It is another lovely day in Korea. The sun has been shining and this is always a good mood booster.

So, I slept in this morning. I was supposed to be up at half seven to go and some coaching banter at a univesity this morning. However, I had my phone on vibrate and so missed my alarm and then the numerous calls enquiring where the hell I was. Embarassing to say the least. And rather than call and apologise, I just sent a grovelling e-mail. Debaters eh?

*****

Another funny story from the world of Koren debating teaching. Yesterday at work, I had to send one of my classes to break a bit early. Usually, I do this because I am bored or annoyed, however I actually had a more pressing concern at the time. Nature was calling in a big way and nothing could delay my rendezvous with a toilet cubicle. So I entered, and the unholy evil that commenced would be banned by the censoring board if ever filmed. These scenes would not even make a Vietnam War film. However, some of the young boys have begun to realise that some poor soul is having trouble in there...

They start to bang on the door.
"Who is crapping they shout."
"The smell is terrible."
"You sound like you are in pain."

Now as far as I am concerned, interfering with a person doing the business is about acceptable as the torture and starvation of prisoners of war. A mans crapper is his castle. (And that should be in the Genevea convention.)

Finally, after this ordeal is over I rise, even as the malcontented miscreants have continued their malevolent manipulations. I open the door and the faces of the little buggers drop. They become rigid and a mask of terror seems to come across their faces. I simply nod and they run like Luke Robertson going to Boots to get his monthly fake tan supply.

I am beginning to feel this blog is developing a really sophisticated and nuanced level of cultural analysis.

I just saw an interesting Korean advert on television today. It featured a computer generated James Dean strutting past a cool looking Korean, just before the Korean jumps into a fancy looking sports car. I think the irony may be lost on a lot of the viewers.

Blog update.

I am having a few problems with the old blog as of late. I switched from the old blogger to the new blogger, which I now log in on using my google account. I have for whatever reason been having problems with posts, as two or three seem to have gone missing, which is a pain. Who knows this one might never make the blog itslef. Regardless, I'll keep bashing away
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Interesting comment today. "Mr Fleming, your English is really improving."
"Excuse me."
"Your pronounciation is a lot better than before. A lot more American."

Sadly breaking the orbital bone of a Korean teenager's nose is as illegal here as it would be at home.

Some more good banter from the Korean kids.

A few days ago, I had a problem in class. One of the boys called one of the other girls a prostitute. She was understandably upset, as I am sure it will be a few years before she resorts to being a lady of the night. In all seriousness. I took the young man out for a stern talking to, although I suspected that he was not entirely sure of what he was saying. True enough, he was not aware of quite what the word meant.

So what is a prostitue?

“Well, its something that some women do?”

“Like what.”

“Well they do things with men for money.”

“Like what.”

“Well...”

“Like what.”

“You know things that two people who love each other might do.”

“They shout at each other.”

“Well, not exactly, well they might... just don't call people that!”

I will give him Dyson's e-mail address after the next rugby club dinner, so he can explain what a rent boy is.

It is Korean new year this weekend. This is a time of mass travelling in Korea, as families get together to spend the period together. I have been asking my students about their plans and most seem pretty excited. Mostly they are happy about the fact they get money off their elders.

One lad Eric however was not. Now Eric is a genuinely bright spark, an incredible english speaker for his age and generally one of my favourite kids. However, when he is not quite enthused about New Year.

“Are your family coming?#

Sigh... “Yes.”

“Do you not like your family Eric?”

“I do, but is just that...”

“Just what?”

“They always ask the same questions. Am I studying hard? Am I behaving? How is school? The same questions and the same answers. Uhhhh.”

I had to smile and I tried not to break the little guys spirit by telling him that much of his discourse with his extended family will remain this repetetive and mundane. Except insert the words work/college/children. Luckily, I am close with much of my extended family. However, when I do meet up with those on the outer fringes of my genetic gang, the chat is pretty much excruciating. Shitty small talk it seems, is a universal annoyance.

Not too sound churlish, but I reckon some grapes and a copy of the Reader's Digest would have done the trick.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6364481.stm

Hmmm, I found this report on the BBC website both interesting and alarming. Alarming especially when you consider my diatribe on Korean education below. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6359363.stm

Religion.

