西洋오랑캐

I enjoy myself some Chinese epic literature…it makes me feel smarter than I actually am. So as a good scholar I’ve taken it upon myself to read the classics. I’ve read 三國志 (Romance of the Three Kingdoms), 肉蒲團 (The Carnal Prayer Mat), and of course 西遊記 (Journey to the West). In all fairness, I’ve not read any of them in Chinese…though I have read two of the three (三國志 and 西遊記) in Korean for what that’s worth. Anyhow of those texts I would have to rank Journey to the West as my personal favorite. It’s the right mixture of humor and adventure and avoids getting into men undergoing surgery to have dog penises attached to their own manhood (Carnal Prayer Mat…I’m talking about you buddy!)

So I’ve read the book in English and Korean, and I’ve seen some of the television adaptions, all of which have been fairly enjoyable. So imagine my surprise when the other morning I came across a local Korean animated version of the tale.

Originating in the late 80s or early 90s, 날아라 슈퍼보드 (Flying Superboard) takes the story of 손오공 and his posse and gives them some slight modifications. For starters 손오공 (孫悟空 / Monkey) no longer has control of a cloud on which he can fly, but instead is equipped with some sort of magical skateboard on which he can fly. Additionally instead of a magical staff, he has a pair of nunchucks…in all the episodes I’ve seen it’s not really clear if these nunchucks are magical, or just cooler.

손오공 still travels with 저팔계 (豬八戒 / Pig), who is still a stupid, greedy, glutton. Unlike the original character this version does not do combat with a rake, instead he’s equipped with a bazooka…seriously. How GI Joe is that?! Like 저팔계, 사오정 (沙悟凈 / Sand Monster) differs primarily in his weaponry. While 손오공 and 저팔계 may have gotten weapons upgrades, this version of 사오정 is weilding a pair of 뿅뿅이망치, and that’s just weak. In addition to this, the characters all haul ass all over the place in a badass jeep machine, that looks like it could very well have been a GI Joe vehicle.

So while traditionalists might be put off by these changes, I for one am willing to let them slide, especially when you take into consideration the awesomeness of the opening theme song. That’s right, like all good cartoons, 날아라 슈퍼보드 has a kick ass theme song. A kick ass theme song I’ve gone to the trouble of presenting here. Take it away my uploaded Youtube file!

And because I love you all, as a super special bonus here are 13 episodes you can watch at home. But since I don’t love you that much the episodes are all in the lowest possible quality Real Media form. MWAHAHAHA!

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Originally uploaded by wdunn.

My goodness am I a lazy, lazy man…

Several months back 진희 and I ordered her sister to forge us a set of “couple rings.” These rings were the end result. The cost?

A dinner of 보쌈, and some rounds at the local 호프…such prices cannot be beat!

And for those of you out of the loop, “couple rings” (커플링) are rings that men and women exchange when they are dating. I suppose these rings serve to mark a man or woman as “taken,” or maybe they are a symbol of love.

If one were to ask me who my favorite Korean celebrity was I would not answer Boa, or 이효리, or (insert other sexy lady here). Nor would I respond 박찬호, or Jae Seo, or any other Korean athlete. No friends, my favorite celebrity would have to be 김흥국 (Kim Hong-guk).

There was a time when all one needed to become a major celebrity in Korea was a white jumpsuit and a mustache. It was at this time (the early 1990’s) that 김흥국 was the height of masculinity…his sexy mustache and even sexier dance movies would cause the women to all swoon…or buy ice cream treats. 김흥국 was a man all the women wanted and all the men wanted to be.

Sadly those days seem to have passed, and now 김흥국 makes a living appearing on random television shows mainly as a throwback to another era…kind of like Dee Snyder on all those VH-1 specials in the United States. He’ll show up on a program, bellow, “Look at my mustache,” and perhaps do a goofy laugh or two.

The following video serves as a reminder to the greatness that 김흥국 once possesed. Never forget!

