Brahms

Tonight I went to see a German orchestra play. My youngest host sister Seo Jin accompanied me (my vice-principal had given me two free tickets) and a number of my students, including my eldest host sister Seo In, were there. It was a good show, a lot of Strauss and Brahms. By the end of it the audience was clapping along to the livelier numbers, something which at first struck me as a little strange, but I guess not unpredictable for Korea. It was great when the conductor--who by the way looked very much like the stereotypical orchestra conductor, with tails and slicked back hair (I wonder if all conductors wear their hair that way to keep it from getting in their faces?)--started conducting the audience, motioning for when their clapping should get louder or quieter.

Today at school was okay, despite the fact that my stomach's been bothering me a lot lately (some residual traveler's sickness from Vietnam?) and a teacher was beating a student for at least half an hour in the teacher's room today. He wasn't beating her constantly, but it went on for awhile, maybe even for an entire hour---a few thwacks (the teachers use these souveneir-like sticks that purposefully make a loud noise, they sell them outside most Buddhist temples here) and then some kind of discussion, and occasionally some crying. Maybe I would be alarmed enough to intervene if the students seemed alarmed, but it seems so run of the mill, for them to just bear it and then move on. A number of students stopped by, friends of hers I assume, and they seemed sort of bemused and sympathetic. I still have trouble understanding the teacher's perspective, though, how someone could think that punishing a student for that long could be useful. I can't help but feel like it constitutes a sort of unacceptable loss of control on the teacher's part, though I understand that it's considered normal here. It doesn't happen that frequently at my school, but frequently enough to make me wonder what the student's could be doing to deserve it.

I don't often have conversations with Seo In, but as the three of us came home from the orchestra show tonight together, she talked to me about how nice it was to get a break from studying, but then said that she likes going to school. I was of course surprised, and she explained that it's hard but it's better than being at home, because she gets to see her friends and at home there's nothing to do, really. When I thought about it for a moment it made sense. School seems like a huge source of stress in a high school student's life, but at home Seo In is expected to study all the time, too, so if your life consisted of basically constant studying, wouldn't you rather be at school, where you can see your friends, have consistent ten minute breaks, and probably a couple teachers who aren't as strict as your mother?

My host mother nags and scolds the kids constantly when we're at home. It's really been wearing at me, hearing yelling all the time about every little thing, (I don't know much Korean but I know enough to know when she's scolding Seo Young for acting too goofy or not saying good-bye to her university-age tutor politely enough) but I haven't broached the subject. I don't know if I will--it sort of seems like the sort of realm where I should keep my opinions to myself if I know what's good for me.

Back in the classroom (temporarily)

I'm back at school today to teach my winter break complementary class. It's sort of a different experience from my usual teaching; the students are brand-new first graders, the periods are forty-minutes long (I'm teaching two period back to back) and I guess they haven't been issued their uniforms yet because they're all wearing normal clothes. It's also sort of different in that I've taken this as an opportunity to change my approach a bit. Because all of these students are here because they ostensibly want to be, I don't feel like I have to worry about discipline as much. So I sort of skipped the whole rules thing and today we played a name game and then human bingo. The name game (where students go around a circle and have to say their name and then all the names of the people who spoke before them) wasn't as helpful to me as I was hoping. I wanted to learn all the students names, but they speak so quickly and quietly that I'm more likely to remember their favorite colors and favorite animals than their names (I'm already thinking of certain students as Yellow Dog and Black Llama for this reason). Human Bingo was fun for them, and since I played as well, it gave me an excuse to force students to talk to me. (The purpose of the game was to get the names of students who could answer yes to certain questions, i.e.: Have you eaten boshintang (dog soup)? Are you wearing plain white socks?).

So my Southeast Asia travels have finally come to an end. Malaysia was fun, but I liked the climate in Vietnam better. Saigon impressed me because motorbikes outnumber cars by about 4 to 1. You have to take a whole different tactic there when crossing streets. It works best to just sort of slowly meander across the road, because bikes can easily maneuver around you if they see you coming. You're more likely to get hit if you dart out. But it's strange to walk through moving traffic, with so many bikes, to say the least. I think Vietnam and Thailand qualify as countries I'd like to visit again (I spent 3 1/2 days in Saigon and 8 days in Thailand, almost exclusively in the South).

