I feel like May has been one long, panting sprint to some moving finish line. Deadlines, commitments, birthdays, read this write that plan this fix that. The weather has been warm for a month and I haven't taken out the summer clothes yet -- I know it will be a whole day project, involving complete upheaval of our already-messy apartment, much dust, more lego pieces missing, and agonizing over what to throw away. I need to keep throwing away, paring down our lives and our selves before moving again. A little every month. So my kids have been running around in clothes that are way too tight and short, and I'm sweating through the weather in jeans and long-sleeve shirts. We're on the cusp of the mass migration of ex-pats back to the U.S. as well, so I need to fit in all my social engagements -- just as important as all the others.
Me: Can you watch the kids on thursday? We're having mom's night out.
KC: Didn't you just have mom's night out last week?
Me: That was a different set of moms.
KC: geez, how many sets are there?
Me: How many rounds of golf have you played lately?
KC: ...OK, I'll watch the kids.
But... I'm really enjoying my life right now. People to meet, stacks of things to read, articles to write, kids growing like weeds, sword-fighting right and left.
I've been writing/thinking a lot about space lately, though not to any sense of completion. I am discovering that I am a very very slow writer. As usual, I went through a bunch of drafts on themes related to city spaces, trying to find some central tie to pull them all together. Short for time, I posted something short on printculture, intending to come back to the topic. But we've decided to take a breather over there, which will allow me to catch up a little on my other commitments...
Anyway, here are some discarded parts of a post on reading space that I haven't pulled together... but I like these paragraphs.
My apartment door slams behind me and I hear the beep of the automatic lock as my feet find their rhythm along the stained tile floor of the hall. I sidle past my neighbor’s open door, inhaling the steam from cooking rice. Open on one side, the hall is actually a long balcony framed by trees (and attracting mosquitos) which do not block out the shrieks of traffic and excitement from the playground below. Down I go through the shaded stairwell, my body dispersing the lingering cigarette smoke, past ads for private lessons and a public service notice advising people not to send their kids to buy cigarettes for them. I cut through the playground to get to the main road, saying “hi,” to the children there -- I’ve taught many of them at one point or another. Stepping over the short fence I pause to shake the sand out of my shoes. Before crossing over the entrance to the parking lot I peer around all the illegally parked cars, half on and half off the sidewalk, leaning into the street as if listening for some secret tale only pavement can tell. A scooter zips by me; the driver carries a metal box full of take-out Chinese in one hand (probably jajangmyun), weaving through pedestrians and traffic with his cellphone squeezed between his ear and shoulder.
I enter the streams of people along the main sidewalk. Although my size, shape, dress, and coloring don’t set me apart from anyone else, my walk marks me as an American -- long stride, fast pace, ain’t nothin’ gonna slow me down. Being aware of one’s space is a skill city dwellers need to have, but some never acquire it -- a kind of spatial tone deafness. Those are the people clogging up the sidewalk or weaving so it is impossible to pass. But movement in Seoul has a vocabulary of its own -- a gentle push or nudge to one side is a perfectly acceptable way of regulating space hogs. Even while seeming oblivious to others’ spatial needs (some people, I suspect, hog the sidewalk on purpose) one must be vigilant for sudden scooters and other threats.
Scooter drivers are the grand masters of city space: able to find holes in the crowded sidewalks and having an intimate knowledge of the fastest flight plan through apartment blocks, heavy traffic, rivers, and other obstacles. They seem to obey no laws -- man-made or physical. Having mastered the timing of traffic signals, they fly across the intersection between the time one light turns red and the next turns green, balancing delicate cargo, cellphone, and umbrella, leaving the street to take to the sidewalk, sand, or other rideable space. If they are the grand masters, though, I am a grasshopper, still learning how to read city spaces, overwhelmed by the signeage, stumbling over cracks in the pavement, distracted by the bombardment of light, color, sound, and smell.
I look down at my feet. The pavement is a palimpsest of city life, mottled by different shades of asphalt patches, small puddles of spit, vomit decomposing in the sun, a discarded ice cream wrapper, and police markings from the last scooter accident: “head,” “legs,” “motorcycle.” In a walking city, the quality of curbs marks the status of the neighborhood -- the more uneven and weedy, the poorer the district.
and more:
It took me two years to get used to living in Seoul, to reach the state where small parts of daily life become invisible, to relax my grip and my constant apprehension. Two years to feel like I wasn’t drowning in the overwhelming unfamiliarity of the city. And now I find myself at the point where I take things for granted to the extent that I forget that they are unusual; or I know that they are unusual but can’t explain why. But some switch has been thrown in my mind as I think about leaving, and I can stand back and try to catalogue my life here while I still have the opportunity.
There’s something about the way we navigate and read city spaces here which I can’t quite get at. Part of it is the grammar of movement -- the way you have to visually parse the space differently as you drive, walk, and park. You anticipate and plot the trajectories of other objects (cars, scooters, pedestrians) as you move; you communicate your presence through honks, blinking hazard lights, gentle pushes. The hazard light is its own little genre here. Cut in front of someone and use it to say, “hey, thanks for letting me in and sorry about that.” -- like the wave of a hand in the U.S. If the traffic slows suddenly it means, “look out! Slow down immediately! Something’s going on up ahead!” In the garages of big department stores, blinking hazards mean “trying to park” rather than “trying to exit,” aiding the legions of parking lot assistants to direct the cars properly. Pulled over on the side of the road it means, “Yes I know I am parked illegally but I don’t really give a damn, just get over it and go around.”
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
character sketch
We had to write a character sketch in 500 words for that class I'm taking... here is mine.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Monday, April 23, 2007
identity crisis
First I have to say that I am aware I have been tagged by Corey... and I have not yet come up with my list of 5 blogs. I have to think about that for a while... stay tuned...
I feel like I have so many updates. We got back from our trip to Shanghi last week. I was writing something about visiting schools and then the Virginia Tech shooting happened, and I was busy reading about the reactions both here and in the U.S. Over at Printculture we had an interesting discussion, started by S L Kim, and I tried to provide some context from here. That was difficult for many reasons -- partly because I have lived here for long enough that many things about this place have become invisible or just, somehow, logical to me. And it is always difficult to talk about race/ethnicity.
Anyway... Shanghai. We looked at two schools, one bilingual English/Chinese and one Korean. The Korean school was much cheaper (because it is a real Korean school funded by the Korean government, using the same standard textbooks, etc.) and similar to Aiden's current school in terms of curriculum and protocol, plus they do an hour of Chinese and an hour of English each day. The Korean school, Singaporean school, Taiwanese school, American school, and British school are all basically in the same place, near Hongqiao airport, which (I didn't realize) is quite far -- a good 40 minute bus ride. So he'd be spending a lot of time on the bus. The other school we looked at is Yew Cheng (I have to check the spelling but its close) which, location-wise, is much better. The facility is very nice. The teachers seem good and the kids are very international -- each class has quite a mix. Quite expensive. Each class has an English-speaking teacher and a Chinese-speaking teacher and they have something like 30% of the day doing Chinese.
Anyway, I was debating the pros and cons of these schools and my better half said, "If we're going to send him to Korean school we might as well stay in Korea and send him to Chinese lessons, or just come to Shanghai for the summer. What's the point of moving then?" He was right. Our goal is a linguistic and cultural one. So, to make a long story short, we decided to send him to local school. Perhaps a private local school, but a local school nonetheless. Shanghai actually has several local international schools -- these are Chinese schools with an international class, so the kids go into the international class first (like an ESL class), until they can join the regular class. I need to research more about which school, but basically the big decision is made. Local school. Chinese. (If anyone reading this has experience sending kids to school in Shanghai, or knows of a good Shanghai blogger, let me know!)
In the midst of this decision and all the cleaning, etc. at Aiden's school I'm writing a post for printculture about the ways in which sending Aiden to local school here has tied us into the social system in unexpected ways. At least -- I think that's what it is about. Still working on it. Even though all this cleaning stuff is a little annoying and more than a little amusing, I really have learned a lot from participating in the local school at that level, getting to know the moms, and being tied into the infrastructure of education here. I think I've learned more than Aiden has. Now I'm going to have to do it again....
