Probably the top advantage of living and working in a different country rather than simply visiting for a few weeks is that you get to experience the culture as fully as is possible for a foreigner. And in the case of a country where the people are as warm and friendly as in Korea, you’ll [...]
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This weekend is Seollal – that’s the lunar new year to you and me. It’s a more important holiday in Korea than the solar new year, which means a long weekend for yours truly. Of course, it means more than that. It’s a family-centered holiday, with many Koreans travelling back to their home towns to [...]
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I finally made it to the end of my trial period for my Musical class. This was a new class for the school, and they weren’t entirely sure what it entailed or whether it would work out – so their solution was to give me a book of songs and skits, and a CD of [...]
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I woke up this morning feeling surprisingly rested, considering that the guy next door had woken me up at 3am with his latest house guest. I lay there, pleasantly drowsy, allowing the morning sunshine to filter in and gently bring me to a state of full consciousness. Then I just continued to lie there, enjoying [...]
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Teacher, why you cry? asks a chorus of alarmed little voices. The tears stream down my face and I take off my glasses as I attempt to stem the flow with a tissue. The area around each eye is red and sore from repeated attempts to do this. It’s OK, it’s OK, I try to [...]
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One of the great things about being a teacher is that I get to go to lots of places that I would normally be considered too old to visit. Kkumdori Land is one of those places. It’s a theme park right here in my home city, and I’d never even heard of it until now, [...]
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I am sitting on the floor with nam-dong-seng, who is giving me a very enthusiastic lesson in Korean history as I try to follow the broken English mixed with Korean and hastily-drawn maps and diagrams. Then Japan eat Korea, he says, drawing a threatening-looking arrow on the map and changing the country’s name for the [...]
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I did something really embarrassing a few weeks ago. No, Parents, you don’t have to stop reading – it’s not that kind of embarrassing. It’s just one of those things that I find myself doing and then think surely nobody else in the history of time has ever done this ridiculous and ludicrous thing? and [...]
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You Say Goodbye, I Say… Historical Snapshots It Just Makes Me Happy
