I recently noticed that one of my classes was slowly dwindling in numbers. It started out with twenty kids and, over the months, somehow went down to sixteen. Four students might not seem like that many but when you look at it by saying that 1/5th of my students went missing, then the number magically seems significantly higher. I asked Ms. Kim why my class shrunk so much,
"Sixteen seems a little low. Are we missing anyone?"
"Oh, no. Two kids are special ed and the other two quit school."
"What? They quit?"
"Yes, they are no longer at this school."
Quite frankly, I was really curious as to how and why those kids managed to quit high school. After class I stopped her before she left,
"So why did those kids quit?"
"They were threatening other kids."
"Oh, wow so they got expelled then?"
"Yes."
"What were they doing?"
"They were threatening kids in the dorms and forcing them to give them money and make them do their laundry."
"What? Really? Wow, well I guess it makes sense that they got expelled then."
Now extortion is obviously very bad and the only solution was to expel those kids (because they all lived together in the dorms). I find it really hard to convey how it was said though. The way I understood it was that the money theft wasn't the main crime (as in it wasn't done as often). The main crime was forcing other kids to do their laundry. Maybe it's just the fact that I have a weird outlook on it but who in the world threatens other kids to make them do their laundry? Can you imagine the conversation?
*Shoves kid into a wall* "Hey, punk! Where you going?"
"Oh, no where, Jimmy. I was just on my way.."
"Shut up!"
"Oh, yes. Well, here is my lunch mone.."
"I said shut up! I'm not gonna take your money. I got somethin better planned for you."
"What....?"
*Jimmy drags the kid into a laundry room. The kid sees two baskets filled with dirty clothes*
"You're gonna do my laundry, punk!"
"Wait, what?"
"That's right! And I didn't even sort out the colors from the whites! DEAL WITH IT! When I come back, I want to see my face shining in my uniform!"
"That doesn't even make...sense."
"Shut up! Get to work!"
I don't know about you but even if I threatened physical violence, I still wouldn't trust other people doing my laundry. I could imagine someone, oh I don't know, peeing into my laundry. What do you do at that point? You can beat the kid up but the next day you're still going to smell like urine and your whites wouldn't be, well, white anymore. Then not only do you have to deal with the consequences of beating a kid up but you smell like asparagus while your principle chews you out. It just doesn't seem like a good idea to me.
You'll have to forgive my humorous outlook on a fairly bad situation. Obviously, I felt really angry that my students were being threatened and I didn't know about it; there's nothing I could really do since the entire affair passed without my knowledge or action. It is rather unfortunate that those kids had to be expelled because they may continue their course down the wrong path but I don't really see a better solution given my school's situation. Hopefully there is some other school around that will accept them, clean up their act and they will still have a future.
Let's steer away from Mr. Seriouspants and talk about a few other things, shall we?
Are you ready for another rant about the differences in Korea and the US? For some strange reason almost every single Korean in a public place only goes through one door. I'm talking anywhere at any time. Let's take AK Plaza during rush hour as an example. People will bottle neck through one door with people trying to leave and people trying to get it. It's not like there aren't other doors; in fact, there are close to ten other doors and all of them remained closed save for one. It's really easy for me because I just look at the line, step to the left and I'm inside the building while others are fighting to get in and out. It doesn't really effect me until I start holding the door open for people. I'll open the door and start to walk through and right as I start to let go I see three people running toward my door. I can't just let the door slam in their face so I stop moving, lose balance a little and lean backwards to hold the door open for them. I start to right myself when five other people run into my doorway. Keep in mind, ladies and gentlemen, that there are usually at least six other doors they can use. This dance of me trying to leave my post as a doorman but people keep coming in (and none of them offer to take the door like most normal people would offer to) can last for several minutes. Eventually I will see someone that I assume capable of opening a door coming towards me and I just let it go. I still feel bad for letting the door close even though I've been standing there for five minutes and my friends have already left me behind. I understand not wanting to exert the five calories it takes to pull open a door, but come on! All it takes is a sidestep, a little tug and you are free to go wherever you want instead of shoving your way into a building.