Last week, though, something interesting happened. I was walking Aiden home from school along the river and trying to explain to him about "point of view." (The long story around this is I was doing some behavioral engineering, trying to prepare him for our move and for making new friends, by complimenting the way he is so good at making friends because he is good at seeing other people's points of view...anyway.) All the sudden he said, "Shh Mommy! Be quiet!" A man had been walking near us. As soon as the man was out of earshot Aiden said, "OK, you can talk now."
I was confused. What was that all about? He was already back into his game of not getting electrocuted by jumping over all the cracks and bumps in the sidewalk. I pressed him. "Why did you ask me to be quiet?" "Because you're speaking ENGLISH, Mommy. This is Korea!" I pressed him some more and got "It's embarrassing." But why is it embarrassing? He didn't want to talk about it. He wanted to talk about Darth Vader. I kept at him. "Because then they ask me, 'Are you American or are you Korean?"
Then I understood. I had created myself -- a kid who didn't fit in and was conscious of his difference. I didn't react that well. I tried to convince him he was special and tell him how envious other people are that he can speak English so well. I reminded him that his friends spend two hours a day in English hakwon while he plays. I told him that I would keep speaking English to him because that is my gift to him -- the languages that he is learning as a child, and that if you don't keep practicing a language you will forget it and have to painfully relearn it. I told him that his grandmother was born in Japan and no longer can speak Japanese, isn't that sad? He agreed that it was. I reminded him that people will ask him the same questions even if he doesn't speak English, just because of the way he looks. I made quite a sales pitch. I was more than a little upset about the whole thing. I wanted him to see the world the way I see it, conveniently forgetting how long it took me to get to this point.
Then I was talking to Emily later about the whole thing and she suggested that if I validated his feelings instead of trying to argue them away he would still, hopefully, keep telling me how he feels.
A few days later the same scene of being shushed happened again. The day after that Aiden was playing with his grandfather in the playground and some older kid kept saying, "Hey, aren't you American? Speak English! Say something in English!" I guess he was following Aiden around and pestering him. Aiden's kind of shy, he doesn't like being put on the spot like that, and his grandfather berated the kid. I told him later, "They are interested in you because you can speak two languages so easily. But you don't have to speak if you don't want to. Just tell him you don't want to and that's fine." Aiden's come up with his own tactic. When people ask him if he's American or Korean he says, "You don't need to know (몰라도돼)."
I have to think more clearly about how to handle this... I'm not ready for him to be embarrassed by me!
I feel like I have so many updates. We got back from our trip to Shanghi last week. I was writing something about visiting schools and then the Virginia Tech shooting happened, and I was busy reading about the reactions both here and in the U.S. Over at Printculture we had an interesting discussion, started by S L Kim, and I tried to provide some context from here. That was difficult for many reasons -- partly because I have lived here for long enough that many things about this place have become invisible or just, somehow, logical to me. And it is always difficult to talk about race/ethnicity.
Anyway... Shanghai. We looked at two schools, one bilingual English/Chinese and one Korean. The Korean school was much cheaper (because it is a real Korean school funded by the Korean government, using the same standard textbooks, etc.) and similar to Aiden's current school in terms of curriculum and protocol, plus they do an hour of Chinese and an hour of English each day. The Korean school, Singaporean school, Taiwanese school, American school, and British school are all basically in the same place, near Hongqiao airport, which (I didn't realize) is quite far -- a good 40 minute bus ride. So he'd be spending a lot of time on the bus. The other school we looked at is Yew Cheng (I have to check the spelling but its close) which, location-wise, is much better. The facility is very nice. The teachers seem good and the kids are very international -- each class has quite a mix. Quite expensive. Each class has an English-speaking teacher and a Chinese-speaking teacher and they have something like 30% of the day doing Chinese.
Anyway, I was debating the pros and cons of these schools and my better half said, "If we're going to send him to Korean school we might as well stay in Korea and send him to Chinese lessons, or just come to Shanghai for the summer. What's the point of moving then?" He was right. Our goal is a linguistic and cultural one. So, to make a long story short, we decided to send him to local school. Perhaps a private local school, but a local school nonetheless. Shanghai actually has several local international schools -- these are Chinese schools with an international class, so the kids go into the international class first (like an ESL class), until they can join the regular class. I need to research more about which school, but basically the big decision is made. Local school. Chinese. (If anyone reading this has experience sending kids to school in Shanghai, or knows of a good Shanghai blogger, let me know!)
In the midst of this decision and all the cleaning, etc. at Aiden's school I'm writing a post for printculture about the ways in which sending Aiden to local school here has tied us into the social system in unexpected ways. At least -- I think that's what it is about. Still working on it. Even though all this cleaning stuff is a little annoying and more than a little amusing, I really have learned a lot from participating in the local school at that level, getting to know the moms, and being tied into the infrastructure of education here. I think I've learned more than Aiden has. Now I'm going to have to do it again....
Last week, though, something interesting happened. I was walking Aiden home from school along the river and trying to explain to him about "point of view." (The long story around this is I was doing some behavioral engineering, trying to prepare him for our move and for making new friends, by complimenting the way he is so good at making friends because he is good at seeing other people's points of view...anyway.) All the sudden he said, "Shh Mommy! Be quiet!" A man had been walking near us. As soon as the man was out of earshot Aiden said, "OK, you can talk now."
I was confused. What was that all about? He was already back into his game of not getting electrocuted by jumping over all the cracks and bumps in the sidewalk. I pressed him. "Why did you ask me to be quiet?" "Because you're speaking ENGLISH, Mommy. This is Korea!" I pressed him some more and got "It's embarrassing." But why is it embarrassing? He didn't want to talk about it. He wanted to talk about Darth Vader. I kept at him. "Because then they ask me, 'Are you American or are you Korean?"
Then I understood. I had created myself -- a kid who didn't fit in and was conscious of his difference. I didn't react that well. I tried to convince him he was special and tell him how envious other people are that he can speak English so well. I reminded him that his friends spend two hours a day in English hakwon while he plays. I told him that I would keep speaking English to him because that is my gift to him -- the languages that he is learning as a child, and that if you don't keep practicing a language you will forget it and have to painfully relearn it. I told him that his grandmother was born in Japan and no longer can speak Japanese, isn't that sad? He agreed that it was. I reminded him that people will ask him the same questions even if he doesn't speak English, just because of the way he looks. I made quite a sales pitch. I was more than a little upset about the whole thing. I wanted him to see the world the way I see it, conveniently forgetting how long it took me to get to this point.
Then I was talking to Emily later about the whole thing and she suggested that if I validated his feelings instead of trying to argue them away he would still, hopefully, keep telling me how he feels.
A few days later the same scene of being shushed happened again. The day after that Aiden was playing with his grandfather in the playground and some older kid kept saying, "Hey, aren't you American? Speak English! Say something in English!" I guess he was following Aiden around and pestering him. Aiden's kind of shy, he doesn't like being put on the spot like that, and his grandfather berated the kid. I told him later, "They are interested in you because you can speak two languages so easily. But you don't have to speak if you don't want to. Just tell him you don't want to and that's fine." Aiden's come up with his own tactic. When people ask him if he's American or Korean he says, "You don't need to know (몰라도돼)."
I have to think more clearly about how to handle this... I'm not ready for him to be embarrassed by me!
Thursday, April 19, 2007
photograph
It has been a busy week. We're back from Shanghai and I will have updates soon about the school situation.
I had here an essay I wrote about this photograph for my writing class, but I have deleted it... after all the good comments I thought I should submit it somewhere. Sorry about that. If you want to read it, send me an e-mail or write me a comment. Thanks -- Jennifer
I had here an essay I wrote about this photograph for my writing class, but I have deleted it... after all the good comments I thought I should submit it somewhere. Sorry about that. If you want to read it, send me an e-mail or write me a comment. Thanks -- Jennifer
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Defensive walking, consumerism, schools
I got this from Cat over at Seoullife.net. I don't know if people who haven't been to Seoul with think this is funny but it made me laugh to watch. The frustrating thing about walking with a child is that children have no sense of space, they don't anticipate the movements of others and move accordingly. But then again, I often think that other people are the same way, especially groups of people walking together. My pet peeve is people walking in a group who take up the whole sidewalk. Since I tend to walk faster than pretty much everyone else, getting stuck behind a pack of slow walkers drives me nuts. Luckily I have grown accustomed to pushing people out of the way. I wonder if there's a YouTube video of that.