I was with my class yesterday at Langdell Debate Academy. Now overall the kids at this academy are very bright. However, this bunch are not the sharpest knives in the drawer and tend to display some truly dysfunctional and social misfit behaviour. Anyway, Christine (who btw is far too good for the class) asks me: "Are you religious Mr Fleming?" "Not really, but I was raised as a Christian."

"What does that mean?" prompts C
"Well, I went to Church when I was younger, but I do not anymore. I certainly don't think I could call myself a Christian. I am not sure what I believe, but, obviously I respect the very constructive influence that religion can play in peoples lives."
"Is that not a cop out answer? C
"Sorry?"
"Thats what former Christians always say. ' I respect blah, blah, blah. Harumpf." Christine folds her arms dismissively.

Yoon Ho, now pipes up: "I used to be a Christian and a buddhist." The handsome Scottish heretic is happy to see the chat moved away from Christine's very own version of the Spanish Inquisition.

"When I was growing up I was both a Christian and a buddhist. The left side of my brain wanted to be a Christian, vbut the right side was buddhist. Don't you hate it when the two sides of your brain disagree." Fleming can reply only with a baffled stare.

"But now I'm just a buddhist, because I prayed for a whole month for God to give me a PSP and he never gave me one." At this point, the entire class start pissing themselves laughing. Even the goon platoon can see this is not the most reliable theological litmus test the world has seen.

"Did Buddha not give you a PSP either?" I asked.
"No, you can't ask Buddha for a PSP, that would be stupid."

Religion.

I was with my class yesterday at Langdell Debate Academy. Now overall the kids at this academy are very bright. However, this bunch are not the sharpest knives in the drawer and tend to display some truly dysfunctional and social misfit behaviour. Anyway, Christine (who btw is far too good for the class) asks me: "Are you religious Mr Fleming?" "Not really, but I was raised as a Christian."

"What does that mean?" prompts C
"Well, I went to Church when I was younger, but I do not anymore. I certainly don't think I could call myself a Christian. I am not sure what I believe, but, obviously I respect the very constructive influence that religion can play in peoples lives."
"Is that not a cop out answer? C
"Sorry?"
"Thats what former Christians always say. ' I respect blah, blah, blah. Harumpf." Christine folds her arms dismissively.

Yoon Ho, now pipes up: "I used to be a Christian and a buddhist." The handsome Scottish heretic is happy to see the chat moved away from Christine's very own version of the Spanish Inquisition.

"When I was growing up I was both a Christian and a buddhist. The left side of my brain wanted to be a Christian, vbut the right side was buddhist. Don't you hate it when the two sides of your brain disagree." Fleming can reply only with a baffled stare.

"But now I'm just a buddhist, because I prayed for a whole month for God to give me a PSP and he never gave me one." At this point, the entire class start pissing themselves laughing. Even the goon platoon can see this is not the most reliable theological litmus test the world has seen.

"Did Buddha not give you a PSP either?" I asked.
"No, you can't ask Buddha for a PSP, that would be stupid."

Religion.

I was with my class yesterday at Langdell Debate Academy. Now overall the kids at this academy are very bright. However, this bunch are not the sharpest knives in the drawer and tend to display some truly dysfunctional and social misfit behaviour. Anyway, Christine (who btw is far too good for the class) asks me: "Are you religious Mr Fleming?" "Not really, but I was raised as a Christian."

"What does that mean?" prompts C
"Well, I went to Church when I was younger, but I do not anymore. I certainly don't think I could call myself a Christian. I am not sure what I believe, but, obviously I respect the very constructive influence that religion can play in peoples lives."
"Is that not a cop out answer? C
"Sorry?"
"Thats what former Christians always say. ' I respect blah, blah, blah. Harumpf." Christine folds her arms dismissively.

Yoon Ho, now pipes up: "I used to be a Christian and a buddhist." The handsome Scottish heretic is happy to see the chat moved away from Christine's very own version of the Spanish Inquisition.

"When I was growing up I was both a Christian and a buddhist. The left side of my brain wanted to be a Christian, vbut the right side was buddhist. Don't you hate it when the two sides of your brain disagree." Fleming can reply only with a baffled stare.