I talked to another teacher about this (I don't remember who so sorry for not giving credit where it is due) and he/she came up with a fairly reasonable explanation. I forgot to mention that sometimes doors are arbitrarily locked in Korea. One side of a door will be unlocked while the right will remain shut no matter how hard you pull on it (even for big businesses like AK Plaza). It's actually really annoying when you're trying to get somewhere and it seems like every door you try is locked. Here is what the other teacher said:
"You ever try to open a door and have it be locked? It's really embarrassing to keep tugging on a door while everyone walks past you through the obviously unlocked door."
True dat (to use a colloquialism). I guess narcissism and worries about public image make people do all sorts of things, including shove through a tiny doorway.
Speaking of awkward moments inside of a building (I'm back to using transitions again), I would like to share my experience of seeing Prince of Persia. Libby decided to visit and help Audrey teach a couple of classes (so the kids could see a native Korean who can speak English perfectly) and one night we decided to go see a movie. Since the pickings were a little slim and we wanted to see how it was anyway, we decided on Prince of Persia. While we were waiting for the movie to start I noticed a particularly awkward couple. The girl had a skirt that barely, and I mean barely in the most literal sense, covered her butt. The guy was also dressed like a hipster and they were constantly touching each other. It was really awkward, as I said. I put them out of my head and I went on to win a couple of stuffed hedgehogs and a lame necklace out of crane machines (score). When it was finally time to see the movie we went upstairs and found our seats (remember that movie theater seats are assigned in Korea). As I walked over to my seat, I look up and who do I see? The awkward couple. Great. I take my seat (next to the girl) and we prepare for the cinematic disaster that was Prince of Persia.
The movie was just on the cusp of being really cool but terrible dialogue and a poorly written story made it one of the longest hour and a half movies I have ever seen. It felt like I was watching The Lord of the Rings extended edition. So here I am sitting through a really bad movie when I feel something touch my leg. Naturally, I look at my knee and see that the girl's knee is now touching mine. I look over and see that her legs are now spread wide open (excuse the image for my more sensitive readers). Her skirt is now pretty much covering what underwear would. Before I manage to turn my head to metaphorically burn out my eyes, I notice that the guy's hand is pretty much at the same place where her skirt was. Now I don't want to just metaphorically burn out my eyes. I pull every inch of my 6'4" frame to the right side of my seat lest I accidentally brush against her. "Fan-freaking-tastic," I say to myself. Now I'm stuck in a terrible movie next to a couple that likes to take PDA to another level. To all the couples out there in the movie going world: If you choose to engage in such amorous activities, please make sure you are away from other people. That would be great. Thanks.
Moving on to another subject, I would like to mention at least that we got to visit Libby's house in Korea. I have to say it is a really nice house. It's in a gorgeous town and is right next to a giant forest. It would be amazing to live in that area. I mentioned that I want to come back and go hiking in that area and Libby said it would be fun. We only spent a little bit of time with her but we had still had a great time. We had a homemade dinner with her family, talked until very late at night, got up early, went to her church and got to go to Outback Steakhouse (which made Josh very happy). It was a good little mini-vacation and it made me really happy to see a part of Korea that was so green and peaceful.
During the night, her mom brought out some kind of gummy candy. Since I am a big taffy/gummy person, I tore right into them. They were really good and I had a decent amount of them. It turns out that the candy advertises being healthy for you. In what way, you ask? Well, it's so good for you that you urine stream will be able to punch a hole in the toilet. I can't make that up; that's what the candy actually advertises. As I said, I had quite a few and by the end of the night we were a little worried about the structural integrity of her house's toilet.
(I just realized that I made two references to urine in one post. Sorry, I didn't actually mean to. It just happened)
Because I have a feeling that the next post will be really long, I will squeeze one more story in.
After two or three months of living here, Audrey and I finally had our housewarming party. We invited tons of people along with all of our co-teachers. We even prepped beforehand by making pots filled with pasta and other dishes. As the people started pouring in, our table became filled with dishes that our guests brought. There was even a homemade cake made inside a rice cooker! It really made me appreciate how many people we actually ended up meeting here and how good of people they are. I know that I'm really glad that I met every single person and I'm truly appreciative that they still hang out with us. I don't mean to seem "sentimental" or any lame garbage like that but I just wanted to say how happy I am with our group of friends and I'm really happy that we keep finding more and more cool people to join.
Here are a few of the pictures from that day:
To quote Meg, "Holla, holla, holla!"
nice
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