Long time readers of this here webpage, or residents of Korea may already know of Mr. Lee Jun-gi (이준기), and how handsome he is. So I don’t really find it odd at all that companies want to get him to endorse their products. I mean he has an army of middle school aged girls waiting to obey his every command. What I don’t understand is why the producers of this commercial elected to have him sing. His voice is pretty awful. So awful is it that I can accurately immitate it (I am a horrible singer as well), and my wife cringes and either immediately changes the channel or leaves the room when it comes on the television. Anyhow…the commercial might be horrible, but the juice is not that bad. Apparently I am a pretty girl.

And here are you vocabulary words of the day. Be sure to study them as there will be a test next week.

미녀 (美女) - a pretty woman
석류 (石榴) - a pomegranate
좋아하다 - to like
Sample sentence: 미녀는 석류를 좋아해. Pretty girls like pomegranate.

This morning a received a series of phone calls that were most odd. These calls came in on my home phone, a phone that I normally do not answer. No one that would call me has that number, save for my parents, but they don’t usually go about calling me at 10:00 on a Thursday. So as I was saying, I usually don’t answer that phone, but my wife was in the shower and we were expecting a package so I was told to answer the phone should it ring…since apparently the Korean version of the UPS man calls your house before dropping off a package to make sure someone is there to get it.

So needless to say, no sooner had the water started running in the bathroom the phone started ringing. I answered and thus began one of the oddest phone calls I had ever been involved in.

ME: Hello?

STRANGE WOMAN: Uh yes, where are you?

ME: Where am I?

STRANGE WOMAN: Yes, where are you?

ME: I’m in Yong-in?

STRANGE WOMAN: No…not you, your phone!

ME: My phone is also with me in Yong-in…this should be clear since I am talking to you on the phone.

This was apparently not the answer she wanted to hear, since she hung up the phone. I went about my business and about five minutes or so passed. The phone rang again. Water still running in the bathroom, I answered the phone again…perhaps it was the delivery man telling me that he was five minutes away with a package of books for me. It was not!

ME: Hello?

STRANGE WOMAN: Uh yes, where are you?

ME: Uh…in South Korea.

STRANGE WOMAN: No, not you…your phone. Is it a cell phone or a house phone?

Now at this point I realized the woman was not really playing with a full deck. In Korea all cell phone numbers start with a prefix that differs greatly from home phone numbers. This should have been entirely clear to her (seeing as how she was the one making the phone call).

ME: It’s a house phone.

STRANGE WOMAN: Ok! What’s your phone number then?

ME: My phone number? I don’t know.

I was not lying at all, I really don’t know the phone number seeing as how I’ve never called it. I mean it’s saved in my cell phone in the event that I need to contact my wife but she is not answering her cell phone, but I’ve never actually dialed the number.

ME: Wait a second…you called me! So you already know what the phone number is here anyway. Who is this?

STRANGE WOMAN: … (click)

And that was that…she didn’t call back, and the next call that came in was the delivery man informing me that there was a crate of books on the way to my house and to be ready to ring him up. Awesome!

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Originally uploaded by wdunn.

Yesterday was a day in which I seriously felt the need to bellow the following lines from Braveheart. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, you are looking at a free man…or reading the words of a free man…whatever. Apparently after nearly two months of intense investigation, the good people at Suwon immigration came to the conclusion that I was not a mail-order bride from Vietnam, a Chinese factory worker attempting to stay here beyond my tourist visa, or even an American who plans on staying in Korea longer than a year and found it in their hearts the good will to issue me an F-2-1 visa.

Basically now I am free. No longer do hagwon owners have control over my fate (now my wife does). If I don’t like a job, from here on in I can quit as I see fit. If I want to sit around the house in my underwear studying Korean…well, I’ve pretty much done that since January, so I’m a little bored of that…but I could continue doing so if I so desired. Basically I can do whatever I want (within the limits of the law), but it is so nice to taste freedom again.

So I would like to take this moment to personally thank all the fine people at the Suwon immigration office, in particular 조근휘. Their dedication and easy-going personalities made this process one that was quite easy and dare I say enjoyable. Wait a second…that’s not what I wanted to say. Please if you are easily offended by any words in the English language please turn back now…come back tomorrow, do not scroll beyond this point…..

