Day 357 - What I will miss about Korea

I'm not exactly sure what day I'm on, but it must be around the 357 range, because my contract is a year, and I'm leaving in five days, a bit before it officially ends.

I am sometimes very bad at creating closure with people, places, ages, etc., but my goodbye to Korea has been slow and long, so I thought I'd take a moment to write out some of the things I will miss.

Things I will miss about living/teaching in Korea:

- Walking around by myself past midnight and feeling completely safe.  I have never felt as safe in a country as I do here.  (Which is ironic, as I'm on the border of a crazy-eyed, nuke-happy dictator). 

-  Low crime in general.  I haven't had to think about pickpockets.  My friends have had phones and wallets returned to them.  I've left my bags outside for one reason or another. 

- Public Transportation.  It costs me a couple of dollars to get to Seoul -- an hour away -- on a direct bus.  The buses are direct and extensive.  The metro is clean, fast, and extensive.  It's great not having to be dependent on a car.

- Not worrying about taxes when shopping or eating out.  The price listed is what you'll pay.  How pleasant.

- And on that note, not worrying about tipping in general.  I'm not miserly, and I know that tipping in the States is the bulk of the waiter/waitress' salary.  But it's nice that it's built in here.  And that it's still cheaper (Korean food), or similarly priced

- Korean food.  Mmmm.  Inexpensive access to delicious Korean barbeques, soups, bimbimbop, kimbop, etc.

- The tight knit community of foreigners in rural areas.  I live near a small town called Geumchon, and it's pretty cool to walk around and bump into friendly faces. 

- Free rent, inexpensive health care, cheap phone bills.

- "Service".  Service is what Koreans call little gifts that are thrown in for free with purchases.  Free drinks, free time at noraebong, free random stuff...

- Noraebong!  Noraebong is Karoake in a purer form.  It's private rooms with couches, tamborines, and giant TVs and mics set up for singing.  You and your friends choose all the songs, and you can be as ridiculous as you want.

- Kind and hospitable Korean people.  I've had so many stringless free lunches here.  And people who come up to me and help me carry things (suitcases, guitar cases, etc.), or just want to chat.  Strangers who help me with directions. 

- The children here.  Are. So. Incredibly. Cute.  It's absurd.

Ilsan 

- My students and the quirky, sweet things they say.  The ones who really want to communicate with me, so they come up and repeat "How are you?" over and over, or say "This is for you," and hand me random things from my desk (I think every ESL teacher grows to resent that lesson...).  The students who insist on taking photos with me, who try to have Google Translate conversations with me, who request Justin Bieber songs...And the quiet sweet ones who bow at me and murmer "Hello."  The artwork and failed attempts at spelling and grammar....

- My co-teacher.  Her muttering to herself in English and Korean and then saying "Why?!" when I laugh at her.  Her endless dramas with her bf.  Her existential crisis over teaching.

- My apartment.  It's a good size, and it's in the middle of a street that has restaurants, grocery stores, pharmacies, bakeries, convenience stores, etc.  I love living alone.

- Pizza School. These are a chain of pizza places that have 5 dollar pizzas (actually, more like $4.50 if you convert it.)  Pretty delicious...

- All the quirky things I take for granted.  Subway arrival music.  Larva cartoons on the bus.  Street food.  The everpresent feel of Psy...

**

There are probably many more things, but these are the ones that came to mind first. 

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The one about Valentine's Day

When I was eight, my classmates drew names for Valentine's and then decorated a cupcake and made an acrostic out of the person's name.  A kid called Justin (I think?) got me and used the "I" in my name to write "I like her a lot," which we both got teased about. 

Korea is the mother of cute.  Really.  Everything is ribbons, pink, hellokitty, skirts, dresses, heels, kpop, cursive all-year-long.  Couples wear matching outfits -- shirts, pants, shoes, coats, hats, all-year-long.  (As my friend Lauren asked: When/how do they have that talk?  Is it around the three month mark?  Are the guys into it?) 

