Coffee Helps

For me, rubbish piled high on the streets was not to be expected in a First World country.

In truth, I must confess that Korea’s garbage disposal system is much more in keeping with the original ill-informed, vague, preconceived notion I had of SK as a still-developing country – one where people pulled carts down streets instead of driving fancy cars, and lived in quaint ramshackle houses instead of high-rise apartment buildings.

My expectations were embarrassingly wrong, as I discovered when I stepped off the airport bus in Daejeon and found myself surrounded by tall buildings, neon lights, bustling crowds of the most well-groomed and elegant people you will ever see, and 6 lanes of roaring traffic (mostly Hyundais!).

However, one area of daily life does seem strangely at odds with the otherwise hi-tech and service-oriented Korean lifestyle: rubbish. There are no binmen (as we call them in the UK) with loud and beeping lorries here. Nor, for that matter, are there any bins. Now, I don’t just mean that there are no bins for us to leave out with our household waste for a weekly collection – no, I mean there are NO BINS WHATSOEVER. I still get agitated when I’m walking through the streets drinking from a bottle or eating lunch on the go, and find myself carrying the empty container/packaging around with me like I can’t bear to part with it. I really don’t know what you’re supposed to do in this sort of situation. If I have a bag, I’ll pop the rubbish in there and take it home, but very often I’ll just sneakily add it to one of the piles of rubbish along my way.

Ah yes, the piles of rubbish. I am being completely serious about this. I was just looking on Google for some photos to illustrate it, and then thought “Nah, I’ll just nip outside and take a couple of quick pictures.” You really don’t have to look very far to see this kind of sight:

Rubbish area at my building's front door. On a tidy day!

I’m guessing it’s partly a space issue, since everything is so tightly packed here that you’d fill an entire parking lot with the bins from one apartment complex. Instead, we leave bottles, paper, and other recyclable materials in old shopping bags outside our building. Some buildings, like mine, have a specific little square area for this, while others just make do with the street/doorway/steps. Food waste gets put into the little red buckets you see in the picture. And everything else – the actual rubbish, the stuff that can’t be recycled or used – must be put in the green trash bags you can buy at all shops. This is the only part that costs you any money – probably aimed at encouraging people to recycle everything they can, since recycling is free. The more you throw away as rubbish, the more you pay.

And where does this rubbish go? To be fair, it does seem to get picked up very quickly, as I leave mine out on the way to work on random days of the week and find it gone by the time I get home. The recyclables get picked up by the elderly folk. No such thing as a relaxing retirement here! If you can still walk (and some of them can just about, almost bent double), you can serve the community. Every morning I meet a crowd of ajummas departing from the community centre to pick up litter from the local streets. And you can’t go far without seeing a very old man or woman pulling a rickety cart piled high with cardboard or bottles.

It does seem very out of place – especially when you step out of the quieter neighbourhoods like mine, and take a walk through the crazily busy city streets. Stepping around piles of stinking rubbish just doesn’t fit with the rest of the experience. And let’s not even mention the advertisers, who spend their evenings driving through the streets throwing piles of fliers out of car windows and business cards off motorbikes.

Strange, eh?

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I had this dream last night that my scalp was really itchy, and when I scratched it this big flaky piece came off in my hand. I was quite dismayed, but imagine my surprise when I went to a mirror and started to pull out these big pieces of what I thought was skin, only to discover that they were in fact some very old and fragile pages from a poetry book. Some fell apart as soon as I touched them, but the ones that remained intact were full of beautiful classic poems (the only one I can recall is one by Yeats).

So I started to get quite concerned about what else could be lurking in the curly depths of my scalp, and started rooting around in there with the help of a mirror and a flashlight. And there, buried far beneath the tangled hair, munching quite happily on a small piece of leaf, was a little red snail.

I just dare you to try to interpret this.

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It only occurred to me to ask the school secretary yesterday about the ritual of the children when they arrive at school each day.

Korea is so cool at times. From the number-coded lock on my apartment door, to simply offering customers a spritz of Febreeze when leaving a smoky grill-your-own-meat restaurant, they have a lot of little twists and ideas that appeal to me.

