Heya people. How have you been? How's the weather? How's work/school? Sometimes I wish you would all write blogs so that I could check up on you more regularly. Please send me a message about anything anytime. Sincerely. <3
Oh wow, oh my goodness, it's a secret message. Anyway, I'd like to start this by saying thank you to a few people. Just before Christmas, I received a letter from the crew at Red Deer Catering and it helped buoy me when I was starting to feel quite homesick. Colin, Andrew, Bella, Lisa, Fab, Kim, and Uncle Darren - thank you from the bottom of my heart for your letter. You guys are the reason I'm writing this post, actually. I keep the card on my desk at home so I can see it. So, yeah. Thank you. This post seems long in contrast to the one I secretly posted at the beginning of December which I didn't tell anyone about because I figured it was too short to make a big deal out of and, well, this monologue-style communication is starting to feel rather strange, to be frank. My high school English teachers would be ashamed of that run-on sentence. If any of you are reading this... consider it creative licence, I guess? Or, alternatively, send me a message correcting all my mistakes. I'd be more than happy to hear from you. On to some stories, I guess. On Sun, Dec 2, Johnny and I braved both the cold and Seoul's transit system and went to a tiny hole-in-the-wall cafe called Tears of Sailors. The stairs were treacherously steep, but the inside was warm and cleverly decorated to compensate. We were there because we had just purchased tickets to a punk show, but the show didn't actually start for two more hours. So we killed the time (in an admittedly not very punk way) by eating pie and drinking coffee. To be honest, I was nervous because we had seen some tough-looking Koreans smoking outside the bar and I wasn't sure how well I would fit in with the crowd. When the show finally started, it was... wild. There were people wearing everything from a fedora and suspenders to leather jackets with metal spikes.The most unforgettable performance was by a group of young men who had pulled toques down over their entire faces, obscuring their facial features. The drummer was a shirtless, tattooed Russian man. The lead singer's hair was extremely long, and he had jammed the toque over it so haphazardly that half of his hair was plastered to the front of his face. I'm amazed that he didn't suffocate during the show. He then proceeded to blindly flail about on stage while screaming incoherently into the mic; he actually fell off the stage at one point, but was caught by some of the audience members. Despite that dazzling showmanship, my favourite band was a trio called Billy Carter. The band consisted of a charismatic female vocalist, an enigmatic female guitarist, and a stoic, frizzy-haired guy on drums. The vocalist said that her daytime job was a wedding planner, but that she only did it so she could afford her music habit. After their hilarious and uplifting performance, I tentatively ventured to the merch table to buy a pin. I also built up enough courage to thank the guitarist for making it feel like anyone could belong at a punk show. There's a code word at the end of the blog. Mon, Dec 3 was back to work. The new batch of kids are a little older, behave a little better, and have a little more personality. In one class, I asked two boys in my class to be quiet... and they zippered their mouths shut. So when I called on them to answer a question, they just pointed helplessly to their mouths, like, "I can't talk, my mouth is stuck". So I had to throw them invisible keys and they unzipped their mouths and spoke. Then they closed them again and threw the key back to me and I put it in my pocket. From Dec 3 to Dec 14 we had LangCon Festival rehearsals every MWF after teaching hours were over. I'm not sure what to say about these rehearsals, to be honest. At times, it seemed like all we were doing was repeating the script over and over without making any changes or improvements. It was difficult for the foreign teachers to give constructive criticism because the kids were just learning English, so we'd have to tell the Korean teachers who would then translate for us. At other times, it was rewarding enough to see that the kids were excited to perform. Dec 8 was a dance rehearsal at The Holic for the graduation ceremony on Dec 15. During a break, we played baseball in the studio with a really heavy wooden bat (I can only imagine why he keeps that in the studio) and a ping pong ball. On the way home, I listened to London Grammar's album If You Wait and it was... peaceful. Text me the code word... Sat, Dec 15 was a long day because two noteworthy events happened: LangCon Festival and Swing Pop's graduation party. At 9:00am, the students boarded the bus with their costumes, the teachers boarded the bus with their coffees, and the bus departed for Suwon. Avalon had rented out an auditorium in a college there for the event. It was an enormous room with a huge wooden stage and hundreds of chairs. There were already many people milling among the chairs, props, and food, including some people from the hiring/hotel group. When I saw Trevor, we ran towards each other and hugged in a somewhat spine-crushing, enthusiastic embrace. It was good to reconnect with him, albeit briefly. Then the teachers, students, and parents retreated to their seats and waited for the shows to start. Then they started... and didn't stop for the next 5 hours. Our Green Eggs and Ham group was the very last show of the day, so when we finally made our way backstage, our kids were practically vibrating with nervous energy. Despite that, our performance was fine. However, the overall event felt stuffy and perfunctory - the scripts were mediocre, it was often difficult to understand what the students were saying even as a native English speaker, and the jokes that were written in the scripts had very little effect on the majority of the audience. Then at the end of the performances, our group ended up coming in second and the kids were ecstatic. That's when I realized that, even though I wasn't really enjoying the show, the kids probably didn't notice any of the things that I was noticing. It was stressful and kind of unpleasant for the teachers, but it seems like the kids had a good experience that they