I've been sick for the past few days and holed up at home and finally ventured out this morning to run some errands before going to Shanghai tomorrow. When you've been cooped up for a while, your body is still fuzzy from illness, and you haven't been to a shopping mall for several months, it is very surreal and strange to be out and about again. I found myself getting that itch to buy things, looking at plates and pillows and clothes. Good thing I cannot buy housewares because I know we will move again and I don't want any extra stuff. That consumerist bug lives inside me like a parasite and even when I think I've trained it out of my system it surprises me by manifesting its symptoms of greed and desire for shiny things again.
We had our "big cleaning" over the weekend. I meant to take a camera, but on the way out I realized I had left it at home and didn't want to walk back. While I was balanced on the window ledge cleaning the panes of glass with 2 other moms I mentioned that I had wanted to take pictures and the mom next to me looked at me like I was crazy. I tried to explain that my friends in the US think that this whole moms cleaning thing is strange and I wanted to capture what it was like. She didn't say much but it occurred to me that what I find interesting to record may just be a little embarrassing for them.
So... the big cleaning. We met at 12:10, after school finished (on Saturday they don't have lunch at school so they finish earlier). I had already eaten, it didn't occur to me that we would eat together. One mom brought a huge amount of kimpap, some green tea-type drinks, and instant coffee. We sat and ate and talked for a while and I tried to remember who is who (in Korea, you mostly call people by title or affiliation rather than name, so I call Aiden's classmates' moms "so-and-so's mom" rather than by name. That would actually be easier if I knew the names of the kids in Aiden's class but even he doesn't know them, aside from his few close buddies. He must take after me in that respect.) Anyway, they all know me. Everyone had come with rags, cleaning fluid, rubber gloves, etc. except me because I didn't realize I would need to bring those things... but there was enough to go around. We cleaned the heck out of that classroom. We took apart the fans and cleaned the blades. We dismantled the curtains and sent them to the dry cleaners. The windows, which I spent the most time on (because I figured it would occupy a long time and were fairly self-explanatory) spanned the length of the classroom, 3 panes of glass thick. They took a long time. We dusted everything, washed the walls and doors in the hall outside the class, rearranged the books... It took about 2, 2.5 hours. There was a lot of dust, it did need to be cleaned. The other moms were saying they hadn't even done such a thorough cleaning in their own homes. Ha.
Tuesday was my turn at lunch and daily cleaning duty but I was so sick I had to switch with someone else (really, I was really sick!). So I'll have to save that story for Monday. Sandra sent me this article about moms doing this kind of work in Korea. I can definitely relate. For me, this is a temporary thing, and I attend as much from compulsion as from curiosity. I don't know how I would feel if I knew I would be doing this for the next 12 years. Though as far as I can see, in the upper grades the kids clean the classrooms themselves... when I come to the school in the afternoon the older kids are mopping the floors and washing the blackboards.
While we are in Shanghai this trip we will check out the Korean International School there. It is cheaper than the other international schools and I think it may be easier for Aiden to adjust if I keep him in the same kind of system. Plus I want him to maintain his Korean after we move. They do 4 hours of English a week and 3 hours of Chinese at that school, which I like very much (it is very important to me that he learn Chinese). So perhaps I will be cleaning classrooms for a few more years yet...
I've been sick for the past few days and holed up at home and finally ventured out this morning to run some errands before going to Shanghai tomorrow. When you've been cooped up for a while, your body is still fuzzy from illness, and you haven't been to a shopping mall for several months, it is very surreal and strange to be out and about again. I found myself getting that itch to buy things, looking at plates and pillows and clothes. Good thing I cannot buy housewares because I know we will move again and I don't want any extra stuff. That consumerist bug lives inside me like a parasite and even when I think I've trained it out of my system it surprises me by manifesting its symptoms of greed and desire for shiny things again.
We had our "big cleaning" over the weekend. I meant to take a camera, but on the way out I realized I had left it at home and didn't want to walk back. While I was balanced on the window ledge cleaning the panes of glass with 2 other moms I mentioned that I had wanted to take pictures and the mom next to me looked at me like I was crazy. I tried to explain that my friends in the US think that this whole moms cleaning thing is strange and I wanted to capture what it was like. She didn't say much but it occurred to me that what I find interesting to record may just be a little embarrassing for them.
So... the big cleaning. We met at 12:10, after school finished (on Saturday they don't have lunch at school so they finish earlier). I had already eaten, it didn't occur to me that we would eat together. One mom brought a huge amount of kimpap, some green tea-type drinks, and instant coffee. We sat and ate and talked for a while and I tried to remember who is who (in Korea, you mostly call people by title or affiliation rather than name, so I call Aiden's classmates' moms "so-and-so's mom" rather than by name. That would actually be easier if I knew the names of the kids in Aiden's class but even he doesn't know them, aside from his few close buddies. He must take after me in that respect.) Anyway, they all know me. Everyone had come with rags, cleaning fluid, rubber gloves, etc. except me because I didn't realize I would need to bring those things... but there was enough to go around. We cleaned the heck out of that classroom. We took apart the fans and cleaned the blades. We dismantled the curtains and sent them to the dry cleaners. The windows, which I spent the most time on (because I figured it would occupy a long time and were fairly self-explanatory) spanned the length of the classroom, 3 panes of glass thick. They took a long time. We dusted everything, washed the walls and doors in the hall outside the class, rearranged the books... It took about 2, 2.5 hours. There was a lot of dust, it did need to be cleaned. The other moms were saying they hadn't even done such a thorough cleaning in their own homes. Ha.
Tuesday was my turn at lunch and daily cleaning duty but I was so sick I had to switch with someone else (really, I was really sick!). So I'll have to save that story for Monday. Sandra sent me this article about moms doing this kind of work in Korea. I can definitely relate. For me, this is a temporary thing, and I attend as much from compulsion as from curiosity. I don't know how I would feel if I knew I would be doing this for the next 12 years. Though as far as I can see, in the upper grades the kids clean the classrooms themselves... when I come to the school in the afternoon the older kids are mopping the floors and washing the blackboards.
While we are in Shanghai this trip we will check out the Korean International School there. It is cheaper than the other international schools and I think it may be easier for Aiden to adjust if I keep him in the same kind of system. Plus I want him to maintain his Korean after we move. They do 4 hours of English a week and 3 hours of Chinese at that school, which I like very much (it is very important to me that he learn Chinese). So perhaps I will be cleaning classrooms for a few more years yet...
Thursday, April 05, 2007
elementary ecosystems
See Jennifer cut out strips of paper and paste them in a notebook.
See Jennifer clean the classroom.
See Jennifer serve lunch to hungry 1st graders.
Run, Jennifer, run!
Ah, yes, welcome to school in Korea. Each class here is, as my friend Becky says, its own "ecosystem," self-contained and self-supporting. Which means, in practice, that the moms do everything. The last few weeks have been full of stressful meetings to determine who will be the class leader (mom, not child), who will serve in the crossing guard corps, who will serve as a volunteer teacher (that's me), who will make the rotation delegating lunch-serving and daily classroom-cleaning duties, etc. As we gather each afternoon (they're finally having lunch at school now, whahoo!) to wait for our children to emerge, the moms from each class huddle together to reveal that classes 1, 2, and 3 have already done their "big cleaning" of the class, and we're looking bad because we haven't done one yet. This is followed by a flurry of pronouncements and text messages to the effect that everyone better show up on Saturday after class (because we have class on Saturday) for the "big cleaning," and someone needs to bring equipment. I haven't done any cleaning yet so I'm not sure what this entails, but since it is supposed to take at least an hour and utilize all the moms who come (of 29 in a class, how many will that be?), we must be cleaning every nook and cranny of that classroom. I will try to take some pictures.
