One Korean School teacher's quest to save my SEOUL. Pun intended.

Now, I think it's fair to say that in the UK (or at least my small part of it) the words 'jehovah's witness' have a certain stigma attached to them. For instance, the average english persons response to those two  words is to emit a groan, which all English people can sympathise with. It's a groan that means that they have paid you a visit and so you were forced to endure the humiliation of having to hide behind the sofa and pretend you weren't home, whilst they batter down your door with a large copy of The Watchtower.
Now,  I don't think Korean people are overly fond of Jehovah's (my korean friend once called them 'crazy'),  but Christianity is definitely more popular here that at home and you literally can't turn a corner without seeing a church. At home church groups consist of a few doddering OAP's, who look as though they might be in the graveyard next week instead of sat on the pews, where as church groups here could easily be mistaken for youth clubs. On my trips to the beach last summer I often bumped into huge groups of teenagers on church excursions.
Anyway, me being your standard English girl you can imagine what was going through my head when I discovered that I'm teaching across the hall from a dedicated believer in Jehovah. -_- oh dear.

I should take this opportunity to say that in fact my the teacher is a really, really nice woman: really kind and generous and helpful. In fact, I don't even have a problem with her believing whatever she wants to believe in (even if I do think it's absolute nonsense, sorry! >-<). I can only find a problem when she continues by ramming it  down my throat.
The conversations always start with some kind of bribery... 'do you like chocolate milk?' she asked. 'Yeah!' I naively reply ... 'Okay, let's drink it and watch this short video together'. Of course, there was a catch!
So the first video is about the 'spiritually thirsty', 'godless' people of Europe. Any of my friends and family at home reading this, that would be us :D 'I hear that they use church buildings for other uses... like night clubs?!' she asks me in horror. 'Oh yeah, there was one near my university' I say, trying to sound neutral whilst mentally recalling the time I nearly broke my ankle whilst falling off a table in the Leeds nightclub HALO, a converted church, after about 8 sambucas.
So after a few more visits like this, my patience was starting to wear thin. Until finally she knocked on my door today with another delightful video about how all the victims of natural disasters die, because they don't acknowledge the Passover. Drinking wine and bread on a 'special day' makes you immune to earthquakes and tsunamis didn't you know? (I drink LOADS of wine so surely I'm invincable now). So I decided to bite the bullet and tell her that I respect people's right to believe whatever they like, but I don't believe it. And tried to explain the word 'agnostic' to her. Her reply: ’I want you to come to my church and be baptised so you can get salvation'. What?!...hahaha. So apparently, 'I don't believe in Jehovah' translates as 'I MUST get baptised IMMEDIATELY!'. Finding it quite difficult to be polite at this stage so I tell her I've got a few issues with the bible. For one thing I don't think being gay make you a bad person ('being what?' 'gay. G A Y' awkward silence ). Secondly, I don't think women should obey men. After growing up with the strong women from my family the idea of men telling woman what to do seems somewhat ridiculous, and I don't intend to break the tradition. You'd think she'd take the hint, knowing now that I'm a homo-loving, night club going floozy, whose unlikely to obey my husbands orders (that's assuming I take a husband, might just open a brothel in a converted church)... but no... cue the next video:

This one about Jesus coming to visit us in 1940 something. He was a bricklayer in Bolton, didn't you know? It seems knowing the full extent  of my sins has just made her more determined in her quest for my salvation. I expect the next post will be written with one hand, the other being handcuffed to a church pew, whilst being exorcised by my co teacher's local priest.

Buddha's Birthday Take 2: Busan

Sangwangsa Temple: You know somethings worth seeing when the locals are queuing to get a look.

So a few weeks ago I visited the Seoul Lotus Lantern Fest, and then wrote a very disappointed post about how it was a bit crap...maybe tried to phrase it a bit more gently than that, ha.
Anyway, I'm glad to say that my faith has been restored by my later visit to Sangwangsa Temple in Busan (산광사, 부산). As soon as we reached the road leading up to the temple I knew I wouldn't be disappointed. The street were absolutely crammed with Koreans and tourists all making their way up to the temple, but apparently that was nothing compared to earlier in the day when there was a half hour line just to get into the temple. You know somethings worth seeing when the locals are queuing to get a look. The first thing you see as you approach the temple is a stone staircase encased in a kind of tunnel of lanterns, so as you're walking up to the temple you're completely surrounded by them. This in itself was beautiful, but then you emerge at the top of the stairs to be greeted by the temple itself and what I can only describe as a sea of lanterns. They were literally everywhere. It was an amazing sight to see and probably one of the best experiences I've had since I moved to Korea.
The pictures don't really do it justice in the slightest. Sounds like a cliche, but it was genuinely breath-taking. Each lantern had a wooden tag on it with a number on and the highest number I saw was somewhere between six and seven thousand. I mean seriously, six thousand lanterns!


View from the top, looking out over a sea of lanterns.

The wind blowing the lanterns.

Shameless selfie as we walked up the stairs to the temple, haha.

View from the top of the stairs as we emerged from the 'tunnel', looking down on the city.

Sadly, I didn't bring my proper camera along with me so only managed to snap a few crappy shots with my phone. But this guy has got some awesome shots of the place and you should definately take a look:

http://jasonteale.com/blog/2013/05/samgwangsa-temple-in-busan/

Buddha's Birthday Take 1: Seoul

The Lotus Lantern Festival in all it's brightly coloured, neon-flashing glory.

