Korean Driving Guide

Guide to Safe Driving in Korea

If you're planning on driving while you're in Korea - which many people will strongly advise against - you'll need either an International Driving Permit (if someone tries to sell you an "international driving license," don't buy it) or a Korean Driver's License. To get an IDP all you need is a driver's license from your home country that will be valid during the entire year that you want an IDP. You can't get it in Korea, though - you'll have to get it shipped from home.

If you want a KDL, you'll have to pass a 20-question driving test, in less-than-masterful English. It's not easy, though not because the question content is necessarily difficult. Friends have told me that they would have known the answers to all of the questions if they could actually figure out what the question was asking. (If you fail, you'll have to pay to take it again.) To prepare for it, you can buy the "Manual for Safe Driving" by the Korean Road Traffic Safety Authority (for something like 15k won); or you can just use the "Guide to Safe Driving in Korea", based on the KRTSA's manual but prepared by the US Military.

Sex with a Korean Minor - Not a crime

A headline on the second page of the Korea Times today reads: "Sex With Minor Not Crime if Not Forced".

A local high court found a 46-year-old man not guilty of having sex with a runaway teenage girl, saying their liaison was neither forced nor in exchange for money.

The man had invited the 16 year-old girl, who had been homeless for two years, into his home to "offer his house as a shelter to her request." He fed her and gave her pocket money, but "there is no evidence that the offering was in exchange for sex."

In Korea, a person is not guilty of any crime for having sex with a minor aged 13 and over unless it is paid for or forced. Sex with those under the age of 13 is punishable even if it is carried out under mutual consent.

Let's be straight: if sex is forced, it's rape; paid for, it's prostitution - both of which are illegal. So minors between the ages of 13 and 18 are basically adults, with all of the sexual rights and responsibilities afforded them.

Personally I have mixed feelings on this issue.

On one hand

• People develop at different rates - who is to say that this particular 16 year-old girl (after two years on the streets, mind you) isn't more mature than your average 22 year-old (sheltered) college senior? Is it really fair to criminalize the sex of one and let the other share her "love" with whomever she pleases?
• Most human beings hit puberty around 13 - which wasn't an unusual age for a woman to get married about 100 years ago.
• If teenagers are scarred from sexual experiences as youth - with peers or adults - it is not from any shame or guilt inherent in the sexual act. It's foisted upon them from a culture that teaches them to feel shame and guilt. Teenagers can - and should! - be taught to appreciate their sexuality. The more they understand themselves the less likely they are to be taken advantage of.
• Are we really going to say that we trust 16 year-olds in the US to wield one-ton weapons at 65mph but not to make decisions about their own bodies?
  

The other hand:

• "Consent" is not very court-friendly. Rape cases, especially in the event of acquaintance rape, are notoriously difficult to prove. Every country has its own problems with low rape conviction rates. This is particularly pertinent in consideration of point number 2:
  
• Teenagers need to be protected from adults with devious intentions. They are impressionable, and, more often that not, incredibly naive. Be honest, when you were 14 did you really know where your genitals were and what they could do? Yes, you say? Damn. Well alright then, Mrs. "I didn't get pulled out of family life education in middle school!" Rub it in.
  
• Does anyone really NEED to be having sex? OK, for purposes of procreation and perpetuation of our species, YES, of course. But a 14 year-old 7th grader has better things to be doing, like homework, and masturbating.

I guess my opinion falls in between. I'd like to see the legal age of a minor set at 16.

Any thoughts? I'd love to get some feedback.

Organic Food Delivery in Korea

My co-teacher introduced me to one of my greatest discoveries yet in Korea: iCoop. It's a cooperative of Korean farmers and food processors that are committed to producing sustainable, organic foods. They sell everything from eggs and milk to fresh fruits and vegetables to cosmetics and laundry soap.

Not only are most of the products actually cheaper than their non-organic counterparts on the shelves of E-Mart, but the best part about the company is that they deliver your entire order to your doorstep, on the day of your choosing. AND they'll send you a text message when they've made the delivery so you can go home and put everything in the fridge.

The only drawback, if you can call it that, is that the entire site is in Korean. (On the upside, it's a great way to learn Korean.) You'll need a Korean co-teacher or friend to help you set up an account, but luckily the process doesn't take long. After my co-teacher filled out my name, address, and ARC ID on the website, and made a couple of short phone calls to give the company my bank account number for direct transfer of funds, my account was active.

There are two membership options: one with no monthly payment, and another with a monthly payment of 20,000 원 and at least a 20% discount on all items. (So...if you spend about $100 a month on groceries, it's worth it.)

