Saturday was a great great day.
We went out for a tour of the local cultural sites with a hagwon owner, James Park, and nine of his students. Many of them were students that I teach at the boys' school or the elementary school.
Firstly, it was awesome to be with these students and not be a teacher. They are the stars of my classes, and I can not actually communicate with them. So it was nice that it didn't matter if I favoured them, because I didn't have to. So if they talked to me, I could just talk back, and not worry about leaving the others behind.
So, our arrangement was that we would go with them, and get free tours of local sites, and the only thing we had to do was talk to anyone who talked to us, and to correct any mistakes they made in their introductions to us.
Anyways, we were led to our meeting place, James' hagwon, by two students who wanted to live in our building. They were way too shy to speak to us, so the walk to the hagwon was rather awkward. When we got there, I was happy to see the stars of my classes there, including the kid who looks like Harry Potter, who is crazy-funny. So I knew it would be a good day.
We started at a Pottery Kiln site in Daegu-Myeon, Gangjin. It's where they used to make Koryo Celadon, the blue-green pottery that they have in Korea. The technology was imported from China. But as in all cases, apparently, Koreans managed to take someone else's technology and make it better. Or, as James so eloquently put it "The student becamse the master". They did improve the technology, and they have in a lot of things, I guess. I'm just tired of hearing about it. I don't care if your cell phone rotates to take widescreen pictures and will transmit a small burst of air if you blow into it, because at night, you all gather around a fire in a can and cast lots outside the bank.
The museum was actually pretty interesting, although much more so for us than the kids. They were more happy to kick and tease eachother and run around like crazy. We went to the giftshop, and James offered to buy us a gift for our day's trouble, which was really great. We didn't get anything there, because the only thing that fell within our gift price range was ugly celadon ducks. And since I don't have a gun and a conveyor belt at home, they were not seriously considered.
We left the museum and walked around the ground, where they had exposed dig sites where celdon ovens had once been underground. There was also a convention of Japanese photographers taking pictures of a celadon maker posing with a jar. Then, we were treated to a snack of clementines (Cheju oranges) and rice cakes.
Here's some kids playing in the leaves outside the celadon museum. It was a beautiful day!
The kids' main assignment for the day was to prepare introductions for us. They were really shy, and no-one wanted to start off, so I decided to loosen them up by introducing myself in Korean. Once they saw that, they would know they had nothing to be ashamed of! So I said "I am Matthew Amond. I am Canadian. I am a teacher at Yeongam Boys' Middle School." It was like poetry, I know.
Then the kids had no problems, and it was really fun. They were funny, and some of them wrote very good introductions! One guy though, from my classes at the boys' school, didn't, but that was no surprise. He doesn't seem to do much of anything.
Then we went to lunch at a restaurant. They had a really cute puppy outside. Again though, the kids had no idea how to play with a dog. I launched into the familiar wrestle and nip game, and thye freaked out as soon as they saw teeth. When we went in to eat, I asked to go to the bathroom to wash my hand, and I was led outside, where a washbin was filled with a hose.
In the afternoon, we went to Baengnyeonsa Daeungjeon, which was a Buddhist temple. It was pretty beautiful, but only took a few minutes to explore, and then it was not so exciting. One cool thing was the offerings to Buddha throughout the various little buildings. There was probably a ton of rice! Literally!
Okay, I have to break from the story to mention something. I am at the boys' school, working hard as always in the staff room. And there if this strange sound that I have been noticing here, like steam coming out of an iron. I thought it was a humidifier, because this room has heat, so maybe it dries out.
Well, I just looked over and saw that the source of the sound is in fact the snoring of my vice-principal. That's "The Korean Way".
After exploring the temple we went on a short hike of the temple grounds. We got to see a field of green tea, which was really cool. You never really see tea growing. But it does! The path ended at the site where the scholar Dasan spent his exile about 300 years ago. It was probably one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. People would probably pay money for that exile. There were green, yellow and red leaves all around it, a spring-fed rock pond and garden, beautfil rocks jutting out behind the cottage. It was just beautiful, there are no other words.
After the exile site, we went to a Dasan museum. We didn't understand much, because everything was in Korean. After we toured the museum, we made a pressing of an old plate with Chinese characters on it, which is now in our spare room, hopefully right-side up. The best part of this stop was the games that the kids played outside. First, they ran up the side of a big rock, and then jumped off of it. It was funny, because some kids could not get up. Then, they played this game were they hopped around on one foot and tried to knowck eachother down. I decided to sit that one out, for obvious reasons. In case it's not that obvious, here's a picture of James as he accidentally kicks his daughter in the face:
Before: Having fun, no harm done. Look at how much fun it is! Whee!
Oops! Maybe this game was a bad idea...
Other than that, it was a pretty fun game.
Then we were taken out for dinner. We went to the place in Yeongam that once kicked us out, and we never figured out why. It was really good. We both ate way too much. It was a great way to cap off the day.
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