I was idling away a few free minutes after kindergarten and before elementary classes, chatting to the secretary at her desk as the elementary students started to arrive in their buses from various schools. They poured in as usual, shouting hello and pulling off their shoes, sterilizing their hands on the machine, and doing something at a little electronic thingimajig.

Here, what are they actually doing with that thing? I suddenly thought to ask for the first time, actually paying attention for once as a little girl came in and pressed her thumb on to the scanner. It flashed red and beeped, and she ran off to her classroom. Some kind of fancy roll-call? I wondered aloud.

Allie nodded. Sort of. It scans their thumb print and sends their mother a text message to let her know they got here safely.

OK, seriously, how cool is that?!!

The world has come a long way since I was the age of my students (over 20 years ago, erk), when the roll call consisted of a list of names in a folder, which would be checked off each day and collected by a senior pupil, who’d deliver them to the office. Unless a child skipped school regularly, the parents would probably never find out that he hadn’t shown up on a particular day. This way, they just wait for the text message – if it doesn’t arrive, they know there’s a problem. I love it. Peace of mind re: safety and anti-truancy. And so simple!

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I’m not a big fan of being talked to/at in the morning.

Leave me alone until I’ve had my first cup of coffee, and then we can be the best of friends. Expect me to be communicative when I’m still fighting off the sleep monsters, and it will probably do some damage to our relationship.

I wish I was a morning person, I really do. I could be so much more productive, active, and healthy! But no. I come awake in the evenings, which is why I idle away my time on the internet and reading books half the night when I should be getting a good night’s sleep to avoid feeling like crap in the morning again.

And then of course everything bad seems to happen in the mornings. 90% of my many, many everyday accidents, incidents, and minor injuries occur in that hellish post-sleep, pre-coffee interval. From a stubbed toe to spilled milk, to forgetting the same item 3 times in a row, to things out of my control generally going wrong… mornings are hateful like that.

Yesterday, even coffee didn’t drastically change the situation, because I was more than usually sleep-deprived and also getting gradually sicker from the long-expected allergies. So I stumbled blearily through the day, knocking out 5-year-olds and suchlike, until it was time to go home. I slept for an hour until my alarm reminded me that it was time for my guitar class, and when I practically crawled into my seat I found myself being plunged into a very intensive music theory lesson… in Korean. My poor, poor head. Apparently I have made satisfactory progress in the art of strumming songs and changing chords, and now it’s time to stop playing games, and get down to some serious hard work. I barely got to touch the guitar throughout the whole, twice-as-long-as usual, completely-in-a-foreign-language lesson (as my teacher’s English is hesitant at best, and he decided he couldn’t face presenting a more complex topic in it). It was all key of this and key of that, and flats and sharps and half-tones and a bunch of words I don’t even know how to translate into English (I am going to have a very interesting vocabulary when it comes to talking about music).

Anyway, I’m lost now as I don’t think I actually intended to write about that. Oh yes, well, after a poor night’s sleep I woke up (loosely speaking) with bags under my eyes and yellow dust pouring from my mouth (feels like it). Got to work (late) and spent half a sodding hour trying to get the computer to start. I moved to Alex’s old classroom when he left, as it gets less of the sun’s heat than my old one, but the downside to this is that the computer is fecked. Roars like a depressed hippopotamus and freezes before I’ve even asked it to do anything. So I couldn’t even relax and browse Facebook prepare my lesson materials before I had to go downstairs and be mobbed by a crowd of squealing, waist-high creatures.

Fortunately, I seem to have good karma from generally being in much better form than this of late, and being a smiling, bright and cheerful, shining example of a kindergarten teacher to the lovely, adorable children. It is for this reason that when things get to the stage where I want to crawl under my desk and hide from the horrible little monsters, there will always, always be a small ray of sunshine to soothe my weary mind and body. Today, it came in the form of a colleague carrying a pot of freshly brewed coffee. Until you come here to this land of instant sweet coffee mix and green tea, you have no idea how rare a sight that is. And yet there it was. Real coffee, like a beacon in the night.

