A quick update from the past couple weeks. After making plans to see a baseball game so many weekends in a row, I finally made it to a couple. What a riot. The fans love baseball and the really love their home team. They sings songs, chant and do the wave all around the stadium for the whole game, even when their team is losing. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of baseball but these games are really enjoyable just because of the energy in the stadium. They cheer like every single person in the stadium has a personal connection to the teams. But what kills me every time; at the end of the game they all pass around orange plastic grocery bags, which they fill with air, then tie off, and then use the handles to strap the bags around their ears and wear them on top of their heads. However, the bags are used for something productive after the game, everyone uses them to throw their trash in and then toss the bags when they leave the stadium.

I also made my first visit to the movie theater over here. When you purchase your ticket you actually pick your seat in the theater. Definitely nice to not have to worry about getting there early to get a seat. I finally got to see The Hunger Games, which I have been anxiously awaiting since I finished the book series this past summer. And the movie did not disappoint! Also, as we makes our way through spring time, the cherry blossoms were all beautifully in bloom. Below is the track I go to for running, lined with cherry blossoms trees in full bloom.

In my last blog post I talked a lot about the pressure put on kids here, especially in school. So in this post I wanted to at least quickly look at the flip side. It's worth noting that South Korea has one of the best of public school systems in the world. Consistently Korea ranks among the top three countries in the world for test scoring and overall education while the US lingers down between 15-30 depending on the grade.  I've also read that Korea spends more money per student per capita then most others countries in OECD, about a 3:1 ratio (but I can't seem to find the article that sited this). In addition, to be a public elementary school teacher then you must have attended one of the national universities for education in Korea. I've also been told that without a degree from one of these universities you may not be teacher in public schools at all in Korea. Public school teachers are also required to change schools in their city every 3-4 years. This allows for the best teachers to be filtered throughout the education system, keeping the schools more equal when it comes to the quality of education that's offered. I live and work in one of the poorest area's of Busan but the kids here are still getting the same education as those in wealthier area's. Also, it's worth mentioning that public school teachers are paid almost twice as much as private school teachers here. It's far more prestigious to teach in a public school then private. In fact,  there is actually black-list of private schools in Korea for ESL teachers to stay away from.

Considering all this, the US could certainly learn some things from Korea. Our government continues to battle over education spending with public officials claiming that teachers don't need to paid as much since they don't work the whole year. Public schools in poor area's are a joke and those kids are put at a huge disadvantage which often perpetuates the violence we see in poor area's of the country. Like I said, I live in a poor area of Busan, but not once have I felt unsafe. The crime rate in Korea is remarkably low and this is certainly linked to their education system. I could go on but I think I've made my point. While in my last post I explored a harsher side of the education system here it's always important to remember there are pro's and cons to every institution in every country.  But what if we all could be open minded enough to consider other cultures and what they have to offer?

Culture Shock

Now that I feel like I'm pretty settled in, I guess it's time to move on to blog posts that are more about the observations I'm making as I learn more about the culture here. First of all though, I teach 3rd graders on Fridays, and today they were all taking a test so I didn't have any classes. But a few minutes ago, on my way back to my classroom from lunch, I saw one of my adorable 3rd grade girls in hall. She yelled, "Becca Teacher!", and when I turned around to say hi, I saw her running at me, arms stretched out, ready to jump in for a big hug...which is exactly what she got! Definitely made my day.

But speaking of kids, I definitely want to talk about the massive amount of pressure put on these kids starting from a very young age. On Fridays, I have to majorly tone down my excitement for weekend because most of these kids don't view the weekend as the same kind of release that we do. Most of the kids at my school go to hagwon (a private academy for further schooling) everyday after they finish school here, and are there as late as 9 or 10pm. They go on Saturdays and even on Sunday's for some of them, therefore, they have no concept of the weekend.  

There is tremendous pressure put on these kids as early as kindergarten to be the best in school and achieve the highest test scores. And with this kind of pressure on the kids, comes the same kind of pressure on the schools. Therefore, this doesn't allow the teachers to deviate from the textbook much. The kids take a standardized midterm test sometime in July in I think, and the teachers at my school are already stressing about it. Lessons are quickly becoming more and more crammed as it is vital the kids memorize what is in their textbook for the test. If your students score poorly, not only does that reflect on your school and you as teacher, but it also makes some students subject physical consequences from their parents; which is truly the worst and most heartbreaking part of all of this. A couple weeks ago I went to language exchange in which Koreans and foreigners meet up at a cafe and hang out. I was talking to a couple Korean guys around the same age and when the subject of education and kids came up, they all agreed that they didn't want to put the same kind of pressure on their kids whenever they may have them. But the harsh reality of the situation is that if you don't, you almost put your kids at a disadvantage. I do want to point out that Korea is by no means an abusive society, but in this sense the cultural differences are so vastly different, that it makes them hard to grasp.

