their results in other subjects too) is mostly below the national average, due to no private lessons at hagwons. They don’t have any money for that. Most of them receive financial support from the government.

So how does that affect the classroom? Problem #1 is that the lower level students cannot and maybe will never be able to understand me. Even with beginner class style instructions and demonstrations, the less motivated ones have the attention span of tired teenagers. There’s also the special needs students who are normally in their own classes, but they join mine for fun?! They look the same as any other student and have varying capabilities in Korean as well as English, so I have to try to get them involved without spending too much time helping them. One of my co-teachers strictly tells one special needs student to stay out of my group speaking activities. I feel so bad for her, because she sits there all by herself, but my co-teacher doesn’t want any of the other students to have to “waste time trying to talk to someone who can’t talk back”. I feel like the material in the text books is above what a lot of my 2nd and 3rd graders can do. But do it we must. It’s the curriculum.

Yes, then there are problem kids. Is there any school that doesn’t have problem kids though? There are girls who don’t have mothers and are basically brought up by their grandmothers, since the fathers apparently don’t care. Or often they are without a father and their mothers are busy working. The teachers are constantly disciplining kids, in a variety of ways. I’ve seen students kneeling on the ground, doing lines; making them stand up with their hands in the air in the corridor; clapping the student’s face lightly with both hands to show them they are too chatty; crossing out previous stickers the student has earned on their award sheet. I’ve even seen the old-school rap on the hand with a ruler. Save the last one I’ve also considered using these methods – although so far I haven’t had to. I remind them and drill them on the classroom rules we’ve agreed upon constantly. With only one 45 minute lesson and 31 – 38 students in a class, it’s so important to make sure they’re all listening, understand and are participating in their one speaking practice class a week. The students generally respect teachers for punishing them though. I’ve heard it’s something to do with Confucianism and teachers being like parents to their students – they want their students to grow and do the best they can, so it’s their responsibility to keep students on track.

Generally, girls from Bansong Middle School are happy, quiet and shy or loud and boisterous, generally well behaved and respectful girls. I can’t tell they’re any poorer than anyone else. After all, they are in school uniform.

Please pray for them, my colleagues and I though, because some of my colleagues have to deal with the problem of the stealing of expensive items from some students. A handful of students refuse to follow guidance and continue to disrupt other students in a variety of ways. (There was a before school protest against violence amongst students before school earlier this week.) And it may be that for that handful of them, teachers are the only caring (younger than 50) adult guidance they have in their lives. I wish for teachers to not have to make them hurt to make them think about their actions and for their peers not to be scared and consider them outcasts, but to be brave and encourage them without being used or abused in the process.

I’m really looking forward to having my English classes in my English Only Zone (EOZ) from April. I can’t wait to put some new posters up and take some photos to show you. The resources there are fantastic. More to come on that later. They’ll also be sitting in teams then and class motivation and self/peer discipline should be remarkably easier then. Rob’s already got that situation right now. I have to go to their home rooms, where they sit in pairs or in single file. 31 – 38 desks!

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Today whilst exploring a new part of Busan for us, we saw students from a richer school: Busan International High School (for foreign languages) out on a field trip. Rob’s going to post photos. They learn English, and one of Chinese, Japanese or German. So we were talking with them on basic topics in English and Deutsch. Even the richer kids only speak about Elementary topics, it seems, albeit a little more fluently than most of my students – but these girls are a little older (and maybe only started learning German this year, to be fair). I mean, we were walking with these 400 or so girls for about 20 minutes to the same destination. They screamed with excitement to learn where we’re from, to hear we’ve lived in Germany and to hear that we’re married -only in Korea!!! “I envy you” said several girls after the screaming subsided. I also got told again that I have a small head (a Korean obsession) and that Rob is handsome and I am pretty. (I’m told this regularly from my girls too – they see Rob on the street after school.) We were pulled into a lot of their group photos being taken by teachers or friends, introduced to their Korean English teachers (the Native English teachers don’t work Saturdays without being paid overtime), just so they could scream when they heard their teachers and us conversing in English. It was very funny and a lot of fun. Rob and I are pleased we can show Korean kids they have the opportunity to practise English outside of their classrooms.

Pictures of Korea

Okay, I finally found a way to download the photos on my cell phone onto our computer. So here are a few of the photos I've taken so far along with some colorful commentary.

