Black and Orange Fiasco - Tuesday Oct. 30, 2007

Classes went really well today!! The students enjoy coloring and learning about Halloween. I told the students that black and orange are Halloween colors. I also told them that if they wear black and orange tomorrow, come find me, and say "Trick-or-Treat," I will give them candy. That proposes a problem since I haven't had all my classes yet this week, so after lunch I went around and tried to explain to individual teachers. Oh, goodness! Many teachers understood after a while, but most students had already left. So, I didn't know what to do.

Instead of lunch at school, I went out with a third grade student's mom. She invited me out last week. We went to a Shyabu Shyabu restaurant nearby the school. She doesn't speak a lot of English, but we were able to have a broken English-Korean conversation. It was the first conversation I've had where we literally inserted the word of our native language if we didn't know it in the foreign language, but it worked! She volunteers in the English Village occasionally. She told me that she wants to move to the states in a few years. Right now, she is studying math and wants to become a teacher. I didn't want to say this, but if she moves to the states, her son will have a difficult time catching up in school without knowing English, she won't be certified to teach without going back to school, and I'm not sure how her husband will do in a job without knowing English. Regarding her son, it would be like moving an American student to Korea without any language training. Yikes!

After lunch, she drove me to Julie's apartment for tutoring. I'm a horrible student, though; I didn't have my book with me. Instead we chatted in Korean for a while, then in English, and watched part of a Korean talk show. I left from her apartment to go straight to EMart. Since I promised the children candy, I had to go buy it. I had an awkward and unwelcomed experience while there. I was approached by a foreigner (I will not disclose his nationality) to have a conversation. I never did catch on to that whole "Don't talk to strangers" deal. English is not his first language, but he spoke it well. He offered to hold my shopping basket while I shopped around and we talked. I wasn't incredibly comfortable with the concept, but he kind of took it from me. He has been in Korea for 4 years through government work and doesn't have any family here; he also speaks Korean. When I told him that I had to get going, he asked me if I wanted to get a drink with him. I told him that I had to get going, because my homestay mom was expecting me. He was quite persistant on telling me that he wanted to get a drink with me, and I was quite persistant in refusing. He said we could just get something in EMart at McDonalds or something, and once again I refused. He then offered to drive me home. Of course, my answer was no and I said I would take a taxi. The whole time I thanked him for being so nice and I apologized repeatedly. After refusing many times, he then offered to let me drive his car. WEIRD!! Of course I'm not going to drive his car! He followed me through the checkout and helped me put my groceries into the bag. I carried the bag outside, and he came outside with me. I thanked him again and told him that I had to get going. I asked him what he was doing at EMart (since he came outside with me without groceries), and he said that he was done with work and just wanted to hang out somewhere. He asked if he could have my phone number, and I told him that I have his card and would call him. He works out of Seoul and said that he might not be in Wonju when I called. I said that he could tell me when he would be in Wonju again when I call. He saw that my bag was heavy and tried to take it from me. I told him that it was okay and kind of tugged back on it. He wouldn't give it to me until I asked him to let go. He made me promise to call him and hang out with him when he comes back to Wonju before I could leave to get in the taxi. The whole time he was telling me not to get the wrong idea about his propositions, but I didn't until he started being so incredibly persistant. All-in-all, not a fun experience at all! I was somewhat shaken afterward and frustrated.

I talked to Lauren on the taxi ride home; I hadn't talked to her since last Thursday. When I got home, I ate ramen for dinner. After dinner, I watched my host sister's and host brother's school play performances (my host mom taped them) and played around with my host sister for a while.

I took a shower and then showed my host mom my pics from NoKo. She helped me translate some of the rock writings (Translation: Praise Communism! Praise Kim Jong Il! Praise Kim Il Sung!) She was impressed with how beautiful it all was.

I cut open the bags of candy and realized just exactly how much I got. I thought that maybe there was 200 pieces per bag. Oh no...there's about 400. I bought 3 bags. I have 560 kids. Oops! Oh well, I'll have extra! I also spent the night making Halloween signs and candy bags for my host sibs and making a big orange pumpkin that says "Happy Halloween." I made the pumpkin, because although I asked the students to wear black and orange, I realized that I have absolutely not one single piece of orange clothing in Korea.

Tomorrow should be an interesting day!!