Nick Names

Date: April 21, 2011

I was teaching a class this morning and we were playing a game.  On the powerpoint slide was a picture of a girl with the word bubble: "Hello.  My name is Elizabeth.  But you can call me Beth."  The question was "What is Beth?"   I was trying to elicit the answer "Beth is a nickname."  It was a vocab in one of their lessons and in the other classes, with a little help, the students quickly got the answer.  But this class was having a hard time actually getting the answer.

So my co-teacher, the lovely Mrs Kim, pops up and joins in me trying to explain the slide.

Mrs Kim: "Her name is Maggie.  But she is also called Catfish.  You know the word catfish?" [She pantomimes  the exaggerated mustache that is the universal symbol for catfish.]  "Yes.  Okay.  Maggie's blah blah blah* is Catfish.  What is blah blah blah?"

I kid you not.  I broke into a huge smile--because it is true.  I didn't know she knew that I actually do go by Catfish with my friends.  Sarah, my best friend in Korea, frequently will call me not by Maggie, but by Catfish.   For Mrs Kim to just pull this out--it made my morning!

* = In Korea, they use "blah blah blah" instead of "blank."  In America, I would use "Maggie's blank is Catfish."  In Korea, blank is replaced with blah blah blah.  Half the time I feel like I am in a Ke$ha song.

ps:  I have never really had a nickname before.  Since my name really is Maggie (not Margret), it is not like there is a super obvious nickname.  My brother goes by CDank, but that has a flavor to it.  MDank does not.  Plus there are two M-Danks in my family: Mom and Me. So, to actually have a real nickname makes me smile.

pps:  Having the nickname Catfish makes me really want to fill out one of those official forms (I remember college forms) that has the following questions:
            First Name: __________________________________
            Last Name: __________________________________
           Other Names (nick names): _____________________

I don't know if it be very professional, but it would be a great "WTF?" moment (if they actually take the time to look at the forms.  If I was looking for a way to differentiate me from the average joe--I think I just found it.  Maggie "Catfish" Dank.  Yep, that is not average.

Guitar Club

Date: April

As mentioned, I started a whole slew of activities this month.  My Mondays and Tuesdays are a little crazy: During lunch I have Taekwon-do, during the extra period after school I'm in the guitar club, I get a little time for dinner and then I'm off to yoga in the evenings.

I really enjoy guitar club.  I was a little fearful for it the first couple of times because basically, I"m learning an instrument in a foreign language.  I have a strong music background, but I don't really have any direction because the teacher can't really communicate anything to me.  Except, when she writes things on the board--notes and keys and such.  That I understand.

It is fun to learn because Koreans go all "Sound of Music" when talking about music.  The notes are not C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C--but Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La (ra), Te (shi), Do.  (Some of the notes don't have the exact same name, but I figure it out.  It's not that different).   I did learn this naming system at school (and via Maria) but I do not look at Third Space in the treble clef and think: Oh, Do, of course.  I think 'C.' So I am slowly normalizing myself in Solfege land.

It is also interesting because I am in a class with a bunch of my students.

my fellow classmates.

Song No. 1!
I play top row.  It was not very exciting....

During break one of the students entertained me with Mario songs. He had quiet the collection

My teacher.

The only thing I can understand in when she "teaches."
Oh, did I forget to mention that she doesn't write "Sol" on the board.  No...she writes 살
It's a good thing I learned how to read...

 Excerpts from the "Classics Piano Book" :

 They need an English lesson:

Thailand: Elephant Ride

Date: February

I got to cross quiet a few things off my "Awesome Things To Do" Bucket List on my trip to Thailand.  One of them was ride an elephant through the jungle.  While it wasn't exactly a jungle--I did ride an elephant through the wilderness of northern Thailand. That qualifies for me.

So, let me start at the beginning.  We are on our 2nd day of hiking.  It was a heck of a day.   we started around 9 in the morning and the first hill was a monster.  And then 4 hours later, we are still hiking.  I'm loving it.  I think I might have been the only one who was in love with trekking.  But I loved the struggle of forcing your legs to keep going.  I loved the quiet-ness of the hills.  I loved that we were walking on trails only the natives (an other trekkers) use.  I loved that we could literally go an hour without talking--but in some odd way, communicating none the less.  Communing.   It made me feel like I was actually in Nature.  Not just some park that had pavement thorugh it to make sure that the walking was smooth.  No, this was actually NATURE.  REAL. LIVE.  Beauitful.  Stunning.  