"But now I'm just a buddhist, because I prayed for a whole month for God to give me a PSP and he never gave me one." At this point, the entire class start pissing themselves laughing. Even the goon platoon can see this is not the most reliable theological litmus test the world has seen.

"Did Buddha not give you a PSP either?" I asked.
"No, you can't ask Buddha for a PSP, that would be stupid."

The Korean education system and me.

The Korean education system is well different. Different certainly from home. The public school system is fairly uniform. The kids start at 9am and finish around 2.3opm. They study Korean, English, Maths, Social studies and Science. Nothing unusual so far. However, unlike the tiddlywinks from Scotland, or most of the Western World they do not then head home for an hour or two of homework, some x-box, dinner and bed. Oh no, at this time they enter the realm of the hagwons.

Hagowns are essentially private academies that teach or tutor the kids in a variety of different disciplines. It's mostly English, Science, Math and Korean, however they also teach things like Piano or ping-pong. I teach at two of the hagwons. The first is a more of a typical example of a Korean hagwon. It's areas of expertise is in Math and Science but is now running an English program. The specific hook of our program is that we teach through debate. We go through arguments and we explain the topics to begin. The students then come back again with prepared speeches, where go through some rebuttals, do exercises and finally they have a debate. The other place I teach at is also a hagwon or an academy. It has been set up as pure debating academy, with less emphasis on English per se and more on debate development. (Well it was but that is another kettle of fish...)

Now I would like to say that the only hagwons that my students go to is mine. However, that is certainly not the case. Most students will attend a variety of these hagwons in a normal week. A student might go to a Math hagown after school, grab som dinner and then go to an English hagwon. They will then get out around Ten O'Clock. Some students then go to more late, late hagwons and work until after midnight. Others will often recieve some private tuition at home around midnight. This schedule is fairly routine for a middle schooler, i.e they do not have any formalised exams that I understand. However, when they go to High School and have exams, then really turn the amps to eleven. Students will usually have a hagwon before school starts and many do personal study and complete their homework until three or four in the morning. At Daewon, we had student assistants who had finished and were waiting to graduate in March. She told me that for many high school students, three hours of sleep was not out of the ordinary. Three hours! Now I can appreciate that students should study hard for exams. However, there are limitations and I cannot help but think that those limits have been completely exceeded. These schedules are not merely intense, but they are brutal. Children going to educational institutions for fifteen hours a day is not acceptable. Grown men and women in the West would balk at this, yet its somehow the normal life for many Korean teenagers. Unless you are Margaret Thatcher or a Universal Soldier, I think you deserve a nights sleep longer than The Return of the King. Does it suprise you to know the rates of suicide amongst Korean students are amongst the highest in the world? And it is not as if everyone is bound for Harvard after all of of this. Korean children are on the whole very bright and display really impressive levels of natural intelligence. However, some of them are window lickers and all the education in the world cannot change that.

Now I did not create the Korean education system, but I do work in it. My presence does not change what it is or is not. I would like to think as well that the time my students spend with me is not the most mundane or gruelling that they experience. There is usually a lot of humour in my classes and I am sure most of them enjoy that at least. However, something that I am having a hard time dealing with, is the fact I am ultimately complicit in a system that I have fundamental moral problems with. Kids studying as much as they do here, is in my opinion just wrong. Its the robbery of their childhoods. For many of us, the narrative of our day to day existences is one grinding, repetitive and disheartening drudgery. Alas, that is life. However, I think the one thing we can do is at least give children the opportunity to be children. And I do not believe this society does this adequately.

One thought that may spring to the minds of the thousands of readers that I have is: "Did you not know this before I went." Erm, well yes actually. However, I sort of glossed over that as I imagined a perfect year extolling the virtues of debating for a year whilst I had an incredible cultural experience. Also, just as there is a difference between reading about inhuman conditions in a prison and actually smelling the shit bucket in a cell, there is a difference in reading about sleep deprivation and seeing kids fall asleep in class. I am not a perfectly principled person as all of you will know. However, I like to think that on the whole I am a pretty sound guy. I think when we make choices and decisions in our lives, we take the responsibility for them. I choose to go work in this system every day. I think that choice is a bit of a shitty one.

