Quirks, powerpoints, and burritos

Today I was accosted by a group of high school girls who wanted to tell me how small my face was.  Yes.  It went a little something like this:

I was returning from grocery shopping – about a five minute walk.  My local grocery store charges about three cents for the shopping bags here, so I naturally stuffed my items into my hefty purse. I had a bag of potatoes that didn't fit into my purse which I tucked under my winter coat, and stiffly pinned to my side with my arm.  It was not at all awkward looking.  A group of gorgeous high school girls (maybe eight) watched me approach, and one of them called out a friendly "Hi."

 

Not my photo

"Hello," I replied smiling.  The hi/hello thing is pretty common here, even on the streets.  I usually smile and return the greeting, and the greeter (always a young person) gets really excited that they got a positive response to one of the odd noises that they'd been learning at school.

Responding to the passerby

I never ignore the hi's or hello's. (Except at my school sometimes because almost every student says it to me, and I simply don't have time.) It only takes me a second to reply, and they rarely pursue a conversation.  Also, I find it instinctively rude to ignore people, even if they are "being rude" by shouting a greeting at me.  I don't really think of them as being rude so much as curious and friendly – and the random greetings are not so pervasive that they become burdensome.  I grew up in the Middle East, and the situation there was much different: reply and end up with unwanted attention (stalkers, vendors, beggars).  Even still, I often returned a quick hello and kept walking. I'm the daughter of a diplomat, and I grew up with the very real knowledge of being a representative of my country.  If I'm rude here (or anywhere that it's obvious I'm American/Western), I'm just not rude, I'm rude on behalf of my entire nation.

And no, not every person deserves a reply, and you can always respond with a nod or smile or even pretend not to hear them.  It won't forever mar the East-West foreign relations.  Still, it doesn't hurt to go out of your way to be friendly to the kids who are thrilled to talk to you.

Back to my story.  One girl said hi, I replied. This emboldened several others to join in.

"Hi!"
"Hello!"
"Hi!"

"Hi," I said.  They all had adorably shy smiles on their faces. One of them, with short dark hair and an adventurous glint in her eyes, stepped forward.

"Small fehce-eh."

"What?" I smiled.

"Small face! Small face!" The others joined in, smiling and staring at my head.

"Ohh." I laughed. They laughed too.

"Very pretty.  Beaut-ee-ful. Nice!" It's hard not to appreciate a group of people stumbling over themselves to tell me how attractive you are.  Even if it's because you have a tiny little head.  Which I don't.  My hat sizes are always above average for girls.  But then, I do have a narrow face.  I've always thought it might be a bit nicer to have a fuller (for lack of a better word) face.  I look like a rodent when my hair is wet.  When I got my wisdom teeth removed and my cheeks swelled up, my friends told me my face finally looked normal.  True story.

OK, but I don't have a tiny, sunken-in, anorexic face.  Really.  It's pretty normal looking. (Unlike the photos from this awesome site. How does Joel Mchale still look good?)  Apparently it fits into the "small" category and that is valued here.  This isn't the first time I've been called out on having one.  Also, they're big on pale skin.  So basically I moved my small, tanless body to the correct country.

Teaching = Powerpoints

Powerpoints are a big part of my lessons here.  We use them for vocabulary, games, new concepts, songs, etc.  They supplement the curriculum provided to us by the school.

Today I made a powerpoint for the new phrases and vocabulary in our upcoming units.  I got the pleasure of figuring out how to illustrate:

-here (arrow pointing at giant HERE)
-there (arrow pointing away to giant THERE)
-luck (four leaf clover)
-I will do taekwondo (clock, person doing taekwondo)
-My watch
-his watch
-cute (go check out the first image that pops up on cute.  So cute.)
-wonderful (this was a fun one.  What picture would you choose?)
-creature (difficult to demonstrate with one picture)
-until (try illustrating that)
-boogie woogie oogie (that's why you don't teach kids English with children book vocabulary.)

Etc.  Some fun concepts I have yet to figure out how to illustrate include "Such a sight" and "Life" (I think I'm going with a kid growing older on that one.)

While we're on the illustration subject: I've discovered it's really hard to draw spaghetti on a whiteboard.  Mine looked like a ball with weird lines through it, or possibly the back of someone's head.  Also, I drew "foggy" on the whiteboard.  It was pretty ingenious – I drew clouds with a person below.  I then drew arrows downward from the clouds and drew the clouds around the person.  Foggy. Duh.

My interpretation of "Foggy"

When I was googling "my watch", one of the suggestions was "My water broke."  How many pregnant women rush to the keyboard when their water breaks? Shouldn't you figure that out, oh during the nine months of pregnancy? 
 
Burritos

I know I stuck burritos in the title of this post, but I don't have much to say on the topic except that I'm pretty excited to be part of a group order from Gringos Burritos. They make burritos here (in Korea) and ship them out. I miss burritos.  And Mexican food. Mmm and Chipotle. I haven't had proper Mexican food since I left California (minus a short summer visit) because it's not a food that flourishes in Scandinavia – or apparently, Korea. 

Posted in: Korea, tcks, travel