Bam! Another!

Josh:

Before I continue trucking I wanted to fill your heads with some more pointless information. I have lived in San Francisco for about 4-5 years so I can say that I have decent gaydar. That means absolutely nothing here in Korea. There is gay and then there is "Asian gay" which means they are still straight but do really feminine things. For example the male pop groups look exactly like girls. I even had to ask a teacher if two guys on a boy scouts picture were actually boys. She said "Yes they are a famous pop group here." If you watch any Asian music videos you will find a certain level of femininity in all of the men. For boys in real life it is slightly different. Some of them do strange things like describing the men I put up on the screen as "cute, very cute" etc. I know they are doing it for giggles but there is just a hint of something behind it. It is also common for people of the same gender to hold hands. In America that is reserved for couples or young children but there are older men, boys, older women and girls who walk down the street holding hands. I am fascinated and also touched by the innocence that this simple gesture shows. In America if I were to hold my friend's hand it would clearly make me gay, but here it is a way to show that you are good friends and nothing really more. I have even seen some students hold hands in class. We theorize that this comes from the lack of contact between the two sexes. Most high school students never have relationships because they spend a majority of their time in class and studying (most students go to school from 7AM-11PM Monday-Saturday [not kidding, it's intense]) so they never have time to meet girls or boys and date. When they finally get to college they start to notice the other sex. Some even wait to date until they have graduated from college. This does not allow boys and girls to have an outlet for these new feelings they have towards each other and since they spend most of their time with the same sex sometimes this gets expressed in familiar touching that only means they are best friends. It's funny to me to come from a culture where most people who don't start dating late elementary school are nerds and losers to a culture that is so innocent on some level that they can touch each other freely without having to worry about what others think or say. This idea also comes from their way of thinking (group society) while America is individual based and everyone has their own person bubble. Maybe I'll talk more about that later but for now, let us continue.

Tues -
I was supposed to meet with the principle today but he was very busy so I ended up just speaking with Mr. Hong and learned about some Korean philosophy (such as they prefer open fields as opposed to flowers). A little side note about my lunch because it turns out the restaurant we ate at last night is magic. Audrey had been craving yukejang and we finally found it in a restaurant. The next day what kind of soup is my school serving? You guessed it, yukejang. The next day we ate at the same restaurant and I had curry. Guess what I ate at school the next time? This has happened three different times. This place is magical.

I only had one class because today was the day when we finally got the rest of Wu's things (bed, dresser, washer, etc) so I got to leave school early and wait for the movers to come. I ended up waiting two hours and just as I was about to leave they showed up with Ms. Kim. Turns out they were looking frantically all over the apartment for the things that we took last night from Wu (another oops moment). The movers brought everything in very fast (one guy even carried the washer by himself on his back - intense!) and soon enough the house started to look a little better. They even put everything where I wanted and assembled it for me. It's strange here because I feel like I want to help but it seems like it is rude to offer help (it is their job after all so why would they need help? - is they way they think) so sometimes I feel awkward watching these guys lug and assemble everything for me (even though it is pretty cool). They brought everything (and I mean everything) over. As we would learn later that included Wu's full trashcan. I managed to miss two classes while I waited and I returned to work for the last office hour. Turns out I shouldn't have come back in.

After a few minutes of me sitting at my desk trying to make another lesson plan I start to hear this noise. I look over across the top of my desk and I see this guy yelling at two kids. He makes one of them get on his knees and he proceeds to literally raise his hand (with a stick similar to a Kendo shinai), almost jump in the air and slam the stick down onto the kid. Before I came here I knew that they physically punished the kids here so I prepared myself mentally for that but this was absolutely inappropriate. This guy wasn't punishing these kids, he was taking his anger out of them. He did this to both kids. I sat there with my mouth open while everyone else continued doing work like nothing was going on. He was yelling at these kids and hitting them with all his strength and gravity on his side. I honestly didn't know what to do because I am a foreigner in a brand new country but I feel this is unacceptable. If someone was hitting me like that I would assume they were trying to kill me and I would have started fighting but of course these kids just sat there and took it. They weren't crying but they definitely were not happy. I now know what I should have done and what needs to be done when I see something like this happening but it absolutely stunned me. I didn't know what to do but just leave when it was time. When I met up with Audrey I showed her in a very animated fashion and she was unhappy that that happened also. She had seen physical punishment in her school but nothing of this caliber. I feel bad that I didn't have the presence of mind to do something about it but as I said, I was utterly stunned and I was the new kid on campus who had very little influence on his second day of work. This and the dog issue mentioned earlier has unquestionably been the hardest thing for me to deal with here.

Changing gears rapidly, I met up with Audrey and we decided to get dinner at the Indian restaurant Wu had shown to us (yes, authentic Indian food in Korea made Josh ecstatic). We took the short walk and went inside. When we got upstairs there were two Indian guys that stopped eating and started staring at us with glares. We ignored them and looked around for the server or some kind of worker. No one showed up. We waited for fifteen minutes with those guys glaring at us the whole time and still no one showed up. We eventually decided to give up and try the other Indian place (yes there are two!) down the street. We eventually found it and, of course, it was closed. It looked like there would be no tasty for Josh today. We decided to go back to that really nice restaurant we had with Wu, Mike and Zack and ate another delicious meal (remember it's magic to I had the same thing for lunch the next day). After we just went home, I showed Audrey the new furniture and we finally got to sleep on a bed for the first time since we arrived in Korea. It was bliss. It's a queen size bed with no foot board so we both have plenty of room to stretch. Going from the hard, cold floor to a warm bed is such a fantastic feeling. Audrey would finally be able to start feeling better now.

Closing thought for today - If you are using Skype on a girl's dad's computer, it is most wise to try to not put inappropriate messages on it. Good advice I must say.