Interesting Happenings

Hello All! This is a picture of my first traditional Korean structure since I have been here! Let me tell you how this all started out.

So I decided to be brave on Saturday and venture out on a day of shopping in this city that is supposedly great to shop in. Needless to say I have never been there and still don't know my way around Korea at all, but new the city name. I walked up to the cab stand and got in the cab and said the name of the city. The cab driver had no idea what I was talking about...so I got on the phone with one of my Korean friends and they spoke to the cab driver. It's very complicated here with the cabs. There are cabs that can only go to certain places and I got in a cab that only goes to Seoul. So the cab driver still didn't know where Insadong was but he gave it a valiant effort! The cabs here are SO cheap. For a fourty minute cab ride it cost about 18 american dolloars which is 25,000 Korean won.

So he took me to Insadong, dropping me off in this alley that he thought was the Insadong Market. I didn't know the difference considering I have never been anyhow, so I got out. Yeaaaaah...It definitely was not the shopping street I was told about. It WAS a market, but not the Insadong market. It was an alley with all Korean people, that were cooking some animal that I was not completely aware of, and homeless people and they were all looking at me like I was crazy. I felt like I was crazy. hahaha. So anyhow, I happened across the main street in my walking to get out of the alley and on my way to the REAL shopping I saw this amazing building! It was this square that had some statues and this building. I didn't stop to read about the statue because I was anxious to find the shopping street, which I did find. That was a load off! For a minute I thought I might be lost forever and forced to work on the street with the homeless people selling different animals as food.

Since the last time we talked, I have seen some very interesting things here! In the schools here the Korean teachers (not us foreigners) can physically discipline the children. I wasn't quite sure what what going on, but the boys had to get in push up position and are hit on their knuckles with rulers while the girls have to stand with their hands over their head an angle. then they are all slapped on the palms of their hands with rulers. Crazy for me to see something like that, but all I could think was, hmmm, this must be the reason they don't have as many problems in their school. But could you imagine if a teacher in the states tried that on someones kid? It would be a hell storm of parents calling the school and that teacher would be put in jail immediately. I know we sometimes want to choke other peoples kids, but no one would actually act on that feeling. It was just crazy to see people other than parents discipline children.

I have also had some very interesting conversations with my students. I had one student tell me that they weren't allowed to go to Disney World in America because their skin was different (what kind of thinking is that!?). I also had one of my female students tell me she thought she was too dark and she didn't like that because all her friends had really white skin. The idea of beauty here is the whiter you are, the more beautiful you are. I told them that in America people go to tanning beds to get darker. Its so strange that their idea of beauty is the European white girl, when they are surrounded by people who look just like them! And they are beautiful.

So there have definitely some interesting things to be learned here and different adventures to still be taken! I will keep you posted! xoxo