9/13: KPOP Concert in Ochong and School Field Trip

Some of my fifth grade girls with the souveneirs they bought (Grace-Yunha, Melanie-DayYeon and Mia-HeeJin)

Kids drinking from the spring for good health

Me with some of my fifth grade girls on the boat (Mia-HeeJin, Emily-HuiJeong, Jasmine-JinAh)

Hiking up the fortress with fourth grade Jasmine (Wan Seon)

Fortress

Tyler (Dong Hyeok) the big picture poser

View from the top of the mountain

Teen Top performing at the Kpop concert

Teen Top

Tyler (Dong Hyeok) posing for the picture

This week was awesome!

 It started on Monday with my first Kpop Concert. Juny, my coteacher, had mentioned it a while ago that her favorite kpop group, Teen Top, was performing at a concert and asked if I wanted to go so of course I said yes. Because of her love for Teen Top I was listening to more and more Teen Top and was beginning to get hooked myself and therefore was so excited for the concert. Apparently there had been a festival going on in Ochong lately to celebrate it becoming part of a different province and the final event was this big concert with a lot of Kpop stars. I had no idea what to expect, as is the norm for foreigners in Korea, and was pleasantly surprised at the awesomness of this night. We got lost getting to Ochong and took forever trying to find a parking space and then trying to find the stage but we finally found it and got settled in. By the time we got there after school it was pretty crowded so we ended up being about halfway back but I didn’t care because we were still close enough to see. When the show finally started it was awesome!!! There were so many famous new and old Kpop stars and I had the best time making up lyrics and jumping around. An older band named Koyote or with a Korean accent, Ko-Yo-Tay and got everyone up on their feet jumping and moving with their music. There were also some amazing dancers within the Kpop groups and the famous, Crayon Pop girls group performed as well. Crayon Pop is so popular right now in Korea and they always wear helmets when they perform so looking around in the crowd a lot of people were wearing helmets too. Finally Teen Top came out. They performed three songs and the whole place went nuts. Everyone got out of their chairs to move closer and yell and sing along. We even had to stand on our rickety, plastic chairs just to be able to see the group. At one point I looked around and had one of those moments where I was like, “yeah, this is awesome. I am in Korea rocking out with little kids and grandmas to a kpop band!” That feeling stayed with me as I drove home with Juny with both of us rocking out to Teen Top’s album.

The week continued to be awesome because the whole school was going on a field trip on Wednesday. I got to go with the fourth and fifth graders which was awesome cause fifth grade is my favorite and although fourth grade is the hardest for me to manage, there are some cuties there who I get along with really well. All I knew about the field trip is that the whole school was going and it was to some historical part where the kids would learn more about the Korean dynasties. So I figured it was like a museum or something and I show up to school on Wednesday with all my usual belongings (including my laptop notebook) wearing one of my nicer sweaters and riding boots. Boy was that a mistake. I look around at the other teachers and they are all in sports wear wearing hiking pants/jeans and gym shoes. Damn, the one day I could have worn my normal workout clothes! We all loaded up on the buses and within an hour or so we ended up at a huge mountain to explore one of the fortresses used during the Baekje dynasties of Korea. We weren’t just going to look at this mountain but instead were going to hike the whole thing-way to wear riding boots, Jules! It ended up not being that bad. There were huge hills and it was for sure a hike, luckily the boots weren’t that bad. And it was really fun. A lot of the kids liked hiking with me so I got to hold hands and sing and talk with a lot of the kids. They loosened up a little bit and so did I as we all got more familiar with each other. Plus walking with the kids was great because they got tired really quickly allowing us to take a lot of breaks. By the time we got to the top the kids were sweaty, thirsty and tired and were tired of walking allowing us to hang out at the top for quite some time. Whew! Although the signs were all in Korean I did learn that the top is famous as being a spot where many women who were enslaved during the dynasty would climb to and jump off of to escape their life. It was really funny at one point as one of my more attention-seeking fifth graders, Tyler, decided he wanted a photo shoot and begins posing and asking me to take more and more pictures of himself (check out those pictures). Tyler loves dancing and mimicking me and posing, he is basically a huge pupucha (cute brat). Another one of my kids, fourth grade Blake, was walking with me and he somehow gets it across that I have a lot of money and I should buy him icecream. But he said it in such a funny way going “Julie teacher, icecream? Yes, thank you very much” without allowing me to say anything back. At first I just smiled and said “Ah, no” but then reversed it and told him thank you for icecream. This continued the whole day and spread to a couple of the other fourth graders who then would ask me for icecream the whole day (and for some following months as it became a running joke). It was also hilarious cause we were about to leave the top of the mountain when I come upon 5th grade Blake talking to these two old ladies. AND boy is he just talking and talking away. I have no idea what he is saying but every time I think he is done and I try to interrupt to get him he starts talking again. I have no idea what he is saying but still it was so funny that he is just chatting up these two old women. Apparently he likes older people because a couple of weeks later I find him hanging out with the 70-something year old security guard in the security house and another time I see him standing chatting with the bus driver!