My wardrobe has not been immune to the cute.  Pink is now all over my wardrobe, I have floral headbands, multiple hair ties with flowers, little bow hair clips, etc.  But I digress.

Valentine's Day in Korea, is the first in a three month celebration of love/singleness.  February 14, March 14, and April 14 are all holidays that revolve around the subject.  February is for girls to give to guys, March (White Day) is for guys to give to girls, and April (Black Day) is for singles to get together and eat black noodles. 

Apparently Valentine's Day is about chocolate and White Day is about candy.  Two of my Korean friends have told me they have made chocolate for boyfriends on past Valentine's Days.  It feels much less inyourface here -- I haven't seen any flower/chocolate deliveries to the school, and definitely don't feel the advertising in the same way. 

Chocolate companies do make specialized chocolate bars like in the States, though.  Here's one I got: 

I'm pretty sure there's no good way to interpret "Calorie Down" written on each block of chocolate.  The bar itself was wrapped in a pink HelloKitty valentine wrapper, so these weren't meant as weight loss treats.

**

I like holidays.  I like traditions.  I like that they add and remind us of the meaning in our lives.  I like that New Years is about growth, Valentine's Day is about love, Easter is about hope, Independence Day is about patriotism, Thanksgiving is about gratitude, Christmas is about Love.  Birthdays and mother/father, etc. days are about celebrating lives of individuals.  They are all about community, celebration, appreciation; and they allow us to give and receive and be cheesy.

 
That said, I do think that turning romantic events (V-day, proposals, asking someone to prom, etc.) into crazy huge pressure competitions is usettling and sad.  Kudos to the guys and girls who go all out because they are genuinely intense romantic people.  (Though they make everyone else look bad.)

An especial kudos to the gentleman who thought it would be a good idea to tie the ring to a helium filled balloon when proposing:   

  And the dude who knocked his girlfriend out:

And of course, the following viral proposal is fabulous:

Alright, and here's some real romance.  If you haven't watched the movie, you're cutting corners. 

Happy Valentine's Day!  :)

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The Deal with Winter Camp and Desk Warming

Winter Camp

Winter English Camp is a camp during winter vacation that most public school teachers are required to teach.  Depending on your school, it can range from a few days to a few weeks.  During the rest of the school holiday, English public school teachers are still required to come in, even though there are no classes and no other teachers.  We affectionately call this time "Desk Warming."

Winter Camp is entirely in the hands of the English teacher.  (Or, most are.)  I was the one who planned it and taught it.  It runs from 8:30-12:30, with the afternoons free for planning.  Mine was set up so that 9:00-9:40 was 1st/2nd grade for two weeks, and 9:50-12:10 was 3/4th grade for the first week and 5th/6th grade for the second week.  I had 18 or so 1/2nd graders, around nine 3/4th graders, and two 5/6th graders.  Yes, two.  (Six signed up, and three came the last day). 

From what I can tell, the school doesn't actually expect the kids to greatly improve their English at Winter Camp.  It's more about having fun doing silly activities and reviewing/picking up some new vocab along the way.  Initially (before Summer Camp) I had been excited for the camps to teach new grammar and subjects outside the book, but I quickly learned that the kids are in vacation mode.  Oh, and they don't particularly care about English.  Did you care about High School Spanish?

Supplies

My school has a pretty good English budget, and they offered us a few hundred thousand won (a few hundred dollars) for Winter Camp supplies.  I made a list of what I would need for the activities, my co-teacher got the list approved, and we went shopping together with a school credit card.

Some schools have really low budgets, and every school is slightly different in their approach.

My supplies included colored paper for projects, tape, balloons, cookie ingredients, etc.

Ideas for Winter Camp

Waygook.com will save your life.  Really.  It's a site where ESL teachers in Korea upload lesson plans, games, ideas, and other materials (crosswords, worksheets, etc.)  It has forums for different themed Winter Camps: Harry Potter, Space Camp, Olympics, etc. and they are filled with really useful material. 