I had my first volunteer teaching class today. You can choose what you want to teach, so naturally I am teaching English conversation. I have 18 6th graders; some of them speak quite well and have lived abroad and some are less comfortable with English. I'm used to teaching little kids (between 2 and 8) so this was a nice change. I asked them what kinds of topics they wanted to talk about, and got everything from euthanasia and the death penalty to computer games and whether they should be required to go to school on Saturdays. For the first class we played "two truths and a lie," and then I broke them into two sides and had them debate why one should or shouldn't learn another language. It seems like a silly question here where everyone takes as a given that learning a language, especially English, is important and useful. But in the U.S. it is not so obvious. I asked them to pretend they were trying to convince me to learn Korean (or not to bother). I wanted them to think about the various costs, benefits, and motivations to learning a language, and to consider all the different kinds of ways and in what environments one might use a language. It was a lively and interesting discussion. Then I asked them to talk about what were the most useful methods for learning a language. I'll be teaching them twice a month for a year.
Between all these new little tasks and duties I have I feel a little frazzled each day. Aiden comes home from school with his assignment book in which he has painstakingly recorded all his homework assignments, the items he needs to prepare for class, and any other messages from the teacher, all of which are completely illegible. I then spend an hour or so calling other moms from his class, trying to collectively decipher our children's handwriting and figure out exactly what the teacher wants. (I have learned to call the parents of the girls in the class; they tend to have better handwriting.) The other day not only did I not understand what he had written, but then once I found out what the assignment was I found that he had brought home the wrong book. He was supposed to look at the pictures in some book and make up a story to go with them. Aiden's friend's mom was kind enough to explain each picture to me, and then she took photos of the pictures with her cellphone camera and e-mailed them to me. Quite a bit of mommy ingenuity. Luckily my husband came home early so I could make a last-minute dash to the 문방구 (kind of like a office supply/stationary store) to buy Aiden a P.E. outfit. There are always things on his assignment sheet that I need to acquire before class the next day which I find quite annoying. But now I understand why these stores open so early in the morning.
Things are only going to get crazier. I just posted my response to Mallon's silly questions for the discussion we've been having over at printculture, not as well-edited as usual, and I couldn't come up with a good title. A few of the really cool bloggers (I won't say who they are because I haven't asked them if its ok) and I have formed a writing group, which I'm really excited about, and my online class starts next week. And it just occurred to me that we only have about a year before moving to Shanghai, so I'd better get off my ass and start planning the move. Or at least put Aiden on a waiting list for school. Any Shanghai ex-pat bloggers out there who want to give me some advice?
See Jennifer clean the classroom.
See Jennifer serve lunch to hungry 1st graders.
Run, Jennifer, run!
Ah, yes, welcome to school in Korea. Each class here is, as my friend Becky says, its own "ecosystem," self-contained and self-supporting. Which means, in practice, that the moms do everything. The last few weeks have been full of stressful meetings to determine who will be the class leader (mom, not child), who will serve in the crossing guard corps, who will serve as a volunteer teacher (that's me), who will make the rotation delegating lunch-serving and daily classroom-cleaning duties, etc. As we gather each afternoon (they're finally having lunch at school now, whahoo!) to wait for our children to emerge, the moms from each class huddle together to reveal that classes 1, 2, and 3 have already done their "big cleaning" of the class, and we're looking bad because we haven't done one yet. This is followed by a flurry of pronouncements and text messages to the effect that everyone better show up on Saturday after class (because we have class on Saturday) for the "big cleaning," and someone needs to bring equipment. I haven't done any cleaning yet so I'm not sure what this entails, but since it is supposed to take at least an hour and utilize all the moms who come (of 29 in a class, how many will that be?), we must be cleaning every nook and cranny of that classroom. I will try to take some pictures.
I had my first volunteer teaching class today. You can choose what you want to teach, so naturally I am teaching English conversation. I have 18 6th graders; some of them speak quite well and have lived abroad and some are less comfortable with English. I'm used to teaching little kids (between 2 and 8) so this was a nice change. I asked them what kinds of topics they wanted to talk about, and got everything from euthanasia and the death penalty to computer games and whether they should be required to go to school on Saturdays. For the first class we played "two truths and a lie," and then I broke them into two sides and had them debate why one should or shouldn't learn another language. It seems like a silly question here where everyone takes as a given that learning a language, especially English, is important and useful. But in the U.S. it is not so obvious. I asked them to pretend they were trying to convince me to learn Korean (or not to bother). I wanted them to think about the various costs, benefits, and motivations to learning a language, and to consider all the different kinds of ways and in what environments one might use a language. It was a lively and interesting discussion. Then I asked them to talk about what were the most useful methods for learning a language. I'll be teaching them twice a month for a year.
Between all these new little tasks and duties I have I feel a little frazzled each day. Aiden comes home from school with his assignment book in which he has painstakingly recorded all his homework assignments, the items he needs to prepare for class, and any other messages from the teacher, all of which are completely illegible. I then spend an hour or so calling other moms from his class, trying to collectively decipher our children's handwriting and figure out exactly what the teacher wants. (I have learned to call the parents of the girls in the class; they tend to have better handwriting.) The other day not only did I not understand what he had written, but then once I found out what the assignment was I found that he had brought home the wrong book. He was supposed to look at the pictures in some book and make up a story to go with them. Aiden's friend's mom was kind enough to explain each picture to me, and then she took photos of the pictures with her cellphone camera and e-mailed them to me. Quite a bit of mommy ingenuity. Luckily my husband came home early so I could make a last-minute dash to the 문방구 (kind of like a office supply/stationary store) to buy Aiden a P.E. outfit. There are always things on his assignment sheet that I need to acquire before class the next day which I find quite annoying. But now I understand why these stores open so early in the morning.
Things are only going to get crazier. I just posted my response to Mallon's silly questions for the discussion we've been having over at printculture, not as well-edited as usual, and I couldn't come up with a good title. A few of the really cool bloggers (I won't say who they are because I haven't asked them if its ok) and I have formed a writing group, which I'm really excited about, and my online class starts next week. And it just occurred to me that we only have about a year before moving to Shanghai, so I'd better get off my ass and start planning the move. Or at least put Aiden on a waiting list for school. Any Shanghai ex-pat bloggers out there who want to give me some advice?
Friday, March 30, 2007
In which I upload the pictures on my camera
Spring has arrived, the winter clothes are sitting in a pile near the door because I can't find a box and don't want to mess with the pile of suitcases in our one closet...In honor of the idea of spring cleaning I'm finally uploading some pictures.First, here's the kind of homework the kids do in first grade here:I took this shot because I was telling people how the main difference I saw in preschool here and in the U.S. was much more emphasis on developing muscles for writing here. When Aiden entered preschool they did a lot of tracing, cutting out shapes, etc. -- and told me his arm muscles were much weaker than the other kids (which I have no doubt is true, even now, because he doesn't like to draw).
Now these are pictures of Yellow Dust: on the car and in the sky. The sky was really hazy for the last few days, and you could see the dust on the cars. I had pretty bad headaches for those few days too, not sure if that was related to the dust. Many people wore masks. 
Here's another shot of the river near where we live, and the hazy sky above it. 
The next shot is of the chickens, rabbits, and guinea fowl they keep at Aiden's school. It didn't come out very well. 
Then a shot of the school itself.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
The Bunco Party
Well, I've been trying to write something about the bunco party I attended -- whoa-- almost 2 months ago. As some of you who read multiple Korea blogs, I met fellow blogger Sandra there. Browsing through the blogs written by people attending bunco parties, it seems that these all start with a disclaimer along the lines of "I thought these parties were for losers but went and had fun!" I wanted to write about isolation and its countermeasures, about the ways in which people hold the world together through little acts. So I went through a bunch of drafts in essay form and it was... shitty. I happened to be reading Mrs. Dalloway at the same time, and somehow this turned into fiction. So here's my disclaimer: this is my first piece of fiction, and all the characters are at least partially made up, or they are amalgams of several people. I'd appreciate any feedback! The Bunco Party
And THANKS to Becky, Nicki, Sandra, and Emily for their comments and help with this!
And THANKS to Becky, Nicki, Sandra, and Emily for their comments and help with this!
