Children's Day

This past Saturday was Children's Day, and the art center near our house was putting on an event for kids, with a magic show, bouncy house, etc.  Our school decided to use this opportunity to advertise.  They asked us a few days in advance to work there from 10-12, handing out rulers and balloons advertising the school.  We didn't want to, but didn't have an excuse handy.  They expect us to give up part of our Saturday, and they don't pay us for these hours.  We agreed to go, but we also decided that we needed an escape plan so that we could actually get out of there at 12:00.  We found out about a baseball game in Seoul at 2:00, and planned to use that as our afternoon plans.

We arrived at the place at 10:00 with boxes of rulers and balloons, and a five-foot helium tank.  Only after we arrived there did we realize that no one had bothered to call to see if we were allowed to be there.  It was a structured event, everyone else had their own booths and permits, and we were just standing in a corner.  The organizers of the event came over and asked what we were doing.  They explained that of course schools would want to advertise to a bunch of kids in one place, which is why they don't let them do that.  But they agreed to let us hand out rulers and balloons, as long as we don't specifically talk about the school, which Brady and I can't do anyway.  Plus, we were supposed to have a license or permit to operate the helium tank, because it's dangerous, and we didn't have that.

We started blowing up balloons with the helium.  The problem was that we didn't have strings for the balloons to tie to wrists, we had these long straws.  You can't hand a helium balloon on a straw to a four-year-old and expect them to hold onto it.  At any given point throughout the day you could look up and see at least a dozen balloons in the sky.  So we had given up our Saturday morning to pollute and market to families that were just trying to enjoy Children's Day.

Then, at 11:45 they asked us if we could stay for the afternoon, to go to a different Children's Day event.  We immediately said no.  "We have to catch the 3007 bus to arrive at Jilsun Stadium for a 2:00 game featuring the Doosun Bears and the LG Twins."  We had all the details of our lie worked out in advance.  But they made Pam stay for the afternoon.  Again, I just think it's outrageous that they would tell us that we had to work for two hours on a Saturday, and then have that two hours turn into six hours, and give us nothing in return.  

silly Korea

Korean culture can be a bit depressing.  The only things that seem to matter are status and material possessions.  No one marries for love.  One of our co-workers told us last Friday that she's getting married in September.  She's 39, I think, which is wicked old for a woman to not be married, by Korean standards.  Anyway, she told me and Brady, and we were excited and I gave her a hug.  I had heard that Korean weddings are really weird, and it's common here to invite everyone you work with, so I was also excited to see what the wedding would be like.  Then she was like "yeah, I don't know how I feel about it."  We were like "....um.  What?"  She said she doesn't really want to get married, they just met last October, but both their families are pressuring them into it.  Her family told her not to think about it too much, just to do it.  It was SUPER awkward.  Brady and I were like "huh.  It's not like that in America."  We didn't know what to say!

AND one of our acquaintances told us about his American friend who was dating a Korean girl.  They actually are in love and want to get married.  So he went to the girl's father with a PowerPoint presentation detailing why he should let him marry his daughter.  A PowerPoint.  The father said no, because the guy doesn't have a stable job and doesn't make enough money.  This just happened last weekend, I don't know if they broke up or what.

And there's this expectation that your employer owns you.  Not just us, as foreigners, but everyone.  I'm getting laser eye surgery at the end of May.  It's about $1400 here, and about $4000 back home.  And one of my friends got it done here, so I'm going to the same place she went, which kind of caters to foreigners.  I'm really excited.  I've been wearing glasses/contacts for 21 years.  Okay, we have Monday, May 28th off for Buddha's Birthday, so I booked my appointment on Saturday the 26th.  The other foreign teacher at our school, Pam, is also getting it done.  I booked my appointment half an hour before hers, because Brady will be coming with me and I thought that we could help her get home and settled into her apartment afterwards.  I was trying to be nice.  But the school was worried about us both getting it done on the same day.  They actually called the doctor and asked if they could guarantee that we'd both be ready to teach on Tuesday the 29th.  Of course, they can't guarantee that.  So Pam volunteered to have her appointment changed to a 4-day weekend we have in July, which was really nice of her but I feel bad about.  All this happened before I even knew there was an issue.  This is something that we're doing in our free time.  Maybe my eyes will hurt, but I'm sure I can get through my classes on Tuesday, based on everything I've heard and read about laser eye surgery, and what my doctor told me.  I just think it's totally inappropriate for the school to be involved in our medical decisions.  But that's not even unusual here.  Your employer owns you, and gets to have a decision in how you spend your time off.  

Also, we had heard that there is some racism here, but hadn't seen it.  Until yesterday.  Brady was talking to one of our co-workers, and she was telling him that her cousin, who is Korean, was dating a Chinese girl.  He wanted to marry her, but his mother didn't approve, because she was Chinese.  And our co-worker told the mother "at least she's not black."  Brady didn't know what to say.  I wouldn't have known what to say to that.  There are so many reasons that that's an absurd thing to say, one of which is there are no black people in Korea.  Where does she get her racism from??  Korea is so homogeneous, how can they pick any one race to be racist against?  


All of this doesn't mean that we're unhappy here.  We're not.  It's summer, we had a beautiful camping/hiking trip last weekend, our plants are growing.  We're just really glad that we're not Korean.