But after 4 hours we were getting hungry. I had passed the morning learning Thai words.  Bai Long Dai (Lets go uphill).  Bai Kun Dai (let's go down hill)--this was a popular one.  But it was lunch time.  We come down this slope and start walking on a path that has tire tracks and we know that we are close to a rest stop.  Civilization.  

I wouldn't exactly call the hut we can to "civilization" but they had coke products so for us, it worked.  Then, we looked up the hill and spotted something you don't see everyday: 

Look Mom--three elephants.  Just chilling!

 This elephant was nice enough to pose for us.

 After a delicious meal made by our trek tour guide, Gee, we got ready for our Elephant Ride.   We climb up the steps of this make-shift stairway so that we can climb on top of the elephants.

 You sit on this bench thing that is tied around the Elephant's belly, neck and a little tie under their cute tail.  To get to the bench, you step, place your foot on the elephants shoulders.  This was weird to do, because it's a little surreal to think about stepping on an animal.  You don't step on animals in my home.  But elephants are so big.  That my weight is nothing to them.  You can step on them--it doesn't matter.  If you don't look too closely, the elephant skin almost looks like some sort of weird carpet--until it moves.  And then it hits you again that you really are standing on an animal bigger than cars.

 Riding in an elephant is a lot like ... a mix between a horse and a really fat man.  You sort of sway side to side, trodding along, but it is smooth, like a slow horse walk.  It was interesting.

 Jan and Sam were behind us in the order of Elephants so I was able to take a bunch of pictures of them. About half of the pictures I took got deleted because it is HARD to focus on someone when both you and they are moving!

 Jan and Sam's elephant was a bad boy.  He would stop and eat leaves, took alternate routes, and had fun not listening to the native man in charge of steering the elephant.

 We crossed a river, and the elephant would suck water up its trunk and then slap it on each side of the body.  I couldn't help but think, "eww....elephant snot!  Snotty Water!"  But it was hot and it did feel good.

 See, Jan and Sam's elephant is making its own path.

 And again.

And a third time.

 I love these next two pictures.  Apparently, this company had 6 or 7 elephants that they let wander in their part of the forest (I didn't see any fences and if an elephant really wanted to, a fence wouldn't do squat).  We passed one elephant up on a hill--chilling out. It was awesome.

 We walked through a village.

 And then we de-elephanted and got to reward the animals for their good job with some bananas and watermelon.  Intrepid (The company I used to book this trip) use this elephant ride company because of the humane way they treat the elephants.  Giving them treats such as this.  Not using a painful riding crop.  Keeping healthy and happy elephants.

 Give him a banana, claire!

 I thought their mouths looked really sweat, until I saw one use enough pressure to crack a whole watermelon in half.  I kept hearing this strange "klunk" sound and I couldn't figure out what it was, until I saw seeds shoot out of an elephants mouths.  Sure enough, he was eating a watermelon.  He would put the whole thing in his mouth, apply pressure until the thing broke in half and then half would fall on the floor while he chomped on the other half.  Then he'd suction the 2nd half up with his trunk, put it in his mouth and return to chomping away.  It was one of those--whoa, I'm feeding an elephant moments.

Crushing the watermelon

So, that was my hike through the hills of Thailand on an Elephant.  Pretty Sweet.

Towel Shop

Date: April 12, 2011

This might be a little strange, but it is hard to find full size body towels in Korea.  The towels you find in your local Lotte Mart (department store) tend to run in what an American would call a "Large Dish Towel" size.  About this size:

Basically they are big enough to cover from shoulder to rear, but leave a lot of fluffy-warm-towel-happiness-fealings to be desired.  If you are one to snuggle up in your bath towel after a shower--these are not the towels for you.

But, last week sometime I was walking home a different route.  As noted, it is now sometimes Spring, and it sometimes is even warm, so I've been trying to explore a little bit more on my walk home from school.  And I walked past a store that had all these different types of clothes hanging on display racks outside.  I had walked past it before, but never really looked inside.  Nor actually looked at the cloth hanging.  It was too cold--I just wanted to get home.  But today (or that day) was a strolling day.  So as I strolled along the street, I took my time and actually looked at the pieces of fabric.  And came to the miraculous discovery: THERE ARE BEACH TOWEL-SIZED TOWELS IN THIS STORE!

