Movies

Since my time started here in South Korea, I have been to two movies, and I must say that they have been learning experiences. Since Koreans always build up instead of sideways, all the theaters are usually on the top floors of some buildings. The box office is on one floor and the theaters themselves are on the floor above. The way you get your ticket is sort of like getting meat from a delly. You pick a ticket from a machine and wait for your number to be called (the banks work the same way here). You than go up to the cashier and try and communicate with her to make sure you're seeing the english version of the movie so you don't waste your money. Than you either get seats assigned to you or you get to pick them yourself. It's pretty cool when you get to pick them, but when we were assigned them, we noticed something interesting happen in the theater. We were all seated in the same area but not really next to eachother. Koreans would come in, sit by us, and than kindly offer their seats so they either weren't sitting in between us or next us. So even though the majority of us weren't sitting next to each other, by the time the movie started, 7 out of the 10 of us were grouped together with out us ever having to ask to move. Either they were really friendly, or just wanted to consolodate all the foreigners into one section for whatever reason.
Another thing I noticed was while we were watching Toy Story 3. There definatly at least 3 moments in the theater when we were the only ones laughing at the movie (about 9 of us.) You see when they put korean sub titles they don't actually translate things the same way, so some jokes get lost in translation. Also some concepts such as american body language and sarcasm are lost on asian cultures, so they probably missed out on a good deal of jokes while we laughed and sounded like that person in the theater that you hate for making too much noise. It was a good learning experience.

Jason

Testing Week

Sorry, but this post won't be that exciting. Last week was the week where the students take their level up tests. Which meant that all the teachers spent long hours proctoring and not a lot of time teaching. Needless to say it was a very easy week. Now with 3 weeks left in my first term, rumor has it that once the students find out if they're leveling up or not they stop caring and some become a problem. So basically I have to start devising my battle plan of psychological warfare against the students to keep the troublesome ones quiet and the good ones interested. That was actually an epiphany I came to a few weeks ago. Especially in a private school, teaching is all about psychological warfare between you and the students. Sadly though, some of the students realize this as well. One of your kids may be 3 feet tall and look adorable, but they might have the mind of an evil super genius when it comes to causing trouble in class.

Jason