Monday, December 6, 2010

Abnormal Thanksgiving

Lots of people have been asking me about how I feel about the current tension between North Korea and South Korea. To be honest, there is not a whole lot that I see on a daily basis that would make one realize these said "tensions" even exist. I only have a few examples of these, actually.

I was teaching some 6th graders, and we were writing party invitations. Most kids wrote things like "Dear so-so, This saturday is my birthday party, would you like to come?", and other fairly normal invitations. I sit next to this one kid who had just began writing his. He didn't address it to anyone, but did include that the party he was hosting would be in Hell. At least he capitalized the H, I thought. So I tell him to erase it and start over. Five minutes later I come back and his letter looked a little more sinister: "Dear Jong Il Kim, please come to my nuclear party in Hell. From Kim Min-su." Well Kim Min-su, you just earned a spot standing in the back of the room holding your hands above your head for the remainder of the period.

Then the other day I was walking home from school, and this well-dressed man approaches me with a "good morning" (it was around 5 PM.) As if I'm not already caught off guard, he then states "You should be an American". It's a good thing I am because if I wasn't and a stranger said that to me I'd probably be offended. He then started to ramble off some things which I couldn't understand, but I assumed he was trying to get me to join his church, as has happened a couple times before in almost the exact same physical location. Just when I expected him to produce some kind of Christian church pamphlet he said something along the lines of "We should not the Communists.", smiled, and walked away.

Outside of those two specific instances there really haven't been too many references to the North and their situation. Most people here are pretty nonchalant when talking about the current situation, as many of them have been through similar things of this nature throughout the past couple of decades. Even my friends Mr. Yu and Patty--who were alive during the Korean War in the 50's--didn't have much to say about it. I am beginning to wonder if part of this attitude has to do with the types of media that Koreans are exposed to. But really if you follow the happenings, as I have, there are many good reasons to believe the North is only trying to flex their military might and reconfirm themselves as powerful adversaries to the Western, developed world. Their economy is largely based on supporting their defense and supplying their 1+ million strong military personnel (4th biggest in the world). Without a war or foe to fight, the importance of all that investment goes for naught. By instigating little annoyances to the South, the North is giving their economy a reason to exist. When a war-based economy lacks the enemies to sustain it, the only viable option is to literally start a war. In this case, I don't think the North thinks they could ever contend with the powerful Western world, but by poking their heads into the South's business every few years they are maintaining their rationale for being such a militaristic nation. Further, most South Koreans whom I've talked to don't think any 'war' would ever happen between the two Koreas again, as it would inevitably lead to the end of the "Korean" race as we know it. Oh, and the 30,000 U.S. troops stationed in Korea, in addition to the tens of thousands around Asia (including the aircraft carrier the USS George Washington, currently stationed in the Yellow Sea) might have a problem if the North did as much as shoot any American base/soldiers. So, all that said, I don't think the North poses any immediate threat to me personally. And as "crazy" as Kim Jong Il's opponents say he is, well I just don't think that is the correct term. The guy has inherited and maintained the most secretive country the world has ever seen, which is even more amazing considering the speed at which information flows across today's porous international borders. And seriously, who still believes in Communism these days? Everyone in North Korea has been tricked into it. That's pretty amazing to me..just thinking about the education their kids probably get, for example. I bet it is so backward and skewed.....

The last few weeks have been very routine for me. Mondays are WWE Raw night. I started watching this stuff lately because it is so damn entertaining. And at the very least I need to know a little bit about wrestling if I am going to continue to rock my Hulk Hogan hat. Tuesdays I have my Korean tutor, we usually study together for about 3 hours. Wednesdays we have recently had volleyball games against this other school. One time we went there and one time they came to our school. When we went there, I was warming up and saw a couple (12) bottles of makkgeoli, or this rice wine. Wasn't sure why it was there, ya know being in a school and 1 PM and everything. But after the first game, sure enough that boozehound vice principle of ours started sippin away. I didn't want to be rude and so accepted the offering from him. And the next one. And the next one. For game 2 you could say I had a bit of a buzz going, which I wasn't sure how to feel about. But after games 2 and 3, the other school's principle insisted that I/we keep drinking. This is early afternoon inside the school building, keep in mind. We won the match and then went to dinner for another hundred rounds of drinks, yet I never ended up getting nearly as drunk as the other guys there. The same thing happened last week at our school, except we waited til school hours had ended before we indulged this time. Same result though, we came out on top again. Thursdays is "Namja Night". Namja translates to "man/male"...me and some guys sometimes go to this awesome all you can eat Korean BBQ place then play ping pong or get beers or play Madden/FIFA. It's awesome. Then the weekend comes. I really don't like the monotony of it all, but it certainly speeds the week up and gives me something to look forward to each day.

Thanksgiving night was great. I have a little crew of about 6 friends that live near me, all of whom happen to be American. My tutor Jin also came along, which was great for translating purposes. So we all got together and went to this restaurant VIP's, which is actually pronounced like it is spelled (Vipps), and not V.I.P.'s. But because many Koreans have difficulty saying the letter "v" and often switch it with the letter "b", and likewise they switch the "p" with an "f", when I told my co workers where I went they all said "ohhh, beefs". It was so wrong that I couldn't do anything about it and just played along. Anyway, it's a huge buffet and was by far the most unusual Thanksgiving meal I have ever eaten. It wasn't quite so Western, but it wasn't entirely Asian. We had tacos, but also shrimp. Pizza, but mussels and shellfish. I had pasta but also salmon, and fried chicken but then fried rice. There were some other things too but it is now almost three weeks later and I cannot remember. But it was really nice to be completely stuffed.

Final exams are here and that means I only have about two weeks left before winter vacation starts. After winter vacation starts I have two weeks off then two weeks of winter English camp, followed by a week off for Chinese New Year, followed by ten days of teaching, followed by 12 days off entirely as the academic year will end. That puts me at a grand total of about two weeks of teaching regular classes from Christmas Day until March 2nd, at which point I will be merely two months away from completing my contract. So, while I still have quite a bit of time in Korea, the end is in sight and then that means I will have to figure something else out to do with my time. We'll see about that.