Okay, this is a floorplan of our apartment. I labeled it using Photoshop so now you can see how it's all laid out. And yes, there are windows inside the apartment that look into other rooms rather than directly outside. Case in point - the guest bedroom which looks into our lovely, but messy, laundry room and it's sad to say, but our laundry room is the room with the best view. It overlooks the hills behind our apartment complex.

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This is a sign we found in a store called "Artbox". It's definitely an interesting tactic against shoplifting. I especially love how it asks, "Have you gotten therapy?"

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In America and most western countries, it's common for couples to sometimes wear clothes that are similar in color or style especially if they're dressing up for a big event. In Korea, however the trend goes a few steps farther. Shannon and I have seen many couples who not only wear the same type of clothing but actually go as far as to wear the exact same t-shirt and sometimes even the same shoes. Matching t-shirts for Korean couples are called "couple tees". Can you imagine it? Wearing the same outfit as your partner? Well, it gets worse. Take a look at the following picture.

That's right. Now you can wear matching underwear! A must-have for the modern couple who do everything together.

The worst part about this picture is that this isn't a picture of just one store with a unique perspective on dating. Shannon and I have seen at least 10-20 stores offering the same thing and all of them have only pink flowery underwear for him and her. There's no gender-neutral version. If you want to wear the same underwear as your partner, then it's just pink pansies and girly stripes. Talk about emasculation...

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There's not much to say about this next picture except that I'm dying to buy this lamp and put it in our guest bedroom just to mess with our guests. Personally, I think it's hilarious!

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Okay, now for some bad English. I was hoping that maybe the English here would be better than most countries because of how many English teachers there are and the government's policies on English education, but... it's not.

Take a look at what I found written in English on the following products.

First, a Cinderella playset:

Here's a transcript:

'(Cinderella) is one of the most famous chapters in (Grimms Fairy Tales) which wrote by the Brothers Grimm. Cinderella is the protaganist of the tale who suffered humiliation from her stepmother and two elder sisters. But she bear it quietly and finally acquire the happiness. Look! The bell of midnight is ringing. Cinderella ran from the fortress in a flurry. You must search for the lost crystal shoe quickly and the prince may need assistance to find his lover.'

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Here's another one, from the box bottom of a solar-powered bobble head of Pumpkin Jack from Nightmare Before Christmas (which incidentally I am going to buy at some point).

Once again, here's the transcript:

• in order not course the danger of asphyxial, Please do no to put the spare parts into the mouth.
• in order not course the danger of swallowing, forbidden to give the toy playing by the Children who are not enough 3 years old.
• in order not course the danger of asphyxial, please do not cover the plastic bag on the head or face
• in order to avoid accident, please safekeeping the toy that make sure the children who are not enough 3 years old not reach the toy.
• Please do not shake or haul the toy
• Please do not use the sun energy battery tough and don't throw it away

Someone must be putting too much faith in online language translators, don't you think?

A Good Day

Okay, in each class I have anywhere from 30 - 35 students, all of who have very similar names with nametags printed only in Korean. As you can probably guess, this makes calling on them in class rather difficult since they're listening for me to call their name and I can't either pronounce or remember it.

One thing I've already done to make my job easier is to arrange the tables so that they're sitting in groups of 4. Instead of having 35 students to control. I only need to control 9 tables. The arrangement helps but there's still a lot of confusion when I'm trying to call on one particular student and the only thing I can do is point at him.

So this morning, while talking to Shannon, I came up with the brilliant idea to give each table the name of a particular English-speaking city. The names I chose were:

• New York City, USA
• San Fransisco, USA
• Toronto, Canada
• London, England
• Dublin, Ireland
• Edinburgh, Scotland
• Capetown, South Africa
• Sydney, Australia
• Wellington, NZ (I put this one on the table in the center of my classroom out of symbolism and sentimentality)

Now, instead of having to remember everyone's name right off the bat, I can call on their table by using the city name and the students can actually recognize that I'm speaking to them, or at least their group. I'm amazed at how well it has already worked! It immediately gave me more control over the classroom. So now I can say, "London, be quiet! I want to hear an answer from Wellington!" or "Sydney! Pay attention!"

Of course, I hope that eventually I can learn everyone's name but, for now, it's a great way to manage my classes.

