American Beef, Gays, and T-Shirts

This post does not mean that if you eat beef and wear t-shirts that you are gay! Ha ha ha. These are merely three topics that I would like to blog about that I find interesting here in Korea especially.

American beef. For those of you that are not up to speed on the whole American Beef controversy that is going on right now in South Korea, well it would take me a while to get you up to speed on all the details. Basically, Koreans think that American beef is bad and that if you eat any American beef you will get Mad Cow Disease. To us Americans here in South Korea we find this statement highly amusing. We have been eating beef in the US for our entire life and well we are ok. There are huge riots and protests going on in the larger cities like Seoul. There have been pictures taken in newspapers where children have drawn pictures against American beef. It is sad because they only know what their parents tell them just like any child in the world. If you go into a restaurant and ask if they serve American beef they will look at you really funny and some places will tell you to leave! Before I came over to South Korea I had to have a series of medical checks done, including blood work. Well all of that was pointless because in the mean time, the rage was building over here with the beef issue. So when I arrived, I had to have the entire medical check all over again because they would not accept my records from the US and they wanted to know when the last time I had beef was! I was in shock and super upset because I hate having blood taken. Luckily heath care is super cheap here so everything cost me about $40.

Gays. Here in South Korea they turn their head when it comes to homosexuality. They simply believe that it does not exist and do not talk about it. They think that it is something that western cultures make up and do not see how it can even happen. It is not surprising though because the religion here is mostly Buddhist and the other small portion Christianity. However, there is so much affection shown between young people here of the same sex. It is not un common to walk down the street and see all the boys holding hands and the girls holding hands. Often times I will be waiting for the bus and there will be two boys waiting as well. The two boys will be petting each other and practically sitting on each other's laps! I am in shock that they act so loving and affectionate towards one another but do not believe that gay exists! I see this kind of thing everywhere. It is completely normal, so I hear.

T-Shirts are popular just like every where else in the world. The thing that makes Korean t-shirts so special are the sayings that are printed on them! Basically they take any English phrase that they know or partially know and print it on a t-shirt. I see boys wearing shirts that say "I Miss My Boy", "I went on vacation and came back on probation". My favorite ones are those that have misspelled words or grammatically incorrect phrases. One shirt I saw this past weekend said "I taken this look easy" it was supposed to say "I make this look easy". Ha ha ha. Oh and some shirts have extra "eee" on it. Koreans are notorious to add the long "e" sound to everything. It sounds like "I am an Englishee teacher" So funny! One last thing are the curse words. I am not sure that they even recognize that they are curse words. I bought a shirt the other day that says "1970 Up Against the Wall Mo**er F***er!" My friend Candice and I laughed so hard in the store and no one knew why we thought it was funny so we each bought one. Mine is light pink and hers is white. All the other English teachers look at me when I wear it and say "you must have bought that here". I laugh and say of course!

Well readers, it is time for me to end this. Hope everyone is well :)

Pictures of Weekend Camp

Weekend Camp

This past weekend I did a camp here at my elementary school. The camp was for students and their parents. We had about 150 students and parents. All the teachers in my school had to be here for the camp even if they were not teaching.

Saturday afternoon I taught 6 classes on how to make popcorn! For those of you that know me, know that I love popcorn so it was right up my alley. ha ha ha. The kids were a little scared at first about the popping. Most groups didn't wait for the popping to stop completely before taking the lid off so then the popcorn would continue to pop and all the kids would jump and scream when popcorn came flying out every where. It was pretty amusing. You will notice in the pictures that most of the kids wanted to stand on the chairs are look down on the popcorn while it was in the pan popping. I think they did this so that they could see but be far enough away in case something happened.

Sunday morning I was in charge of a quiz game. This game was played at the same time by everyone at the camp. So in a sense I was the host. We had some technical difficulty with the microphones. I assured the other teachers that would not be a problem since I used to be a cheerleader so I am sure that I could yell if I had to. I did have to yell a little and it hurt my voice, but oh well.

I have put some pictures of the students and then I will post again of just me and some of the students. All in all it was a great weekend camp. I am very tired today (Monday), but it is the last day of the semester and I start teaching summer school tomorrow!

More pictures of the Swimming Hole

Best Swimming Hole EVER

Today was a bright sunny day. For the first time since I have been here it felt like summer. It was pretty hot as well. Not to mention the humidity was super high. Oh well you just sweat a lot and get used to it I guess.

After school a few of us went home and grabbed our swim suits and beach towels and headed to the best swimming hole I have ever seen. It was truly one of the most beautiful sights I have seen in my entire life. One being the key word in that last sentence.

We had to first climb down to the swimming hole. Not to worry there were actual stairs. You did need to literally watch your step though. The stairs were steep and in some places down the path the plants had grown over. There is a sign at the top that tells the historical importance of the area that we were in. I found out on the way home that the other side of the sign was actually in English! Ha ha ha. Silly me, I should have looked. Everything around was very green. I was told that it will stay green all year long.

The water was clear and beautiful. It took my breath away. I just kept saying "WOW". Everyone laughed because they knew it was my first time. They said not to worry everyone does that. So then I didn't feel as stupid because I was aw struck.

We swam for as long as the sun would let us. The water was not very warm yet but at least warm enough for us to swim and not be cold after the first minute of adjusting. There are great rocks to dive off of. Yes I of course was all about doing that. I did however make others go first because I had never swam there before so I wasn't sure about the depth. Not to worry mom, I am here with no injuries! So please do not have a heart attack while you read this! Ha ha ha. You can also swim under the bridge type thin that you can see is separating the pool from the rest of the ocean. The water is pretty clear as you can see from the pictures. I borrowed some goggles and saw all sorts of bright colored fish and what not. I am going to buy a snorkeling set as I hear there is great snorkeling to be done all over the island. People also tell me that I have just tipped the ice berg of the amazing swimming holes and beaches! How exciting!

The pictures that I took do not capture the intensity of this spot but I hope that it at least give you some idea of the wonderful location. I will be visiting this place often as it is pretty close to my house. It cost about $2 to take a cab there and when you have a few people, that $2 gets divided among everyone. For sure it is a great deal for all the beauty that you get to embrace.

More Jeju United Pictures

Here are just a few more pictures from the games. Oh and the little boy is just some cute little Korean boy that stuck his inflatable noise makers in the back of his shirt! Ha ha ha. It was cute!

Jeju United- Futbol AKA Soccer

Here in Jeju they have a football team or as we westerners like to call it, soccer. It is a pretty great deal actually. You go to the game and pay for a bright orange t-shirt that has the team name on it. It cost you about 1,000 Won which is about $1. After that you get into every home game for free! It gets even better because you can bring any outside food and drinks that you want into the stadium. So everyone goes to the place called E-Mart, which is sort of like a Wal-Mart, and grabs food and beer before the game.

The stadium is amazing. Jeju hosted the 2002 World Cup so the local soccer team has the World Cup Stadium as their home field. It is awesome.

Even though the event is pretty much free, there are still not a lot of supporters that come out. All of us foreigners are loved by the Koreans because we are loud and do all the cheers and chants that they teach us. We of course love going because it is a good time and costs us near to nothing for a few hours of entertainment. There are Korean fans there that have giants flags. I took a picture of one of them that was close to us. He was actually a lot closer to me then the picture makes it look. I was a little nervous that he was actually going to hit me! Ha ha ha. I have more pictures that I will try to post. The season runs through September sometime.