Hayley, would you like some coffee? said this beautiful angel at my classroom door, and lo, I cast aside my mug of instant coffee and held out a paper cup left over from an art class.

Coffee helps.

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I gave a child a black eye today.

I haven’t exactly been the world’s best teacher this week. I’m going to blame the yellow dust, which has started drifting in again and making us all cough and sneeze. I’m tired and a little under the weather, a combination which maketh not a good teacher.

Teacher, look! Teacher, here! Teacher, finished! Teacher, me! Teacher, help! Teacher, teacher, teacher!

It’s constant, all of a sudden. It’s probably always that way but I only really notice it when I’m too tired and cranky to deal with it. Shut up, shut up, shut up! I want to respond, but settle instead for pleading with them to just raise their hands. Not that they do.

Go to your chairs and sit down! I instruct them as we finish an action activity and I bend down to tidy away some materials. Perhaps it is silly of me to expect them all to follow this instruction, and so I should not whirl around and stand up at the speed I now do. Because of COURSE there will be a small child standing right behind me, sticking out his tongue to show me some invisible mark or mouth ulcer or something.

CRACK! Our foreheads meet with horrendous-sounding force, and I stagger back clutching my head while the boy practically flies through the air in slow motion. He picks himself up quickly, looking dazed and wondering whether or not to cry. Instead, he chooses to gaze at me with melting brown eyes that stare reproachfully into my soul. How could you hurt me like this? ask The Eyes, one of which is now surrounded by an increasingly red patch of skin.

[If there is any worse feeling, it can only be the one you get when you stand on a puppy's paw and he makes that pitiful little squealing, whimpering noise. ]

I keep a close watch on him throughout the remainder of class, noting with mounting horror that the skin around his eye is now going purple. He seems as right as rain, but occasionally he rubs his eye in that dazed manner and fixes me with the guilt-inducing gaze again. After class, I make my way to the office to report the incident to the director. She meets me at the door. Who gave Ben the black eye? she asks sternly, in a “woe betide them” sort of voice. Oh, help.

I did, I confess.

I think I might have detention.

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It is the middle of the night, and my delightful neighbours have returned home to have a fight.

They’ve been so happy for the past few weeks, too. I’ve hardly heard a peep from them, other than the occasional civil conversation and the odd peal of laughter, and sure who could complain about that? But alas! – the ceasefire has expired and the slamming of the door simultaneously wakes me up and plunges me into deep despair.

AwwwwwawwwwwAWWWWWWW! goes Yer One. AwwwwWAHHHHHHawwwwww.

Muttermuttermutter, responds Himself. Grunt.

AwwwwwEHHHHHHwahhhhhAWWWWWWWW! adds Yer One.

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I contribute mildly from underneath my pillow.

The “conversation” proceeds in this manner until I actually lose my mind. This is when it becomes clear to me that the only possible response is to complain to them in the only language that they seem capable of understanding: noise.

Which is why, at 2 o’clock on a Monday morning, and with deep feelings of regret towards the other residents of the building, I stumble blearily from my warm bed, pick up my guitar, and begin playing Lemon Tree as loudly as I can strum without making my fingers bleed.

I have the disturbing feeling of floating up out of my body and watching like an interested  and curious spectator as a crazy woman with mad hair sits in the darkness, thumping at guitar strings with something amounting to fury, and singing “I wonder how, I wonder why…”.

Silence suddenly descends on the apartment next door.

“…yesterday you told me ’bout the blue, blue sky….”, belts out the Crazy Woman.

The girl next door screams something that doesn’t sound as if she is entirely pleased with this turn of events. I don’t understand it all, but I gather that she would prefer it if the impromptu concert were to cease.

“…but all that I can see…”, I continue regardless.

The man next door thumps on the wall, clearly unhappy about his no longer being the noisiest apartment in the building. He, too, shouts something uncomplimentary about my guitar-playing skills, or my singing, I’m not sure which.

“…is just ANOTHER LEMON TREE!!!!” I howl nonsensically.

There is utter silence. I sit there in adrenaline-and-rage-fueled tension, squinting crazily at the wall. There is some muttering. And then, ladies and gentlemen, the neighbours leave their apartment, slamming their door behind them, and go outside to continue their argument in an environment free of insane guitar-playing foreigners who react really strangely to being woken up by a bit of harmless howling in the middle of the night.