I also had another great experience today. At the end of each day, the students spend their last hour cleaning the school from top to bottom. When they're finished with their particular job, they're allowed to roam around the school talking to the teachers or just playing while they wait for their friends to finish. Today, as usual, a group of students crowded around my desk because they were curious about me. They're always curious about me, asking me if I know Korean sports stars or videogames.

Anyway, today they were asking me about videogames so of course I turned it back on them. A few of them told me that liked an online roleplaying game called "Maple Story" so I went onto the internet and looked up the website as they watched over my shoulder.

As soon as the website came up, a ripple of excitement went through them and suddenly there were 20-30 students crowded around my desk, all of who were desperately trying to tell me about this "Maple Story" game... in English! It was so cool! They went from being bored and just hanging out to super-excited because their English teacher was looking at one of their favorite videogames. They all wanted to tell me what level their character was or how awesome of a player they were. The only thing I could do was just sit there and milk the conversations as long as I could until they had to go home.

I love it when my students get excited about English! Their reaction just reconfirms my view that students will want to talk English when it's exciting and personal. In the coming year, I hope that I can find other ways to get my students just as talkative.

So, I feel encouraged and I think that's a great way to end the day!

Our Address - Westernized!

One of my co-teachers just gave me a Westernized version of our new address, because the other address I gave you might not work when sending mail from outside the country.

I'm putting the new address below and also changing the old post in this blog so that no one gets confused. Here's the address as it should be written:

Rob and Shannon Digby

Dongbu Olympic Town 103-1301

Wu-dong 1008-5, Haeundae-gu

Busan, Korea 612-745

If you know anyone who has the old version of our address, please tell them about the change and/or direct them to this blog. Thanks!

A Few Quick Notes

I've had a few questions about the food & the shopping here. Let me tell you - both are fantastic! Everywhere we go, Shannon and I can find almost any kind of food, from Western fast food (KFC, McDonald's, Burger King, Pizza Hut) to traditional Korean, Japanese, Thai and more.

As for the shopping, it's the same. They just opened a HUGE shopping mall called Shinsegae ("New World") here and it's got to be one of the most upscale shopping centers I've ever seen. They have everything you could want to find inside. Louis Betton, Gucci, Apple Computers, Nike, etc. They also have an ice rink, a rooftop garden with views out across the city, a cinema on the 9th floor and a luxury cinema on the 5th floor where you can sit in comfy armchairs and eat dinner while watching a movie. But that's just Shinsegae. Scattered across this vast city are tens of thousands of stores - big and small, shopping centers, underground markets, street markets, street vendors and fruit/vegetable markets. I think the shopping possibilities are endless here.

To put it simply, I love Busan.

The Wheels on the Bus...

This morning I was a human tetherball in a Korean mosh pit composed of teenage schoolboys and little old women...

The First Stages of Culture Shock and a Multitude of Blessings

It’s Sunday and I’m unsure of the date! Uh, March 8th. I’m writing this on Rob’s laptop because we don’t have internet at home yet. I’m not even sure when I’ll be able to upload this, as every time I got to blogspot on my work laptop, everything apart from our writing is in Hanguel!

So, we’ve been in Busan just over a week now. I remember when I first started working in Karlsruhe…. Weeks seemed like months and months felt like more than a year had passed! In a new country and culture almost everything is new and we are but sponges, soaking up all of the new information, adapting as best we can. All of that new experience changes our perception of time drastically.

Rob’s already described a lot in so much detail, so to summarize what it’s been like for me: in our first week I’ve started a new job, met hundreds of people (of which only about 15 names will be remembered next week), improved drastically with reading Hanguel considering I haven’t been studying it, become capable of correctly pronouncing most of my students’ names, we’ve been communicating as best as we can with limited Korean, easy English and a lot of sign language, started forming our own physical understanding of this city’s layout, lived in two different locations, visited and got to know some people at two different churches…. So it somehow feels like we’ve been here much more than a week already, in a lot of ways.

Oh I can’t resist, because my first few days at school were really hard! So I here’s where I go into more detail. My first day of school was mostly very boring. My main co-teacher, Noh Hyun Jung, took me to school early and we sat in the teachers’ office basically all day.