In addition to the pressure put on kids in school, there is also a lot of pressure on girls to look a certain way. As Americans, we can certainly all understand this one, but the difference here is the reliance on plastic surgery. From as early as elementary school it's a normal conversation to have with your family and your daughter about what kind of plastic surgery she'll need when she gets older. In the US I think of plastic surgery as  more of a luxury, but here it's often a necessity. At home it definitely doesn't hurt to be an attractive person in the business world but here you may be blatantly passed over for a job for someone who is better looking regardless of qualifications.

I realize this hasn't been an especially uplifting post and don't get me wrong, there are a lot of things I love about this country and things that crack me up. But today it was feeling more interesting to talk about some of major differences.

The view from my apartment balcony

Hello again. Sorry for taking so long to update the blog, but here we go. First of all, I've finally done some more exploring and found that my apartment is actually really close to a much more happening area. I knew that I was pretty much in between two subway stops but had only been showed the way to one. In my search for a decent cup of coffee, I decided to venture to the other stop by way of the maps application on my phone (thank god for smart phones). Not only does this subway have a Starbucks literally across the street, but it's actually the stop with the major grocery stores and a lovely running track!  I'd been walking 10 minutes to another subway stop just to ride the subway for about 2 minutes and get off to go to the grocery store, just to find that I could actually be walking there in the same amount of time. Definitely one of the best discoveries I've made in the past couple weeks. This revelation has really eliminated my feelings of isolation and I'm really starting to love where I live.

Another awesome discovery in the past week has been Kimbop. Kimbop is like Korean sushi. The difference between this and regular sushi is that the seaweed is on the outside surrounding the rice, and the fillings are usually some kind of fresh vegetables, radish and cooked meet. I had heard from so many people that Kimbop was great but had yet to try any until I had dinner with a friend last week. We decided it would fun to just walk down the street and pick a little Korean place randomly and hope the food was good...it was a win for us. We both ordered a roll of kimbop, which was rolled on the spot with all fresh ingredients, and some kind of fried, cheese filled pancake that came with rice and salad. All of our food came with an assortment of little Korean sides like kimchi, some kind of tofu (or maybe it was fish? I can never tell) and a broth like soup. We were certainly full by the end of the meal which came to a grand total 6,500\, which is about $6 at home! It's crazy how cheap some stuff is here but such a nice surprise to find good food that's so inexpensive.

Alli and Mari at the "Oh! Motel"

Prior to dinner that night I had my first Korean lesson! I've decided to take one on one lessons with a Korean instructor once a week for at least the next month or so. My first lesson was great and very informative. We started with the basics, going over all the symbols, their sounds, how to form a basic syllable and some irregular rules of pronunciation. I've just finished some practicing and can actually sound out syllables now. Even though I have no idea what I'm saying, it's still really exciting to start to read Korean!

This weekend I went on my first real cultural outing with some friends. We ventured out to a Buddhist temple past Haeundae beach with was a ways away. I had to take the subway about 25 stops to the end of the line and then hop on a bus from there to get to the temple. Also, it should be noted that was my first real Korean bus ride; there should be a warning on the side of the buses that should read something like hold on for dear life and try not to throw up. First think of what you would consider a packed public transit bus, now triple that; this is typical Korean bus ride. It was also a beautiful day so there was tons of traffic, and what should have been a 15 minute ride turned into an hour. But the temple was well worth it. It was in a beautiful setting, sitting on top cliffs that overlook the ocean. The weather was beautiful and we had a great afternoon walking around, taking pictures and sitting on the cliffs taking in some ocean air and the spring sun.

There are so many great things about Korea and I'm having so much fun exploring all of them. However, not everything can be perfect and it would figure that I've run into a bit of an issue with one of my co-teachers. For the most part school has been a pretty easy transition and I'm getting a lot of encouragement from two out of my three co-teachers. However, this one teacher in particular isn't giving me hardly any class time to actually teach. When the students learn new words or phrases, she has them repeat after her rather then me and more often then not, her pronunciation isn't quite right. I feel like the students are really missing out as this is the whole reason I'm here, and I'm in the process of trying to figure out how to address the issue, if at all. Other then this one minor issue though, everything is going great here and I can't wait for all that's to come!