I have won.

And it feels fabulous, darlings.

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It is with feelings of despair that I have been contemplating the fact that winter is over and summer will soon unleash itself upon me in all its scorching, humid glory. However, I have managed to think of one fairly major reason why summer might be preferable to winter, even for a cold-dweller like me.

Yes, outside might be unbearable. But inside, in summer, becomes a large and wonderful refrigerator.

You see, Koreans have a rather odd outlook on the temperature. I’d have thought that the miracle of modern heating and cooling technology would mean that we could keep the interior of buildings at the same comfortable temperature all year long, regardless of the temperature outside. I don’t know exactly what this  comfortable temperature is, but it wouldn’t make you sweat or shiver.

But for some reason, people in Korea like to make the indoor climate feel like the exact opposite of the outdoor one. It’s like they’re over-compensating. It’s freezing cold outside – but inside, it feels like a hot summer’s day! It’s swelteringly hot outside – but inside, it feels like the coldest day in January!

It’s altogether bizarre. And in winter, it kills me. I’m not much for socialising as it is, but in winter I want to leave almost as soon as I’ve arrived in a bar or restaurant, because the heat is suffocating. Last night, I went for drinks for a friend’s birthday at Ethnic Bar, where you sit on  the floor at low tables amidst candles and flowers and lanterns and suchlike. All very charming, except that the underfloor heating was turned up so high that I felt like I was about to burst into flames as I sat there. I could feel the heat spreading up through my feet and legs as I sat there squirming miserably, until soon my face was bright red and all I could think about was getting outside into the cold air. When I got home, I stripped off and switched on the fan in an effort to cool myself down – a common occurrence in summer after I’ve walked home, but not what I’d expect to be doing when you can still see your breath on the air outside!

At school, it can get almost as bad, except that I do have some control over the temperature in my classroom (in that I can open the window). That doesn’t stop the burning of the underfloor heating, mind you. Last term, I actually refused to teach my last kindergarten class of the day because the classroom had heated up to a temperature that was utterly unbearable to me, even dressed in the single light layer that gets me shocked and disapproving stares from all the Korean teachers in their sweaters and scarves. I literally could not bear to stand on that hot floor. It felt like it was burning right through my feet (remember we don’t wear shoes indoors).

And so – in a weird twist – summer, when it arrives with its searing outdoor heat and oppressive humidity, will mean that I can once again feel comfortable indoors. The floor will be cool on my feet. The aircon will be blasting icy air. Fans will be circulating the coldness. And I will be one happy Hails. Because yes, they really do take it to the other extreme in summer, chilling rooms to the freezing temperatures they’re so desperate to eliminate in winter. Outside is horribly hot, but when you walk into a bar or restaurant and the cold air hits you, it’s almost worth the walk in the heat to get there. One of my South African friends sat in her coat as we watched a football match in a bar last summer. I, on the other hand, basked in the coldness wearing only a strappy top, shorts, and a big smile.

Oh, Korea… I love your culture, your people, your beautiful scenery, your cities, your quirks, and your children. If only your climate could be just a little bit Irish!

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I can tell that I’m going to get a lot of blog posts out of this Art teacher thing.

I’m seriously loving it, by the way. The director was more than happy to hand complete control of the entire Art curriculum over to me when I showed her a sample plan, so I can pretty much do what I want, as long as I don’t go all radical and take the kids out to paint anti-government murals on the sides of houses, for example. And so I cheerfully spend a few hours per week surfing the net (is that still an expression?) for fun and educational art projects, hand over a monthly shopping list of materials to Jennifer, and spend two days a week clarried in paint and glitter. Sure what could be more perfect?!

I’m still a little nervous in my new role, mind you – still finding my feet. This means that I’ve been spending ridiculous amounts of time in preparation, including spending the beginning of Friday night pottering around my classroom with tubes of paint and brightly coloured straws, muttering to myself about the correct ratio of paint to water to washing-up liquid in order to achieve the perfect shade of bubbles.