For 1st and 2nd grade, I did a simple craft/art project about very basic vocabulary every period.  For example, we learned some weather vocabulary, colored umbrella top cutouts, and taped them to chopsticks.   

3+4th and 5th+6th I was able to get more advanced.  We learned English songs -- I printed out the lyrics with a bunch of words removed for them to fill in -- and made/ painted paper mache heads, played review games, watched Elf, did an Egg Drop, and made no-bake cookies.

Ideas that flopped:

1) Making a music video.  This might have worked if my kids were all outgoing/dancy/enthused about memorizing an English song.  They weren't. I have some pretty terrible footage of a few kids mouthing "Love me do."  Lots of blooper footage.  Maybe I can make a blooper movie and add the real bits at the end. 

2) Learning feelings, writing them in the snow and taking pictures.  Also, snow angels.  The kids had zero desire to go outside "Teacher! COLD!", which was understandable -- most of them had no hats or gloves.  (Dear parents...). 

Also, in spite of showing an inspiring Youtube video about how to make snow angels, my kids weren't enthused about trying them out.  Except one boy who ran ahead, stopped still, and then flung himself face-forward into the snow, flailing his body around.  It was beautiful.

3) S'mores.  This wasn't my idea, nor is it my story, but it makes me laugh so I will share it.  My friend Asrune has a tumultuous (read: bizarre/insane) relationship with her co-teacher.  Asrune sat down with her before camp to go over the supplies that the co-teacher would need to get for the Winter camp.

They discussed s'more ingredients for about 20 minutes, with Asrune explaining very carefully what a s'more was, and giving her a list of optional types of chocolate, graham crackers/biscuits, and marshmellows.

When Asrune returned from vacation to start winter camp, she looked at the s'more ingredients that had been supplied.  Well, actually, she didn't know they were s'more ingredients because they were so off-base -- she assumed they were random snack foods.  Here is a breakdown of her co-teacher's s'more ingredient interpretation:

Graham crackers became: Ritz cracker cheese sandwiches. 
Plain chocolate bars became: chocolate candy bars
And the topper -- Marshmellows became: MINI SAUSAGES.

What? 

Yes.  She couldn't find marshmellows and thought that mini sausages would be an appropriate substitute. 

Desk Warming

There are a ton of complaints about desk warming because it seems pointless and inefficient, and other teachers have the vacation days off.

I kind of enjoy it.  They're paying me to relax in a warm (oh yes, the heater is on when I'm here alone) room with internet access, a phone and a fridge.  Nobody checks up on me, and I have no work to do.  Which means I get to blog, read, write, take care of emails, make phone calls, Skype, and watch Community.  Which is so.amazing.love.

When camp ended last week, the kids whined and asked if they could visit me this week.  I gave them an hour on Monday and Tuesday.  I have no idea if I'm breaking laws, but I assume I'm not.  Today they came in and we watched K-pop music videos.

Kpop is the Korean pop music genre.  It consists of a million all-boy and all--girl pop groups that have around eight people with the same height, body, and face (they change up hair colors).  The girls are really cutesy with long hair, big eyes, and scaryscarytiny little waists.  The boys are the same, but with shorter hair and angstier expressions.  They mostly sing about relationships, from what I can tell of the English phrases thrown in (Girl, you're my caffeine; so I love you, so I hate you...)

They've got some catchy songs.  It's pop.  Here's a Girl's Generation video called "I have a boy." 

    

 One of the extremely popular boy bands is called Beast.  (Which has made for some fun English lessons: "No, not I want to meet the Beast.  Just Beast.)  Here is their song Bad Girl.

One of my kids spazzed out when showing me a video of them.  "Handsome!  Ohhhh!"  She turned to me and pointed at the screen.  "Handsome?"

I shrugged.  "They're so little."

"What?"