Ok all those sensitive souls have departed?

FUCK YOU SUWON! You cold hearted motherfuckers! Why the shit would you assholes, upon being handed our application forms declare right away, “If you don’t get the visa after the investigation you can sue?” Why the fuck are those the first words out of your mouth? No, “You got married, congrats!” Nothing like that! Secondly, why in the name of all that is good did you make us come in a second time to fill out more paper work…paper work that could have very easily been filled out the first time we went in? What the fuck dudes?! Third of all, why didn’t you call us after bestowing me with a visa. We called you, and when I got the visa, it said it was issued the day after the second (completely pointless “interview”) trip to your dumbass building. And finally (and if this is the case with ever F-2-1 visa I apologize, but I’m on a rant here so…) why the bitchhole is my visa only good for 11 months? Is that due to your inability to complete paperwork in a timely fashion? Is that because I paid for this thing at the start of February? Or is it some other nonsense?!

Anyhow it’s a good thing that I’ve already paid a visit to 화성, so now I have no reason to ever return to your miserable, dirty little shit-hole of a city. Fuck you Mr. Cho! Fuck you Immigration Office! And fuck you Suwon! In the words of my hero, rap superstar Vanilla Ice, “You can kiss my white butt!” We’re outta here!

Whoa! That was some pent-up angst! It’s passed now, and let me say that never in my life have I been so stoked to have gotten some stamp…perhaps save for the time I got a stamp proclaiming I could count to 100 when I was in kindergarten. That was pretty bad-ass as well. Anyhow I’m living large now, and if any of you other F-2-1 visa holders have 11 month visas let me know…I’m just curious what’s up with that.

Crapaud: 21st Century Apartment Life In South Korea
Carlos McSuede
KOR 421

Throughout history there have been both advantages and disadvantages to every aspect of human existance. These advantages and disadvantages shape human life in both a positive and negative fashion. That is to say that they are good and bad. Nowhere is this battle of good verses evil more obvious than in the case of dwelling in an apartment complex in South Korea in the 21st century.

Wyatt Dunn first moved into a South Korean apartment complex in January of 2006. This move is perhaps best explained by Sir Reginald Alister in his 1867 manuscript titled, 21st Century Housing In South Korea: A Treatise, when he wrote, “In January 2006, Wyatt Dunn moved into an apartment complex located outside of Seoul, South Korea,” (Alister 222).

Once throughly relocated in this new environment, Wyatt Dunn came to realize that there were many advantages to living here. The first, and foremost, was the fact that no longer did he have to deal with shoddy furnaces that did not seem to enjoy cold weather. Nor did he have to let the shower run for hours on end before something closely related to warm water came from the faucet. Upon his arrival, shower time was no longer an ordeal.

“The shower situation has become nearly bearable again. I have warm water that springs from the faucet as soon as I turn the water on. There is one problem though, and that is the fact that I have a tub again. I never thought that I would long for the day when my drain in the middle of the bathroom floor and hose to wash myself down was replaced with an actual tub with a shower curtain, but there is something enduring (and easy to clean) about such a bathroom configuration,” (Dunn, 5477).

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Originally uploaded by wdunn.

The preceeding quote touches briefly upon some of the negative aspects (disadvantages) of apartment life. Among the other various disadvantages of apartment dwelling, perhaps the most obvious is the garbage collection system.

The phrase garbage collection system refers to a system by which garbage (waste materials) are removed from the living area to a region away from the living area where it can decompose or be recycled into new materials. While the residents of “one rooms” or other personal housing are allowed to dispose of their rubbish whenever they see fit, residents residing in an apartment complex are required to depose of waste on “trash day,” (Boggs 1986).

The institution of trash day is of greater concern due to the sheer ammount of seperation required of recycleable goods. Little Jimmy Hoffman claims that, “Glass, plastic, paper, and metal are the four types of recycleable materials,” (Hoffman 1), but the apartment dweller in South Korea is required to seperate clear plastic from white plastic, wrapping plastic from other clear plastic, soju (소주) bottles from beer bottles, and so on. “It’s far more trouble than it’s worth,” (Dunn 49203).