Did I mention that it comes with FREE delivery? You select the day you want the goods delivered, select the quantity of items you want, log out, and wait.

So far we've had two deliveries. The second time I ordered what I think is something similar to seitan, which was frozen, so they made the delivery in a big re-usable foam box. The next time I'm expecting a delivery I'll leave the box outside my door and they'll either re-fill it or take it back and use it for another delivery.

If you want any more info about it, please let me know. I'm quickly becoming one of their biggest fans.

Beating Your Meat (Or, "Dogs as Food in Korea")

Though not a staple of the Korean diet by any stretch of the imagination, dog meat is popular among a small subset of the population here. Older men are particularly fond of it, as it is a widely held belief among dog meat fans and foes alike that it boosts "stamina" - Koreans' not-so-subtle term for sexual energy. It is most often served as dog meat soup (보신탕), though most 보신탕 restaurants also serve a side dish of steamed dog skin (which is just about as appetizing as it sounds).

Many Koreans have never eaten dog meat, and they'll usually cite one of the following three reasons for their avoidance of it:

1) They love dogs.

I think it's safe to say that this is why most of the Western world dry heaves at the very notion of eating dog meat. It's tough to conjure an appetite when you picture the cutest, cuddly (& very anthropomorphised) puppy you've ever seen, roasted on a stick.

This seems a weak argument to me, if the thought of eating meat doesn't already make you cringe. (The t-shirt's vegetarian campaign seems equally as likely to backfire.) Dogs are popular pets because they exhibit traits we look for in friends - they are loyal, affectionate, and can usually be trained not to poop on the couch.

Any animal can be made to look cute enough, if you take it out of its natural habitat and give it a bath and a ribbon, or if it is small enough.

2) It's cruel.

I only found out how the dogs are killed after my second trip to eat 보신탕 with a co-teacher. I had, perhaps naively, assumed that dogs were slaughtered as humanely as possible. But because the meat is especially prized for its stamina-inducing properties, butchers prefer to kill dogs at their most energetic, so that customers get the full effect of the dog's adrenaline. According to my co-teacher (on whose sole testimony this account is based, and who eats dog regularly), some butchers will torture a dog briefly before smashing its head on the ground. This supposedly kills the dog instantly, trapping the dog's adrenaline in its meat.

According to this 2001 article from the BBC, however, violent forms of dog execution have been banned, and they are now "instantly killed by electrocution." But, until late 2008, dogs weren't considered livestock (to do so would be to actually admit their "problem" to the world), so it has been difficult for the government to control their treatment. Now, having changed their designation, the government is trying to crack down on illicit dog meat vendors.

If you can stomach it, here is a photo gallery of some of the abuses suffered by dogs in markets in Korea and elsewhere: http://www.all-creatures.org/anex/dog.html. Keep in mind that many animals consumed in the US routinely undergo similarly cruel treatment.

3) They're Buddhist.

Korean Buddhists don't eat dog meat, and this accounts for almost a quarter of the population. While I had most often heard that Korean Buddhists consider dogs to be sentient beings (though dogs seem to be alone in the animal kingdom as deserving of that status), I was recently told of another, more entertaining and mythical story that started like this: "Korean Buddhists believe if they eat dog meat they will die." Dissatisfied with such an outlandish, cursory statement, I pressed for an explanation, which follows:

The kings during the Joseun dynasty, motivated by Confucian teachings, banished Buddhists from practicing their religion in the country. As a result, temples were moved high into remote hills where they were hard to locate and destroy. Practicing buddhists were forced to journey through still-wild, forests - at that time still home to giant Korean tigers - in order to reach their religious grounds. Tigers, apparently, love dog meat, and can smell it even on the sweat of a man who has recently consumed it. They would not hesitate to kill a man to sate their hunger for dog. Buddhists quickly learned to abstain from eating dog meat, lest they be killed by mistake.

Wikipedia will also tell you that dog meat has been illegal in Korea since 1984, which, if true, would probably do something to keep dog consumption down. Other articles suggest that it was the Seoul city metropolitan government that banned the sale of dog (and, incidentally, snake) meat, not the entire country. Regardless of the national government's "official" stance on the issue, personal experience tells me that the dog meat industry is wholly tolerated as a serious business. No attempt is made to hide the consumption from anyone other than foreigners. Most Korean fans of dog meat, upon hearing a foreigner's mention of it, will usually deride it blithely and pass it off as an unusual custom. Once you express any openness to the idea of eating dog meat, however, the same Korean will openly admit their passion for it and will invite you for supper, and probably lunch the next day. Ever since the '88 Olympics (and subsequently the 2002 World Cup, co-hosted by Korea and Japan), when the Korean government first suggested a willingness to shun dog meat as an official policy, the Korean dog-eating populace has gotten the hint: keep it on the down low, and you can keep beating - and eating - your (dog) meat.

