surprises! korea's full of 'em. like for instance, on thursday evening, my supervisor comes to my classroom and tells me that classes are
cancelled for the next day. Cancelled! This was a major shock, because my hagwon closes for absolutely nothing usually. Like, we were open for Children's Day, Buddha's Birthday, and all other national holidays, and even during a crazy typhoon, which most hagwons were clossed for. And so what major catastrophe did we close so suddenly because of? The death of the prime minister? Nope. The sudden attack of North Korea? Ha - no, most Koreans are so completely unconcerned about that. We closed for the 2006 second annual APEC fireworks show. And yes, APEC was not even in Korea this year. But it was last year around this time, and so this, apparently, was good enough reason for Korea to drop an estimated 1.2 billion Won (approx. $1.4 million CAD) for a 30-minute, insanely overdramatic fireworks extravaganza.
Now you must understand, Koreans love their fireworks. Every Saturday night of the summer there is a show at the beach, just for the heck of it. Plus, there are adjijis (older korean men) selling various types and sizes down at the beach for anyone to buy and set off at any time throughout the year. It's a regular couple thing to do - the boy sets off fireworks and the girl giggles, or people aim fireworks at each other's feet to get them to DANCE (i don't recommend that though, the last time i did that i got some fortune-teller adjiji in the ear - he wasn't too impressed). So I've gotten quite desensitized to the awesomeness of fireworks...but man, this was a spectacle.... but I'm not talking about the actual fireworks....they were all amazing and such, but even more so, the PEOPLE were insane. 3 million people crowded around a little beach - up in trees, on tops of the rooves of coffee shops, apartment buildings, hotels, and trucks. I went on my motorbike, planning to meet friends there, and my cell phone didn't even work because of the amount of people and cellphones. So I ended up running into other lost foreigners to enjoy the show with, and took lots of
pics. Notice the multitudes of cellphones being used as cameras...funny (koreans also
love their cellphones).
But the craziest part of the evening was after the show was over, where i almost got stampeded to death....3 million people all trying to go in the same direction = ridiculousness. People's mere ruthlessness comes out in moments like these. I was shoved, pushed, tripped, poked, and prodded like cattle. At one moment, an ambulance drove by with a women inside who had been trampled on (yikes), and people were taking the opportunity to get through the crowd by running as fast as they could
behind the ambulance, in the empty-pavement-wake it left behind....and then there was me on my motorbike trying to get home, weaving in and out the millions people who were walking in the middle of all the streets within a 5 mile radius of the beach...and joined with a train of about 5 other motorbikes, i managed to get home unharmed and without harming anyone... in about an hour (i live 20 normally from this beach). good fun. and that was only friday night...
saturday - PAINTBALL!! soooooooooo fun, i felt like i was a kid playing at camp....a group of about 15 of us got all dawled up in korean military camoflauge and played capture the flag in a beautiful forest off the coast of song jung beach, just 10 mins north of my apartment...see the pics
here.
i had to leave early to go to work, as i'm teaching for 3 hours on saturdays now at my hagwon for overtime pay...but it was the BEST class ever - full of almost fluent, talkative, opinionated 15 year olds about the varying philosophies of education in the world - mainly US vs. Korean. Had a phenomenal talk centered around this quote:
"Don't let school get in the way of your education." (by some dead guy, probably)
We talked about WHY they all feel its necessary in korea to get only 3-5 hours of sleep a night and do NOTHING but study between the ages of 4-25, with NO vacation time and NO extra-curriculars and NO life outside of the monotonous cycle of school, hagwon, study, bed, school, hagwon, study, bed.....we talked about the PURPOSES of education - to train for life - and how the most important things are learned outside of school - like in friendships, making mistakes and learning from them, and in just living life and enjoying it....i got them thinking, i think, and we had a great convo about it....for the first time in a while i felt completely rewarded as an educator, as someone who opens minds ever so slightly to think a bit out of the box. a great way to spend a saturday evening!
sunday - church in the am, dancing with the most precious little korean girls in the world...and aubrey, too, of course :)....and THEN...hung out with the coolest people in the world all day in a beautiful apartment over looking the ocean, and went exploring on my motorbike with my new friends sacha and kevin....we raced, we went down random roads, we avoided seriously ridiculous long lines of traffic by driving on the sidewalks....way fun....and perfect weather for it - it's still very fall here!
good weather, good fun, good education, good friends...and just like that...i'm on a korea high again....(quick, ma, take a picture!!)
-J.