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Korean dramas and titles
We've been here almost four years now and I'm finally getting into one of those dramas. I usually only watch them with my mother-in-law because I can't stand those 김하늘 같은 징그러운 여자들... those women who simper and act frail and weak. Can't. stand. them. But my Chinese teacher is obsessed with the drama 외과선생님봉달희 (Surgeon Bong Dar Hee). It is sort of an ER type drama about doctors and various love triangles and complications. It has some moments which drive me a little crazy, like when one husband and wife unite the husband takes his wife back by talking about the things he wants to eat... I guess I'm conditioned by American TV and film to expect passionate embraces and falling into bed. At least some kissing! Come on! Anyway, I've only been watching for a few weeks. But the scene I just watched was hysterical; the main characters finally went out on a date (to the movies) but in them middle of the movie they are all paged back to the hospital. Leaving the theater they run into two residents who are also dating. Then the resident couple make the female of the main couple buy their silence through coffee, beer, and a lot of food. It is a very funny scene. I am not doing it justice here.
This is just the last in a line of things that make people exclaim (including myself) "You are becoming Korean!" I didn't used to like naengmyun, for instance. Now I still don't like mul naengmyun, but I like bibimnaengmyun. Another time I was asking the principal of FYKO about a new English teacher and caught myself asking, "How old is she? Is she married?"
Labels interest me. Sometime last year KC called me "fluent." I was surprised. I imagine fluency as ease and complete understanding somehow. I still have problems with certain kinds of language, and still have a lot to learn. But I get around just fine and can pick up on most nuance. I share Corey's discomfort with the label "bilingual" or "fluent." But I hold onto it as well; I'm proud of how much I have learned, as an adult, in a language that is so different from English.
The label "writer" is also one I have encountered recently. I don't feel that I can really inhabit that label, since I know zilch about writing, and as of yet no one has been willing to actually pay me to write anything, but I do spend most of my free time writing. The other day my friend Emily tacked on a "I shouldn't tell you this because it might end up in one of your essays" and I thought, hmmm... that actually makes me feel like a writer!
I enrolled in an online writing course given by my alma mater. I'm excited but a little nervous about that.
OK, another reason I don't watch these dramas is that someone always dies. In this case I'm worried the main female character is going to die. She has heart trouble... uh oh.
This is just the last in a line of things that make people exclaim (including myself) "You are becoming Korean!" I didn't used to like naengmyun, for instance. Now I still don't like mul naengmyun, but I like bibimnaengmyun. Another time I was asking the principal of FYKO about a new English teacher and caught myself asking, "How old is she? Is she married?"
Labels interest me. Sometime last year KC called me "fluent." I was surprised. I imagine fluency as ease and complete understanding somehow. I still have problems with certain kinds of language, and still have a lot to learn. But I get around just fine and can pick up on most nuance. I share Corey's discomfort with the label "bilingual" or "fluent." But I hold onto it as well; I'm proud of how much I have learned, as an adult, in a language that is so different from English.
The label "writer" is also one I have encountered recently. I don't feel that I can really inhabit that label, since I know zilch about writing, and as of yet no one has been willing to actually pay me to write anything, but I do spend most of my free time writing. The other day my friend Emily tacked on a "I shouldn't tell you this because it might end up in one of your essays" and I thought, hmmm... that actually makes me feel like a writer!
I enrolled in an online writing course given by my alma mater. I'm excited but a little nervous about that.
OK, another reason I don't watch these dramas is that someone always dies. In this case I'm worried the main female character is going to die. She has heart trouble... uh oh.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
toilet humor
Aiden has reached the age at which he delights in the word “fart.” I remember boys being like that when I was young, playing pull-my-finger in the bus. Max does whatever his brother does, so our day is full of conversations like this:
me: What did you do in school today?
A: Fart. [dissolves into giggles]
me: What’s the name of the girl you sit with? [in Korea, kids are paired with a partner (짝) in school, usually of the opposite sex.]
A: Her name is “Fart.” [more giggling. very pleased with himself]
Max: [singing] Do you know the farting man, the farting man, the farting man? Do you know the farting man who lives on drury lane?
I give up. Right now I’d settle for him recognizing that at certain times the fart talk is not appropriate. Like in front of guests, or to his grandparents. But he’s so taken by the word that he loses sight of everything else in his pleasure of being provocative. Choose your battles, right?
Max is pretty much toilet trained now. He hasn’t had an accident in a while, though he still wears a diaper to sleep. This has something to do with the use of M&Ms as bribery -- I mean reward -- and a lot to do with the persistence of his teachers at school. I can’t say enough about how much I love the school he goes to, FYKO. It is a bilingual school, a bit pricey, but I get a discount for teaching there and it is really worth every penny. I can’t imagine teachers in the U.S. teaching kids to potty train the way they have here, dealing with all the messy accidents (I used to have to send him to school with a bag full of extra clothes, and he’d still come back home wearing someone else’s pink socks.
me: What did you do in school today?
A: Fart. [dissolves into giggles]
me: What’s the name of the girl you sit with? [in Korea, kids are paired with a partner (짝) in school, usually of the opposite sex.]
A: Her name is “Fart.” [more giggling. very pleased with himself]
Max: [singing] Do you know the farting man, the farting man, the farting man? Do you know the farting man who lives on drury lane?
I give up. Right now I’d settle for him recognizing that at certain times the fart talk is not appropriate. Like in front of guests, or to his grandparents. But he’s so taken by the word that he loses sight of everything else in his pleasure of being provocative. Choose your battles, right?
Max is pretty much toilet trained now. He hasn’t had an accident in a while, though he still wears a diaper to sleep. This has something to do with the use of M&Ms as bribery -- I mean reward -- and a lot to do with the persistence of his teachers at school. I can’t say enough about how much I love the school he goes to, FYKO. It is a bilingual school, a bit pricey, but I get a discount for teaching there and it is really worth every penny. I can’t imagine teachers in the U.S. teaching kids to potty train the way they have here, dealing with all the messy accidents (I used to have to send him to school with a bag full of extra clothes, and he’d still come back home wearing someone else’s pink socks.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Moving on
I have been a negligent blogger lately. Some scattered things I meant to write about:
Seoul Man, who took the Korea-blogging world by storm last year, is leaving Korea. That’s the problem with being an ex-pat -- people are always leaving. You finally meet someone, you invest in a relationship, and a year later they move on, hopefully to some exotic location so you can plan to visit them. Last year saw the departure of at least 3 friends; this year will see a few more. In some ways I think that ex-pat friendships can become very strong very fast because there’s a sense of being in a special situation that not many people can relate too. But sometimes I think these friendships never get past the acquaintance stage because you know the person (or yourself) isn’t going to be around very long.
So Aiden is in elementary school now. We’ve spent the last two weeks or so preparing. We had to get all his school stuff (backpack, new indoor shoes, new outdoor shoes which are -- holey moley -- the same size as my mother-in-law’s shoes, a desk, crayons, etc.) We had to clean out a room for him to use to study, which took a REALLY long time, and now our “office” is full of discarded toys that I need to donate. But his room is really nice now. He doesn’t sleep in there, just studies. I knew all this was coming, and I knew it would be busy and tedious, but I had trouble getting up the motivation to do all of it. It is March! I can’t get used to associating March with the start of school. It is funny how the seasons trigger such strong memories and associations. No matter where I am or how old I am, the fall reminds me of starting school, makes me want to go out and buy new notebooks, and run in the crisp fall weather (memories of running cross country). With great difficulty and much avoidance and griping we managed to get Aiden set to go to school.