I am almost surviving...

Soup is a mainstay of the Korean diet, and it is usually served piping hot. There is a Korean expression, 시원하다 (shi-weon-ha-da), which means that something is very hot but makes you feel cool, or comfortable (Google translates the expression as "Oh that's good!"). Today during lunch I used the expression with one of my co-teachers. Another teacher made a comment at which everyone laughed - 살 것 같다 (sal geot gatda)! Mrs. Yoon said she would explain it after lunch, which I took as her tactful way of saying she was kind of embarassed by it.

Later, in the hall, she explained that exam day doesn't only mean a day of rest for me - the teachers' only responsibility during the day is to supervise the students while they take exams. Since today's exam a practice test, students don't take it very seriously (indeed, on my way to lunch I noticed about half of the students in each class fast asleep), and teachers aren't concerned about cheating. Because the teachers "can feel comfortable," says Mrs. Yoon, many of them go out drinking heavily the night before.

A hot soup is considered essential to recovery from a hangover, and, luckily for many male teachers, today that is exactly what we had (actually, there's a whole class of soups Koreans consider hangover cures - 해장국, he-jang-guk - one of which is made of blowfish and bean sprouts). The teacher's retort to my "시원하다" comment was a joke, not at my expense, but at that of all the teachers nursing a hangover today. 살 것 같다, Mrs. Yoon explained, is used when you begin to feel better; having taken the first several sips of a steaming soup after a long night of binge drinking, perhaps. It means "I am almost surviving!"

Side note: I have apparently reached 100 blog posts!

Identities!

This week my lesson isn't as thrilling as $100k Pyramid, but it's still going pretty well. I call it "Identities."Lisa gave me a set of "identity cards" that she made and used last week. With the class separated on opposite sides of the room, half of the class gets a new identity (Karl, Jessica, Juan), and the other half gets a piece of paper. I tell them that they need to meet five new people and get to know some things about them, and we review questions they can ask to get to the specific information, like:

Birthday: "When is your birthday?", "When were you born?"

Place of birth: "Where were you born?"

Age: "How old are you?"

Hobby: "What do you like to do in your free time?", "What are your hobbies?"

etc.

As basic as this sounds, it's really tough for a lot of my students to formulate these questions without a prompt. If I ask them how they would ask someone about their siblings (and trust me, I explain the word "siblings"), they look at me with a blank face. "How many..." I say. "How many..." they repeat. I can see the wheels turning in their heads, churning through all of the English rules and formulas they've learned in the last 10 years. "How many brothers and sisters..." someone will say, after 2 or 3 minutes of silence. "Right," I say finally, "How many brothers and sisters do you have?"

After reviewing the questions, I pass out the identities and ask them to mingle and write down responses for up to five people (depending on time) before sitting back down. Once they are seated on their respective sides of the room, I tell them I want them to introduce me to the people they met. "Who did you meet?" I'll ask one student, who will look at their sheet and say, for example, "Karl." I'll look across the room and should "Where's Karl?" If they aren't paying attention this quickly gets everyone to look up. "Karl" raises his/her hand. "What's up, Karl?" I'll say. Back to the first student, "Tell me about Karl." They look back at their card. "He birthday is December nine." "His birthday is December ninth," I have them repeat. I review the use of personal pronouns (he/she) and possessive adjectives (his/her) and write examples on the board for them to review as I go around the room and ask different students to respond.

Koreans, in general, have a big problem with the difference. As one teacher told me after class, they first have to think of the gender of the person they're referring to. Then they have to think about the function of the word (adjective, pronoun) and finally the correct format for the gender and function. Though the Korean language does have pronouns and possessive adjectives like this (그 = he, 그녀 she, 그의 = his, 그녀의 her), my co-teacher told me that they're rarely used when speaking - they are only used when translating English directly into Korean or in the written language. Instead, they more often use the general word for "person" (사람), which carries no connotation of gender.

I can't fault the students for their own failures when it comes to speaking - the system of English education in Korea has stacked the odds against them. Their class lectures are conducted almost exclusively in Korean, the only exception being when a new vocabulary word is introduced, and even then it's sandwiched between lines of Korean, so it remains trapped, effectively, within the language structure of Korean. Students have difficulty developing a separate identity for the English language within this framework.

