There’s no word for hello or goodbye in the Korean language. Instead of saying hello, the people greet each other with a question: 안녕하세요? (An-young-ha-say-yo?) It means Are you at peace?, and I love that. What a nice way to say “bout ye?”! It took me a while to get the response correct when someone [...]
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The Ajumma is such a common sight to me now that I forget I’d never heard of one until I moved to Korea. I don’t think there’s a way to translate this word into English – at least, not without using several sentences, so I figured I might as well take a whole blog post [...]
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As I mentioned in the comments section of a previous post, I’ve resorted to bribery with my most disruptive student – Adam, the hyperactive but lovable kindergartener who turned into a disruptive and somewhat mean bully within a week of starting elementary school. He has an excellent understanding of spoken English, so when I took [...]
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Aren’t these hills a bit strange-looking? You’ll see them fairly regularly in Korea. These particular ones are in Gyeongju, and they’re really quite impressive to look at – particularly at night, when they’re lit up in a majestic way by floodlights positioned all around them at the base. Guess what they are. Go on, have [...]
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The name of this game confused me at first, until I discovered (in another of our multi-cultural group’s enlightening discussions about regional English) that the game we always called “Chinese Whispers” is known as “Telephone” in many other parts of the world. I was very glad to have the company of Irish Friends One and [...]
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I spent last weekend in a traditional Korean-style guest house in Gyeongju, Korea’s “most historic city”. Because Daejeon is fairly modern and Western in terms of buildings, there were gasps of delight when our bus pulled into the street where we’d be staying. It was real Asia! Not an office block or apartment building in [...]
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Occasionally, I’ll be sitting in my apartment happily typing away or watching TV with the window open to let in the cool night air, when all the dogs in the neighbourhood will suddenly start barking like it’s the end of the world or something. Just at the point where I’m noticing it and starting to [...]
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The nits saga continues. I walked into the office this morning to grab a couple of new whiteboard markers from the supply cupboard, and found the director sitting there with her head in her hands. Umm… you OK? I asked the top of her head uncertainly. There was a loud sigh, and a face emerged [...]
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The moment I’ve been dreading since I became a teacher in a kindergarten has finally arrived. There are nits among us. I was sitting at a computer in the office yesterday, struggling as usual with the Korean menus as I tried to alter a worksheet and print it out, when a homeroom teacher burst in, [...]
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Last night, I went and sat with my feet in a pool full of hungry fish who fed on my skin. I’ve been wanting to go to Dr. Fish for ages, simply because it’s just so weird. Starting out as a treatment for psoriasis in spas in Turkey, they’ve caught on more in Asia than [...]
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You Say Goodbye, I Say… Historical Snapshots It Just Makes Me Happy
