Video News Project

A project that my students just finished was a Video News Project. The task was to create a short, informational video in English (e.g. news, how-to, commercial, etc.). This video is worth 20% of their English grade, and the top three videos will win their creators a pizza party.

I have posted the #1 video below. You'll notice some interesting things in the video, which are very reflective of Korean culture and their English woes:

1. You can hear the students shuffling around in their house slippers. Nobody wears shoes inside, not even at school.
2. There is almost a total lack of article use (i.e. a/an/the). Articles don't exist in the Korean language.
3. The students' inflection when speaking in English is totally off. They accent the wrong parts of words constantly. Inflection in languages around the world is very different. Korean, however, is not a tonal language like Chinese, they simply uses rises in different parts of words and sentences than in English.
4. The girls frame their faces by cutting their hair straight across the bangs and tapered inward from the temples to their chin. This gives the appearance of a tapered jawline, a characteristic of foreigners that the Koreans envy.



Aren't the kids great!??

Get It Right Korea!

slam time:

I'm loving my time here with my love, new friends, new environment, food and people. My time here has been spent well and I can't believe time has flown by so quickly. One year sounded so long, but its hard to believe we only have 4 more months left! 

On the other hand, we are very excited to get home.  We will finally be able to communicate with people around us. We won't feel as invisible and/or at the same time feel like we're being gawked at. When I ask for something, I'll know I'm getting what I asked for, oh yeah... and people will have washed their hands regularly throughout the day.

For example: My co teacher complained about how sick she was feeling. She had a fever the night before, a terrible cough and was losing her voice. She looked pretty bad, so she had decided to leave school early to take a rest. As she was describing her symptoms and coughing in her hand, she proceeded to stick her hands in my trail mix bag and dig around for ALL OF MY BANANA CHIPS. 

First of all, the banana chips are the best part. Secondly, I have never seen her wash her hands. Ever. So needless to say, I threw away my bag of trail mix and went on my day very hungry. 

Miscommunication is very common here in Korea. People tend to freak out if you try to speak English to them. Granted, I know that many people here do not speak English, which is fine! But if they would just get over the initial shock of not understanding and just look at me we could work things out. Body language and konglish (the mix of Korean and English) can go so far! 

For example : I went to go get my hair permed. I know I know. I couldn't help but hear my mother's voice saying: "Stephanie, you should really appreciate your natural hair. A lot of people pay good money for your curls!"

Well I had to perm my hair so it could grow out normally, and I showed the hair dresser what I wanted my hair to look like. 4 hours later, I came out looking like a hybrid between a cracked out poodle and a back-up dancer for a Madonna video. Needless to say I cried on my way home and just pinned it back . 

Please don't get me wrong, this trip has been great! It has helped me grow as an individual and also with my relationship with N8, but I cannot wait to get back to Pittsburgh! 

The Hills Are Alive

As the sun comes out, so do the people....

This weekend was a beautiful one! On Saturday I decided to ride over to the stadium with a few friends to see a Gangwon-do (provincial) soccer game. There was a good crowd in the stadium all chanting encouraging things to our team. The Gangwon-do soccer team color is bright orange which was quite a sight at the stadium. 

 

Afterwards I had to literally kick start the motorbike (which we have to do everytime, because we're that classy) to go meet Nate at the beach because he had gone for a long run as to prepare for a half marathon that he is running in the end of April. We were planning on staying at the beach for a while to read but it became very chilly so we headed home.

On Sunday we had our first Gangneung Sports Day! Quite a few people came out to Kwon Dong University to play kickball, Frisbee, catch and just to lounge around in the grass under the warm sky.  It was a nice change of pace! Later we all moved to the beach for a warm coffee.

 

Later that night we met up with some Korean friends and had a delicious oyster dinner.

First we ate some potato pancake with green onions, shrimp and fried oysters then shared some oyster dishes with rice and kimchi.  It was all so good. 

 

Spring has Sprung!

April has proven to be a good start on good weather and good moods! 

April Fools Day was a bust: I had planned to wake up late at night and paint N8's nails fire engine red and then sneak off to school early and take the nail polish remover with me...but my alarm clock failed me and it was a big flop. But I like pranks, so I just might keep my nail polish handy.

We celebrated Hai's birthday this weekend in Seoul. We went out for a performance called Nanta.  It is a non verbal, musical performance. It is very similar to STOMP and it is a family friendly show.  We enjoyed ourselves much more than we thought we would. Afterwards we went out to a Vietnamese restaurant, then to an underground Hukkha bar, then sang our little hearts out at noribong, AND THEN to an after hours night club. Most of our group, by this point, had disintegrated and we were left with 5 people in the group.  We entered the club around 3AM. I have never been in a place so crowded in my life. People were shoulder to

shoulder and jam packed near the DJ. The funny thing about Korea is that people here love pop music, but no one ever dances. Everyone 

was just bobbing up and down to the music and pushing their way through to go to the bathroom or to the bar. Our little group managed to shove our way to the upstairs where we'd hope there was more room, but we found ourselves stuck in the midst of a sea of people. I broke out into hysterical dance movements a

s to scare off people around me and make some room... surprisingly it worked! I kept flailing my arms and legs around to make sure people wouldn't want to get near me and we ended up with enough space to actually do some dancing. N8 and I had to finally call a quits around 5AM and headed back to our hostel. We were very happy to have all day sunday to relax and recharge for Monday's classes. 