In conclusion without apartment dwelling in South Korea at the dawn of the twenty-first century, apartment dwellers would be without any apartments to dwell in, thus making them homeless. And for all the disadvantages of apartment dwelling, none can outweight the disadvantage that is being an apartment dweller without an apartment.

Alister, Reginald, 21st Century Housing In South Korea: A Treatise. Avet Publishing, 1867.

Boggs, Wade, Baseball Made Easy. Oxford, 1986.

Dunn, Wyatt, Kimchi & Me: The Book. Random House, 2005.

Hoffman, Little Jimmy, “Recycling.” Mrs. Green’s Class Press, 1998.

I receive a fair amount of email from lads and lasses interesting in becoming involved in the fast paced exciting world of refrigerator repair, or teaching English in Korea, whichever one I am currently involved in. For some reason these people, in their search for information, stumbled across this website and for whatever reason figured that I’d be the person to ask about teaching English in Korea.

It’s not all puppies and alcohol fueled parties with members of the opposite sex…there’s a lot of things the potential teacher needs to know. So I have decided to take it upon myself to help these poor bastards by giving these people the information that they desperately need, but that no one else (read as recruiters or hagwon owners) will ever tell them. The medium I have elected to use in giving all this valuable information is the Microsoft Paintbrush program. So without further ado check this out!

Now I am full aware that mocking the concept of molestation is horrible, but in all honesty if you decide to come to Korea, you will be molested by your students. They will attempt to stick fingers up your rump. Fellas, they will attempt to grab hold of your naughty bits. Ladies they will attempt to cop a feel (there’s a nice term). And they will ask you extremely inappropriate questions. The best advice I can give is always be on your toes, because if you let your guard down for even one second, there will be a finger up your ass.

In a sure sign that I’ve been living in Korea far too long, I pushed some dude out of my way while I was attempting to exit a subway yesterday. In my defense, the guy was standing right infront of the doors, but for whatever reason decided not to disembark from the train…so I shoved him aside and got off the train. It won’t be long until I totally encase myself in a coccoon of Burberry and begin masking my scent with soju, grilled meat, and cigarette smoke.

There is a singing group in Korea known as Jewelry. In all honesty I can’t tell them apart from the myriad of other girl groups that exist (or have existed) in South Korea. Like all girl groups here they consist of good looking ladies singing and dancing to fairly vapid pop songs. Today we have a short “live” video from the afore mentioned group.

Live performances here are often little more than the singer dancing around to a pre-recorded track in front of an audience of screaming middle school girls. I suppose this lack of an actual singing performance could be excused by saying these performances are to highlight something such as an artist’s dancing skills. Well, get a load of the dance skills being highlighted here, and join me as I laugh at the misfortunes of others like the jerk that I am.

Yesterday I worked from 2:30 until 7:00. That is all.

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Originally uploaded by wdunn.

The first day of March is a national holiday in Korea. Known simply as 3-1절 (3-1 Holiday), the holiday is a day of rememberence for an event that took place in 1919. On that day a group of Koreans gathered in Pagoda Park to protest Japanese rule and demand their independence, and independence which was achieved some 26 years later in 1945.

At present, Koreans for the most part celebrate this holiday the same way the celebrate most holidays, meaning they don’t really do anything special. I for my part had kept with this tradition until a chance encounter with an announcement while riding an exercise bike changed my 삼일절 plans for the year of 2006.

The wife and I belong to a gym located in our apartment complex. The gym is not that large, but it has running machines, exercise bikes, and more weight equipment than we have at home, and the price is decent since we enrolled in the husband and wife membership plan. So each and every day (or at least four times a week) we head over to the gym to exercise for an hour or two. About a week ago, while we were riding the stationary bikes, I was rocking out with some jams on my ipod (I believe it was Archers of Loaf or Hot Rod Circuit) and Jinhui was reading the newspaper.

