Don't you have marijuana?

I guess I should expect this question from immigration officials. I do still have that Dutch residence permit in my passport after all.

So, Japan. Wow. Everyone said it was amazing, but wow. I think I'm in love. It's not like Korea – it's better. The people are more polite: they don't drive like maniacs, or push in front of you, or gawp at foreigners, and they just seem awfully happy. And the buildings look different from each other, and the trees are not all the same, and everything is pretty and the food is marvellous and I want to live in Nagasaki.

Having said all that, on my walk home this afternoon, I remembered what I love about my adopted home. Korea might be a whiny little so-and-so with an awfully big chip on her shoulder, but she has her charms, and I hope I'm forgiven for my fling with Japan. Because I can't promise I won't stray again.

I guess the first thing Lacey and I noticed about Fukuoka was that it felt like home. Japan felt more Western, and more cosmopolitan than Korea. Miracles have happened in the Korean economy, but it is called the 'Hermit Kingdom' for a reason. Fukuoka, and to an even greater degree, Nagasaki, are old port cities, with long-established ties to other cultures. We saw fewer foreigners in both cities than in Daegu, but were stared at much less. There was less English around, but the English we heard and read was more accurate, and somehow communication seemed easier. There were a bunch of Starbucks and various branches of Western clothing stores, but somehow everything was still very Japanese. It felt like Japan has come to terms with its relationship to the West, while Korea still has a rather passive/aggressive thing going on.

Our first day in Fukuoka was exhausting. We got free 15-minute full-body massages from armchairs, window-shopped in a big Vegas-style shopping mall with a canal, took a detour along the river to walk by the famous ramen food stalls, got rained on and lost looking for a place to eat, and finally sat our tired selves down at the counter of a sushi restaurant. I know its obvious that freshly made sushi, in Japan, would be more delicious than anywhere else, but this really was superb. There were a couple slightly weirder ones, but I thought all the seafood was delicious, and I couldn't get over how tasty the rice was. Then, however, came the giant egg-fest. This was basically a large cube of cold omelette stuffed with a little rice. Despite recent adjustments of palate, I still don't love egg, and it was just too much for me. I struggled it down, and only retched once, but my efforts did not go unnoticed by the chefs, and caused quite a lot of merriment. I explained that I just wasn't keen on egg, and Lacey ate my second piece, so we all left happy. Oh, and this was all served with fish-head soup. I didn't spot that it was actually a head until I'd almost finished, which I'm rather relieved about, because I might have freaked out and not eaten something delicious.

Second day was Nagasaki, my new favorite city. The atom bomb was dropped on a neighbourhoood called Urakami to the north of the city's centre, and there's now a large park and museum there. The museum was emotionally draining (how could it not be?), but not heavy-handed, and somehow the city has taken something positive from something so horrific. By the time we got back to the city centre, we thought it was too late to see the temples, but no, we were in for quite the treat. Turns out Nagasaki was having its annual Lantern Festival, and the temples were therefore open late – and Sofujuki even had free entrance! So not only did we see the temple, we saw it by lantern light for free. Oh, and a very cute Japanese lady gave us rice dumplings stuffed with sweet sesame paste.

Yesterday started a little later, as we'd done so much walking and needed a rest. We tried to find a 1950s style diner for breakfast, but were informed by a very friendly businessman that it had gone bankrupt. He then walked us to a nearby Italian bistro. From there it was a pleasant stroll to the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum. Another excellent museum with well laid-out exhibitions and interesting stuff to see. My favourite piece was an interactive video piece where you could control a group of girls in military clothes (all actually the artist) – political, accessible and fun. My kind of art. The afternoon was saved for shopping and spending the last of our yen, but having found ourselves surrounded by adorable but unaffordable clothes, we went for noodles instead. Fukuoka is famous for its pork ramen, and we went to a restaurant we'd seen with people queue in the rain for. We chose the one described as having the elusive 'umami' flavor, and I was absolutely blown away: Wagamama this was not. The last of our yen, or so we thought, went on beers. I feel like I always try to buy things like clothes, and end up just eating and drinking delicious things instead.

When we got to the ferry terminal this morning, we found out that the fuel surcharge is actually only 1,000yen, instead of 10,000yen. Another happy surprise to top off a stupendous weekend. Here are some pictures.

