Another North Korean Documentary

Maybe I'm boring my readers with North Korea info, but I came across another documentary filmed by two American tourists to North Korea. The things that they managed to get on film is amazing, and this is definitely worth checking out.

Here is the first part, there are 14 parts in total.


Here is the link to their website for the rest of the episodes: http://www.vbs.tv/shows.php?show=1442318652.

I do need to put a disclaimer here though. These guys that made the video were able to get some amazing footage, but I have to say that they did it without any cultural awareness of North Korea, and Korea in general. It seems as if they made the documentary just to prove that they could do it, and not for any actual interest in North Korea and the North Korean people. How difficult is it to learn how to say hello and thank you? They sort of make a mockery of the people that they meet, and if the North Korean government ever sees this video (which they probably will) it's quite possible their guides and their guide's families could be sent to prison, if not killed. That is the reality of North Korea, and they did not take this fact into consideration when filming.

That being said, it is still an amazing video to watch, and it gives you an amazing perspective into the country.

Jimjilbang or Bathing in public naked

Jjimjilbang (찜질방) is the Korean version of the public bath house. These bathhouses are equipped with everything a person could possibly need and more. Herbal baths, saunas, massage chairs, pay for a real massage or a full body scrub. Eat your dinner, check your email, sleep for the night and even norebang at some.

For my first few months here I was so scared to go. Why? Well, you have to go into the bath area naked. Since my friends are my co-workers... I just didn't really like the idea of my co-workers knowing every intimate detail of my body. After one of my friends nagged me about it forever, I finally broke down and went. I'm so happy I did. Being naked in public is not that big of a deal. It was even nicer, because we went so late at night that there was hardly anyone around to see anyway. I've decided that 10:30 pm on a weekday is the perfect time to go.

So, how it works: You need to go in (look for this sign, it usually means jjimjilbang, though, sometimes motels use this symbol too, so be careful). I haven't quite figured out exactly what to say when you get there, since there are different options, if you only want the bath, if you want bath and sauna, or if you want to spend the night. Eventually after some gestures they figure out what I want, and they give me my towels and my receipt.

Take your shoes off at the entry way and enter into the women's side. At my jjimjilbang there is a special locker just for shoes. Take the key out of that locker and bring it in. I hand my key and my reciept to another lady. She gives me my shirt and shorts that I will wear in the common area, but thats for later. The lady gives me a key to a big locker and thats where you have to strip down and get naked. Then you can enter into the bath area.

Before you can get into the bath, you must shower. There are lots of showers, and the Korean women will really scrub themselves down, or even get someone else to scrub them. I'm not so hardcore, but I just wash myself clean like I normally would, then head over to a bath. At my jjimjilbang, there are several different baths, The first changes every time I go, but its always some kind of herbal bath, usually some fun color like bright purple or green. There is a super hot bath, I've never gone in that one. There is a bath made out of pine wood, I'm not sure what that bath is either, but it smells really nice. The last bath is the cold bath. It's only 20˚C, which feels mighty cold after stepping out of a steaming hot bath. This bath is good though, because sometimes all the hot water and steam can get to you.

Once you finish in the baths, you can dry off, put your towel in the hamper, and get dressed with the clothes that they give you. You can head over to the common area where all the fun stuff is. At our jjimjilbang, we always frequent the snack bar and buy 2,000 won chamchi sandwiches (tuna sandwiches) which are so yummy and delicious. Maybe after that head over to the massage chairs which cost 1,000 won for 10 mins. These chairs are not just some vibrations on your back. These chairs really make you feel like someone is massaging you. I usually spend about 20 mins here. They have foot massages here, but I don't particularly like them... they kind of hurt my feet. Next is the saunas. There are many different saunas... dry heat moist heat, super hot, ice boxes... we kind of switch between the ones we like.

The common area also has a big tv, a restaurant, PC bang and a massage room. The vast majority of the common area, though, is just one big open space. People tend to sprawl out on the ground and either chill out or pass out. Looks pretty tempting actually, I might try it sometime. The sleeping area I guess is separate, and I think it's just a dark room where you can sleep on the floor (they probably give you a blanket and a pillow, just like renting any sort of ondol room in Korea).

After we're done here, we usually head into the baths one more time for a few mins, dry off and check out. We return our suits and key, get our shoe locker key back, and head out. And it's amazing.