She tapped my shoulder as she often does while reading the newspaper. Usually it is to show me some random 漢字 and attempt to stump me, sometimes it’s to show me a bizarre news story (usually about a celebrity or idiots in America), and sometimes it’s just to do Korean sign language for, “I love you.” This time it was none of the above. What she showed me was an advertisement for some memorial walk to comemorate the March 1st Movement. I quickly scanned the ad.

“3.1 kilometer walk, snacks and beverages provided, free jacket…call 02-XXX-XXXX or send and e-mail to insertemail@dress.here”

“Free jacket?! Let’s do it!”

So we called them up and made reservations for jackets for four. The big day arrived, and after a morning spent making 김밥 and 유부초밥, the wife, her sister, her sister’s boyfriend, and I headed off to 남산 for a 3.1 kilometer walk. We arrived at the meeting point to find that we were the only people under the age of 50 in attendance. I also learned (though the others in my party already knew) that this particular walk was sponsored by (or supporting) an organization against Kim Jong-Il and his way of doing business.

So we hiked up the mountain among aged Korean marines (who still looked tough as hell), middle aged women with signs depicting cartoon Kim Jong-Il getting crushed with hammers, and old men and women who have hometowns and family members living north of the boarder. The hike itself was a pretty easy affair, though highly enjoyable. As we power-walked up the mountain, he conversed about random nonsense such as cartoons of the 1980s.

After 30 or 40 minutes we arrived at the final destination. We were given some bread and milk and took a seat as some men delivered some speeches and the crowd partook in 만세운동 (萬世運動), which basically means everyone in attendance yelled, “만세!” (a phrase similar to “Hooray!”) three times and threw their arms in the air (they did not “wave ‘em like they just don’t care” however). During the speeches we all proceeded to chow down upon or 김밥, and then it was time to go.

After our march, my sister-in-law and her boyfriend took us to a jewlery shop in order for 진희 and I to get some wedding rings made. Since both her sister and her sister’s boyfriend are jewlers we were able to get rings made for extremely low prices. Which is decent, since I am quickly learning that wedding ceremonies are fairly costly affairs, so anywhere we can save some cash works for me. What’s more, the rings we are getting are handmade, so not only are they cheaper, but they are of a higher quality.

Following the designing of our rings, we traveled to a department store to get 진희’s father a birthday gift and I encountered a Korean celebrity, but he was shopping, with his wife and kid, and looked extremely stoned, so I didn’t bother him. Instead, I stared in awe at the fashion sense (or lack there of) of the Japanese tourists that were hanging around.

With a brithday present purchased, we headed back home to close out our 삼일절 celebrations. 만세!

Check out random other photos from the day here.

Having been recently hired by a language school near my house, and due to the fact that my wife also works at said language school, this weekend I found myself in a nearby town for a little on the job training that just happened to go down while I was off the job. This types of events always suck, no matter where you are in the world, but if you have a decent group of people with you can be tolerated. I luckily had that group of people, and not to toot my own horn or anything, but luckily for my co-workers, they had me.

Being an international man of mystery, I’m not going to give the details as to what school I work for (I will let you see pictures), that being said, the orientation we attended was for the Khan English system, since the owner of the school where I am n0w an employee was considering adding the Khan system. Upon learning of this name, I like every geek that came of age in the 1980’s instantly thought of William Shatner bellowing “KHAN!” in the movie Star Trek 2, unfortunately no one else there knew what I was talking about since I was the only non-Korean there.

We arrived at the venue shortly after 1:00 and after signing in, and stealing handfuls of pens, cookies, instant coffee mix, and tea, we were let into the conference hall. The room had 4 person desks arranged in rows of three about ten desks deep. Our group of 12 were seated in the second row from the stage. I looked at the desk. There was a folder with some reading materials, a pen, and a basketball jersey at each seat.