Konglish phrasebook

• cunning = cheating, copying
• tree's hand = branches
• Finishee!!!! = “Teacher, I have completed my work.”
• pishee = fish
• Dangerous pishee = Judy's favorite animal
• leally = really
• aaaaashhhhh = “Heavens, I'm not happy about that.”
• d-d-o-n-g = always spelled out, poop
• yellow water = take a wild guess
• Oh your goodness! = creative children using my own verbal ticks against me
• teacha = me
• momomo = blablabla
• very so so = a feeling of strong indifference, a widespread affliction
• short-uh tuh-rack-uh = the most important Olympic sport
• very terrible = pretty much the worst thing ever
• apartuh = apartment
• salaryman = businessman, every student's dad's job
• crajee = crazy, the funniest word in English
• Howbounyou? = And how about you?
• Babariman = 'Burberry man' = a flasher wearing a trench coat
• bopeepbopeepbopeep = a manic shepherdess, thank you K-pop
• sorrysorrysorry = also from a song, never sincere and always found in triplicate
• I don't ca-a-a-a-a-are = the worst of the bunch, used in response to any number of questions
• Do you wanna die? = “I'm not fond of that idea. Perhaps you might reconsider?”
• Gondam = little robot models, reminiscent of 'World of Warcraft'
• Jenny eat a maaaany suga = “Jenny is a tad hyperactive today due to candy consumption.”
• arabituh = part-time job, no student will ever believe this isn't an English word
• nightuh-cuh-lub = a semi-shady establishment where men pay to be seated with women

Korea puts on a show

I know I'm not the first to observe that Glasgow seems to 'put on a show' for new people: it seems that on your first trip, chances are you will witness something stereotypically Glaswegian, like a fight in the street, or someone waving a bottle of Buckfast. Well, this weekend Korea put on quite the show. There are definite similarities: public alcoholism and black-outs spring to mind, but I've never seen a man walking down the street with a golf club, periodically stopping to practice his swing, anywhere else. The black-out we saw was actually kind of sweet: it seemed the young man in question had started out sitting in a doorway and just laid down for a snooze. His friends had covered him with a coat, and patiently stood guard.

Indeed, Saturday was full of “only in Korea” moments, including one probably-drunk taxi driver, another friendly driver who seemed to have issues with clean things (driving gloves and a dish-cloth over the gear stick), and a karaoke singer who demonstrated a sincerity and unselfconsciousness usually reserved for bathroom mirrors and hairbrushes. Like the man with the golf club, he was totally absorbed in what he was doing, and loving every minute.

But the best part of the 'show' was Sunday evening, at the jjimjilbang. After an afternoon hike, a long overdue visit to the bath-house was in order. Its a big part of the culture here, and the only reason I put it off was the small matter of getting naked in front of bajillions of strangers. Memories of awkward gym-class changing rooms really had me worried, especially given that, as a foreigner, one does get stared at in the street. When one has clothes on. So it was with not a little trepidation that we approached the local bath-house, Worldpia.

Aafter some awkwardness at the front desk, and payment of the entrance fee – a whole 4,500won (about £2.25) - we walked into the changing rooms with our tiny towels and wash bag. Being clothed was actually really awkward: everyone else was naked, so it all made more sense once disrobed. Before soaking in the baths, everyone has to shower, and a lot of people brush their teeth too (in the shower). The shower part was relaxing in itself: the water pressure was fantabulous and doing something so ordinary made the whole thing less intimidating. Plus, it quickly became clear that staring really wasn't going to be an issue. Next was a good soak in the 40ºC bath, followed by an outdoor mineral spa (in an enclosed balcony). While soaking, two young girls next to us consulted for a few minutes, before politely asking where we were from, in very good English. Their teacher should be proud. (Their cuteness was later matched by a little girl who was so animated and serious while talking to herself that it looked like an audition for a K-drama.) We also tried a sauna, but the coolest one, also at 40ºC, was bearable for only a few minutes and a quick dunk in the freezing cold pool was needed to recover.

After so much soaking and steaming, it seemed appropriate to get into the Koreans' favourite bath-time activity: scrubbing the bejeezus out of your skin. This is clearly a crucial part of the jjimjilbang experience and everyone gets into it: mothers scrub daughter's backs, grandmothers scrub mother's backs and everyone generally shows serious commitment to the removal of dead skin cells. It really does leave your skin feeling super wonderfully soft.

