Things That Are Happening Here

We have been in Gimhae 2 months now. Life is good but I’m a bit worried about the crowd that Parky has started hanging with, dubious looking characters at best I reckon.



Please forgive me for this blog. It is haphazard, but it all comes together (I think).
Gimhae impresses me a lot. Regardless of how much I miss Gangneung and living by the sea, it is a nice city. One thing people comment on upon coming to Corea is the absence of disabled people. It isn’t that there aren’t any, you just never see them. There is also an absence of footpaths, access ramps, beeping walk signals and any and all facilities that enable people with various disabilities to live an independent life in most of the cities. Gimhae seems to have these things and there is an enormous amount of blind people and people in wheelchairs and such here. I guess that makes sense. There also seems to be an absence of the staring and pointing that usually follow people who are different in Corea. I guess that makes sense too. That rule doesn’t apply to foreigners though, I get as much or more ‘Hello-ing’ here as anywhere else. In fact I would say more than any similar sized city. I think the absence of heavy industry in Gimhae means that there are less engineers and less of the East European workers that are so prevalent in big industry. Also not being on the sea there are no foreign ships docking and the accompanying foreigners that come with them. Now I think about it, my Hello-Muscle has been working overtime since the moment I arrived. Anyhoo, the point was that even though Corea has gone from decimation, through 50 years of dictatorship and into the ‘first’ world at such a rapid pace that the absence of some of the things that developed over the last century in more modern countries are markedly missing. Gimhae seems to be a leader in a lot of these things. It doesn’t make up for the absence of beach in front of your house, but it makes me feel good regardless. Parky and I went to our normal badminton playing park today. We have decided that we need not only to be a little fitter, but all of the sporting ability which I has a little proud of a few years ago is leaving me. Our school teachers play volleyball every Wednesday, and the first time I tried to play I was just mental. No timing, no hand eye coordination, no nothing, just a mental case randomly swiping the air every time the ball came over the net. It was embarrassing. In my defence, volleyball is played by all of the teachers in every school in Corea (as far as I know) every Wednesday afternoon and has been played for quite some time. The teachers are very good at it and very, very competitive. Playing like a mental case didn’t exactly endear me to my new co-workers, especially the ones on my team (but being a weiguk gets you through a lot of these situations (IYHELY,YWKWIM)). The upshot was that Parky and I have taken to playing badminton in the park down the road every now and then. Today however there was a bit of a fair going on there. It was a fair for everyone to go and have fun interacting with intellectually handicapped people. There were loads of drumming bands, clay making, huge bubble thingys, throw water balloons at a guy’s head and things like ‘put on a blindfold grab a cane and try to get around’ ‘jump in a wheelchair and see how long your arms last’. Everything was free, including tucker, tea and coffee but people carried donation boxes about the place, so you could donate if you chose. It was really groovy. I know it doesn’t sound really groovy, but it was. I said to Parky that I should have opened a stand saying ‘Hello’ to people for a dollar. They could have earned a fortune. People were pretty excited about saying hello to us. It’s also amazing how many people speak English to Parky and get freaked out when she responds in Corean. I don’t know if it’s because she is tall, or with a foreigner or what it is, but one guy even commented ‘Wow, your Corean is really good!’ She didn’t bother to explain. It was a great day had by all and just a groovy atmosphere all round. And I like the banner most “being prepared for dealing with disabled people”. That’s Corean for “learn not to point and stare, you ignorant wanker”. It was fun and it was extremely worthwhile. As I miss Gangneung more and more, things like this make me quite happy to be living in city with a first world economy that is starting to realise that there is more to it than just being wealthy.

On the school front, I have been given 4 (from my 25) hours a week to use at my discretion (~ish, they don’t let me go to the pub). The only catch is that I must enter three students from grades 3,4,5 and 6 in a state-wide English speech competition in November. All previous teachers have used those 4 hours to prepare the 12 students with the best grades from the previous year for the prestigious competition. I have, over the past 2 months, convinced my school to allow me to take 2 hours per week and begin free lessons for underprivileged students from the 5th and 6th grades. This involves setting up an entire new curriculum, applying for and getting approval for a budget for it. We got approval on Wednesday, course starts on Monday! YAY! I have also tossed the 12 best students, who achieved the best results on a written, multiple choice test at the end of last year (easy to grade I guess) who should be entering the speech contest in November and orally interviewed any 5th or 6th grade students who were interested in applying for the 'Special Curriculum' class (70 students over 2 afternoons). I have broadened the class to accommodate 25 of the best speakers (in my opinion). Apparently I have chosen half a dozen 'c' grade students and about 10 'b' graders. I am still trying to convince the admin staff that 'a' grade students are not necessarily the best speakers (think of maxi for one example, best English and worst grades on the planet). I am loving work at this school, and I am really lucky to be working with such trusting and flexible people here. I shouldn’t write blogs on Saturday afternoon, I have warbled on for quite a while here, but I'm pretty proud of what’s going on. So there you are, I have put myself out on a limb, I'm out of my depth and I might end up with egg on my face. (I apologise for that sentence, I have been teaching idioms, metaphors and similes all week).