Penang

I finished up my first roll of film today, so now I have twenty-some photos of Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Penang. Mostly pictures of architecture--in all the cities I found the juxtaposition of modern looking sky-scrapers with really old and sometimes dilapidated buildings left over from the time that the British ruled this area really interesting. Despite my camera difficulties, I think I'll have some good shots. I really should get the camera looked at when I get back to Korea; any shots that succeed take three or four tries before they take, and if I am even standing in the shade for a shot, even if the target it brightly lit by sunlight, the camera tries to use the flash and since it doesn't think it has enough juice, even though the batteries are brand new, it fails and I can't take the photo.

That happened this morning when I wanted to take a photo of the outside of this great dim sum place I went to for breakfast. It was really delicious. One of my goals for Penang was to eat good dim sum, and I just happened to wander down the right alley this morning. I got to eat all my favorites, as well as this delicious noodle thing I'd never seen before. I stuffed myself on dim sum and drank a pot of tea for 11 Ringit, which is less than four bucks. They brought out the pot of tea with two tea cups immersed in hot water in a plastic bowl. I didn't really know how I was supposed to drink it. Looking around at all the old men who seemed to be there primarily for the tea, the dim sum secondary, most of them were drinking out of both cups. One guy even had three cups. I just stuck with one though. The staff there was really kind, too, and talkative. Even more people in Malaysia speak English than do in South Korea, and it's interesting because Malaysians of different ethnic backgrounds use English to converse with each other--it's a new thing to me to be in a foreign country where the natives use English to converse with each other and not just me. The diversity (of people and food!) here and the predominance of English would make it an attractive place to live, I think. The heat does get to me, though.

Yesterday I saw most of the Georgetown sights and today I plan to bus out to the butterfly farm and forest park to do some walking around. The buses here are a little nerve wracking, because they often don't run on time. I had some problems with that last night as I was trying to get back home from Penang Hill and it was getting later and later. I do feel a little unsafe traveling alone...though last night was the first time that set in. Being a female foreigner walking around alone I just get different looks than other tourists do. But in general the people here have been really kind and helpful, even strangers on the street, so I don't think I have much to fear.

KL

I have about three hours until my sleeper train to Penang leaves, but I'm too exhausted at the moment to do anything but sit in this internet cafe (finally, I found one!).

I got into Kuala Lumpur at 6 am this morning--I took a sleeper train from Johor Bahru which is right over the border from Singapore. I didn't sleep too well on the train, so I was tired, but I wanted to get moving right away. I had to wait a couple hours before the left luggage office opened and I could get rid of my pack, and I decided to just buy a map of Kuala Lumpur rather than wait for the tourist office to open. That may have been a mistake.

Singapore was wonderful because I could (and did) walk everywhere. I had a great map free from the city and I walked all over Little India and Chinatown as well as the more historic and landmark areas like Esplanade Park and Orchard Road. Kuala Lumpur turned out to be quite a different story. I remembered reading some line in a Lonely Planet book about KL not being pedestrian friendly when I walked out of Sentral Station and discovered that I was moored by a total absence of sidewalks. Even though the place I wanted to go to was only a kilometer or so away, I had to take a taxi. I really enjoyed the place when I got there, though--Lake Gardens. It's a very landscaped park area, with walking paths and numerous different parks inside of it, including an orchid park and "the largest covered bird park in the world." Unfortunately I got there around 8:30 am, before anything had opened but I strolled around for awhile. There were a lot of exotic birds flying around, so I decided I didn't need to visit the bird park. It felt like a genuine jungle, albeit heavily tended.

I was planning to visit the deer park, which was free, when it opened at 10, but I started feeling hungry and dehydrated, so I wandered around seeking a restaurant that was open. I finally found a small cafeteria right where the taxi driver had initially dropped me off. The food there was cheap and really really good. The most exciting part though, was when I walked back down the staircase and discovered a troupe of monkeys wrestling in the trees and beneath them. I sat on the stairway and watched them for several minutes. A few stalked past me a mere few feet away; they noticed me but didn't really seem to care. The younger ones tussled around in a way that reminded me of kittens. Later a man walked up the steps and the younger monkeys started hissing at him; he pointed a tripod at them warningly and two monkeys simultaneously leapt atop opposite railings and watched him trudge up the hill. It was at that moment I remembered my camera, though I didn't catch the image. My camera has been malfunctioning lately--it thinks its batteries are low when they aren't, and thus sometimes it doesn't shoot and anytime it senses it needs to use the flash, it doesn't work. I got a couple pictures of the monkeys in close proximity, but nothing too impressive.