Dried off, and once again clothed, I left the jjimjilbang feeling like I was in a cosy cocoon. Everything felt a little softer and a little kinder. It really does a person good to spend hours just relaxing with others, and without worrying about what you look like. Without doubt, the best 2 quid I've spent in a long time.

Mrs. Squarepants

Seeing as how I never update this, and all I do is teach and talk about my students, here's some more of their writing. These are both from a test I gave a while ago to 'Twinkle' class - a lively and bright group of 5th grade girls. A few weeks ago, Jenny stuck a Spongebob sticker on a worksheet about your 'Perfect Husband'. The jokes about her marriage to 'Spongie-bob' have yet to grow old for the students, or indeed their teacher. I think my mental age might have regressed somewhat in Korea.

This first one is from a student who has since left the academy. She was always rather sullen in class, and the Korean teacher described her as moody and dramatic. Put simply, she's an emo kid at the ripe old age of 11. Her writing was often very difficult to understand because she directly translates a lot from Korean, but she is very creative, and always put in a lot of effort. Here's her story about "The beach on a summer day":

I go to the beach on a summer day with my friends. We are play very exciting! In beach, many people play the sand. We use parasol, and we sit our under the parasol. Suddenly, one boat go to the ocean. Many people are screaming. Yes! One person stay at the ocean. Who die, or everyone life together. In beach, very quiet. Who doesn't speaking. After 20 minutes, brave human come to sand with stay water person together. We hit our hands. He is very brave human.

This second one is from my favorite and most adorable student. If I steal a Korean child, she's first on the list. I have added some full-stops to this because she doesn't really use punctuation yet. Her story is about "An old attic at night":

I'm went to my grandparent's house. That house have old attic. I'm seelped at grandparent's house with only sister I woke up and sister woke up too. We went to old attic because we are hungried. There are so many food. We were ate this. We came back and sleep. Next day we wake up and we are very full. My grandmother know the we ate old attic food. I'm looked my grandmother. She smiled.

A successful teacher?

Yesterday, I had one of my classes write questions to interview each other. One pair used 'What job do you want to do?' So I overheard little Brenda (E5) saying she was going to be a 'successful teacher':

Me: Ok Brenda, what do you mean by 'successful'?

Brenda: Good.

Me: So what is a successful teacher? Am I a successful teacher?

[pause]

Brenda: A little, teacher.

[much giggling from both of us]

Me: Ok Brenda, what does successful mean?

[more giggling]

Brenda: Students can understand teacher every word.

Lesson learned: Don't ask students questions like this. They actually tell you what they think. Glad to have learned that lesson with the cute little ones, rather than the awkward middle-schoolers.

Eventually I will post some photos from Christmas. But now, its time for work.

Santa, do you like red clothes or rainbow clothes?

So I know I just posted an entry last night, but I wanted to share these. Here is some of the cutest/best writing I've had so far. I haven't edited at all - this is exactly how these pieces were written.

Cutest santa letter so far:

Hello, Santa. I'm Sally. I'm 15 years old. I am NoByeun middle school student. I am quiet. I can't shout loudly. So I want loud voice and brave. I cannot talk to everyone. My dream is elementary school teacher so I need to brave and loud noise. Santa, please help me. ^-^ Santa, I believe you live Santa country. Come back my house again and give me brave and loud voice.

Santa, Merry Christmas

Also adorable - from a little girl who used to grab my arm every lesson and say 'My teacher arm is always big':

Merry Christmas Santa.

My name is Sarah

What is your real name?

Do you like red clothes or rainbow clothes?

I want see your Rudolph.

And Santa I want a magic lamp, i-phone and money.

Santa Clause please give them.

Because I want have that.

Santa one years. I'm fight my drother, mom, father, children and my friend. Santa I promise a not fight and good next year.

Merry Christmas!! Oh! and I want a pet~

bye~ Santa

Sarah

An old story from one of my favourite elementary students, Jenny. This girl is pretty much always this funny:

Long time ago, there is very strong girl. Her is Jenny. She fight with cow and elephant and rhinoceros, but one elephant is her friends. She was cut the hair, so elephant don't know who are Jenny! Oh my god! She fight with him, but........... She went to the sky with elephant.

