SOMETIMES I’M JUST NOT IN THE MOOD

I know (and I don’t think I’m being paranoid) that sometimes people talk about me when I’m in the room. How do I know? I recognize the word “Martin” which is the same in Korean as in English. I accept this and assume that they’re not saying anything nasty about me. I know that I’m a bit of a joke to them because I don’t speak Korean so therefore I appear like an imbecile. I accept this. But I do have my moments when I just want to scream to shut up and not mention my name. Today was one of those days. I wasn’t in the best of moods either for some unknown reason or because I am sometimes tired of being the object of other people’s conversation. However, what can I do? Stand up and scream to not talk about me? They wouldn’t know what I was saying anyhow. So I suffer through it. I’m glad it only bothers me occasionally or I’d have a big problem.

This morning Cecilia (who shall now be known by her real name of Min Kyung, not to be confused with the previous English teacher named Mee Kyung) asked me for Yoon-soo’s number so she could discuss what happened with my vacation problem. I guess this is weighing heavily on her mind because I think they’ve saddled her with making sure I’m happy and making sure that I’m not a problem. It’s a lousy job to have. I didn’t want her to phone him before I spoke to him, but I said nothing. If it makes her happy to get involved, I can’t stop it.

About an hour after this I got a call from Yoon-soo. I guess the principal, vice-principal, Min Kyung, and Yoon-soo had a big powwow over me. I apologized to Yoon-soo for him getting dragged into this and reviewed the situation with him. I think there was a misunderstanding on that first day. He assumed I meant going to Texas was vacation time when I specifically said it wasn’t to be counted as vacation. He told me not to worry, I would get my 2 weeks vacation. I said I was worried and I wasn’t very happy. I said that if they would have said from the start it was to be counted as vacation time, I would have walked out of the school. I was getting angry. He went on to explain to me that you get 1 day off in Korea for a family member’s wedding so therefore they should take five days from me. I told him that was stupid because I can’t run off to a family member’s wedding half a world away in one day. He then said that all Korean teacher’s only get 14 days holiday a year. That’s the “personal” holiday. The rest of the summer and winter break are “study” holidays where the teacher doesn’t come to work but is “studying” at home. It’s just some bullshit to get around the rules. I love the people here but it’s one fucked up place. (I will further elaborate on that later). He said that I’ll get 2 weeks vacation in the summer, and 2 weeks in the winter. One of the weeks will be “personal” vacation, and one of the weeks will be “study” vacation. As far as the one day holiday for the wedding goes, the principal has the discretion to give more time off and not report it to anyone so it’s like it never happened. What a load of crap. However, since I now have more time off than I was supposed to, I shouldn’t complain. Even if the whole thing is stupid.

After I got off the phone with him the principal made an appearance in the teacher’s room and invited me to sit with him. I’m sitting, he’s sitting, the vice-principal is sitting at his desk, and the lowly Min Kyung is standing and translating. I don’t know why she couldn’t sit down. I guess she wasn’t invited to, and god forbid you should sit down without the godlike principal inviting you to. (I know, cultural differences). The only thing I wanted to express to the principal was that I was very sorry about all the misunderstandings. I think he was telling me what Yoon-soo had told me on the phone. I only listen with half an ear because the translations don’t always match the words being said. There are five weeks off in the summer. The first week will be my “study” week. The next 3 will be the camp I run. Then the fifth week will be my personal vacation. So I think we all parted friends after that.

Later on in the day I’m sitting in the teacher’s room (I could use some classes) and there are two girls standing near the door. This woman teacher walks in and whacks each of them on the back. It wasn’t a love tap. She’s smiling like it’s a big joke. I have my jaw on the floor. After I pick it up I ask another teacher (who has good English) if she just hit them. I saw it, but I couldn’t believe it. He said yes, she did. I said she was stupid because it’s against the rules of the school board. It’s wrong for a multitude of reasons, but let’s stick with the obvious. I said how are the children supposed to learn to respect the rules when the teachers can just ignore them. He went on about how traditionally the teachers could hit the kids. I said those days are gone. There are rules against it. I also said that if any teacher would have hit my kids, I would have come to the school and whacked them with a baseball bat. What is wrong with these people? You don’t hit other people. It’s wrong. You don’t hit children. It’s wrong. Wrong. It’s not a cultural thing, it’s a question of right or wrong. I’m beginning to doubt my staying power here because these things upset me very much. I wanted to smack the teacher to see if she thought that was funny.

I had a discussion with Min Kyung about how I thought it was terrible how many families ship their kids off because they have to work too much. I said family is more important than work, but in Korea it seems that work is more important than family. She seemed surprised I said that. This is a woman with a four year old daughter who lives hundreds of miles away. She works from 8AM until somewhere between 5PM and 8PM. Her husband works from 7AM to 7PM minimum. Am I crazy? Do I have strange priorities? I’ve said these are the nicest people I’ve ever come across, but they are bonkers. I said I would accept whatever cultural differences came my way but I never expected them to be questions of right and wrong. You raise your kids if you can. You don’t hit children. I want to scream.

Tonight the teachers had dinner together. As we were walking from the school to our cars my new friend Minkee (he’s a science teacher who has excellent English) asked me if I ate dog. I said no, were we eating dog tonight. He said yes. I said you’re kidding me and he assured me he wasn’t. We get to the restaurant and they bring out the raw meat (because you grill it yourself at the table) and I said, “is that the dog”. He said yes. I said, “really? Dog as in bark, bark”. He said no. Apparently he never said dog but the accent fooled me. It was duck, not dog. I don’t know why they made such a big deal out of duck, but they did. I really did think we were going to a dog diner.

Some of the teachers, and the principal, like to drink. They pour down the Soju (the Korean alcohol) one glass after another. The principal got pretty relaxed and when we were leaving he bowed to me, took my hand, shook it and said “thank you”. He was definetly drunk. Then outside he walks up to me (and this guy doesn’t talk to me) and says “have a good night, see you tomorrow”. It was a joke because there is no school tomorrow. I told Min Kyung and Minkee that the principal should drink more often. He’s much more pleasant after a few drinks.

Then the physical education teacher comes up to me to tell me he’s handsome (we settled that argument at the last dinner with paper, scissors, rock) and I reminded him that I was the most handsome. He then wanted to know what soccer team I wanted to win in the World Cup. (This is all in Korean with translation). I told him Korea of course. He then told me that Canada is rotten in soccer and I agreed with him. He then said, and the vice-principal agreed, that Canada was good in ice hockey. These men know their sports. The physical education teacher was blitzed. He may have a drinking problem I told Minkee and Min Kyung that unlike the principal, he needed to drink less. Actually I think the whole country needs to go on a bender and lighten up and reexamine their priorities. But that’s just me.

After dinner I went to Starbucks and had a Banana Cream Frapichino. Mmn, Mmn, good. That was my first one. I recommend it. Now I have to decide if I will get up at 4AM to watch the World Cup game between Korea and Switzerland. Most of the country will be up, but if I get up, the soccer will put me back to sleep.