My school’s teachers’ office sounds a bit like Rob’s: every teacher has their own desk area facing a cubicle wall. 4 teachers face the wall on either side. The vice principal has a stand-alone desk right in the very middle of this long room filled with teachers. The students open the sliding doors and come and talk to teachers freely between lessons. So I especially had a lot of visitors that first day, being the new foreign teacher (aka super star). Some were too shy to do anything but wave, smile and giggle. Quite a few bowed and said hello. One took my hand and bowed until her forehead was touching my hand. Many try to speak to me for more than just hello. A couple of them have a decent sized vocabulary, even if they don’t speak very fluently or grammatically correct. Occasionally they are just being silly. A giggling group visited to tell me they love me and that one of them was my predecessor’s girlfriend. Sometimes it’s awkward, because they are just hovering around me, the conversation has drawn to its natural close and I have to tell them “I need to get back to work now, so see you later. Good bye!”

So on that first day, without any computer and barely any Korean, I met my 3 other co-teachers, one of which is also new to Bansong Girls’ Middle School this year. Then I met and instantly forgot the names of some other friendly teachers. Many of the teachers are very friendly, but their English seems to be only slightly more advanced than my Korean and even my co-teachers have big problems understanding me sometimes. They are also very busy. They have more classes than I do, plus they have so much administrative work, it’s insane. I’m very aware of this, so I try not to be bothersome to them.

Korea seems to be the opposite of Germany when it comes to organisation. All anybody could tell me was that I probably wouldn’t have to teach that first day. I just read until about 9.30am, when the old principal and vice principal gave exit speeches and left. Then I just continued to read through my 3 new textbooks and the empty organisational files my predecessor had left me and made notes of things to ask my co-teachers. After an hour or so a new principal and vice principal arrived with an official from the Busan Office of Education and there were more speeches. Then we went back to doing our own things, which for me, was reading and making notes. At 11am we had an “opening ceremony” in the school gym, which was basically an assembly with only 2nd and 3rd graders. (1st graders started on Tuesday.) The new principal, vice-principal and 8 or so new teachers were introduced. When it was my turn to step forward and bow to the audience, the students screamed like I was a rock star, much to my surprise and embarrassment. Since then, two of my English classes have screamed in the same way when I enter their classrooms too. It’s very loud. I’m sure the excitement will wear off soon.
After the opening ceremony, it was back to reading for the rest of the day until 4.30pm, apart from a Korean lunch with the teachers in the teachers’ cafeteria.

On day two at school, I wanted to cry in the morning. I just felt left out because I can’t speak Korean. I can’t read the teachers’ notice board, or understand the announcements, or go to the staff meetings. I also felt like every one was too busy to help me out. There still wasn’t a schedule, so I had no idea if I’d be teaching that day or not. I had brought in our laptop, but couldn’t hook it up to a printer, so once my basic lesson planning was done, all I could do was try to get my co teachers to understand that I need to be able to have internet access and print before I can teach and that I can’t bring this laptop in each day, since I share it with Rob. Once they understood that, I got a school laptop that afternoon and since then I’ve been surfing the internet if all of my school planning’s finished. That has been a real outlet to my prior frustration, I have to say, although I feel a bit guilty that I’m there surfing for all to see when my colleagues have so much to do. But I’ve offered my help for anything and until we have some meetings about what my co teachers would like me to cover and when and what the lunch time and after school classes should cover, I really can’t plan that much more. I also wish my school laptop’s computer settings were in English, as then I’d be able to change the setup to how I like it, but apart from the software, it all defaults to Hanguel still.

My first classes on Wednesday – Friday with all three grades went really well. The students got to speak a lot, have agreed to my rules and had fun. From all of those classes, only a handful of students refused to speak English with me. With 700 students from a poor, often difficult background, a handful reusing to speak so far is much better than I what I was told at orientation to expect. My co teachers let me run the classes and assisted with monitoring the students’ work, making sure they understood and keeping the students in check. They were all surprised I could run a class. They didn’t understand I have prior teaching experience and they’re all quite happy with me, I think. On average, the 1st graders seem to be better in listening comprehension and speaking fluency than the 2nd and 3rd graders – especially the 2nd graders. I’m looking forward to next week. On Monday and Tuesday I get to meet those classes I haven’t yet met and I’ll be spending a lot more time lesson planning, having to use some material from their seemingly random textbooks. I’m going to have to have some meetings with my co teachers, although I still don’t have access to their schedules.

Apart from work differences and the language barrier, I hadn’t thought I was feeling culture shock much yet. But then we went to watch “The Watchmen” last night at the new local cinema… Here Hollywood movies remain in English, as there are plenty of Korean movies in Korean playing all of the time as well. At the end of that movie as the lights were slowly raised, I looked at the people walking out and it took me several seconds to realise they were all Korean, every one of them. Then I felt surprise at how much I had really escaped reality by watching that movie. I momentarily forgot what country I’m in!