So this weekend me and a few of my Cheongju friends thought it would be nice to pay a visit to the Lotus Lantern Festival in Seoul, held in honour of Buddha's Birthday (which is actually next week, May 28th).
This day is called 석가탄신일 (Seokga tansinil), meaning "Buddha's birthday" or 부처님 오신 날 (Bucheonim osin nal) meaning "the day when the Buddha came". And thanks to Mr Buddha we all get a lovely long weekend off work, which we'll be spending in Busan :D
Anyway, back to the festival. It's always featured high on my Korean Bucket List, as a must-see while I'm here in Korea. But ended up being not quite what I expected...
Let me paint a picture of what I imagined it to be... hundreds of hand-made multi-coloured paper lanterns contrasting beautifully with the darkness as they were released  into the night sky, incense burning, monks chanting, etc, etc.
The reality can be summed up in the following photo:

An  lantern in the shape of a Samsung mobile phone. How very Korean!

It's not really that I didn't enjoy the festival. I just expected it to be a bit more magical.
 Most of the lanterns were made out of synthetic materials, as oppose to the traditional paper. And at one point as we were walking down the river a lazor show with accompanying music started out of nowhere!  Two of the huge parade lanterns, in the shape of a dragon and an elephant, were actually robotic and had sound effects! And one of the lanterns, in the shape of a little boy, even had a flat screen TV embedded in it's head where photos of different Korean children's faces kept flashing up. Even the monks weren't as I expected to them to be! My (admittedly idealistic) image of them as pious beings, devoted to their religion, living frugally with just the bare necessities was shattered when a Buddhist monk reached past me with his Samsung smartphone to snap a shot of the lanterns on display. I spotted another one who had clearly had enough of walking in the parade, his lantern slung over his shoulder carelessly, looking as pissed off as can be.

All this said I did really enjoy walking down the river and looking at the different lanterns there. And admittedly, it was kind of picturesque, although maybe not in the traditional sense of the word. And I suppose if you are looking for a very 'Korean' experience, as the modern technologically advanced nation that it has become, then this would be it.

Another thing that I found interesting (and very refreshing!) was that the parade had a section dedicated to people with disabilities. I've often heard that being disabled or having a disabled family member (particularly mental disabilities) is considered to be quite shameful and taboo in Korean culture, and is not something that they talk openly about. Although, personally I've not found much evidence for this, (At one of the school's I work at their are a number of handicapped kids, and although they don't deal with them the same way as western schools might, they've always talked about the issue openly and without prejudice as far as I've experienced.) I was still a little surprised to see handicapped people taking part in the parade. I didn't manage to get many pictures of this, as the parade was moving too fast, but it started with a huge lantern in the shape of a person pushing a wheel chair, and was followed by a group of monks pushing children in

wheelchairs, and then more handicapped children with their carers carrying lanterns and smiling and waving. It was really quite touching to watch, and hopefully this is a sign that Korean society is

 becoming more forward thinking and accepting when it comes to people with disabilities.

A blurry shot of the monks pushing the disabled children's wheelchairs.

So, I think that's everything for now. Overall, I'm still glad I went. It was a fun experience, just not the experience I was expecting.
Next week, Busan! :D

New school, new students, new start! Korea Part 2!

아녕!

 Well, since my last blog was an absymal failure *sigh!*, I decided to start a-fresh!
Heres goes...
The hightlights of my first year in Korea!

A summer's night at Gwangalli Beach, Busan.

Amazing view of the city, near Namsan Tower, Seoul.

Smiling through the filth! Boryeong Mudfest.

Admiring the ice scultures at the Ice Fishing Festival. Hwacheon.

Making Christmas Cookies with my students. Beyond English Academy, Cheongju.

A few things have changed since my last blog.

Firstly, I've moved schools and am now working at two public schools in Gyeong-gi-do. So far I'm loving the public school experience. I feel so much more supported than I did at my hagwon, and all my coteachers are lovely and so helpful. Plus, 2 months (give or take) holiday every year is a big improvement on the pitifil 10 days I got in my previous job. Can't wait to start planning where I'm gunna go :D

My school name tag. It reads:
 'Native Teacher/ Laura Brown/ Namyangju Deokseong Elementary school.

Secondly, I've moved house (again)! I now live in a brand new area called

Byeollae (별내), nearest city, Guri (구리). Pros: everything is brand spanking new, subway around the corner and I just have to roll out of bed to get to school. Cons: No other foreigners live nearby.... in fact, pretty much nobody lives nearby. Just me and a few grumpy looking construction workers, who do not respond whether you greet them in English or 한국말. Believe me, I've tried!

Thirdly, I now teach grades 1-6 elementary, in contrast to my old job where I taught grades 4-6 elementary and middleschool. Which means the level of english is a lot lower than I'm used to, so I'm kind of missing being able to chat away to my kids at random. Especially my 'handsome boys' chats with my middleschool girls :'(

But on the upside, it also means that my new students are at the age where their not too cool to dance around, and do animal impressions and play games, so their much more responsive when I'm bouncing around at the front of the classroom, making myself look like an arse, than my older students were. I'm

 pretty sure they have no idea what I'm saying most of the time, but they play along so it's fine.

Well I think that's pretty much everything up to date but I'll be off to the Lotus Lantern Festival   (http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/SI/SI_EN_3_2_1.jsp?cid=972387 ) in Seoul, this Saturday so there should be a new update very soon!

Goodbye for now :)