After wandering around on the top we headed back down for lunch. In the US on field trips we have sandwhiches but in Korea they have kimbap. Kimbap reminds me a lot of California Rolls at home as it is basically a seaweed roll with rice, egg, ham and yellow radish. I love it! Plus in Korea, the moms actually make lunch for the teachers as well so we I got to have a lot of homemade kimbap that day. The only awkward part was trying to make small talk with the other two teachers and two office staff who were there. The office man, who I shall call Mr. Tall Man, kept asking the most typical Korean questions such as “How old I am?” which in Korea is the question that is usually asked first because it helps them to understand respect and how to address someone. The other questions usually are “Do you have a boyfriend?” and “What is your blood type?” Some Koreans think that one’s blood type is related to their personality so again knowing your blood type helps them learn more about you. The questions were alright but the way they reacted is what made it awkward. Mr. Tall Man, after asking my age, asked Mr. Handsome Man how old he was and when Mr. Tall Man realized Mr. Handsome Man was only 27 he kept saying that Mr. Handsome Man and I needed to be friends! Plus at this point Juny had left to go talk to some students so I was left to fend off these questions and awkwardness by myself! Right after lunch the kids had some free time so they wandered around the little shops and bought some of the dumbest stuff I have ever seen from funny sunglasses to toy spiders to back scratchers (fifth grad Blake said he bought it for his grandma) to ghost masks to candy. Luckily they shared some of the candy with me!

The second half of the field trip was great as we all got to go on a boat that wound threw the mountains that eventually took us to another hill/mountain where there was said to be magical water that would make you stronger if you drank from it. So of course we all rushed up to get some water from a spring. It was interesting because like most of Korea, you share everything and don’t worry about germs. Therefore, at the spring they just had these tin cups that people would get water from and then pass to the next person. There is really no concern for spreading germs like there is in the United States.

The last part of the field trip was a museum about the dynasty. Although most of the signs were in English and Korean, a couple of the quieter fifth grade girls grabbed my hand and tried to explain everything to me. Their English was terrible so it was a lot of mimicking and nodding but they threw in some English here and there. For one of the first times, I felt useful. By having me there the kids were forced to try and speak English even if they only got out a couple of words here and there. It was so funny cause one of the girls would just say, “Yes” but they way she said it made her seem so sure of herself. I loved it.

Overall the field trip was fantastic! It was one of the first times where I got to let my guard down and just hang out with the kids even if our verbal communication was limited. I didn’t really understand much of what they said nor did they understand anything I said and yet we had a lot of fun. I felt semi useful for the first time and I think the kids began to get more comfortable with me.

The next couple of days we had off of school so I had planned to go to the southern part of Korea with a friend to see Busan, the second largest city in Korea. WHAT A GREAT, SHORT WEEK!!!! Busan, here I come!