Since I got a laptop and started teaching, I haven’t felt bad at all. The other teachers have begun to show real interest in getting to know me and I’ve found out some very interesting things about them. I’m super motivated to find a Korean course now! (And keep practising German.) There’s still a lot to do in terms of registering, changing banks, getting internet at home… general set up stuff. I feel really blessed to be at such a great school, with enthusiastic students, teachers who really care about quality education and their students’ well being. I feel really blessed to be in this awesome fully furnished apartment with Rob. I have a practice room! We’re praying for lots of guests and are seriously considering getting two little dogs. I feel really blessed about the churches we’ve found. We’ve met some wonderful people there who will probably become good friends and I’ve already got the electric bass from one of them. When we speak with our fellow EPIK colleagues, I realise that Rob and I have already seen a lot more of the city than most. Spring is clearly almost here, so I’m happy to report that after a slightly difficult beginning to the working week, I feel like we’re doing really well. I can only sing God praises.

A typical day so far

Let me give you guys a typical day for me as it stands so far. It will inevitably change since Korea is, as they say, dynamic but for now here's what it's like for me.

Shannon and I wake up around 6, have breakfast and then around 7 - 7:15 we catch the bus number 115-1 headed to Bansong. The bus ride takes about half an hour and is quite bumpy since along the way the bus goes up and down several hills. Most of the passengers who are unfortunate enough not to get a seat and are left standing have learned to keep a deathgrip on whatever they can hold on to. Drivers here are crazy and there have already been several times where cars have just pulled out in front of the bus with no warning whatsoever. Since Shannon and I get on near the beginning of the bus route we can usually find a seat. If not, we just spend the next 30 minutes feeling like human tetherballs. Once we get to the Bansong area, I get off several stops earlier than Shannon since her school is farther up in the hills.

After I get off the bus, my school is only 5 minutes away by foot. The walk takes me through a small commercial district leading into a residential type of area. My school is 4 stories tall and u-shaped. Directly in front of the school is a dirt soccer pitch where the students play during lunch or do exercises at various times of the day. The surrounding neighborhood is made up of small crammed-together apartment buildings (usually about 3-4 stories tall) in various states of disrepair (none of them are new or modern) which are divided by small streets that to me resemble back alleys more than they do streets. Scattered throughout the surrounding neighborhood are stationary shops and small Korean takeaways which primarily sell fried food including chicken, fish and squid. The shops are mainly for the kids as they walk to and from their home or bus stop. In my exploring, I've also found a network of streets only a few blocks over decked out with red overhanging curtains that is some sort of vegetable/fish/kitchen goods market.

Once at school, the first thing I do is take off my shoes. Street shoes are not allowed in the school so everyone takes off their shoes at the door and puts on a pair of house shoes. At the moment I don't have my own pair of house shoes so I'm using a random pair that are either from the last teacher or are for general visitors. It wasn't quite clear when they explained it to me and I haven't bothered to ask since I'm still trying to figure out my Korean shoe size. The house shoes are kept in a small cupboard with numbered shelves just inside the school entrance and everyone has one shelf that is specifically assigned to them. Mine is number 37.

After taking off my shoes, I go upstairs to the teachers' lounge on the 2nd floor. The teachers' lounge is a long room filled with cubicle sections on one side of the room. I have my own cubicle and my own computer but I share a printer with 5 other teachers sitting in my section. There are 7 cubicle sections in total and in the middle section sits the Vice Principal who in Korean is called "gwo-gam song-sang-neem". The Korean word for teacher is just "song-sang-neem" and the words for other types of teachers and school officials seem to be variations of that word. Just to let you know, I am the only foreigner in my school. There are 4 other English teachers but I alone am solely responsible for the conversation & vocabulary portion of my students' education.
One more thing to note: in America we count every grade starting after kindergarten. In Korea, they only count the grades at each school. So I teach 1st graders, 2nd graders and 3rd graders in middle school. In America, I think the equivalent would be 7th, 8th and 9th graders.

