Saturday Night's Alright for Kimchi

When we finally arrived in Ulsan we were greeted by Mrs. An (our new boss), and Laura (the outgoing teacher), and also that unique odor that only heavy industry and a substandard sewage system can bring. To say the least it was all a little overwhelming.

Ulsan (pronounced Ool-san), is just what you’d expect from a city of a million people with a large industrial focus. It’s crowded, urban, and not a little polluted. That being said, I think we made a good choice. We live a ten minute walk from the ocean (The Sea of Japan), there’re tons of amenities, and we’ve managed to find most of the foods from home (albeit in strange and various locations). And then there’s our apartment. Shayne wants to write a full entry about it, but I’ll say now that it’s way bigger than what we were expecting.

Our job has been hectic. Laura told us when we arrived that she had prepared everything for our first day of lessons. Or so we thought. She had photocopied “get to know you” sheets, which the children were to fill out, and which she assured us would take up at least two day’s worth of classes. It’s true that the task was difficult enough to occupy the lower level students for forty minutes, but the upper level students finished in under 10 minutes! That left Shayne and I (each in different classrooms) scrabbling to find something else to do for the remainder of class. Shayne spent the time lying about life in Canada (apparently we all regularly dine on moose), but I have no recollection of what I did, as I think I blacked out from the stress. The rest of the week in class was much the same, with Shayne and I trying to find our teacher's footing without the students catching on that we had no idea what the hell we were doing. Somehow we managed to do it with the help of a pocketful of Canadian change and that glorious childhood game hangman. Thank the Lord for hangman.

Despite our harrowing classroom experiences, we have a dream boss. Mrs. An’s husband is some sort of executive in the Hyundai ship building plant in town, and it seems that she opened the school for lack of something better to do. To that end, she doesn’t care at all about money. To think that we stumbled upon the only hagwon (private school) in Korea that is not all about the bottom line! Also, Mrs. An is extremely friendly and accommodating. So far she’s treated us to a meal four times, and she genuinely wants to become friends with all of her staff. And if that weren’t enough, she’s willing to give both of us regular Korean lessons for free! From all the horror stories we’ve heard about cheap and conniving hagwon directors, we’ve had some amazing luck.

Okay, that’s the overview. Now for a bit more detail. The first time we tried exploring our city, we were treated to the real Korean experience. It was, in a word, odd. We decided to make our way to the ocean and ended up at Ilsan Beach (Ilsan beachie in Konglish). It is not a nice beach. It smelled of dirty sand and tainted surf.

Uninspired, we looked for somewhere else to go and noticed a large set of stairs heading up a forested hill to the right of the beach. We began our journey into nature with visions of hushed woods, wildlife, and fresh air. But apparently we weren’t in Kansas anymore. Half-way up the stairs, we noticed the forest had turned into some sort of shanty town with several deserted 'rehomes that looked like they might also be restaurants. At the top of the stairs the shacks became interspersed with rundown carnival games. Actually, make that one carnival game repeated 10 times. Shoot the balloons with a dart and you too could win a stuffed kimchi doll. Then, just as we thought we were the only humans wandering on the hill, the path opened out onto a full-fledged market with hundreds of people. And this was no regular market. The snack stands sold little steamed potatoes, tiny shellfish no larger than a dime, and boiled silk worm pupae, and the fish stalls sold the most disgusting fish I have ever seen, including what the ex-pats here call sea penises. I’ll post later with photos, and I believe you will find that description most appropriate. *shudder*

Anyways, that’s about enough for now. I’ll leave off for Shayne to write about kimchi stew, Japanese samurai soap operas, and Korean Chinese food.

Jo

The view from our apartment. Those yellow things are kimchi storage vats (...just joking - they're water tanks)

Some girls in one of my classes playing Uno on game day (...also known as teacher take a breakee day)