Tonight

Lunch with the English teachers was fun. Even though I told them Korean food was fine, they took me to a Western restaurant. It's the third Western style restaurant I've been taken to in Korea, and it seems like they are all pretty similar. This one was called Renaissance and had a sort of faux-decadent interior, with chandeliers and dark wood, but the brick arches around the windows were plastic. The food was what I expected too---sort of a surf and turf thing, but hamburger instead of steak. I had a bit of a surprise when we each got a glass of extremely red liquid with our water. One of the teachers said, "Wine," when it was put down, but maybe because of the color, and the fact that I had been told that the Christians at this school didn't drink, I thought it was juice or something. Well, it tasted like wine. Maybe non-alcoholic, though I'm still not sure. Though it could be that half a glass of wine isn't really considered drinking. I wouldn't be surprised, since social drinking, and sometimes heavy drinking, seems to be a substantial aspect of Korean culture. The appetizers were the standard salad, shredded lettuce and cabbage with onion, cucumber and tomato and some kind of mayonaise dressing, and either vegetable or cream soup.

I was nervous about the lunch going over, but I assumed that they all were planning on getting back in time for the next period, at 2 pm. After drinking my orange juice, which I got for dessert since dessert or coffee always follows a meal in a Western style restaurant , I looked at the time on my cellphone---a few minutes to 2--and said, "I have a class at 2." They all looked surprised, but not alarmed, and I left, though they tried to get me to eat some of the sliced tomato that had come as part of dessert.

My host mother drove me back to the school with a couple of the other teachers, and I ran part of the way in, making it to my class at almost 2:10. It turned out fine though. No one seemed appalled that I was late, though I'm definitely not going to make a habit out of it.

When I finished my last class at 4 pm and came down to the teacher's room, my co-teacher told me that someone was waiting to talk to me. I expected someone from SOS, or something like that, but it turned out to be the guy I ran into at McDonald's a couple weeks ago. That was surprising and a little strange. He was sitting, in a blue suit, with a large, stuffed folder that said Chicago Hyatt on it on his knees. He suggested that we have dinner tomorrow night---or I assume that he was suggesting it, since he was actually speaking in the imperative, something that some of the English teachers do as well (the teachers also sometimes use "You had better," instead of "You should," and thus come off as vaguely threatening, even when they're suggesting that I go eat lunch or have an ice cream).

I told him that I wasn't free tomorrow night, since I might be traveling then. He then proceeded to try to figure out a time that we could meet. Since I'm traveling this weekend, and spending Chuseok with my host family, this (admittedly, to my relief) was hard to do. He asked me if I was visiting my boyfriend and even though in my head I was thinking, "Throw him off, just in case!" I said the truth, no. He knew that I'm from near San Francisco from our first meeting, and he told me that he wanted me to find tourist information about San Francisco on the internet, including a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge, and give it to him. I asked him if I could e-mail it to him, and he said he didn't have an e-mail address (which seemed strange). He said we needed to meet and I could give it to him then. Since I was busy all week, and didn't know when I could meet, he said he would come by the school again and I could give it to him then. It struck me as strange that he needed me to do internet research for him, since it seemed to me that he knew enough English to figure it out for himself, but I guess if he really doesn't have an e-mail address, then he doesn't have internet access either. It also seemed oddly coincidental that he happened to be visiting San Francisco (and why does he want a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge?). He seemed very interested in the bridge. Maybe he just wants to see a picture of it.

When he left I asked him his name and he just said, "Mr. Choi." Then put on a brown hat at an angle and walked out. I didn't feel that bothered by the interaction, but I wasn't excited at the prospect of being expected to spend time with him on a routine basis. He wasn't threatening, but his awkwardness and persistence made me a little uncomfortable.

At 4:30 the woman from SOS came. Though she wants me to start going there on Fridays instead of Thursdays, she did take me there today. My host mother had told me that the SOS manager had said that the students I'd be teaching were high school level, even though they are younger. When I asked her myself (through my co-teacher) she'd said that I should evaluate them myself.

