Pride of Jeju

Every region in Korea is famous for something; Naju is famous for its pears, Gyeong-ju is famous for its red(azuki)-bean paste bread (which is way more tasty than you may think), Seoul is famous for being, well, Seoul, and Jeju is famous for....for Jeju oranges. (Jeju oranges = mandarin orange)

And Jeju is very proud of its oranges. Oranges, oranges everywhere, and all so good to eat!

I'm quite serious when I say there are oranges everywhere. By the time I arrive at school every morning, I've at least seen three different groves (from my apartment, on the way to school, another next to my school). For any given running loop I do, it's guaranteed that I'll at least pass five groves, as many as 15 on a 6mi run. I pass through orange grove central when I take the bus to the pool (30min ride). Several students have told me that their families are in the Jeju orange business. One girl this weekend claimed she picked 1000 oranges (I verified in Korean, the other students were just as surprised). The orange business is boomin'--look at the map. The everyday sighted groves are boxed, asterisks for other groves.
There are orange doesn't fall far from the tree. Since there are orange groves everywhere, there are oranges everywhere to eat. Time to time, my host family has a good stock, and I do more than my fair share to help consume them before they all rot. On good weeks, I can keep up an average of 10 or more a day. Last week, the TKD master had two crates full of oranges. In addition to every student eating at least 2 each, he sent Erin and I home with more than 30, which took my two days to consume. Many restaurants have crates of oranges near the door, up for grabs by the patrons. These oranges are small and east to give away--I've gotten many on random occasions.

Considering the amount of oranges the average Jeju Islander has eaten over a lifetime, there is a correct, optimized protocol to peeling a Jeju orange. Every Jeju Islander seems to know from birth the most proper, convenient, and efficient technique for orange peeling, and I just look stupid. So that you are prepared for any visit to Jeju, when you are eating an orange: first break the orange in half from the bottom, then break into quarters,then effortlessly peel away the quarter sections away from the peel!

Quick, no peel under the fingernail, and the peel is left intact.

Although there are several things Jeju is proud of, the orange is the pride of Jeju. This pride hass manifested in several physical forms, which includes, but is not limited to:

images on city electric boxes


lamp post design

bus stops


waste disposal areas



...and, my favorite, the pinnacle of pride, be prepared,...

the Jeju United (soccer team) mascot!



The Jeju orange is that good, and Jeju is that proud.

Taekwondo **BONUS VIDEO**

I'd been waiting so long to get a video of this! And finally, Thursday, I had my chance.

Several times, before my rag-tag tkd group started our session, the black belt competition group would practice their performance routines. This is a series of taekwondo moves (punches, kicks, blocks) coordinated to music. Cool, right? Yes, it's cool, but it cracks me up--these performance taekwondo routines seem to be the closest thing in Korea to organized cheerleading routines! There's punching, jumping, kicks, uniforms....all put to music.... But isn't taekwondo (fighting!) one of the farthest things from girly cheerleading? What I also enjoy is watching their faces. The girls sometimes goof-off a little, but the boys are straight-faced, giving it 110%. Ashley and I started learning one performance routine, but we're hopeless.

The juxtaposition of everything never fails to amuse me. I hope you enjoy. I sure do!

Mystery of Haggis Magic Panties

Anytime I've allowed the students to freely draw, Haggis Magic Panties have appeared. For the Carmen Sandiego detective applications, the first occurrence, a student drew Haggis Magic Panties. For my polite language gift giving lesson, the Haggis Magic Panties appeared again. And twice again as a Halloween costumes: Haggis Woman and Haggis mask. What are Haggis Magic Panties?

"Teacher, for babies. Very famous."
Oh.......diapers?
"Yes, Teacher!"
So if I go to Homeplus (a Korean super-super-super store), I'll find Haggis Magic Panties?
"YES!"

I was excited to find out what Haggis was all about. What crazy anime character would be the poster face for Haggis Magic Panties? My students' drawings had let my imagination run wild. But, I was let down at Homeplus when all I saw were tamely-advertised Huggies...

...till I looked at the Hangul. Huggies was Hangulized 하기스=ha-gi-seu=Haggis. And 매직 팬티 = meh-jik phan-tee = magic panty. So much for the crazy Haggis Woman.

Attack of the Swine Flu

Swine flu is visibly among us here at SGJA Girls' Middle School (more about swine flu at SGJA). It's what you see (face masks!) and what you don't see (students absent). The phenomenon of face masks is what I find curious. These aren't just simple paper and string. Most are cloth, and other with design. With some convincing, I got some students to model.

I've started a lot of classes by asking "Who's sick?", then going over the vocabulary for headache, fever, sore throat, runny/stuffy nose, stomach ache, etc. The only consistent smiling faces are the stickers I give to students. You can see the timeline of smiley faces, happy smiley people to smiley nurse and doctor...