I looked over the basketball jersey. Each one (in our group) was green with a white number 2 in the center. They looked exactly like the basketball jerseys from my elementary school, and in addition to being the exact same colors were the exact same size. After squeezing myself into a tank top that 이효리 (Lee Hyori) would be proud to wear I was ready to be educated in the ways of Khan English…only apparently no one else was ready yet. The schedule listed the start time as 1:30, but since no one else had arrived yet, that was going to be pushed back.

Luckily for us in the audience, Khan English brought some videos…of their recent English Competition (because everything is a contest or competition here). As soon as the film started I was less than impressed with Khan. The contest (and as I learned later, their program) consisted of little more than yelling random English phrases as loud and as fast as one could ten times.

Practice with this phrase: I’m going to the movies with my dad. You did it ten times? I’m sure even native speakers ended up sounding like “I BUHHHH BUHHH BUHHHH DAD!” at the end. Now imagine children, who are not fluent bellowing random phrases as fast as they could. On of the Korean teachers turned to me and asked, “What is that girl saying?”

I replied, “Honestly I don’t know.”

After about 30 minutes of watching video footage of Korean children bellow their way through some scripted dialogues. the Khan seminar began. Like I mentioned before, I was the only non-Korean there, so the entire thing was conducted in Korean, but not your standard issue, straight out of Seoul, but in some sort of dialect that had some of my co-workers scratching their heads from time to time. The first person to speak was a middle aged woman with a horribly annoying voice. For those of you in Korea, or with extensive knowledge of Korean children’s programming, she sounded a lot like the witch on the television show, 하나 둘 셋, which is a pretty horrible thing to sound like.

Upon realizing that she was reading the handouts we had recieved word for word, and not adding anything, I began doodling in my folder, and procended to spend the duration of her presentation doing so. I would occassionally stop what I was doing to check if I had heard something correctly (”Did she just say, ‘one breast training method?’”). After reading to us for 2 hours, occassionally breaking to cackle, she decided that we had endured long enough…so she rewarded us with a five minute break time. Oh how sweet those minutes were. While some in my group used the bathroom, and others prayed for the sweet release of death to come, I spent that five minutes stealing more instant coffee than I could ever hope to consume before returning to America.

The next speaker was a fellow that was all about chatting me up in English. He was the type of character that every white person in Korea has encountered at least once. While his English was not bad at all, he just had no real conversational skills, so talking to him was more annoying than anything else. I understood that he was just trying to make small talk, but please for the love of all that is good, talk about something interesting. If a person proclaims that they don’t watch winter Olympics because they think it is like gym class, move on to another topic, they clearly have no interest in short track speed skating.

So he chatted up the audience with the practical teaching methods of Khan. Basically it worked like this…you, the students and the teachers, learn English by yelling as loud and as fast as you can. Apparently this turns one’s “local speaking muscle into an international muscle,” (their words, not mine). In order to aid in this madness, Khan offers a full line of DVDs that can be used in class to assist in the screaming teaching. These DVDs featured the most mind numbingly dull personalities ever. Each word of phrase would be repeated four times by different people at an increased volume and speed. So it started out with the soft spoken, blonde lady who was kind of like a kindergarten teacher, “Great.” Next was the dork in glasses with a speech impediment, that emoted way too much when he spoke, “Great (facial tick…facial tick…eyebrow spasm).” Next up was the chimpmunk looking woman that was reading for a teleprompter as fast as she could, “Great!” And finally, my personal favorite: guy with a rage problem, “GREAT!” That dude seriously would have veins popping out of his face as he “taught English.” It was so GREAT! I mean great.

So we watched guys screaming junk about watching a movie with their dad, and I became less and less enthralled with Khan (not that there was ever a point where I was enthralled, save for perhaps the point where I saw free coffee and cookies). I think the thing that bothered me the most was that all that the kids doing in the video was memorizing a script (which is different from actually learning a language) and reguritating that script and most people thought these kids spoke English well. However in one scene in the video, the white guy goes of script and the kid gives such a random answer, since they just memorized what they had to say, and weren’t actually listening to what was being asked. The sad part was, I was probably the only one that realized it.