At the deer park I saw some tiny mouse deer, who really did resemble a cross between rodents and deer. A worker there banged on their cage a couple times so that they would run about and I could see the small babies that had been born a few weeks ago (they were scurrying about as well). It's odd to watch something the size of a chihuahua with the legs and feet of a deer scamper around--sort of graceful but jerky at the same time.

Anyway, the time spent in the park (seeing the deer park and the orchid and hibiscus parks) was over all pretty good, though the heat did eventually get pretty oppressive. I also visited the Menara Kuala Lumpur, the fourth tallest telecommunications tower in the world (it had an observation deck at the top). The rest of the day got sort of frustrating, with the combination of chaotic traffic and missing sidewalks with the fact that my map seemed to be missing many streets and even light rail stations. Maybe I was sort of spoiled by Singapore, where I could always locate where I was in a few moments on the map. Eventually in KL I would think "I wonder where I am, maybe I should look at the map," and then realize that I really had no way of knowing where I was, because either the intersection I was at had no street signs or the street wasn't labeled on my map. Kuala Lumpur was an interesting city, with interesting urban development and not to mention history, which I learned a little about on my visit to the Menara Tower. I like cities where I don't have to take a taxi everywhere, though. Things got more complicated this afternoon when apparently a large portion of the city lost power. Since the light rail couldn't run, it was hard to get a taxi--I was so hot and tired that I just decided to get the first taxi I could back to Sentral Station, regardless of how much time I had to spare. I think I have myself to blame to a degree. I think short nights of sleep and three long days of self-guided walking tours have understandably taken their toll. The sleeper train to Penang leaves at 8 pm and arrives around 6, so I'll have more time to sleep tonight, unlike last night when the train departed at 11:15. I'm actually looking forward to it. Even though it's no the most relaxing sleep, sleeper trains in general are pretty cool (based on the ones I've taken here and in Thailand). It's sort of like being rocked to sleep, if you don't mind the bumping and whining of the wheels.

academic to the corps

Last night I realized that I was feeling unusually cheerful (stimulated?), and I attributed it to the fact that the night before I'd read a good book cover to cover (Mystic River, by Dennis Lehane, which I'd just received in a Christmas package from my mom and sister) and that morning, I'd crafted a brief essay for an environmental fellowship I'm applying for. I think I miss essay-writing. I know I miss being a student. Then I realized I've been out of school for over 6 months. That's the longest I've ever been out of school in the past sixteen years. That sort of struck me.

I just submitted the application for the said fellowship. I doubt I'll get it, since several hundred people compete for 25 slots (that's almost definitely more competition than I faced for my Fulbright grant), and I probably don't have as much experience with environmental non-profits as most of the applicants. It's a pretty cool fellowship though--you take classes in August in Boston and then get placed at a number of different environmental NGOs around the country. You get paid a salary of something like 26,000 dollars for the year. It would start in August, which would mean if I got it I might have less than a month between leaving Korea and starting there, but hey, it's good to keep moving, right? There are two rounds of interviews, one of which might require me to fly to the States next month--but maybe they'd let me do the interview over the phone, because a last-minute ticket to the U.S. would cost me a pretty penny. But I guess on one hand, I'd maybe have to cancel my trip to Japan, and 9 days in Japan can get pretty expensive, too. Anyway, if you are curious, you can learn more about the fellowship at greencorps.org (just don't compete with me).

So I'm heading to Seoul tomorrow, going to catch up with Rachel who just got back from her holiday visit to the States, and then I'm flying to Singapore on Monday. Singapore! I'm working my way across Malaysia over the course of a week and then flying from Penang to Saigon, to meet Matthias, and then back here on the 21st, and my winter break complementary classes start on Jan 24th. I'll be teaching first years, so students I've never met before. I'm also getting paid an extra hourly wage (20,000 won) which is pretty sweet, considering I'm also currently getting paid to be on vacation. Maybe I'm not raking in the cash that the hagwon teachers are, but I have to admit, Fulbright has a pretty sweet set-up (and I get student loan deferment).