I also read recently that such different languages (grammatically, phonetically, etc) as English and Korean require over 2,000 study hours in order for a native speaker of one to gain proficiency in the other. More similar languages, like English and Spanish, or Korean and Japanese, require only about 360 study hours to reach the same level of fluency.

In any case, I feel like I'm starting to get a read on my students and can control them better. It makes a world of difference in the way they behave and how much they participate. I think at first I was more concerned with making sure the students had fun - one of our objectives as EPIK teachers, after all, is to cultivate interest among the students - than trying to make them participate. I think the students started to sense this, the same way that a dog smells your fear, and they started to take advantage of it. I can't say exactly how my attitude changed, but now I have no problem kicking a student out of the classroom after a few requests to participate. If they aren't interested in the activity we're doing, I'm not interested in having them in my class. Usually, after kicking a student out of a troublesome class, obnoxious students will reveal themselves to be nothing more than sheep in wolves' clothing - they roll over and purr, or do whatever sheep do to display defeat or obedience.

I was expecting some difficulty with "Identities," since it's a speaking activity and requires a certain amount of unsupervised conversation. Surprisingly, as long as the students have a reference point for questions, they are perfectly willing to participate in the activity. Sometimes I'll catch them taking shortcuts - saying "Birthday" instead of asking a question - but I'll remind them to ask questions and wait for them to correct themselves. With a little bit of encouragement they begin to see how easy it is.

It also helped that one half of the class was pitted against the other - I told the ones with identities not to reveal the answer unless the other student spoke in English. The classroom setup only improved the situation - since friends sit next to each other, they can't ask each other the questions. They have to talk to the students on the other side of the room. Whereas a good friend would just turn their card around and let you copy all of the answers, those other students don't have a problem holding out the answer until they hear some English.

Exam time!

Final exams are coming up in two weeks, which means students are buckling down and hitting the study rooms pretty hard. It is a good indication of the high value Korean's place on education that Pohang has a plethora of private study rooms for rent, outside of which I often see my students congregated late at night. Though the school stays open pretty late (10pm or later), I imagine the kids get tired of seeing the same walls every day and they prefer even the slight change that study rooms provide. I haven't been inside of one but I always picture a cheap, dingy room with a single dim lightbulb and a desk in the corner. Knowing Koreans, though, I expect they have provide more comforts than that (ok, now I'm picturing a hybrid love motel-study room).

Tomorrow is also an exam day, on which the students take a a national practice exam. This means I have no classes. It will be nice to catch up on my lesson plans again - I have some ideas floating around in my head that I need to put down on paper. During exam week I'll also be free of my normal classload (and the week before, too - the teachers will cancel my class in favor of a study period for the students), though I'll still be expected at school. If I catch up on my lesson plans tomorrow, I'm not sure what I'll do for the rest of June. Probably look up videos on the Philippines! Lisa and I are going to Bohol for 10 days in August to scuba dive and play around in the rainforest.

$100,000 Pyramid: Hello, Lesson Plan!

Teaching in a high school in Korea doesn't have many perks compared with teaching middle or elementary school. Each class is 5-10 minutes longer (which quickly adds up - this means over the course of a week I teach 220 minutes - over 3 1/2 hours - more than an elementary teacher), we get fewer days off, we often have larger classes (36-45), and we have to develop our own lesson plans. 

This last point is both a blessing and a curse. For a seasoned teacher with a lot of lesson planning under his belt, this would definitely be a perk. For the rest of us, the large majority of native english speakers who come to teach in Korea, it can be a real headache, particularly if you're not just one to kick your feet up and hit the "play" button on a season of subtitled Simpsons episodes. And I'm not. Before you run off calling me a saint, I admit I've shown Simpsons videos to a handful of classes when I was tired, hungover, or when it was exam week and the students wanted to sleep. But I do actually care - not that my students become fluent in English, or even necessarily that they learn anything. I care that my class, my job, is USEFUL, if any student chooses to pay attention. And it takes a while to develop smart, interesting, engaging, challenging-but-not-too-challenging lessons every week that all 7 of my co-teachers value and will participate in.