To me, this is a golden ticket.  I was so happy.  I rushed inside and gazed in happiness at the towels:

There are a lot of towels in this store.  It made me smile.

I picked out two and paid for them.  I now have a spare set of towels for my apartment.  Until this breakthrough, I had only my one big fluffy purple towel that I had brought from home.  And while I love it, it takes some time to dry--so I have been in the situation that I have to use a dish towel (or tea towel) to dry my body with.  It always feel weird drying oneself with the Valentines or Snowman dish towels that Mom has sent you in a care package.  Not quiet what they were expected to be used as.

Spring Is Here!

Date: Late March-Early April

Here is a saying in Korea. I actually don't know the actual phrase, because I threw away the paper that I a Korean teacher write it down on.  But I know the translation:  "Winter is jealous of spring."  It means exactly that.  The winter is jealous of spring SO it won't let all the pretty spring flowers come into bloom.

The past couple of weeks we have had glimpses of the beauty of Spring.  It is coming.  But hten the evil clutches of winter creep back into the sky and it rains or is bleak and weary for two days in a row.  I have been wanting to put my winter jackets and such away for about 3 weeks now--but every time I get motivated (well, every time I schedule to put my clothes away tomorrow) the next day is grey and dreary.  So I keep my fleeces out one more day--which happens to be bright, sunny, warm, and beautiful.  Grumble grumble grumble.

Anyway, I wanted to show some pictures because, honestly, I love flowers.  I am a girl and I love flowers.  Not the silly cut kind, that are all human manipulated.  But the flowers outside, still on the trees and in the bushes.  So here are some of my kind of flowers.

tulips at school

rose bush at school.  NOT JUST ANY ROSE BUSH: BUT A ALICE IN WONDERLAND ROSE BUSH!  too bad they are pink--not red.  But I'm buying any paint.

pretty flower

little purple flowers

Yellow Flowers.

And the yellow flowers lead me to a story! Story time boys and girls!

I get a ride from my co-teacher/landlord to school every day.  It is pretty awesome.  Sometimes I give him a mini English lesson (usually I just say some phrase that he doesn't understand--like "I'd take sun over rain anyday--we had a good five minute conversation as I clumsily tried to explain "Take sun OVER rain") while other days he tries valiantly to teach me a little bit about Korea.  The Yellow Flowers Story is one such occasion.

We are driving to school and we past this cluster of flowers that line the sidewalk/apartment building.  Mr Kim points to the flowers: 

Mr Kim: "Do you know the name of the flowers?" 

Me:  I shake my head.

Mr Kim: "What would you call those flowers?"

Me: "Ehh, yellow flowers?"

He, for some reason that I don't entirely understand, finds this hilarious.  He can't stop laughing.  After about five minutes--or two stop lights--he calms down enough to tell me the Korean name of the flower (I don't remember, because seriously, they are just yellow flowers) and say that people know Spring is coming when these YELLOW FLOWERS bloom because they are the first flowers to bloom in spring.  

So, sorry winter, but spring is here.  The YELLOW FLOWERS have bloomed.  Its time for you to go away.  No more 30 cms of snow in Gwangju provience, and sorry, but can you give me the sun back?  Thanks!

Lunch with the Kims

Date: 3/19/2011

About 3 weeks ago I found out that my grandfather  had emergency surgery.  He was in pretty critical condition and for about a week it was very serious.  Unfortunately, because of the time difference, I read my family's email during 4th period at school--right before lunch.  When Mr Song (my Taekwondo teacher) walked in to escort his regular friends (including me) to lunch, I didn't great him with my usually, "HELLO!"  more of a "hello."  He asked my co-teacher if I was sick or if the medicine was making me sleepy.  I probably should have just said, "Yes, that's it." But I had been taken a little bit aback by the severity of Grandpa's condition and I leakily told my co-teachers about how Gpa was in a medicated coma.  Well...it was more like, "My grandfather...err...dad's dad?  Yes?  Yes, he is very sick.  He is in hospital.  Surgery.   Not good."