After screaming for a good hour or so, and winning some prizes for being able to speak English (and in one case Korean), it was dinner time. Dinner was rice and kimchi, which was on par with what I expected. After dinner we were assigned rooms. My school had one other man so we ended up bunking up with some dude who had the hair cut known in Korea as a “sports cut,” (basically a crew cut or flat top) and sounded like a frog…I dubbed him “Sports Cut,” since I couldn’t remember his name. I did not care for “Sports Cut.”

Following dinner it was time for more screaming and yelling. We were broken into teams and were given some junk to memorize and then bellow as fast as we could in a race against the clock and the other schools. Khan decided it would be best to break this down into three Herculean tasks. The first task involved reading a short, poorly written passage about computers as fast as we could…as a group. After a couple of failed attempts which came about due to the fact that we couldn’t end at the same time we passed the test and moved onto task two.

The second task involved our teams yelling the slogans “God helps those who help themselves,” and “The early bird catches the worm,” ten times each taking only one breath on each attempt. Needless to say by the tenth time each phrase sounded kind of like, “BAH HAHNNA BBAHAA BBAAA!” Apparently that was good enough since we passed and moved on the phase three.

The third phase involved shouting about the virtues of Khan English and doing some hand motions that went along with these virtues. Our team got the whole song and dance down perfectly and were ready to be tested. Unlike the previous tests, which had been administered in various conference rooms, this final task was held outside on a soccer field under the lights. We were marched out onto the field and positioned in such a way that a member of the Khan S.S. could look down on us, but all we could see was a black outline of a man. We delivered the creed with outstanding prowess. This was apparently not good enough for Mr. Khan, and we were commanded to step back (military style) and practice before attempting it again.

We practiced several times, got our hand motions synched up (since that was where we had a little trouble), and then returned to be judged again. We delivered the creed with a fury and vengence that would have made Mr. “I’M GOING TO A MOVIE WITH MY DAD!” from the video proud. Apparently that wasn’t good enough either. The Khan-hole had us turn around and then either he, or another Khan-trooper moved down our line and made each of us yell as loud as we could. They started at the opposite end from me, and as he moved down the line telling random 40 kilogram Korean women that they aren’t loud enough, I started to get pissed off.

What did any of this have to do with teaching? Why should we listen to this tool anyway? He’s not paying me, he’s not my boss…hell, he’s not even my boss’ boss. I’ve been yelling all day, I’m done yelling…we’re done yelling.

In my time here I’ve been pretty accepting about a lot of stuff. Yes, it’s a different culture, I’m a guest, they do things differently here, but at that time, my inner American asshole bubbled up to the surface. “This is bullshit…we’re not gonna yell anymore.”

Then it was my turn. The man approached me. I looked him in the eye…and did nothing. He looked slightly perplexed, and offered up a command in Korean, telling me to yell from my stomach as opposed to my throat. I stood, unmoving. “Perhaps he didn’t understand,” he glanced at the co-worker standing next to me as if to explain to me in English.

“이해하지만 안 해, (I understand, but I won’t do it.)”

There was a brief moment as the words came from my mouth that I thought the guy was going to hit me, and he did…kind of. As he walked past me, he gave me one of those “good try” shoulder pats that gym coaches give out, or soccer players give the opposing team so they don’t look like jerks at the end of the game. From there he began a speech about how we didn’t give it our all and that it wasn’t Khan style and how bad we were…so I gave it my all and scream as loud as I could.

He paused, looked at me and then started again. “Khan does not look highly upon losers. Are you losers or…”

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” I bellowed again. It was the kind of a scream that while doing it you know you are going to be unable to speak the next day without horrible pain.

The man gave up and told us that we were done and could go inside. We marched off the field and while the rest of my group headed in, I stayed outside. I’d had enough for the day, I didn’t want to have to go in and take the oral exam about the Khan system and how it worked. If I was a smoker I would have smoked, but I’m not, so I just sat on a rock.