My jjimjilbang is very close by Wangsimni station (line 2, 5 and 1) if you want directions, just leave me a message. I'm not sure of the exit number at the moment.

Happy Pepero Day!

For some reason or another, for reasons I can not exactly begin to comprehend, November 11th is the official Pepero Day in Korea. Pepero is basically the same as Japanese Pocky, if you're more familiar with this name. It's a stick of sweet cookie, coated in chocolate. Then, of course, there are many variations on this general theme.

This holiday is especially geared towards giving Pepero to your friends/ significant others, much like Valentine's Day. There are many stories about why they celebrate this holiday, since it does not have any sort of historical background... the holiday was just created about 10 years ago... The best explanation I could get from my kids is that because 11/11 looks like 4 pepero sticks, they celebrate Pepero Day. For me, that's not really an excuse to celebrate... but, hey, what do I know. This holiday was actually somehow created by Lotte (the company that makes them). I don't know how you can turn a marketing scheme into a cultural tradition, but whoever figured it out must be a genius.

I must say, though, that I do appreciate this holiday. It means that I get to eat lots and lots of Pepero that students give to me. If you want to learn more about this ridiculous holiday, check out the wikipedia article.... not that they are able to tell much more than I can.

Children's Grand Park

This week's adventure was a trip to Children's Grand Park. This was a rather interesting park, though I'm sure I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I had been a small child. This park is quite big, and it has a botanical garden, zoo, amusement park, playgrounds, basketball courts, teaching gardens, and lots of big open areas to run around.


We found this creature in the photo area (I'm in Korea, of course there is a special area designated just for photos)... Yes, the statue is peeing... (teach 'em early). Speaking of men peeing, I saw a man peeing in the street last week around 10 pm on a Tuesday night... Sorry.. that was off topic...



These elephants were one of the first things we saw when we entered the park. We were excited, until we went over and saw that they were chained to the ground. Then we were just sad.


We found this beautiful tiger in the zoo. Unfortunately, what you see of its habitat is about the actual size of his area. The animal's habitats in this zoo were wayy too small. I didn't take a photo of the lion area, which had 2 male lions and 3 females in an area about the same size as this tiger habitat. We didn't stay very long in the zoo... it was too depressing...


We meandered our way around and came across a full amusement park. I don't think that Six Flags has anything to worry about here for competition, but it did have one upside down rollercoaster. We seriously considered riding it, but we have no idea about safety regulations in this country, and we didn't feel like dying. There were plenty of carnival style rides, and we decided to take a ride on the Ferris wheel.


Here's the view from the Ferris wheel. I like the graffiti on the window for some reason... I think it gives my photo more character... or maybe I'm just strange.

We stumbled across these strange creatures in the amusement park. I've always wanted to ride a dog... though... not enough to actually pay money to do it...

To visit Children's Grand Park, take line 7 (olive green line) to Children's Grand Park station, and follow the signs. Amusement park rides are 4,000 won each (or you can pay for a package and do many rides).

Yay! Obama!

Korean War Memorial

This weekend we headed over to the Korean War Memorial. This museum is both a history of the Korean War, and a museum with artifacts of many ancient wars. When you first arrive outside, you'll find lots of planes and helicopters and tanks and all sorts of war vehicles. You can go in some of them. I'm not sure if they are replicas or the real thing, but either way it's really interesting to see. There's also randomly a traditional wedding hall here, and we sort of stumbled across a wedding where the whole wedding party was in hanbok. It was pretty cool to see, I wish we could have gotten closer.



There are also lots of statues, mostly dedicated to the Korean War. This one was particularly interesting.

Here is the front entrance to the museum. The big 60 is for the 60th anniversary of the Korean war. Oh! I had to include this picture. This is the Singicheon... the "divine weapon". The Korean movie I reviewed a few months ago was all about this weapon. It was awesome to see what it really looked like. This weapon was probably one of the most deadly weapons in the world for a long time. It was developed during the reign of King Sejong, probably the most famous of all Korean Emperors. He also invented Hangul (the alphabet), among other accomplishments. This weapon shot many arrows at a time at high speeds, using gunpowder. You should really check out the movie. I thought it was excellent.

The Korean War Memorial is located close to Samgaji Station on the brown and light blue lines. Go out exit 11 and walk for a minute or two until you see the enterance on the left. The are open until 6:00 pm and the entrance fee is 3,000 won. For the size of this museum, it's well worth the money.