People have been telling me, with a slightly maniacal gleam of the eye, that once your kid goes to elementary school life becomes really difficult and busy for the mom. Moms are expected to help out a lot at the school, cleaning the classroom or serving meals or standing on the street making sure the kids don’t get run over. They also have to run around preparing all the things the kid needs for school each day. Some teachers discriminate based on how much the mom helps or how much money the mom has given the teacher, so there’s a great deal of anxiety about finding out which teacher your kid is assigned to. Plus, so much of future social life depends upon the kids in the class -- elementary school kids bond here in a way that doesn’t happen much in the States. KC still regularly meets his elementary school friends, they have reunions and stuff. Aiden’s friend’s mom (Carol) and I requested that our kids be in the same class, which usually they won’t do, but we argued that because I’m a foreigner and unfamiliar with the school system I would need someone to show me the ropes so that Aiden wouldn’t be a burden on the teacher. They granted our request, and now our kids are in grade 1 class 4 together, with a 50-something female teacher who has a reputation for military-style teaching, low tolerance for troublemakers, and discrimination based on how much the moms help (but not based on money, that’s good). The parents got scolded twice already -- first for hovering around the classroom windows and distracting the kids on the first few days, then for not having sent all the necessary materials on the second day. But watching her talk to the kids, so far I have to say that she seems like a good teacher. She is authoritative and firm but not mean, and the kids seem to like her. She’s one of those very solid looking women you don’t want to mess with -- no lace and coy smiles from her. She wears practical shoes, not heels, and she has a commanding gaze. When the kids came unprepared, she didn’t scold them, she scolded us. That’s fair. It explains why Carol called me in a panic the second morning and warned me: “Don’t forget this and this and this! OK see you later!” Teachers are taken seriously here.
Another strange thing about school here is the graduated start. The first day of school only lasted an hour or so. The second day (which was a Saturday -- another strange thing is that they go to school 2-3 Saturdays a month) was also only an hour (10am to 11am). The next three weeks they only go from 9am to 11am, then after that they finish at noon. So first grade here starts off pretty easy, to let the kids get used to it, I guess. Nevermind that most of these kids have been in school for 3 or more years. Max, for instance, now goes every day even though he’s not quite 3, and his day lasts from 9:30 to 2:20 -- far longer than Aiden. I feel hesitant and ambivalent about sending him so long at such a young age. So far he’s doing well and seems to really like it, and frankly, I enjoy having some time to myself each day, catching up on all my crap.
People move on, kids grow up. Lately Max has been really into playing with Daddy. He walks around the apartment with a toy gun tucked into his pants (and often falling into his pants, since the gun as almost as big as he is) and a blanket tied around his neck (his cape), saying “Daddy! Let’s sword fight!” But then a few minutes later the gun will fall into his pants again and he’ll cry, because he’s still that touchy kid who loses it sometimes. Then will retreat together to cuddle in the bed, him nursing and holding onto me with his chubby finger. He’s still my baby, though if I call him that he corrects me: “No Mommy, I’m a BIG BOY.”
Seoul Man, who took the Korea-blogging world by storm last year, is leaving Korea. That’s the problem with being an ex-pat -- people are always leaving. You finally meet someone, you invest in a relationship, and a year later they move on, hopefully to some exotic location so you can plan to visit them. Last year saw the departure of at least 3 friends; this year will see a few more. In some ways I think that ex-pat friendships can become very strong very fast because there’s a sense of being in a special situation that not many people can relate too. But sometimes I think these friendships never get past the acquaintance stage because you know the person (or yourself) isn’t going to be around very long.
So Aiden is in elementary school now. We’ve spent the last two weeks or so preparing. We had to get all his school stuff (backpack, new indoor shoes, new outdoor shoes which are -- holey moley -- the same size as my mother-in-law’s shoes, a desk, crayons, etc.) We had to clean out a room for him to use to study, which took a REALLY long time, and now our “office” is full of discarded toys that I need to donate. But his room is really nice now. He doesn’t sleep in there, just studies. I knew all this was coming, and I knew it would be busy and tedious, but I had trouble getting up the motivation to do all of it. It is March! I can’t get used to associating March with the start of school. It is funny how the seasons trigger such strong memories and associations. No matter where I am or how old I am, the fall reminds me of starting school, makes me want to go out and buy new notebooks, and run in the crisp fall weather (memories of running cross country). With great difficulty and much avoidance and griping we managed to get Aiden set to go to school.
People have been telling me, with a slightly maniacal gleam of the eye, that once your kid goes to elementary school life becomes really difficult and busy for the mom. Moms are expected to help out a lot at the school, cleaning the classroom or serving meals or standing on the street making sure the kids don’t get run over. They also have to run around preparing all the things the kid needs for school each day. Some teachers discriminate based on how much the mom helps or how much money the mom has given the teacher, so there’s a great deal of anxiety about finding out which teacher your kid is assigned to. Plus, so much of future social life depends upon the kids in the class -- elementary school kids bond here in a way that doesn’t happen much in the States. KC still regularly meets his elementary school friends, they have reunions and stuff. Aiden’s friend’s mom (Carol) and I requested that our kids be in the same class, which usually they won’t do, but we argued that because I’m a foreigner and unfamiliar with the school system I would need someone to show me the ropes so that Aiden wouldn’t be a burden on the teacher. They granted our request, and now our kids are in grade 1 class 4 together, with a 50-something female teacher who has a reputation for military-style teaching, low tolerance for troublemakers, and discrimination based on how much the moms help (but not based on money, that’s good). The parents got scolded twice already -- first for hovering around the classroom windows and distracting the kids on the first few days, then for not having sent all the necessary materials on the second day. But watching her talk to the kids, so far I have to say that she seems like a good teacher. She is authoritative and firm but not mean, and the kids seem to like her. She’s one of those very solid looking women you don’t want to mess with -- no lace and coy smiles from her. She wears practical shoes, not heels, and she has a commanding gaze. When the kids came unprepared, she didn’t scold them, she scolded us. That’s fair. It explains why Carol called me in a panic the second morning and warned me: “Don’t forget this and this and this! OK see you later!” Teachers are taken seriously here.
Another strange thing about school here is the graduated start. The first day of school only lasted an hour or so. The second day (which was a Saturday -- another strange thing is that they go to school 2-3 Saturdays a month) was also only an hour (10am to 11am). The next three weeks they only go from 9am to 11am, then after that they finish at noon. So first grade here starts off pretty easy, to let the kids get used to it, I guess. Nevermind that most of these kids have been in school for 3 or more years. Max, for instance, now goes every day even though he’s not quite 3, and his day lasts from 9:30 to 2:20 -- far longer than Aiden. I feel hesitant and ambivalent about sending him so long at such a young age. So far he’s doing well and seems to really like it, and frankly, I enjoy having some time to myself each day, catching up on all my crap.
People move on, kids grow up. Lately Max has been really into playing with Daddy. He walks around the apartment with a toy gun tucked into his pants (and often falling into his pants, since the gun as almost as big as he is) and a blanket tied around his neck (his cape), saying “Daddy! Let’s sword fight!” But then a few minutes later the gun will fall into his pants again and he’ll cry, because he’s still that touchy kid who loses it sometimes. Then will retreat together to cuddle in the bed, him nursing and holding onto me with his chubby finger. He’s still my baby, though if I call him that he corrects me: “No Mommy, I’m a BIG BOY.”
In medias res
I know, I've been a terrible blogger lately. The kids were on vacation and then Aiden started elementary school. I hit a patch of exhaustion. But they will both be gone for a few hours today so I will post some more. Until then, here is "In medias res."
Monday, February 26, 2007
Liveblogging the Oscars
We're liveblogging the oscars over at Printculture...
snarking and comments welcome!
snarking and comments welcome!
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Habits of Waste...again
Am stuffed full of ddok mandu gook and recovering from the gluttony lunar new year. Here's another go at "Habits of Waste."
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Mac in my top
As a former Silicon Valley resident (7 years) and a Mac user, I thought I'd share this video:
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
The Boy Whisperer
Edited "On Boys" to become "The Boy Whisperer." Had to cut a lot out of this one, and have looked at it too much now to decide whether that was a good idea or not.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
ADHD drugs
I live in Gangnam, the center of the vortex that is education anxiety in competitive Korea.
And today was Aiden's "예비소집" (sort of an orientation meeting) for elementary school. It was actually uneventful -- we were expecting a huge meeting and speeches and stuff but basically all they did was give us information and check us off. And I got to see the school for the first time, so that was interesting. The classrooms look pretty nice. They gave us a bunch of "Is your child ready for school?" type materials, which should be interesting material for future blog posts.