As for Mondays...The cherry blossoms

are finally blooming and the city is looking very nice! N8 and I had a scheduled date after school to ride down to the lake, which is right next to the ocean, to take a stroll and check out the cherry blossoms. I can't help but think of my Dad and how much he likes to see these flowers. 

Taebaek Mountain

The weather is finally giving some hope of warmer and brighter days.  Recently, the skies have been grey and wet for a few weeks now. I appreciate the rain for how it helps keep the yellow dust out of the air.  Yellow dust comes in from China and moves down thru Korea and Japan. But because Korea has so many mountains it doesn't hit our neighborhood too badly. But I personally blame the yellow dust for my constant sore throat. 

Here is a pictures I found off of the Internet from 2006 depicting the yellow dust problem.

This past weekend, I decided to go for a hike with 9 of my friends up Taebaek Mountain.It was a two hour drive away, and once we arrived we decided to get lunch. We didn't start the climb

 until about 1:00 pm. The way up was pretty difficult, slick and steep.  I didn't realize how much snow there would be and my running shoes quickly became blocks of ice, snow and water. It took us about 2 hours to get to the top, and there is a temple at the top. 

We were all very happy to have made it and breathe the clean air!

We decided to walk from one peak to the next which took about another hour or so. This trail had even more snow, slush and mud than the one before and my feet were starting to get very cold.  We found a tree that is hallowed out, somehow, and still alive but you can fit an entire person inside!

       

It was pretty cool. Once we reached the second peak most of us were just hungry for some food and excited to head back down. We ate a little and enjoyed the scenery and time to rest. The mountains in Korea are definitely beautiful and vast. 

The way down was tricky because of the snow and ice and there were many falls.  Luckily some areas had rope where you could hold on and just slide down the mountain-side. 

We were all very happy to have made it down in one piece and we all just wanted a hot shower to thaw our feet.  

Bad Bloggers

Since N8 and I have started back at work, we have fallen back into a semi-boring routine.  Since we are in front of the computer all day at work, we usually try to stay away from the computer at home to give our eyes a rest.  The problem with the school computers, though, is that they have some blocked sites and our blogging site is one of those sites...so that is why we have been slacking.

One interesting thing that has happened here is that N8 hurt his foot. He was running on a treadmill when he felt a pain on the bottom of his foot. We weren't sure what caused the pain, and the Korean doctors didn't give much insight.  But he adapted well by creating his signature limp/run/shuffle around the house that left me howling every time!

So, sceptical N8 decided to turn to eastern medicine for help.  This was his first experience with acupuncture, which is mainly paid by our medical insurance and very cheap otherwise.  Many Korean people highly suggest acupuncture for a variety of illnesses and pain.  N8 was not too happy with his experience.  They start by asking for a pain point and then place needles in different areas on the body (just a few) and then put burning herbs that are placed in a bullet sized capsule on his foot. 

N8 only went a few times and then gave his foot a few days of rest from being poked and prodded and he surprisingly got much better! His foot is good as new, but he is still keeping a close eye on it while he works out regularly. 

P.S. I put this photo representing N8 because I didn't want to gross out my dad with real pictures of acupuncture. You're welcome Lar. 

Motoh-BaiKeh

Today has been a lovely day! First off, our schools have allowed us to stay home on both Thursday AND Friday so we've been getting a chance to catch up on some sleep and also to run some errands. We were paid today, and N8 informed me that we are getting an extra 100,000 won per paycheck because of general inflation, its not much but its nice to have the extra little boost. 

We start school again on Monday and I have yet to know what classes I'll be teaching. At first I would get angry because everything is so last minute here, I thought that they were just shoving my needs to one side and getting back to me at the last second. But I have realized that Koreans do this all of the time! We have 5 new English teachers at my school, and they too have NO IDEA what in tarnations is going on. I feel for them, but I'm not as shocked anymore by the last minute decisions and changes that are made. I guess I will just have to figure things out on Monday at school. 

Anyways, the big news for today is that we bought another motorbike! We have been tip-toeing over the idea for a few months now, and we decided its the best thing for us now that it will be getting warmer and we might as well get it asap so that we can get the most use out of it for our money's worth.  We paid 500,000 Korean Won which equals out to about $300 >which is a STEAL!! (thanks to the exchange rate) We also got a free break lock, a bike cover, and a nice new sturdy helmet for N8, since I already have one. Although I think we are feeling a little like over protective parents with this bike, because we are going to buy a second lock and all, we hope that nothing terrible happens to our new baby.