Same, Same

The area looks the same.  I am in Newton, MA.  On the horizon I can see the fuzzy Prudential Center and the rest of the Boston landscape shrouded in an unnatural winter fog. 

I park in the same spot as before.  The last time I was here I managed to fuck up the walking directions to the Korean Consulate General of New England.  Now that I know exactly where the building stands, I feel like a moron.

Directions
Park on Washington Street (literally park anywhere on Washington Street).
Walk towards all of the buildings.
Find the ONE ENORMOUS BUILDING.
Walk in.
Simple as that.

Last year (a little over a year ago, actually closer to two) I walked past the building and looked like a moron: it was cold and I had a handful of papers and was dressed to the T.

This year I have a handful of papers and am sporting a horribly shaved face (read: half a beard) but I walk right into the building.  On the second floor, amongst the doors labled "Fenway Pharmaceutical" and other such things, I find blocky Korean characters.  I walk in and tell the lady behind the glass that I am here to apply for an E2 Visa. 

Last time I had to sit down for an hour and fill out the paperwork.  Looking back on it, I am suprized that I made it into Korea at all; I had no idea as to what address to put down and my Visa sponsor ended up being a combination of my actual employer and my recruiter.  I sat through an interview that I wasn't prepared for but its goal seemed only to determine my pedophile status.

I passed.

I walk in, hand my application and $45 under the glass.  Off to the side I hear Korean spewing from the television.  Korean News.  Over the past 8 months I have missed the crescendo and stoccato of spoken Korean: the frenetic pace with which they say absolutely everything.  Even now the sounds from the TV are over my head.  Still, all the "-sseyo's" and "-mnida's" make me smile.  In an ideal world I would understand more.  The anchor says the number "four".  I understand this and it is a victory.

I effing own "four".
Fact is, last time I was here they were talking about the recently sunk Cheonan.  Months later the sinking would be officially attributed to North Korea.  This blame would lead to one of two incidents in which the North's verbal vomit led to my school warning me to get ready to bail: a modified zombie contigency plan.  The second time, Tim's birthday, was a bit more than verbal.
Nothing of the sort this time.  Kim Jong Il is dead.

The woman tells me to pick up my visa on Monday.  I look at her and ask her if that is it; I am aiming to impress and am wearing a shawl.  A shawl, for Christ' sake. 
Yes.
I wish I knew I could have mailed it.

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Updates

So, what’s the story morning-glory? What’s new?


I am behind on all things Korea as far as this here blog is concerned. Generally speaking, most of my friends are also Facebook friends (I wouldn’t dare call somebody a rare friend if Facebook didn’t confirm this fact) and know what’s up with the state of things. There are a number of people with whom (or who, I don’t know) I speak pretty much daily. These people also know more of my activities than is necessary. So, this pretty much for people who aren’t subjected to my Facebook status messages.

What’s gone on since I have been back in Korea and since Kelly has been back at old Plymouth Rock? A bunch.

I returned to find the basic daily happenings of my school had all changed. We no longer give out stickers. This is a good thing in that I don’t have to finish a class with a minute to spare and then have a bunch of kids sacking me at the door and demanding 3 stickers a pop that I had yet to put my official signature on. This also sucked for a while because I had to use this Chinese tally character and mark how many points each kid earned in the class. This was a problem because it required me to know all of my kids’ names. This is something I struggle with still to this day. I am horrible with names anyway, forget throwing in names with sounds I can barely pronounce. So, I know a lot more names than I did a month ago. If I come to a class whose names I am still screwing up I tend to give everyone 4 points and call it even.

I had slow days Mondays and Wednesdays until Han went and annoyed Minnie and Daniels mother by telling her that she thought Daniel maybe copied his homework out of a book instead of doing it on his own. Not a big deal, really. Obviously their Mom flipped her lid and pulled them both out of the school. I was actually pretty sad to hear that Minnie was gone. She was difficult sometimes (often) and she was remarkably clever about sidetracking me and I was stunningly passive about getting back on track, but I thought of her as my student more than anyone else. I taught her every day and put a lot of care into not driving her insane and running her into the ground.