Halloween at SLP

Thursday and Friday were Halloween days at work. Every teacher was assigned a room to decorate and to run an activity. Wednesday we all stayed late to decorate. My room was the ghost room. Probably one of the easier rooms to decorate... skeletons take a bit more effort that ghosts. The activity that we ran in our room was digging for worms. I made dirt out of chocolate cookies and water. Then threw gummy worms in the bowl. Then they got chopsticks to dig them out in a race against another kid. Whoever found the most worms won. It was messy, but it was easy to run and quite popular. I never really got a break the whole day. It was exhausting. It was really fun to see all my students dressed up. All the preschoolers were dressed up. Only some of my older students dressed up. In this picture at the top are two of my students. One from my Hi Kids 2.3 class, and one from my 1 Jump High class that I actually don't teach any more. My day is so much nicer without those kids, but I must say, this boy, who's name is Do Won was one of my favorites. He was so funny and smart. He would often misbehave, but I think that was mostly because he was really too smart for the class, but he was already in the highest level. Sometimes he would draw pictures of a dead teacher... but that was usually the way he showed his affection. Once he wrote a story. I told them, write a story about 5 baby ducks. Here is Do Won's story. I may get one or two words off, but this is almost verbatim:
There were 5 baby ducks. Then a giant octopus monster ate them. They swam in its belly. Then the octopus hiccuped and the ducks came out. (and yes, he really did know the word hiccup... sort of amazing now that I think about it. He is a first grader.)
This is me with my Fly High sophomore class. They are middle school students. 15 years old Korean age, which is 13 or 14 American age. As you can see, while they are not so tall... I am quite short. I'm only shorter then them here because I'm leaning over. But, I did check with one of the other girls in that class. She is taller than me. How encouraging. Then again, I did stop growing when I was 12.... so I guess it makes sense. These are my oldest students. Most of my kids are much younger, elementary age. I have one preschool class and one other class of 6th graders.
This is Kenny, he is one of my 4 Jump High students. He was one of the few students I could convince to eat a worm. His class is very smart, because they all started in intensive preschool and then have continued at SLP going at least 3 days a week, though when they were younger they were probably going 5 days a week. But, while they are very smart, they like to fool around a lot. They are a class of five 4th grade boys. They love making up stories about each other. The boys tell me that Kenny has two girlfriends, but he only loves one of them. Billy, another boy in the class (probably the smartest) supposedly has a girlfriend named Su Ji. They love to swear in English, and are smart enough to actually spell out swears instead of just saying them. Thier favorite is F-U-C-K-E-R. They have no idea what it means, but they know how to use it and love calling each other by that name. I had the hardest time controlling this class, and I'm just now finally figuring out some tricks. I tried negative reinforcement, but it didn't work very well. Now I'm experimenting with possitive reinforcement, and it's working much better. They would always only speak Korean in class, even though they are quite capable of speaking English quite well. Now they have some insentive to speak English. They need to earn stickers for me. Once they earn thier stickers and fill a page of thier stickerbook, I buy them something from the supermarket downstairs. Thier favorite thing to eat is sundaegochi (not sure if I'm spelling it right). It looks disgusting to me. What it is, is intestines filled with glass noodles. But hey, it's only 500 won, so I don't care. It's worth it if I can get them to behave in class. So far it seems to be working quite well. I never thought I'd spend money on my kids. Especially not to make them do thier work. But at this point I'm grateful for anything that makes them behave. Now that they are a little better in class, I enjoy them much more.
This is Min Ji. She looked so cute I had to take a picture. She is a student in my 2 Jump High class, so she is another girl who came out of intensive preschool. They have class 5 days a week. I only teach her class 3 days a week. This girl is very sweet, and always tries very hard. She worries a lot about quizes and tests and gets very freaked out. One of the first days I taught her, she was crying because she had forgotten about the test, freaked out and refused to do it because she was so upset and convinced that she couldn't to the work. But, actually, she usually gets some of the best grades, because she is one of the few students I have that study.

I never thought I would be so involved with my students. I feel with just about all of them I could write paragraphs and paragraphs. Sure there are a few that just blend in with the walls, but they are all such individuals... they have thier strenghts and weaknesses and quirks. Now that I've been teaching almost all my classes now for three months, I feel like I really know my students. I'm becoming rather emotionally attached to them. I don't know what it will feel like after a year and I have to leave them...