And possibly the best, most original piece I've had from a middle-school student I only taught 3 times. I asked them to pretend that their father had brought a dinosaur egg back as a gift from a business trip, and the assignment was to write about how to look after it.

It's impossible present for 21C people, except almighty god. Anyway, you want to have a Tyrannosaurus for your huge pet or fierce emergency food. First, you should change temperature hotter and hotter. The dinosaur egg is bigger than your body. So you must protect his warmth with big fire and blanket like a hen hold her eggs. Then you should make friends in the neighborhood of him. Once upon a time, dinosaurs' mom arranged their eggs like circle. So you had better make circle with your egg and toy eggs. Your egg feel comfortable. At last, you have to talk to him. It's very important point for you. If you don't tame him, he punches your notse when he hatches. Everyday you touch his egg shell, talk about politics, economy, literature, etc. Finally you greet him with a good-night-kiss. Few months later, you can meet your huge friend.

This is prolly my awesomes shirt

An entry on Korean is well overdue. Last Saturday the weekly class at the YMCA finished, and while I'm far from being able to hold even basic conversations, I have picked up enough to understand why my students struggle so much with basic grammar, spelling and pronunciation: Korean is a wee bit different from English. Obviously I'm a big geek, with a big love for phonology, but I will try to keep this light and non-techincal. Well, I'll settle for 'decipherable'.

Let's start with the pronunciation. Of course this is my favourite thing. In brief, syllables can have at most consonant-vowel-consonant. The final consonant can only be l, m, n, ng, p, t or k. To put this in perspective, English allows up to three consonant sounds at the beginning AND end of a syllable (e.g. 'strengths'). Also, they don't have any fricatives (long consonants) except s – so that's no z, f, v, or th sounds – or diphthongs.

In case you're thinking this means Korean is easy to pronounce, you are very wrong. They have a 'j' sound that is not voiced (making it sound more like a 'ch' to us), plus a geminate (double) 'j/ch' sound AND an aspirated 'ch' sound. The same pattern exists for the 'b/p' sound. I could happily study the differences between these sounds, but I find it extremely hard to hear, or produce, correctly. Many of the vowels are also nightmarishly similar to each other for English speakers.

Hopefully you can now see a little why when they write 'Matrix' in Korean, it comes out as 'Ma-tuh-rik-suh'. The 's' sound is also sort of between the English 's' and 'sh' sounds, so sometimes things sound a little lispy to an English ear. All of this leads to the peak of accidentally offensive Konglish: the 'shitty joo' instead of 'city zoo'. It also explains why I experience ridiculous levels of mishearing on a daily basis – snake vs. snack being a common, and often amusing, example. Getting the kids to say 'watched' (instead of 'watch-i-duh') is one of my favourite activities: my little ones are even starting to get it.

The grammar is also very very different, though my understanding of it is much more basic. I know that the verb comes last, even though I always forget that when I try to speak. And I know that most adjectives are actually verbs, in terms of grammar. So their word for 'tall' is actually a verb meaning 'is tall'. Realising this was so helpful for understanding my students' writing. Beyond that, I don't know much at all, but I'm sure the fundamental differences only get bigger with more study, given the sentences produced by even advanced-level English learners.

After trying to get my head round this stuff enough to actually make a few Korean sentences, and understand people, I have concluded that language is all about lines. In my head, Language looks like a colourful, messy blob, consisting of the full spectrum of what is possible. Each language carves up this space into meaningful units; and learning a new language means redrawing those lines.* When you learn another European language, the lines match up relatively often – with Korean it sometimes feels like they never do. You have to approach every new piece of information with as blank a slate as you can, and try to remember that the shape of your own language is far from the only way. I know this idea isn't ground-breaking, but even Arabic wasn't as challenging to my poor mono-lingual brain as Korean, and I feel like I am just now gaining a full appreciation for what my professors were on about when they talked about defining the boundaries of 'possible Language'.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the title is prolly the awesomes slogan I've seen on a t-shirt. More on Konglish another time.

* Vowels are probably the most concrete example: you can produce an infinite range of vowels phonetically, but to make any of them meaningful in speech, you have to define the boundaries that separate one vowel from another. Word meaning is also pretty easy to understand in this way if you imagine 'meaning' as space that is divided by words. Sentence meaning and syntax always hurt my head with their messiness, which makes both seem extra blobby in a vague and ill-defined sort of way.