So, I had slow Mondays and Wednesdays before; now I basically do nothing. My class load is evened out by getting slammed on Tuesday’s and Thursdays (plus an extra hour of tutoring) and teaching at a second school on Friday nights.

I dread Tuesdays and Thursdays way more than I should. I have a couple of “bad” classes (in that the kids sort of drive me mad and often make it their goal to make me yell) but after that I deal with the older, generally more subdued, kids. It just tends to drag on. The tutoring is no big deal, really. I tutor the Receptionist and the Driver (formerly known as the Younger Receptionist: apparently she was our bus driver). It is difficult though in that I have zero confidence in my true teaching abilities. Usually I can win kids over by making funny noises with my eye or subdue them with my spray bottle. I can’t very well spray the receptionist and expect to live. And anyway, there are times when I am teaching kids that I just go blank for a moment or forget what I was talking about. The kids never notice because it is unlikely they were paying much attention anyway or it adds a little “natural” conversation into those classes. When I blank out with the adults it is pretty frigging obvious I just had a mental fart.



Dr. Jones and his hat.



There was a little spat with North Korea. I feel like a moron for always being behind in this thing when something other than Dr. Jones wearing a “mother fucker” hat but that’s what happens when you are lazy. I went to the bar with some friends to celebrate my buddy Tim’s birthday and the place was dead and the only TV had the barkeeps hovering around it wondering what the president was going to say about it. It could have also been dead because it was a Tuesday or something. Anyway, after it all happened the course of action depended on who you talked to. A lot of people (a lot of Koreans) said “oh, big deal, they do this all the time.” Then there were a few people who were actually pretty concerned about war. As time has passed it seems to be a little bit of both that has become the reality. North Korea basically got a giant “WTF” from the South. During and after the funerals though the Korean Marines were calling for blood and the general populous seemed to be pretty much through with putting up with violence and “provocations” by the North as a means of extorting aid and calls for diplomatic discussions. So, there have been a bunch of military drills and preventative measures incase of any future attacks. Maybe it is that civilians were in the line of an open attack but it seems that the next time the North does anything of the like again it could get real serious real fast. The new Defense Minister is promising an air strike to counter any further incidents and who knows how the North would react to that. They had evacuation drills in Seoul yesterday complete with fighter jets to add to the “oh shit” feeling.

The holidays are here. Ordinarily I am like a little child at this time of the year but I am not so this year. This will be my first Christmas not with my family and it is a little rough. It is a little rough for all of us here, I imagine, which is nice because I like not suffering alone; but communal misery isn’t a replacement for family during the holidays.

In other holiday news my school is putting on a Christmas show this coming Saturday for all of the parents. The kids are performing such holiday plays as “Hansel and Gretel,” “Cinderella”, and a reading from some story about an abused dog and a dying grandfather. There are also such Christmas songs as “All I Want for Christmas” by Mariah Carey and “Puff the Magic Dragon.” I am actually responsible for that last one, having suggested it as an easy song to learn. I was then promptly punished for mentioning I had a guitar and not mentioning that I play the same O.A.R. songs over and over and will now be playing Puff the Magic Dragon in front of all of the parents.

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Concerning Children and the North

A few days ago I passed my One Month mark here in Korea. I will not say anything to the likes of “I never thought I would make it this far,” as that would be melodramatic and untrue. That being said, I never thought my first month abroad would go so smoothly. Homesickness has been negligible (owed majorly to the wonders of Skype) and teaching children my perverted knowledge of grammar has turned out to a heck of a lot more fun than I anticipated.

In the month that I have been here, my school has grown from 15 kids to 25. Classes are filling up (I have a class with 7 kids as opposed to a maximum of 3) and I am getting to know the kids a lot better. Also, I am becoming much less of blonde-haired enigma to them. A few of them, I would dare to say, don’t actively dislike me.