And my school was fantastic.  My Vice Principal who wears a cross, told me on our walk to lunch that she would pray for my family.  I had teachers I didn't even know knew how to speak English come up and tell me, "To be strong.  Your grandfather get better."  Mrs Itou, one of my older female teachers--who is perhaps one of my favorite teachers despite the fact that she only knows "Hello" "Beautiful" and "Bye"--learned a fourth word: "Grandfather."  For the rest of the week she would come up to me and say, "Grandfather?"  The Korean Grapevine went into action and by the end of lunch, Mrs Kim came down and sat down to talk to me.  She is so super busy, but she took a good 20 minutes sharing stories.  (Her mother was sick when she went to London after college, but the mother didn't tell Mrs Kim until she was abroad.)

Anyway, on Fridays I go to my country school and then I wasn't expecting to hear from anyone until I went back into school.  But Ms Kim is fantastic and she called me up around 10 am on Saturday morning asking if I wanted to go to lunch.

It was exactly what I needed.  I got in the shower and was ready to go way too early, but I was excited to see Ms Kim--and I got a double surprise when I get in the car and she her children: Saekjin and Saekyoon.  We head off to a little pizzeria.

I get another surprise when Saekjin takes off his coat:

 He's wearing his Christmas Present from my family!

Apparently, when Ms Kim told him that we were going to have lunch with Maggie, he ran back into his room and changed.  Adorable boy.

 Saekyoon was in his full baby glory too.

Saekjin watched the kids across the street play soccer while we waited for our pizza.

It was a great lunch.  I really love Ms Kim and her children are little dolls.  I got to play big sister, which is always fun (AND I am a much better big sister now that I am older.  I put behind the whole "squeeze the pressure points until you make your little brother cry" thing.  Sorry about that, Charlie...)

Update: Just in case you are wondering, Grandpa is doing much better and is in recovery.  Slowly and steadily he is getting better.

Samjigook

Date: 3/13/2011

After the teacher's walk, we all piled back into the cars and headed out to dinner.  The day before I had been offered an option between Bean Sprout Soup and Samjigook.  I have had Bean Sprout Soup so I went with the dish that I had not tried before.  To me, that makes perfect sense.  Mrs Kang was trying to explain that Samjigook had something to do with blood...but I just thought that she was using the wrong word, or I wasn't understanding, or something, or heck, even if it was to do with blood I can always just politely eat a lot of kimchi...

So, here is what Samjigook looks like:

Not too bad.  Looks kinda like Kimchi Jige (Kimchi Soup).  Jige and Gook are both words for soup.  Gook's are more broth like while Jige's are thicker.

Mrs Park was sitting and eating with us and so I asked her to explain to me what Samjigook was.  She had pulled this incredulous face when I had samjigook placed in front of me.

Samjigook is a soup made from Cow's Blood.  They take the blood and freeze it, or store it, or let it sit for a while and eventually it congeals into this block of .... something (blood?).  It kinda looks like what I imagine liver or a kidney would look like.  And then they kinda chunk the big block of congealed blood up into little-r pieces and put it in the soup as the "meat product."

Samjigook is usually eaten by men after a heavy night of drinking.  It is believed that the blood has a lot of healthy things in it that will help the body heal itself after one over-indulges.

The soup--on a whole--isn't actually that bad.  Admittedly, I shied away from the blood (I mean, it just is a little too gross and my brain was rebelling against the idea).   But the broth was delicious and I really liked the veggies.  It wasn't too spicy (granted, my spice tolerance has sky-rocketed in Korea).  But I would actually get samjigook again--and probably not eat the blood, but enjoy the other parts of the soup.

Plus, I scored major brownie points from my co-teachers at school.  They couldn't believe their foreign teacher was eating Samjigook.  I sometimes feel that the Korean teachers get together with other schools and talk about their foreigners...and I hope that my school brags about me.  I brag about my school and co-teachers.

The entire incident reminds me of a golden rule of Eating Strange Foods.  It's called: "Don't ask."  I did a homestay in Japan when I was in 9th grade (high school) and the trick I learned was, "Chew: 1, 2, 3.  Swallow.  Drink some water.  And after 24 hours--ask what it was."   I kinda think this takes the fun out of eating at a foreign table, but it does make sure you don't get sick.