can tell their friends about and remember forever. Maybe all they'll remember is that they were actors for a day, and that they almost won the whole thing. That would be nice. But I had a dance graduation to attend and Joe had friends to meet up with, so immediately after the kids received their awards, we made a beeline for the bus station and headed back to Seoul together. Then it was Swing Pop's graduation. As I entered, I was greeted with smiles, music, and a lot of food and drinks. And Hernan, who told me that I'd be dancing with a different partner than the one that I'd rehearsed with - someone who had just started learning the choreography yesterday. However, Rachel had created glittery headbands for the women and matching bow ties for the men, so we all looked spiffy even though we may have made more than a couple mistakes while we were dancing. During the week that followed, I received three things: a flu shot, an adorable letter from mom and dad, and two Kakao Friends Christmas mugs from the white elephant gift exchange at work. On Dec 23, I went to my friend Eoraewa's dance performance. I watched the classes show off what they'd been learning, then unexpectedly got called on stage along with a few other women to do a swing out competition. I was allowed to choose my partner, so I asked El to join me because I knew he was a good dancer. The problem was that I had only just learned what swing out even was and couldn't really do it yet. I definitely wasn't good enough for a competition. It ended up being... embarrassing, as I was very unskilled at it, but people seemed to understand that it was just for fun. And at least now I'll always remember my first dance "competition". and I'll mail you a postcard from Korea. :) And then it was Christmas day. On Dec 25, I picked up AJ from the airport and gave him his very own T-Money card. He had been traveling for over 24 hours and had barely slept, so we went straight back to my apartment and he promptly fell asleep. :) The next morning, we called my parents via WhatsApp and opened presents with them. Our tiny Korean Christmas is one I won't ever forget. My family and his family had hand-chosen some perfect, beautiful gifts and I was a little overwhelmed with gratitude. Thank you so much, again. I don't know if I can ever repay you guys for the presents and love, but I promise I'll try. :') The next few days were a flurry of activity and hanging out with people as we tried to get AJ to eat as many Korean foods and experience as many Korean things as we could. We ate soup, noodles, rice, kimchi, bibimbap, went out for Korean bbq with my co-workers, and drank soju. On Dec 30, we hiked up Suraksan with Joe. I hadn't realized it on my previous hike, but apparently we hadn't made it to the top. An extremely friendly Korean man led us all the way to to the top this time around. But on the way, he invited us into a tarp-covered shack restaurant thing where we ordered and ate some food (fish cake soup and potato pancakes) and drank makgoli. The hut/shack was warmed by a wood-burning stove and we were the only foreigners in it. On the way down, we had to cross a river that had completely frozen over and which was extremely slippery and steep. The only way across it was by holding on to a steel cable and sliding slowly to the other side. While we were traversing the frozen water, Joe said that it was like we were in a video game (I imagined us being in Tomb Raider or Uncharted, like an action video game where you have to climb mountains and explore forests) and that he couldn't believe it was real life. I couldn't tell if he meant that he was having fun or that he was terrified for his life. During the day on New Year's Eve, we went to three markets near the center of Seoul: Myeongdong, Namdaemun, and Insadong. There were more things being sold there than can be named: spices, clothing, shoes, bags, tupperware, fish, raw meat, candy, unidentifiable knickknacks, to name a few. We ate tteokkbokki, hotteok, dumplings, and some kind of fried lentil seafood pancakes. We bought ridiculous socks for our families. AJ bought celadon pottery for his uncle. When it got too cold, we retreated to a fancy cafe and shared a jujube tea, which was thickly sweet and tasted like apple cider and dates. As the sun set, we explored tiny, quiet, twilit streets that were lined with small restaurants. That night, we went to Clare's for a New Year's party. It was a noisy shindig, with lots of people and food and K-pop music. We had some drinks and played some games before finally going to bed. I think New Year's is a good place to stop. We can linger a while longer in the happy days and nights at the end of December. The first few days of January involve taking the square root of A^2, so I'm not in a rush to relive that. Please reach out to me if you want to talk about anything or are feeling lonely. The world is a lot smaller now, and I'm only a few keyboard taps away. As always, thank you for reading; however, if I'm being honest, I'd prefer a dialogue over a monologue any day. On that note, I hope to talk to you later. <3 The code word is... Clandestine.
2 Comments
Glen Stoltz
1/23/2019 06:35:55 pm
You would know if stairs are treacherously steep, stairs shouldn't be scary to walk up or down, your construction experience is poking through a little bit. I would imagine the construction codes there are vastly different than ours. You can't help but notice these things, I have a picture of you at work with me on your favorite blanket on a nice summer day before you were walking. You have been around the business awhile and can't help but notice things that don't seem right 😊
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Krys McLean
1/23/2019 07:14:37 pm
Just wanted to say hi Ashley! Your blogs are great, informative and even entertaining! We get to see little glimpses of what you see and do. I enjoy reading them very much. I’m sure they help your mom and dad miss you a little less too. Good job, hon. You are learning as much as your young ones:)
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AuthorAshley is a Canadian teaching English in South Korea. Although between the Korean, swing dancing, and general life skills, she's probably learning more than she's teaching. Archives
June 2019
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