Okay, so everyday I go to my cubicle first, check my email and then look at my schedule. I usually have 3-4 classes a day (45 minutes each) depending on the week, since I only have certain 1st grade classes every other week. All of my classes are held in the EOZ (English Only Zone) which is a special classroom just for me on the 3rd floor and I get to choose how to decorate it and how to set it up. In every classroom there is a flatscreen HDTV (I'm not kidding) but in the EOZ there is a HUGE flatscreen HDTV (60 inches?) which I haven't used yet.

Since this is my first week, my only priority has been to introduce myself to the students in each class and then set out the rules. In total, I will have 18 classes a week and in each class there are 30-40 students. In order to avoid complete chaos, I've come up with 9 rules to ensure that the students understand that I'm not their friend or just some crazy foreigner - I'm their teacher. The rules that I have so far are :

1. Be on time
2. Speak English
3. Speak loudly (I make them shout this to get the point across)
4. Bring your book
5. Bring your pencil & eraser
6. Pay attention to teacher (I make sure they understand that this means no cellphones, falling asleep or looking out the window)
7. Be nice to each other (i.e. no fighting, wrestling, pushing or hitting)
8. Raise your hand if you have a question (they can shout out answers but if they need help I want them to get my attention)
9. Have fun (I want them to understand that they should enjoy my English class not dread it or be afraid to make mistakes)

At the end of each class I had this week, I actually made the students come up to the board and sign the piece of paper with all the rules on it to show that they promise to follow them. That way when there's a problem, I can simply point to the paper with their signature and remind them that agreed to follow the rules.

I've only had to discipline 1 student so far but I've had a few trouble-makers that I'm sure will need a strong hand in the future. If they break the rules, there are several things I can do. The first thing is to give them a warning, then if they are persistent I'll make them stand up at the front of the classroom (maybe even kneel to make it more humiliating) and if that still doesn't work then I can always have them hold both their hands high in the air until they're ready to co-operate. It might sound a bit barbaric in comparison to the USA but at least it's a lot better than hitting them which is what some of the Korean teachers do in their classrooms.

Lastly, I have to be at work from 830am - 430pm everyday irregardless of my schedule. So even if my last class ends at 1230 like it does on Wednesday, I have to sit at my desk until 430 and keep myself busy. That can mean preparing lesson plans, decorating and/or cleaning the EOZ or more than likely it means surfing the internet, talking to other teachers and waiting to see if someone needs my help. At 430pm, I leave school and walk down to the bus stop where I wait until Shannon calls me to say she got on the bus near her school. Then I catch the same bus as her and we go home.

That's what my days look like at the moment but maybe they'll change once I start really teaching from the books. After all, Korea is dynamic and things change literally from one minute to another.

If you want to know anything more about what I do or where I work, please send me your questions. Once we get our camera fixed and/or I buy my new dream camera (Canon 50D), Shannon and I'll post pics of our schools and the areas where we spend our time (home, shopping, church etc).

Our New Address!

We finally got a new apartment and we move in tomorrow! Our new address is:

Rob and Shannon Digby
Dongbu Olympic Town 103-1301
Wu-dong 1008-5, Haeundae-gu
Busan, Korea 612-745

In Korean, it looks like this:

Robert & Shannon Digby
부산 해운대구 우동 1008-5
동부올림픽타운 103동 1301호

It's a 3 bedroom apartment with a large kitchen, living room, long balcony, a small storage room and a laundry room. Very nice!

Here's a small map of the area. Just look closer!

View Larger Map

Day 2 in Busan

We're finally here - Busan! What a trip it was.

Let me take you back to last Friday. We left the university at 1130 in the morning, stopped for lunch along the way and finally arrived in Busan around 430 pm. When we got to our meeting point, we weren't allowed to leave the bus until our Korean guide called us by name. Outside the bus, our co-teachers were lining up like adoptive parents, chattering anxiously amongst themselves in the same way that we were doing on the bus. I wonder if it was as surreal for them as it was for us. Whenever our guide called one of our names, the whole bus would clap loudly and wish them well as they exited. Then their Korean co-teacher was would rush forward nervously and greet them warmly before whisking them away to get their luggage and drive them to their new apartment and school.

When our guide called our names, we were one of the last and it was the same experience. Our co-teachers met us as we stepped off the bus and immediately became our protective and somewhat surrogate parents. I had 2 co-teachers meet me and Shannon had only 1 meet her but in reality, we both have 4 co-teachers each.

