Because Making a List is Easy

I love lists. I love that I feel more organized, and my month, week, day is a bit more planned. Making lists keeps me calm, and the stuff I have to do seem so much more doable. Therefore, I am quite ashamed that I haven't made a list about Korea yet. Shame shudders through me at this very moment. Plus, lists are so easy to read. People love reading something that looks condensed, but might not be. Ah the wonderfulness that are lists.

Ten Things You Probably Didn't Know About Korea

1. Same Sex Intemacy Yet Not Homosexuality
Boys hold hands here and it doesn't mean they're in a relationship. Korean children grow up calling their older peers brother and sister. Girls call older boys oppa and older girls unni. Boys call older boys hyung and older girls noona. So from the beginning children form tight knit bonds with each other and as they grow older, it's perfectly acceptable for men to link arms, hold hands, run hands through each other's hair, put hands on upper thighs, pretty much anything but kissing really. Girls do the same thing. These are GROWN men and women and it's totally NORMAL. At first I was a bit shocked by it all, but now I really really love it. I love how they express how much they admire and respect their friends. It's nothing sexual at all, but pure friendly affection.

2. Bowing
If you're a youngster, say anywhere below 40, then you bow. To everyone. In this Confucius society, respect to elders is the upmost important thing you can do. As a foreigner I'm exempt from this. But I think that's a little ridiculous. When in Rome, ya know? After seven months of living here I know when to bow, and I do it quite often. Also, I work for a big corporation, where I see high ups all the time. Therefore, bowing means I'm in with the in crowd, and they're usually totally impressed that I don't just wave. I miss waving...
Recently I went to a Korean wedding for one of my LG guys and I felt something akin to a pigeon or chicken with all of my bowing.

3. Fast Food Delivers
And they call Americans lazy. Instead of going to a drive through window (which they don't have here) you can just call McDonald's and they'll deliver your quarter pounder to your freaking doorstep.

4. Convenience Stores...
are everywhere. 7/11, Family Mart, MiniStop, GS25. They are on every corner, and if you don't feel like going to the bar to have a drink with friends, just go to the ministop and pull up a chair, inside or outside. Loitering laws don't exist here. Yeah, these stores blow American ones out of the water. I love it.

5. Drinking in Public
Korea is a country that puts special emphasis on drinking and how it helps/hinders you socially. With that said, soju is the end of a good night. Seriously. You can buy a massive bottle of soju for less than $3 and that stuff will knock you on your tushy. There are also no societal rules about when it's okay to drink so you'll go out with co-workers on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, who cares! But public drunkenness is a common sight here. All too common. Go to Hongdae any night and you'll see hordes of college students stumbling around. Of hang out in my town and see old men and women drinking in the middle of the day outside of the store.

Soju: The devil's drink

Here's a great link to Korean drinking customs. They also include a great clip of public drunkenness.

6. Keys

You know you live in an older not as cool as your friends building when you have keys. Most buildings now just use security pass codes with these ultra cool little boxes on the outer doors and your door so you never have to worry about leaving your keys at home...because you don't have any.
I, however, find myself hiding my keys out of shame. It's like some sort of message to the world around me, "Look. I'm not cool enough for your fancy building with it's fancy security box thingy."

7. Kids Clean The School

There is no janitor. Kids clean the school. Bathrooms, mopping, sweeping. It is glorious. I can't imagine this going down very well in America, but think of what it teaches the kids! Take care of your school because you're the one that cleans up. The teacher in me says, "muahaha". Insert evil laugh.

8. You a Hoe

Showing more cleavage than your grandmother is considered a mortal sin and you are deemed a whore here. Girls wear shirts buttoned to the absolute top button and never ever show shoulders if it can be helped. However, mini skirts and cut off jeans are no problem. I'm pretty sure I've seen girls wearing what could only be described as boy short underwear as they go out shopping.

9. Coffee Drinking Hikers

If every corner has a convenience store then in between them would be filled in with coffee shops and hiking clothing stores. Two news stores just opened up in Naju, and my friends and I made bets as to what they would be. One guessed a hiking store and he won. The next store and someone bet a coffee shop. She won. There are only two options. Coffee or hiking store. They are slowly taking over the peninsula, as they should. Koreans are coffee drinking hikers.

10. Circle Lens

This freaks the hell out of me, but it needs to be said. Koreans want bigger eyes because supposedly they believe it makes them more beautiful. I myself am totally digging that smolder glare thing these men have going on here. I digress. Women have taken to wearing circle lenses which make their eyes look large and doll-like. They are colored contact lenses that I've seen many a girl pop in as she eats dinner, drinks coffee, rides the bus, etc. All the stars wear them and they're advertised at all the optometrists. It freaks me out. Here's why:

Holy Freaking Abnormally Large Eyes Batman!!

And so ends the first list.

The J.O.B.

When I first started applying to jobs in Korea I figured I was going to join the masses of ESL teachers who are abused at their hagwons. I was going to fight "the man" for my vacation, my overtime, all the while being cursed at in Korean by small innocent little monsters with toothy grins. See here

I longed for a public school job where there is respect, loads of vacation, and morals, (monsters still included). The children wasn't what scared me. I was a high school teacher who had broken up fights, been afraid to come to school because of the pyscho emotional zombies called teenagers, and had taught students with criminal records longer than you can imagine. No, I wasn't worried about dealing with children. It was the job I was worried about. Alas, fate smiled down upon me and handed me the golden job, much like Charlie entering the Chocolate Factory, I waltzed into LG Chem.

I teach five classes, two adult and three children. My first class is an adult class at 8am. I have six students on roll. The second adult class at 12:30 has four on roll. The adults are taking the class so that they may pass the LAP test and become promoted within the company. Most of the students are men, who are too shy to speak, or so I thought. More on that later.

The kid's classes are at 2:30, 3:30, and 4:30. Fifty minutes each and with a total of eight kids in all. Pause as teachers around the world throw rotten fruit and curse my good, amazing, fantastic, out of this world luck. Going back to America to teach will never be the same. Ah Korea, the land of awesomeness.

Now the kid classes are a little different. They are held in one of the apartments at LG complex which makes things seem less...official. The children don't really take it seriously and the previous teacher pretty much let them do what they wanted. Enter JENNIFER TEACHER. I'll let you know how it goes.

Working for a company such as LG is pretty fantastic. Take last night for example. The previous teacher had a going away party that the big boss paid for. We went to Outback Steakhouse. When I say we I mean me, the other teacher and ten Korean men. If I thought I was stared at before, I had no idea. I'm not really sure I want to know what people thought when they say a foreign woman with 11 men, 10 being Korean. After the party, there was the after party of course. About six of us went to a bar in Naju where I watched the Korean men drink, while I sipped my lone beer (it was a weekday!). We stayed out until 11. One of the guys? Maybe. It's all part of the culture. By participating I was being accepted into their world. I learned a great deal about Koea, the respect for elders (a junior at the company, cut up the bosses meat and we all stood when he stood), the closeness of friends, and how much Koreans love to laugh and enjoy each other's company. Ah Korea, may long you stand.