Afterwards some of the mommies and I were talking and the issue of ADHD drugs came up. Apparently in Gangnam its become a trend to give kids ADHD drugs to increase performance. I was appalled so I asked for the article. Here's my quick and dirty translation:
Elementary, middle and high school students in Seoul, the surrounding areas, and the new satellite cities are increasingly taking drugs to improve concentration. These pills are prescribed for symptoms such as wandering attention and an overabundance of activity, but the mistaken rumer that "this is safe medicine to improve concentration when studying" has spread, so examples of kids without serious symptoms taking these drugs are on the rise. There are few side affects when these drugs are taken by people who have disease-like symptoms, but when normal people take these drugs regularly they can cause loss of appetite, depression, and other negative side effects, an expert warns.
Currently in Gangnam, Seoul there are about 20 hospitals and clinics perscribing this medication, the majority of which have a banner proclaiming "____ ____ studying clinic." These clinics are appearing in Seoul Gangbuk, the areas surrounding the capital, and the new satellite cities as well.
OK, I was about halfway through translating that then I found the English version of the article... One of my new year's resolutions was to read more news in Korean. So I'm glad I read the Korean version first. The problem with being decently good at Korean right now is that I have no incentive to learn more (that and I'm studying Chinese) so I really have to force myself to add to my vocabulary by reading.
Anyhoo... what I was going to say is that this article made me think of a bunch of things. First, that the competitiveness in Gangnam has gotten so bad that people will use any method they can think of to raise their child's school ranking a little bit, without thinking (or perhaps understanding) the consequences. The over-diagnosis of ADHD is a problem in the U.S. as well, but here these things quickly get out of hand because one person (mom) tells her friends that her son's scores went up because he took these drugs and without thinking everyone follows en masse. There's a pack thing that happens here that always amazes me. On top of that it feels like people look for quick fixes without really education about medicine. And doctors take advantage of those people to make money.
My other thought was of an article I read a long time ago, by James Freda, on Discourse on Han in Postcolonial Korea. In the article Freda refers to Leszek Kolakowski's idea of a "culture of analgesics" (from The Presence of Myth). I haven't read Kolajowski directly which is why I give the long explanation of how I got to it here... Anyway, Freda argues, through Kolakowski that a culture of analgesics is "hostile to the recognition and expression of suffering." We take medicine to get rid of the symptoms, without trying to correct the underlying causes. As it says in the English version of the article, the high use of drugs like Ritalin is a social problem that needs to be addressed.
More thoughts later... am behind on too many things right now.
UPDATE: My friend Emily, a child psychologist, tells me that using ADHD drugs to improve concentration in non-ADHD kids is common in the U.S. too.
And today was Aiden's "예비소집" (sort of an orientation meeting) for elementary school. It was actually uneventful -- we were expecting a huge meeting and speeches and stuff but basically all they did was give us information and check us off. And I got to see the school for the first time, so that was interesting. The classrooms look pretty nice. They gave us a bunch of "Is your child ready for school?" type materials, which should be interesting material for future blog posts.
Afterwards some of the mommies and I were talking and the issue of ADHD drugs came up. Apparently in Gangnam its become a trend to give kids ADHD drugs to increase performance. I was appalled so I asked for the article. Here's my quick and dirty translation:
Elementary, middle and high school students in Seoul, the surrounding areas, and the new satellite cities are increasingly taking drugs to improve concentration. These pills are prescribed for symptoms such as wandering attention and an overabundance of activity, but the mistaken rumer that "this is safe medicine to improve concentration when studying" has spread, so examples of kids without serious symptoms taking these drugs are on the rise. There are few side affects when these drugs are taken by people who have disease-like symptoms, but when normal people take these drugs regularly they can cause loss of appetite, depression, and other negative side effects, an expert warns.
Currently in Gangnam, Seoul there are about 20 hospitals and clinics perscribing this medication, the majority of which have a banner proclaiming "____ ____ studying clinic." These clinics are appearing in Seoul Gangbuk, the areas surrounding the capital, and the new satellite cities as well.
OK, I was about halfway through translating that then I found the English version of the article... One of my new year's resolutions was to read more news in Korean. So I'm glad I read the Korean version first. The problem with being decently good at Korean right now is that I have no incentive to learn more (that and I'm studying Chinese) so I really have to force myself to add to my vocabulary by reading.
Anyhoo... what I was going to say is that this article made me think of a bunch of things. First, that the competitiveness in Gangnam has gotten so bad that people will use any method they can think of to raise their child's school ranking a little bit, without thinking (or perhaps understanding) the consequences. The over-diagnosis of ADHD is a problem in the U.S. as well, but here these things quickly get out of hand because one person (mom) tells her friends that her son's scores went up because he took these drugs and without thinking everyone follows en masse. There's a pack thing that happens here that always amazes me. On top of that it feels like people look for quick fixes without really education about medicine. And doctors take advantage of those people to make money.
My other thought was of an article I read a long time ago, by James Freda, on Discourse on Han in Postcolonial Korea. In the article Freda refers to Leszek Kolakowski's idea of a "culture of analgesics" (from The Presence of Myth). I haven't read Kolajowski directly which is why I give the long explanation of how I got to it here... Anyway, Freda argues, through Kolakowski that a culture of analgesics is "hostile to the recognition and expression of suffering." We take medicine to get rid of the symptoms, without trying to correct the underlying causes. As it says in the English version of the article, the high use of drugs like Ritalin is a social problem that needs to be addressed.
More thoughts later... am behind on too many things right now.
UPDATE: My friend Emily, a child psychologist, tells me that using ADHD drugs to improve concentration in non-ADHD kids is common in the U.S. too.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Habits of Waste
When my grandmother stayed with us she used to drive my mom crazy. She had trouble with the stairs, so she’d sleep in the library on the ground floor, near the kitchen and powder room. In her obsession to conserve, she never closed the door when she went to the bathroom (so she wouldn’t have to turn on the light, thereby conserving electricity) and she didn’t flush after peeing (to conserve water). My mom would yell after her, “We have guests for goodness sakes! At least close the door!”
My father-in-law is not quite that bad (though he also tends to leave the door open and neglect flushing), and he drives me crazy every time he comes over, pointing out that “That light has more bulbs and uses more electricity than the other one, so don’t use it.” He cuts their trash up into small pieces so they can fit more in each garbage bag, and he will eat spoiled food rather than throw it away. He’ll park in the first spot he comes to because he doesn’t want to waste gas.
I get annoyed by all these things, but perhaps behind that annoyance is a sense of guilt. These are people who have been trained by war and poverty to save, to conserve, to prize the efficient and proper use of things. The next generation -- my mom’s generation -- prizes convenience and efficiency. My mom doesn’t recycle because she has so little to recycle, and she throws out the trash every day, even if the bag isn’t full, because she doesn’t like the smell. She parks in the same spot at the mall every time so she doesn’t forget where her car is. She’ll ask for an extra paper cup so she doesn’t burn her hand.
We are creatures of habit, our daily activities shaping small acts of waste which accumulate in the earth invisibly, like the dark matter pair of our visible accumulation of money and goods. Living in Korea has helped shaped my awareness of my wastes in small ways; living here has helped point my mind towards waste rather than just convenience.
I have been meaning to blog about recycling here for a while, and made a mental note that others beat me to it. Seoul Man and Here in Korea both have descriptions of recycling here as well as pictures of the recycling areas in their buildings. I won’t repeat what they say except to sum up that we recycle far more here than in the States. I would be curious if anyone knows of an article about what happens to everything once its gone in the truck -- I know at UCLA, for instance, my informant tells me that the building cleaners just dump the recycling into the trash and take it all out together. Here, at least, different trucks come to get the cardboard, food trash, etc. The food trash is a bit of a pain to take out, and the containers stink, but just the act of recycling food makes me realize how much I waste (that and the high cost of food here -- if I allow something to spoil I feel both a pang of guilt and an economic pang as well). When I was back in the U.S. recently I felt so strange about throwing away food in the garbage. I had to make myself do it. It was (forgive the metaphor) like peeing in the ocean or something -- you’ve been trained to do things a certain way and it is hard to get past that training.
