The Work Ethic

Samsung Lions Figthing! Opening day at Daegu's professional baseball stadium.


Partying with the only guy taller than Reid in Korea.

The more I learn about the Korean education system, the more insane it seems. I recently began teaching a high school girl in my neighborhood and learned that her schedule is more rigorous than most professions. By the time it took me to write this, I have actually stopped teaching her. She cancelled the lesson, which is good because she needs to sleep more. I think most Koreans say they are tired and need to sleep more.

High school begins at 8:30 AM, which seems like an improvement, until you find out that she has to be there until 9 PM. That's over 12 hours of school. Granted lunch break is a little more than an hour and dinner maybe 40 minutes. Nine classes a day is pretty insane if you ask me. How long can you expect someone to focus and try to learn for that long? I was told that this system was initiated to prevent rowdy teenagers with too much energy to go out and cause trouble in society. You can see this obsession with long school hours across almost all age groups of kids. Without a degree in child development, I can't tell you the specific benefits of playtime, but isn't that the natural thing for kids to be doing? I guess these kids are better off than their Chinese counterparts working in some plastic toy factory, but in a nation as wealthy as this, it is surprising how few kids are on an organized soccer or baseball team. If you want to play competitive soccer as a kid here, you have to go to a special school where soccer is the top priority. Our school's president has a son at one of these schools, so we have the pleasure of teaching the best youth team in Daegu every Wednesday night.

The educational system is set up for the big tests to get into college and the TOEIC english test. From what I have heard, there is not much going on for extracurricular activities once you get to middle school and high school. Martial arts and music are popular alternatives to academic extracurriculars. I think dance is popular too.

Update at our school: We are opening up the cafe this week, where students will make S'mores. These are Korean-style though, with saltine crackers and rainbow marshmallows. How does that sound? Today is the first day, so we'll see how that goes.

Also, we had a farewell party for our Korean co-teacher who finished up last week. She is off to a go-shi-won, or test study place, which is a real Korean move. These are semi-popular here for either poor people or those studying for big tests. She is studying for the test to study law. She will live in the study" prison" for one year, because there are no distractions and it is very cheap. The rooms are as small as you can imagine and some are window-less. You do get free rice, though, but no one talks to each other and they go days without talking to anyone. Sounds like a nightmare to me. She does plan to go home every Sunday to see her family, though.

Also, the soccer season is in full swing now and the Daegu Devils are undefeated at the top of the league table, 3-0. I came back from an ankle sprain to score in this weekend's 4-1 win over the Camp Walker USA army team. We were scheduled to play on the base and were all very excited to go to Taco Bell (Toxic Hell) after the game, but unfortunately they decided they would not let us on the base after all and we had to go play on some granite dirt field with very little grass. This made it a much closer game than it should have been.

Also, yesterday I was told in the morning that it was "lie day". I didn't even realize it was April 1st, so I thought it was some Korean day. Turns out the celebrate April Fools Day but just call it Lie Day. I called my boss on the way to work and told her that I was on a train from Busan and would be late to work. I had a big class to teach as soon as I got there, so I thought she would freak out on the phone. Instead, she just said okay, so I thought that she didn't believe me. I showed up at work 2 minutes later and she was so surprised and freaked out but then was relieved that I wasn't going to be late. It was probably the best April Fools joke I have ever experienced and it was so simple. She then got the idea to play jokes on everyone, which got a little brutal as she told Reid that I had been in a car accident and he had to come to work right away to teach my class. So, Reid came into work an hour early to take over my class and was not too happy to see that it was a trick. He went back home as he had an hour to kill before work.

Odyssey of the Mind competition was last weekend in Daejeon. Our school Sakwan Academy did pretty well, we will have 4 teams going to the international competition at the University of Maryland in May. We are excited for them and will have a few more classes with them to prepare them. They will have to do the competition in English now...

I have been accepted into two Norwegian Universities to study this fall. They are:
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) up at 63 degrees North latitude
http://www.ntnu.no/indecol
and Telemark University College in Southern Norway
http://www.hit.no/nxceng/content/view/brief/21579
So, let me know which way you are leaning. I am also waiting to hear back from the Sweden.

Well, that's all from the Orient. Until next time...