After picking us up from the bus, our co-teachers took us to a temporary studio apartment since that's where the last English teacher lived. They had decided not to get us a new apartment until after talking to us so that they could find out exactly what kind of place to look for. Shannon and I are both pleased with their decision because it means we will have more control over where we'll live and will give us a chance to look at multiple apartments before making a final decision.

Right now we're living in a part of the city called Haeundae New Town which is about 45 minutes by bus from our schools and about 20 minutes from the beach. After looking at the map & walking around town, I think we'll choose to live in Haeundae (the "old" town which is still very modern) which is actually closer to the beach and about 15 minutes closer to our school. It's complicated. I'll post a map in about a week's time to give you more detail.

Back to Friday night. When we got to our temporary flat, the place was very dirty and so the co-teachers immediately called some professional cleaners to come and clean the place. They then took us out to dinner at a Japanese restaurant before taking us to a large department store to help us buy new bedclothes. Along the way my co-teacher gave me her subway card thing (it's a little keychain pendant that you can charge with money & then you use it to enter the subway & the money is automatically subtracted from it). When we went to put some money on it, we found out that there was still 5000 Won on it but she was adamant that I should still keep it as a gift. When we arrived at the department store, our co-teachers decided to pay for the bedcovers and pillows out of the school money (1/2 from my school & 1/2 from Shannon's) and so they encouraged to buy the best set we could since we were just starting out. I let Shannon make all the decisions in this regard and even though the Koreans kept showing her flowery patterns, Shannon made the wise decision to go with something a bit more gender neutral. In the end, she picked out a green & white duvet with matching pillows & a green mattress cover with black roosters all over it. Very funny but much better than the rosy pink antique flower patterns that seem to be on most of the bed stuff here.

After that, we went back to the apartment which was still being cleaned and made arrangements to be picked up on Monday for our first day at our new schools. I'll be teaching at Bansong Boys'School and Shannon at Bansong Girls' School.

All the while, our co-teachers asked us many questions, including if we knew how to do some very basic things. They really did treat us like newly adopted children. It was a strange sensation and there were many times when Shannon and I just had to smile appreciatively and leave it at that. I think that they weren't expecting to have such seasoned travelers or teachers to work with. It was very funny because they were impressed that we already had phones, could speak a little Korean and were not afraid to walk around alone in the city as new foreigners.

So yesterday was our first full day in Busan and we took the subway to Haeundae Beach and then to visit a friend of ours named Brett who is from South Africa and needed some people to cheer him up. He's alone in a remote part of the city and has never used the subway before so I think he's a bit depressed & needs to learn how to get around. We brought him some maps, helped him buy a subway charge token thing (like we both now have) and taught him what we knew before going back home again. We made plans to visit him again and have him visit us once he has figured out the subway.

Today we went to Seomyeon by subway and met some Americans at the Krispy Kreme that we found near the local department store. Yes, let me repeat that. They have Krispy Kreme doughnuts here. If you don't know what those are, then you haven't lived yet.

Anyway, after that we went to a bunch of different places looking at electronic goods before finding out that there's a Canon store near one of the subway stops. Shannon and I are going to go there in the coming week to check out the camera I want and to repair the one we have (yes, it's broken, it sucks). We then went to a Presbyterian church where one of our fellow EPIK teachers goes and had a good time. We're not sure if it will be our new church home but the possibility exists. No matter what, there's a good couples group going on and one of the people we met actually has friends in Erkelenz, Germany where my relatives live. How amazing is that?
So that's where we are so far. Tonight we have to go back to the apartment and prepare our clothes for tomorrow. Tomorrow we have to dress up really nice since it will be the first day we meet our principal and vice-principal. After that we can wear normal casual wear (nice jeans & nice shirt) but on the first day we have to look our best.

Just one last thing to note is that everywhere we go, we try to speak Korean to the adults but when we see children (toddlers, elementary schoolers and teenagers) we try to speak English. It's funny because many of them know how to say hello and if they don't respond to us, their parents always prod them as if saying "you know how to speak English, say hello to the funny foreigners!" We've also had a number of experiences where children on the subway will sit next to us and speak to us in English about everything and anything just to practice their English skills. It's funny but I figure we're here to promote English not only in our school but everywhere we go. That's the government's view too apparently.

Anyway, gotta go. The PC is yelling at me in Korean saying I have less than 3 minutes left. Hope this entry isn't too chaotic but give us a shout if you want more details or have questions!

Ciao for now!