I know I promised more positivity in the blog, but well it seems I lied. Sorry Alex.

Today is a gorgeous day in Korea. Its about ten degrees apparently, but it feels a lot warmer. Frankly, I do not remember there being many days like this in February at home. In fact, it is probably grey and overcast at home. If not raining. But here its lovely, really lovely. So ha fucking ha.
I am going to try and make this a more positive post, as I am, all things being equal feel feeling a bit more positive about things. Also, the sight of Alex Thurlow calling me whiney on my bebo page still wracks my ver being.
Now on the whole, the organisation is still shitty, I’m still not loving the job and people still stare on the subway, but I am now starting to get some time off. Specifically, Thursday and Friday each week. Now thus far, I would like to say that I have taken advantage of this time to go and visit some temples, some museums and learn some more of the language. However, if I said that I would be like a Labour party finance guru. I would be lying.”Yeah, yeah we’ve got the money. I’ll get it to you by the end of the week . Yeah we’ll have a beer, cool, cool. Aw fuck we’re gonna have to sell some of Bevan’s underpants....” However, I will say this, the new Battlestar Galactica TV series is absolutely outstanding and I wholeheartedly recommend that people should check it out. So, no great cultural experiences for me yet, but I do really enjoy sitting around watching TV and movies,.So thats cool.
Yesterday morning, I watched the Superbowl. It was a better game than past years and Peyton Manning finally got the ring he deserves. Now the night before, I had stayed up with some buddies drinking some beer and playing some Madden. Simple night, but very fun. So, watching the game, my tongue felt like sandpaper and my eyebells were all red. My hair is quite long at the minute and I had neither showered, let alone gelled the unruly mop. So, I went up to big Phil’s apartment and as I watched the game. I looked, felt and probably smelled like shit. And I loved it. In a perverse way it shows how you can come to miss hangovers when they are gone. A hangover is the mark of a good night. You can’t have the pleasure without the pain sometimes. It reminded me of waking up in Chateau de Eaglesham after a good night out and vegetating the day away. Everyone complaining about how bad they feel. “God, I wanna die. Christ,I need some water. Jesus, I am gonna puke. Allah, I need a McDonalds.” It reminded me of watching the Rugby world cup at Jamie Boss’ on the mattresses and Boat Shop taking twenty minutes to produce the foulest tasting tea any of us had ever tasted. (If the Foreign office does not work out, then a career in motorway services station catering could await.) The collective turpor that is the morning after the night before is something I missed and yesterday morning was a lot of fun. Ok, while trying teach that night, I did in fact think about killing myself, but it was definitely worth it in the end.

Waterworks.

On the whole, I think I am doing ok on this whole teaching lark. I think I'm engaging enough and I have pretty good classroom control. However, yesterday I had an incident which made me feel as impotent a sixty five year old who has dropped his viagra down the sink.

I was sitting with a class letting them finalise their speeches for the debate I was about to watch. They had messing around a little as kids that age will. Now suddenly, one of the boys James seems to be sniffing. Hmmm. Under closer inspection I see these are the sniffs that accompany tears. I investigate and it seems one of the pesky youngsters made him cry with a comment. I'm not sure whether he swore, or was especially nasty, but he made some comment about James not doing the right work. Anyway, I asked young Brian to step outside so that I can have a little word with him. Now, I had no intention to shout and bawl at him, nor even chastise him. My honest intention was for a polite chat about the importance of respect and manners in class. Now as I get him outside he starts crying and I do mean crying. Tears stream down his face as he breathes in frantic gulps. I try to calm him down, but he inconsolable. The process of being asked outside for what he must have assumed was a telling him off has unleashed this dam of emotion inside the little guy.

Well, I manage to pacify him a little, if not damming the whole flood and bring him back inside. However, James our original sniffler, who had only been crying a little in the first place sees Brian and suddenly kicks off big style. Brian is then triggered again and starts crying like he's an anorexic at an all you can eat buffet. The rest of the class, observing this bizzare Freudian nightmare start laughing their heads off. I mean you can hardly blame them.

Eventually, I managed to restore order and have the debate. At the end of the class, the two boys trudged off glaring at me like I was the Demon Headmaster. I think I gave a boost to the Korean psychology community yesterday.