I c-an r-ead Kor-e-an
I’ve finally gotten around to making a serious effort to learn Korean. What with one thing and another (Swine Flu, parties, all-day meals, difficulties with the air here that make my nose bleed and cause me to feel generally urgh), I still haven’t made it to a lesson. But having talked to a few people who have, I’ve decided that I have to teach myself as much as possible first. The first week, the teacher spoke in English, said one guy last weekend, but after that, it was all in Korean. Now I know how the kids at school feel when we talk English all the time. The main difficulty is the completely different alphabet. If I’

Get A Room!
I was going to write a post all about Korea’s noraebangs, but last night I discovered something even better. Noraebangs (“nore-ay-bongs”, literally meaning “song rooms”) are ubiquitous in Korea, and a truly wonderful concept for anyone who’s ever been kicked out of a bar for refusing to heed staff requests to stop singing. Yes, they are karaoke venues, and there’s one on practically every street corner – often more than one. It is very easy to leave a bar at any time of the night or day and dance merrily into a noraebang

Guys and Dolls
The other day, I was waiting in the media room at school for my movie class to start. I say class, but what it involves is sitting with a dozen children and watching half an hour of a Disney movie. Every week. Twice in one day. Love My Job. Anyway, my class hadn’t turned up because they were still in the gym listening to a talk by a visiting speaker. The media room windows look into the gym, so I sat down on an infant-sized chair and peered in to see what was happening. I saw a woman with dolls on the stage. I couldn’t understand anything she was saying, of course, or read any of the colourful signs she held up, but the kids seemed spellbound. I liste

More than one claw in this game.
I was walking down the street last night after a post-work detour to the market, and taking in all the sights and sounds that are still very much an exciting new experience for me. The street vendors yelling loudly about their cakes and fast food; the restaurants with their huge tanks of fish outside; the overwhelming array of neon lights and signs; the elderly, straw-hatted men with hand carts; the old women sitting on mats shelling peas; the leaves falling like yellow and red snow from the trees. I passed some vending machines on the street, which is very common. I hadn’t paid much attention to these particular ones before, simply because they’re everywher

The longest sentence.
I have managed to end up with a learning difficulties class. I think that’s the PC term. We’re not very PC here (hooray!), so mostly we tend to refer to them as “the slow class” (me) or “the stupid class” (their Korean English teacher). From what I can , they are simply being passed around the school from one teacher to the next, in the hope that one day someone will be able to work miracles with them. And time after time, the teacher throws his or her hands in the air and begs for them to be given to someone else. They are elementary school children. The elementary pupils don’t belong to this school (it’s for 5-7 year old