When I got there and met the kids it was clear that they weren't very high level, though one or two of them seemed to know a lot. There was a range of ages, kids who didn't seem to know more than the ABCs and "Hello" to one kid who could speak in pretty clear sentences. The majority of them knew colors and fruits and animals and numbers, but didn't appear to know much stuff that was more complicated than that (besides routine expressions like "How are you?"). It was also a little hard to figure out how much they really knew, since they ran around screaming most of the time. I tried to get them to settle down by telling them we would play a game, but then the boys said they wanted to play a game called "Bullrush" or something like that, which seemed to involve hiding and pretending to shoot each other, though when one of them explained it to me with a diagram it seemed something like Sardines. Unfortunately it seemed as though I'd gotten their hopes up about Bullrush, because the boys kept running around and attacking each other. It wasn't too bad, I just couldn't really keep their attention for more than a few minutes at a time. In those instances I played a brief memory game with them involving fruits, introduced them to "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes," played a failed short round of "Red Light, Green Light," and tried to play "Simon Says," but didn't get very far.

Finally I figured out, almost by accident, what I should have remembered from the time I'd spent with little children. When you stand up and try to get everyone's attention you're going to have a hard time, and it can be almost impossible. But one girl seemed very eager to learn, and was trying to get me to start up again with "Simon Says." When the kids saw us speaking together quietly, they came and sat down with us one by one. And then one boy started singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" out of the blue, and we all sang it. I had gotten everyone's attention and was teaching them the words to "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" (there's a Korean song to the same tune, that's also alliterative) on the little white board when the hour was over and an SOS employee came to tell me it was time to eat. Though some of the more hyperactive kids had opted to go home, there was a small group left and they seemed disappointed to see me go, asking when they would see me again.

I went to a small cafeteria and ate some rice and soup, and conversed a little with some of the employees there. Then the manager came in and seemed relieved to see me there, as if she'd thought I'd wandered off (I'd left my bag and sweater in the classroom). She came with three older students, maybe middle school or high school, and told me that they were very good at English. After a sort of confused part Korean part English conversation with her, during which I revealed my knowledge of numbers and surprised all of them, I gathered that I would teach the older class of students at 6:40. The three students, two girls and one boy, ate at the cafeteria. They asked me a few questions, like my name and age and where I was from. We ate some chestnuts, which I identified in Korean, and they were impressed again. I was asked if I knew Korean, and I answered No, and I'm not sure if they believed me. It interesting how I accomplished that without even trying.

As we walked down to the classroom to get my stuff, the boy, who was the youngest, asked me if I had a boyfriend in California (it's a common question, from men or women). When I said no, he said, "Why?" (also a common response). It's one of those things that's so different from the U.S.--it's sort of the other side of the coin to being told by your host mother that you have a pimple or that your face is red (or actually, being asked why you have a pimple or why your face is red). It's the other side of the coin in that having it pointed out that you look bad makes you feel bad, whereas being asked why you are single is sort of a compliment. Or maybe they're just curious. Or maybe they aren't used to complexions that get red easily.

It turned out that I was actually wrong. 6:40 wasn't when class would start, but actually when one of the employees would drive me back to the apartment. The three students rode with us in the van back to Yeonhyangdong, asking me a few questions a long the way. They got out when I did and went to study. I'm guessing they had academy, which maybe explains the schedule change. Or maybe they aren't my students at all. I guess I'll find out next Friday.

So even though I was pretty unprepared and had to make stuff up on the fly for my first hour of volunteer teaching, I enjoyed myself. I'm looking forward to more. I'm more interested in playing with kids than just teaching them, and the manager actually advised me to play games with the younger kids. I don't know if I've effectively evaluated their levels, but I have some idea now. It will be fun getting to know them, and learning more about SOS Children's Village in general. It was refreshing to be spending time with smaller groups of students in a different setting.