Rock, Scissors, Paper Boy (RSP Boy) has quickly become one of my favorites because he is so goofy and hyper that he has me cracking up at least once a day. His class has two other boys, all of whom seem to be friends. Each worksheet we give them become a race with correct answers always sacrificed in the name of speed. Most kids would look around with a silent satisfaction if they finished first, but he throws up his hand and shouts.

There are two kindergarten aged girls in the first class. The first calls herself Alice. She is adorable and tries so hard to understand English even if she doesn’t understand concepts. Everything spoken in English and aimed in her general direction is repeated with enthusiasm, whether you want it to be or not. Also in the class is a girl called Amy.

Amy might be the cutest little girl I have ever seen. This is what I thought for about a week. Currently, this girl is the biggest problem at the school. She will not repeat anything and generally won’t participate at all. When she feels like saying anything it comes out in the creaking voice that sounds like a possessed Danny Torrence in The Shining. And, her eyes, my god! This girl looks as though she is constantly trying to suffocate me with her mind. More than anybody, Angry Girl included, this girl straight up hates me.

There is a new group of young middle school students who come in for the last two classes of the night. They aren’t but a year older than the Three Monsters but the maturity gained in a year can be shocking. Where as most of the Three Monsters wear the same shirt every day of the week, each of these kids are impeccably dressed. Also, with the exception of two giddy girls who sit in the front (and routinely rob be of any gum I might have) nobody uses the class as a screaming match.

I can say that after a month in Korea I am much happier than I thought I would be and I am happy that I came here. But, alas, I have not been living beneath a blissful rock these past weeks and neither have you. Something wicked looms just above the smog of Seoul: North Korea.

As somebody who has followed the news of the world religiously for a VERY long time, I must say that this is a very interesting time to have come to Korea. A day into this sojourn I crossed over a symbolic bridge that beckoned for a united Korea but was flanked by the haunting faces of those that perished aboard the Cheonan. There was the façade of doubt and uncertainty then, but as of a few days ago that is all but gone.

How does one dumb down an extremely complicated situation? I don’t know. Han will make an occasional joke about my coming to Korea at a comically horrible time, but there is genuine fear mixed in. Sitting to lunch Boram admitted that in reality she was really scared that what is happening could lead to something very bad.

General consensus is that neither side would welcome open war as the results would be catastrophic for all parties. For the North war would be suicide, simple as that. Kim Jong Il and his propaganda machine aside, the North is a shamble of a country made up of a population that knows nothing but bad times. The South, much of which lies within artillery range, would be brought back to a time that they do not want to return to. It wasn’t so long ago that the Peace Corps was here and as Larry points out South Korea has come extremely far in a short time frame.

Still, there is no telling when a lunatic will finally crack and turn the South into a “sea of flames.” Earlier today the South Korean Navy began firing artillery and dropping anti-sub charges in a show of readiness. Soon, the US Navy will join them in a demonstration of brute force so as to scare the North into common sense. Earlier today, Kim Jong Il rendered an agreement to avoid trite naval clashes null and void. The North will now fire upon any ship that passes into their disputed waters.

Four North Korean submarines have vanished from radar and their whereabouts are unknown. Optimists remind us that tensions have been high before without any dire results. Pessimists point out that things have escalated beyond the norm and either Kim Jong Il will lose face and retreat or the man who was irrational before his stroke might do something rash. Posters on news forums want the nukes to fly and let the Koreas deal with their own problems.

“Dear Leader” is again in the crosshairs of the civilized world and he could be soon to lose the only “friend” he has: China. China has announced that after their own investigation they will condemn the nation that sank the Cheonan, whether or not that announcement will bring turmoil to its own border.

As it is, the South has begun to blast their own propaganda over the DMZ and will soon erect billboards whose purpose is to draw those that they might away from the cause of a dying homicidal maniac. To this, the North has promised to open fire on any billboard or loudspeaker in the DMZ.

So, I sit and watch like the rest of the world because I don’t understand it all and anyway there is nothing else to do. That being said I have decided to register with the US State Department. I’ve seen Cloverfield; I wouldn’t last a second on my own.

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