The counterpart to recycling here is the extra charge for take-out and bags. Every time I visit the supermarket, for instance, I bring my own bags or I have to pay for bags from the market. They cost very little, perhaps 50 won (5 cents) but just the idea that you have to pay makes me more likely to bring my own, more conscious of the fact that I am wasting when I don’t reuse my own bags. The plastic bags you get (if you do purchase one) are quite sturdy and will hold up for quite few shopping trips, unlike the plastic bags they give you at Safeway which barely make it home. I assume they make the plastic bags thin in the U.S. to create less waste, but what ends of up happening is people just double-bag. Anyway, if you go to Starbucks here and ask for a mug, there’s no extra charge. If you ask for a paper cup they charge you 50 won (5 cents). But if you bring your own mug they give you a 300 won discount (about 30 cents). That’s a huge discount, and one I take advantage of, especially since coffee costs so much more here.
I was working on my “ten things” printculture post, trying to imagine a utopian kind of future where people would wake up and start taking better care of the earth. What would push people to change their habits? Economic incentives and punishments, like we have in Korea, do seem to help train us to think a little bit differently about the small choices we make each day. But how far will that shift us into a sense of the toll we each take on the earth everyday? My friend Emily suggested that what we need is some sort of counter that reminds us as we are trying to decide whether to take the bus or sleep ten more minutes and drive to work, what that costs us in energy and fuel and pollution etc. (she said there’s a book that does this for food but it’s late and I don’t remember what it is called -- anyone?). But she was not optimistic about how much impact that device would have for the sleep-deprived person wanting a little more shut-eye and not seeing any immediate cost.
Anyway. Here are some of my resolutions for the new year as I train to be more like my father-in-law and grandmother:
1. turn out the lights I’m not using, turn of the power strips, turn off the computers.
2. use heat and air conditioning sparingly (this is much easier here since our apartment is small and we’re out most of the day. Our apartment gets a lot of heat from the sun during the winter and if I leave the windows open we get a good breeze in the summer.
3. Carry my mug with me as much as I can, carry my own cloth bags to the grocery store
4. We don’t have a dryer, which saves a lot of electricity. And we wear our clothes multiple times before washing them (most Koreans have indoor clothes and outdoor clothes, so you change clothes when you come home. So even though the city is dirty, you can keep the dirt and the dirty clothes for when you leave the house). People here, as far as I can tell, have no problem with wearing the same or similar clothes for days in a row. (My husband does it all the time, even in the U.S.!). Other than underwear and socks, and unless you do a lot of sweating, there’s really no reason to wash your jeans and shirts after each wearing.
5. Also following what it seems most Koreans do, we use rags to clean rather than paper towels. Kollae for the tables and haengju for the floors.
6. take public transportation. I used to never drive. But with Max getting heavier and the weather being cold I have been driving more. I need to go back to my old habits.
7. don’t let food spoil.
8. go through our clothes and toys and give away things we don’t need.
I'd love to hear more ideas. I just found the Treehugger site, but haven't really been through it yet... anyone have some ideas to share? Or more about recycling in Seoul?
Ah! I just posted this and I saw that oreneta has posted about switching off the electricity for five minutes on Feb 1st... I have to figure out what time that makes it here...
My father-in-law is not quite that bad (though he also tends to leave the door open and neglect flushing), and he drives me crazy every time he comes over, pointing out that “That light has more bulbs and uses more electricity than the other one, so don’t use it.” He cuts their trash up into small pieces so they can fit more in each garbage bag, and he will eat spoiled food rather than throw it away. He’ll park in the first spot he comes to because he doesn’t want to waste gas.
I get annoyed by all these things, but perhaps behind that annoyance is a sense of guilt. These are people who have been trained by war and poverty to save, to conserve, to prize the efficient and proper use of things. The next generation -- my mom’s generation -- prizes convenience and efficiency. My mom doesn’t recycle because she has so little to recycle, and she throws out the trash every day, even if the bag isn’t full, because she doesn’t like the smell. She parks in the same spot at the mall every time so she doesn’t forget where her car is. She’ll ask for an extra paper cup so she doesn’t burn her hand.
We are creatures of habit, our daily activities shaping small acts of waste which accumulate in the earth invisibly, like the dark matter pair of our visible accumulation of money and goods. Living in Korea has helped shaped my awareness of my wastes in small ways; living here has helped point my mind towards waste rather than just convenience.
I have been meaning to blog about recycling here for a while, and made a mental note that others beat me to it. Seoul Man and Here in Korea both have descriptions of recycling here as well as pictures of the recycling areas in their buildings. I won’t repeat what they say except to sum up that we recycle far more here than in the States. I would be curious if anyone knows of an article about what happens to everything once its gone in the truck -- I know at UCLA, for instance, my informant tells me that the building cleaners just dump the recycling into the trash and take it all out together. Here, at least, different trucks come to get the cardboard, food trash, etc. The food trash is a bit of a pain to take out, and the containers stink, but just the act of recycling food makes me realize how much I waste (that and the high cost of food here -- if I allow something to spoil I feel both a pang of guilt and an economic pang as well). When I was back in the U.S. recently I felt so strange about throwing away food in the garbage. I had to make myself do it. It was (forgive the metaphor) like peeing in the ocean or something -- you’ve been trained to do things a certain way and it is hard to get past that training.
The counterpart to recycling here is the extra charge for take-out and bags. Every time I visit the supermarket, for instance, I bring my own bags or I have to pay for bags from the market. They cost very little, perhaps 50 won (5 cents) but just the idea that you have to pay makes me more likely to bring my own, more conscious of the fact that I am wasting when I don’t reuse my own bags. The plastic bags you get (if you do purchase one) are quite sturdy and will hold up for quite few shopping trips, unlike the plastic bags they give you at Safeway which barely make it home. I assume they make the plastic bags thin in the U.S. to create less waste, but what ends of up happening is people just double-bag. Anyway, if you go to Starbucks here and ask for a mug, there’s no extra charge. If you ask for a paper cup they charge you 50 won (5 cents). But if you bring your own mug they give you a 300 won discount (about 30 cents). That’s a huge discount, and one I take advantage of, especially since coffee costs so much more here.
I was working on my “ten things” printculture post, trying to imagine a utopian kind of future where people would wake up and start taking better care of the earth. What would push people to change their habits? Economic incentives and punishments, like we have in Korea, do seem to help train us to think a little bit differently about the small choices we make each day. But how far will that shift us into a sense of the toll we each take on the earth everyday? My friend Emily suggested that what we need is some sort of counter that reminds us as we are trying to decide whether to take the bus or sleep ten more minutes and drive to work, what that costs us in energy and fuel and pollution etc. (she said there’s a book that does this for food but it’s late and I don’t remember what it is called -- anyone?). But she was not optimistic about how much impact that device would have for the sleep-deprived person wanting a little more shut-eye and not seeing any immediate cost.
Anyway. Here are some of my resolutions for the new year as I train to be more like my father-in-law and grandmother:
1. turn out the lights I’m not using, turn of the power strips, turn off the computers.
2. use heat and air conditioning sparingly (this is much easier here since our apartment is small and we’re out most of the day. Our apartment gets a lot of heat from the sun during the winter and if I leave the windows open we get a good breeze in the summer.
3. Carry my mug with me as much as I can, carry my own cloth bags to the grocery store
4. We don’t have a dryer, which saves a lot of electricity. And we wear our clothes multiple times before washing them (most Koreans have indoor clothes and outdoor clothes, so you change clothes when you come home. So even though the city is dirty, you can keep the dirt and the dirty clothes for when you leave the house). People here, as far as I can tell, have no problem with wearing the same or similar clothes for days in a row. (My husband does it all the time, even in the U.S.!). Other than underwear and socks, and unless you do a lot of sweating, there’s really no reason to wash your jeans and shirts after each wearing.
5. Also following what it seems most Koreans do, we use rags to clean rather than paper towels. Kollae for the tables and haengju for the floors.
6. take public transportation. I used to never drive. But with Max getting heavier and the weather being cold I have been driving more. I need to go back to my old habits.
7. don’t let food spoil.
8. go through our clothes and toys and give away things we don’t need.
I'd love to hear more ideas. I just found the Treehugger site, but haven't really been through it yet... anyone have some ideas to share? Or more about recycling in Seoul?
Ah! I just posted this and I saw that oreneta has posted about switching off the electricity for five minutes on Feb 1st... I have to figure out what time that makes it here...
Thursday, January 25, 2007
newsworthy
I just think it is funny how condom sales keep making the news. Who keeps track of these things?
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