Hair

One thing I've noticed since I arrived, is the lack of body hair that Koreans have. In the summer, I would see men wearing shorts and they did not have much hair on their legs. I have not seen much hair on people's arms either. Very few men have a beard or mustache. Only once have I seen a Korean man with more than a couple day's worth of stubble. Most of them don't even have that much. Recently, I decided to remove the hair on my arms because one of the kids said that I had a lot of hair on my arms and asked if I was a man. That's one thing I do not want anybody to think about me. The stores do not sell much in the way of hair removal products. There are no women's shaving cream or gel. There is not much to choose from for men's shaving cream either. Koreans do not have much in the way of eyelashes either.

My New Favorite Food

Since I came to Korea, I have eaten donkkas (돈까스), which is fried pork cutlets. The picture on the right shows what they are. They are boneless pieces of pork that are covered in breading and then deep-fat fried. They are served with pork cutlet sauce, rice, and soup. I eat them at least once at week at a Japanese noodle restaurant around the corner from my apartment. I was never a big fan of meat, but this dish is delicious. Tuesday, at work, we ordered this take-out dish. When ordering food in Korea, the food does not come on disposable dishes. Instead, the delivery man comes back later to pick up the dishes. Only when ordering pizza or fried chicken does the food come on disposable plates. Monday, we ordered Korean food, and I learned that sometimes Korean restaurants recycle the side dishes. This is so the restauarants can make a profit. It is not very common for people to sue other people. This is evidenced in the Korean barbecue restaurants. There are grills in the middle of each table and the waiters bring out the meat and you cook it yourself. The last time we went there for a company dinner I thought that a place like that would not survive in America because people would sue because they got burned and/or they got sick because they did not cook the meat well enough. In Korea, (and China), people use the same chopsticks for eating and getting food off the plates that everybody gets food from.

What A Waste!

That is exactly what I am not thinking about my communication degree. There have been some changes in the procedures at the school. In thinking about these changes, I have been able to go back to my communication degree to explain to myself why the communication culture of the branch has changed. The theories that I learned in Human Communication Theory are proving to be invaluable in this time of transition. I can think of a few theories that apply to this situation. For example, I can think of Dramatism of Kenneth Burke to explain scapegoating to myself. (Kenneth Burke was the maternal grandfather of singer Harry Chapin, whose most famous song is "Cat's in the Cradle." Here's a video that I took off of YouTube that has the song on it.)

The most important theory for this series of events is Critical Theory of Commnication in Organizations. The change of one person and that person's style has completely changed the working environment. My communication classes have also helped me to know about Asian society, since Asian and Western cultures have different communication styles.

Happy New Year!

It is now 2009 here in Korea. It has been for nearly two hours. I do not have to work today, but instead, I have to work on Saturday. I do not have any big plans for the day other than relaxing and trying to go to bed at a good time. I've been working a lot this week, but my Tuesday/Thursday schedule is much easier than my Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule because I don't have as many classes and the classes are smaller.

My Schedule for the Next Month

Starting tomorrow, I am going to be so busy for the next month. I'll have ten classes a day because the kids have a month off from Korean school and so we offer extra classes for them. Our Tuesday/Thursday classes will move to mornings on Monday/Wednesday/Friday and then we will have only Winter Instensive courses on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I have to be at work at 9:00 am at the latest and then classes start at 9:30 and last until 12:35. Then, our afternoon classes start at 2:30 and run until 7:10. It's going to be busy, busy, busy. I've never taught more than eight classes in a day and so by the time I get everything done, I'll be dead tired.

Answer to the Previous Poll Question

What Public Holiday falls on October 3?

• National Foundation Day-0 (0%)
• Constitution Day-0 (0%)
• Liberation Day-2 (100%)
• Independence Movement Day-0 (0%)
• Memorial Day-0 (0%)

The answer is National Foundation Day. Constitution Day is July 17, which is the day that the ROK was founded in 1948. Liberation Day is August 15, which was the day that the Japanese surrendered to the Allies during World War II. Independence Movement Day is on March 1. This was the day in 1919 that the Koreans started protesting Japanese occupation. Memorial Day, June 6, is for the people who died serving their country.

Pogs: How Stupid!

When I was in elementary school, pogs were the popular toy. If you don't know what pogs are, look at the image on the right. They are little pieces of cardboard with pictures on either side. Kids would bring them to school and play with them during recess. I never played much because I did not have very many. They would put them out on the floor and play with a heavier one, usually metal, which was called the slammer. I remember that you could get them in Snyder's bread sacks. I had a cousin with a five-foot licorice tube full of them. Eventually the stupid things went out of style and some other toy became popular. Pogs have become the toy of Korean children right now. The kids bring them to English academy and play them before class and during the breaks. A couple of times, the kids came to me and wanted me to solve their disputes over the pogs. I told them that if they were going to fight over them then I was going to take them away. They then stopped fighting over them. I had a student who would bring a metal lunchbox to class. I thought it had his lunch in it but I saw what was in it and it was full of pogs. Another boys brings a bag full of pogs to class everyday. I have had to take them away from students because they were playing with them during class. Other teachers take them and then throw them away after class. In one class, I took away a couple and cut them up so they would not be a problem again. In that same class, a student gave me a couple becasue he wanted me to see them cut up. The stupid things are so annoying.

Boys Don't Cry

That might be true in America, but it is definitely not try here in Korea. In my classes, I have had several more boys cry than girls. In several classes there are more boys than girls, but if boys did not cry, then it wouldn't matter how many boys and how few girls there were, there would still be more girls who cry than boys. I once asked somebody if Koreans thought it was okay for men to cry. He said that if a man were crying, then people would ask him what is wrong; they would not think he is a sissy or anything like that. As far as there being more boys than girls, it is because there are more males than females in Korea. Most people prefer sons over daughters because sons carry on the family name and the oldest son takes care of the parents when they are aged. Koreans do not have big families because educating children is very expensive here. People who have a son the first time around might stop having kids but people who have a daughter first do not stop at one. Every only child that I know of is male.

Merry Christmas!

I heard that from people in places that I went today. After work, I went to the subway station and people from the nearby church were passing out flyers and pieces of candy to people in the station. One of them told me Merry Christmas and I thought that she said it in English because I was a foreigner. Later, I went to Outback Steakhouse (no other foreigners were eating there) and while I was waiting, I heard Koreans saying it to other Koreans so I figured out that they were speaking Konglish, which is Korean that is borrowed from English and pronounced with Korean pronunciation and written in Hangeul. That is what I typed two posts ago. There were so many people on the subways that several people had to stand out of necessity, not by preference. Home Plus was pretty crowded as well with holiday shoppers.

What a Political Class!

Sometimes, the kids come up with strange things they want to go by. In one of my classes, a student decided he wants to go by Human, instead of his previous English name, Kevin. Today, one of the boys told me he wanted to go by Obama. Another boy wanted to go by Hillary. Another student in the class is Michelle, but she was not there today. As far as the US elections, I really only heard about them from the kids. They knew that Obama was going to be the new president. Shortly after the elections, one of the boys told me that Obama's father was from Kenya. Then, he told me that people in Kenya do not go to school and then he did some gesture that told me that he thought that Kenyans were primitive. This boy is a third grader and I don't think he had seen many Africans in person. Since I came here six months ago, I have seen probably fewer than a dozen people of African descent.