A while later when I went inside the other teachers in my group were in awe of what I had done: telling an authority figure off. Tests were finished, so we were given bread and then we all retired to our rooms for the night…only my group had a different idea involving alcohol. So we had drinks and discussed the merits of Khan, and how rediculous this whole thing was, and the fact that when I left, Sports Cut was in our room studying the Khan system.

The drinking was much better in terms of fostering an atmosphere of team unity than any of the other nonsense we had done up to that point. After many bottles of booze we all called it a night. I went back to my room and off to sleep. I awoke about 3 hours later when at 6:00, Sports Cut woke up. I looked for the bread I was given the night before, but apparently Sports Cut had eaten it. That bastard!

So after a quick shower in a sink, our group gathered together for a quick breakfast before we moved on to more Khan-style hi-jinks. The morning offered two different, simultaneous presentations: one for the teachers and one for the owners. Since I currently own little more than some books and CDs, I was forced to endure the presentation for teachers.

The teacher presentation wasn’t so much a presentation as it was a hands on experience / trip through the darkest recesses of hell. We we broken down into arbitrary groups and each group was sent up to the front of the room, one group at a time. From that group one person had to teach the Khan way while the other people in the group in the acted as students, and the other groups doodled in their books, slept, and cursed themselves for being in the room.

Somehow my group had the pleasure of being the first group to show off what we had learned. The Khan overlord selected one of the other teachers from my school to go up in front and play the part of a Khan English teacher. Perhaps inspired by my act of defiance the night before she refused. The man selected another teacher from my school. She too protested, but this time the Khan overlord was more insistant.

“Screw this…” I thought to myself and then stood up and bellowed (Khan-style), “I’ll do it!”

So I walked up to the front of the room, was handed a strange lesson plan written entirely in Korean (save for the word DVD) and was told, “Ok, teach.”

So I began teaching. Not the Khan way, but my way, making use of Khan materials. In all honesty, I was throughly under prepared to attempt to teach anything, yet somehow I had not only my fake students’ attention, but the attention of the entire audience. The laughed, did what I told them to do, and overall were in the palm of my hand, all of this inspite of the fact that the Khan overlord kept interrupting me to attempt to make me use Khan screaming tactics. “Sorry man, I can’t live by your rules!”

So I blasted through the lesson plan with a lot of “Oh, I guess we’re going to watch some sort of DVD now…that should be awesome and/or loud. Get ready to scream along kids!” Finally I was told to wrap it up…so I did with a “Alright, here’s the homework. Have a nice weekend! Peace out kids!” And I walked out of the room among a chorus of laughter and applause. I should have kept walking, but something drew me to return, so after stealing a few more handfuls of coffee mix I entered the room, and sat down with my commrades to watch the other groups present.

Like I said, I should have kept walking, since what I saw was some of the most painfully tedious teaching ever. I’m not saying every class has to be a three ring circus or a rock concert, but when teaching children, you’ve got to be at least a tad engaging or else kids are going to sleep, doodle, or engage in other non-academic persuits during class time. So on the one end of the bad teaching scale were teachers that were just mind-numbingly dull. On the other end was “S-Tina T-shirt.”

I think she actually wanted to say “Estina Teacher,” but it came out as “S-tina T-shirt.” I’m not one to make fun of the average person’s English ability, since it’s their second language, but if you are an English teacher, you should at least be able to speak the language with some fluency. This woman made the same kinds of mistakes that elementary school students I teach make. Things like “Open book,” (as opposed to “open the books,” or “open your book,”), “eh-buh-ri-ba-ti,” (in place of “everybody,”) and then my favorite, “Look at my teacher’s eyes.” I’m not really sure what she was attempting to say, and I wasn’t the only one, since her spoken Korean wasn’t that great either. A mess of dialectic nonsense, poor English, and the Khan method made her presentation the worst…but for some reason she was given the most time.

Thankfully after some 2 hours or so, the whole thing was over. We were given certificates for successfully surviving the Khan Training Program, a hot lunch, and were sent on our way. All in all, it was a pretty huge waste of time, but at least now I can write that I received a certificate of completion for the Khan program on my resume…since it’s so important.