What my 엄마 did to me UPDATE

봉숭아=pong-soong-ah=crushed flower ointment applied to nails that lasts for several months

It's been almost two months since my Awm-ma 봉숭아-ed my fingernails (original post). There's still orange on my nails, but it's growing out. What do you think? Is my nailbed color prettier than normal?

Happy Halloween

I'm not my students first or only foreigner teacher. My school has had at least 3 or 4 past ETAs, plus they have foreign teachers at hagwon. Consequently, American culture is nothing new to them. And they're no dummies; they know Halloween means candy and fun. Some ETAs are really into Halloween: they went all out on candy, decorations, and lesson planning. I'm very low-key when it comes to Halloween, but I did give the kids a Halloween lesson. I told them there were three things for Halloween: Jack o'Lanterns, Costumes, and Trick or Treat... I inspired some kids to think outside the box....

Best drawn pumpkin and costume!

Victory (aka V.I., Big Bang member) is apparently known for bags under his eyes,
which makes him look like a panda...

(1) Jack o'Lanterns are pumpkins with faces.
I debated about teaching this word, as it will be near useless to them for vocabulary. However, it was a good pronunciation lesson, as there's no phonetic tricks to pronouncing it. I showed a powerpoint of the parts of a jack o'lantern face and then different types of faces. The students then drew their own pumpkins and wrote (helper vocab):
My jack o'lantern is ________ (smiling, happy, sad, spooky, scary, hungry).
My jack o'lantern has _____ __________. (big, small, triangle, circle) (eyes, nose, mouth).

pumpkin with glasses, bling bling pretty pumpkin, pirate pumpkin, rabbit pumpkin

2 of my favorite pumpkins: 'Sick Pumpkin' drawn by a student wearing a
face mask and 'Sunflower Pumpkin' drawn by student who I always
call Sunflower(for the sunflower design on her glasses)

(2) Costumes. Children wear cute costumes; adults wear scary costumes.
This was better explained by showing them different types of costumes, from a simple witch costume to Wonder Woman. Like the pumpkins, they drew a costume, then wrote:
For Halloween, I want to be ________ because ___________________.

An egg ghost, Haggis (Magic Pantie) Woman, kimchi fridge, vampire

(3) Trick or Treat
Treat simply means candy, but trick was harder to explain. Until ABC removed the Scarecrow Smackdown video, I used the video to explain. A man dressed a scarecrow lies still with the candy bowl waiting to scare trick or treaters, until the trick's on him.... the kids thought the video was hilarious!



Baskin Robbins celebrates Halloween too...

the Mr. Pizza Beselo

Beselo = bay-sel-lo = best seller (from Best Seller & Best Lover pizzas)

I had promised awhile ago that I would treat JongIn to pizza after her midterms. Scheduling conflicts and language barrier issues delayed the pizza outing till this weekend, when SanMi could join us. I've heard a great many a things about Korean style pizza, like toppings such as corn and sweet potato, and had consequently kept my expectations low. An American Seogwipo friend had receommended "I Want Pizza", but when JongIn heard "pizza" that translated to "Mr. Pizza", a more expensive Korean pizza dine-in chain. I let JongIn and SanMi choose the pizza, and they chose...

...the Beselo.

The Beselo, the name extra short for Best Seller, which refers to its origin: it's a combination of the bestsellers Mr. Pizza pizzas of previous years. Each piece has one of the special Beselo toppings: chicken, crab, shrimp, or potato with ham (2 pieces each, 8 pieces total). Other ingredients include cheese, corn, bell pepper, sausage, BBQ sauce, sweet potato, mayo....among other things...

My standard criteria for pizza are three-fold: (1) a good crust, (2) tomato sauce, (3) cheese. As far as pizza go, the Beselo had cheese. However, if you judge the Beselo without the pizza criteria, if you judge it not expecting it to be a pizza, you would compare the Beselo to a quesadilla. That's right--Mr. Pizza may have accidentally stumbled upon Mexican food. In your mouth, all it is is corn, cheese, meat, and a thin flour crust, which is more like a tortilla. And this is one expensive quesadilla--regular size is 25,000won (about $20). I thought the crust would be the saving grace for the Beselo as a pizza, but don't let appearances fool you. American pizza makers like to put a little something extra, usually cheese, in the crust, and Korea caught the trend; there's sweet potato in that crust.

The Beselo was not my piece of pizza; I won't be going back. But this was a treat for JongIn and SanMi, and they enjoyed it, so all is well! Generally, as far as Western food in Korea goes, I keep my expectations low. No restaurants or stores here are trying to authenticate Western food; instead they take the idea and have created whatever would sell best to the Korean palate, which is what they should be doing.

Dad--I miss YOUR pizza!