This week my lesson consists of a game. You may be thinking now about how I just said I'm not one to kick my feet up and a game, you're now thinking, sounds like I'm doing just that. And in some ways, you'd be right - it's an easy lesson to administer. The kids do all of the work, while my co-teacher and I live it up like game show hosts, who get paid to smile and offer words of congratulations or condolence and award prizes to a winner. But it did actually take work: 4-5 hours to develop the game - a powerpoint of 90+ slides, each with its own picture - and another hour or two spent searching for a game that would be suitable for the classroom, encourage speaking, and build lateral thinking skills.

Anyway, the game. You may remember it from the 1973 original version hosted by Dick Clark, or the more recent spinoff featuring Donny Osmond: The $100,000 Pyramid.

The classroom version is a dumbed-down copy of the game show, with vocabulary words in the place of categories, and the format is altered to accomodate 36 students. We split the class into two teams, on opposite sides of the classroom, with a single table in the middle. On either side of the table sit three chairs - six in total; three with their backs to the projector screen, the other three facing it. The three "blind" students are trying to guess the word that goes with the picture on the screen behind them; the three "seeing" students are describing it to them. (Though the original game show version didn't include pictures, they are a tremendous help to students who need to visualize something that they can't otherwise describe.) The rest of the team is standing in line, waiting for the word to be guessed. When they get the answer, the team rotates - quickly, they only have 2-3 minutes to guess all five words - until the time is up or they get all the answers. Then they switch. The five words in each round are common to a category (things that are hot, foods, animals, celebrities, things you can't see, etc).

It's been a huge hit, and even the low-level classes get hyped for it. It's fun to see the expressions or comparisons that they make in order to get the "blind" students to the correct word. I try to guide them along for particularly difficult ones (unicycle, Antarctica) but often they surprise themselves by finding their own way to the answer. The Korean educational system lacks any inclination towards lateral thinking, and this is a perfect game to introduce it to them. It's also a great way to reinforce English terms that they are used to only seeing in paper or associating with the Korean equivalent - by being forced to try to explain it without their native language, even using guestures, it maintains its Englishness. 

One thing that it has definitely highlighted, though - in EVERY class - is their ignorance of English numbers. I start the lesson by putting the title of the game on the board, and asking them what game we are playing. "Pyramid!" someone will eventually yell. Yes, I say, but what Pyramid? After a few moments of silence..."Ten million!" Ummm...no. I write 10,000,000 on the board. "Ten thousand!" No. I write "100" on the board, and then "1,000". They guess it easily after that. It boggles my mind that they don't know their numbers - sure, the Korean number system is built in multiples of 10,000 (50,000 won is 5 man won, where man means 10,000 - it makes that initial innocent trip to the ATM very expensive). But I have only been studying Korean for a few months and I already know better than to make that mistake.

Anyway, this post wasn't intended to be a rant about how hopeless my students are. If anything, I have been impressed this week with how much my students have opened up. Normally shy students have been the stars of the game, and even the lowest level students have surprised themselves with the amount of English they know. If I could play this "game" every week I would.

Breaking News from I-dong High School

My co-teacher just informed me that one of the second graders will miss final exams, which take place during the last week in June. He's missing the exams by choice. Some teachers will convene in a committee to discuss what course of action will be taken: In course A, he will be given a full absence, and his final exam grades will be marked as 100% of his mid-term exam grades; In course B, he will receive a sick absence, and his final exam grades will automatically be 80% of his mid-term grades. 

Before reading the kicker, can you imagine ANY scenario where a student, missing an exam by choice, would be given a FULL pardon and not required to re-take the exams or even take a reduction in marks?

Kicker: He'll be absent during exam week because he's donating his kidney to his father (who, presumably, is ill). 

Since he's a second-grade student, he must be in one of my classes. I'm insatiably curious to find out who he is.

Recap

I haven't felt much like writing in the past several weeks. I've been busy (work and play both). I feel now like I have less free time during the school day than I used to. Students and teachers are coming by my desk often with questions, comments, or just to chat, which is great, but it sucks down my break time like a fat kid with a straw. 

I also got complacent about staying on top of my lesson plans - a week without classes (exams) didn't help things. My mind is muddled and pulled in many different directions at once, which makes it hard to write. For the first time in my life I understand why some people believe ADD is a disease. 

But this condition is situational, and temporary, and soon I'll feel like writing again, I'm sure. And I can't wait, because I'd love to get down on virtual paper the happenings of the past several weeks, like the second-grade trip to Woobang Tower Land, an amusement park in Daegu, my camping trip on the beach in Guryongpo, or the ex-pat paintball game near Chilpo beach. But that will have to wait for another, perhaps rainy, day.

BTW congratulations Scott & Jesse! Wish I could have been there to dance the hora with you.