I gave myself a small panic attack when I began testing the bubbles and realised that the second a drinking straw goes into your mouth, you get an instinctive urge to suck through it rather than blow. I had to make a conscious decision to prevent this action, as if my body would just have gone ahead and drunk the painty water if it hadn’t received any further instructions.

Considering that I was planning on offering these appetising-looking concoctions to three dozen pre-school infants, this was somewhat worrisome. And it was for this same reason that I devoted a large section of my demonstration in each class to miming out what would happen if they sucked instead of blowing into the straws. I can think of no other job where you’re required to stagger around several times in one morning, clutching a cup of bright pink liquid, clawing at your throat with an agonised expression on your face and making retching noises. The children were most amused, and it seemed that they were much more intelligent than me, for the thought of drinking the stuff had never even crossed their minds.

Teacher, very silly! Drink paint is yucky! Sick, teacher, so sick!

Excellent news. And so my confidence increased as I completed two successful classes. The children loved it, I loved it, and we all had a fabulous time. By the third class, I was feeling like the most fun teacher that ever walked the planet.

Blow a bit harder, I encouraged the quiet, withdrawn new boy, whose efforts were producing no bubbles at all. He’s a funny little boy – very silent and unblinking, and with seemingly no understanding of anything anyone says. He doesn’t even acknowledge that you’ve spoken to him, whether it’s a gentle question or a simple hello – but then he’s a bit behind the rest of the class, since they’ve already been at the school for a year,  plus he’s probably quite overwhelmed by his new surroundings, so I’m treating him as fragile rather than sulky.

Anyway, I turned to the girl beside him to check on the progress of her bubbles, and then returned my attention to him. A little harder, I repeated, growing puzzled as to why there were still no bubbles. That’s when I saw traces of green at his little lips, and almost had heart failure. Don’t drink it!!!! Spit, spit! I almost yelled, snatching the straw out of his mouth and then realising he would have no idea what I just said. I had to mime spitting instead, which he did gratefully, a torrent of green pouring out of his mouth. Dear lord, I thought to myself,  I have force-fed paint and soap to an already nervous and withdrawn child. This does not bode well.

And indeed, after having had his mouth rinsed and his teeth thoroughly brushed, he returned to the classroom looking deeply suspicious of me. He still refused to acknowledge that I was speaking to him, but now there was a (somewhat green) tinge of resentment in his glare.

No wonder, if he really thought I was forcing him to drink such an unpleasant mixture, to the extent where he was going to keep forcing it down until I told him he could stop. Only one day of teaching him, and yet I will forever be the evil bitch who tried to poison him. Sigh. You can’t win ‘em all…

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First day of term.

Did I mention that I’m now the Art teacher instead of Musical English? Oh yes. Indeed. I’m launching straight in at the deep end with three Art classes with the brand new babies. This ought to be entertaining.

I’ve just had a brief moment of panic when it occurred to me to check that the ink I’ve been given for finger-painting is in fact washable. I dipped my finger in, washed it immediately, and was still left with a slightly pink fingertip. This did not bode well, and I flapped my way downstairs to the office, panicking to the director about what would happen if I sent the children home after their first day at the school, with their fingers permanently dyed red.

Jennifer did not seem too bothered. It will come off, she said dismissively, and that was that, and now here I am in my classroom with 12 children waving their red fingers (and hands, faces, and elbows, in the case of a few) at me as I try desperately to scrub them back to their original colour.

Eventually I have to let them go, and I run downstairs in a fluster again to inform Jennifer of the latest development. What is it? she asks in the voice of someone who would not be at all surprised to hear that I have lost all my infants or accidentally set fire to the classroom. I wring my hands dramatically, and wail Jennifer, I’ve dyed the children red!

It will come off, she repeats, looking both amused and exasperated.

But it’s not coming off, it’s not!!!

Well, whatever, she concludes with a shrug. I gape at her in astonishment. Jennifer seems a lot more laid-back this term.

So you’re saying, just to be clear, I eventually ask, that I have your full permission to continue dyeing all the new kids red?

Jennifer laughs. Yes. Go ahead.

What a weird job this is at times.

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