"Uh.  Baby.  Baby."  I made baby rocking gestures and pointed at Beast.

"Teacher, no!  No baby!"

"Yes!"  And then I told her I was 66.  She freaked out and started jabbering to her friend who also freaked out.  They pulled up Google Translate and typed in "How old are you?"

I repeated 66, and translated "Plastic Surgery."

"???"  They pointed at my face.  I pointed at my eyes, nose, chin, and then made a waving motion over my body.

One of them typed some Korean into Google Translate.  "66, huh?"  Not a bad translation.

And then.  "Her face is 20."

I laughed.   "Thank you." 

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Curriculum Craziness

Over the last seven months of teaching in Korea, I've had to teach some strange words and sentences to my students.  At the beginning of each lesson, we listen and repeat and memorize the vocabulary and phrases, which means that my students have committed some really odd things to heart.

This includes phrases like "I'm going to go inline skating" and "What is this?" "It's a sensor."

One of my favorites was the video dialogue about the "house of the future" in which the characters exclaim: "Look! The robot is cooking."  "What a surprise!"  I honestly had more of a problem with forcing my kids to memorize "What a surprise!" than "Look, the robot is cooking!"  If there was a situation in which a robot was cooking, I can imagine someone might actually use that sentence.  But I cannot picture anyone I know using the phrase "What a surprise!"  To add insult to injury, the actors in the video spoke this phrase in the dullest, least whatasurprised monotone possible. 

I can only assume that someone was trying to directly translate a Korean phrase for being surprised - like "Quelle suprise!" in French, and they didn't want to say "Wow".

My plan for this post was to come up with a list of the funky things I've had to teach - including conversations about appearances "He has curly hair and a big nose", which, in the video are accompanied by characters emitting red hearts from their eyes.  So I asked my friends to add some of their bizarre curriculum to the list.  And I suddenly felt very, very good about my curriculum.  Here are the samples they gave me (these are mostly from my friend Asrune who has a great blog.)

I didn't know they had it this bad.

List of words/phrases my friends and I have had to teach in Korea


- "We will see a future house." and "I go to school on foot."

- "The doughnut shop of sweet is next to the book gallery."

- "We're going to have a Halloween party. Don't forget to carve a Jack-o-Lantern!"  "Would you like to come to a snack party?"

- "Don't use the elevator, use the stairs. The elevator is for old and weak people."

-"Do you want the king of steaks or the super sweet pizza?"  (To be fair, the pizza here tends to have sweet sauce.)

 "Today is Arbor day. What day is your birthday?"

-"Don't run! Because they're wet and slippery!" (No explanation as to who are wet and slippery here.)

-"Let's make a happy school"

"I want to clean the windows" (Chapter title)

" I want to play and have dinner with you."

"Be careful! Owls eat snakes and snakes eat grasshoppers."

-Student 1: "You are very strong." Student 2: "Of course, I am stronger than you."

- "Who's calling please? This is David. Lucy and I will have a badminton party. Can you join us?"

- "Can I get on the bus? Sure you can! But you must line up first." (In the video, she is the only person there.)

- "Hallasan is higher than Jirisan." (taller?)

-"Come to my movie party! We'll have pillow fghts and sing a song."

-Student 1: "Can I come to your house?" Student 2: "Ok, come in."  (As my friend pointed out - doesn't this imply that he is already at said person's house?)

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Boryeong Mud Festival 2012

Miranda rocks the boryeong mudfest :)

A couple weeks ago, on the 14th of July, I took the fabulous opportunity to attend the Boryeong Mud Festival.  I love being dirty.  I'm the kid who came home from art class with charcoal all over her face.  Every day.

History: According to the official site, the Boryeong Mud Festival, or Mudfest, was started in 1998 as a way to publicize the local mud cosmetics and beautiful beach (Daechon).  It grew in popularity over the years with both Koreans and eventually foreigners enjoying themselves with mud games, contests, slides, etc.  It now supposedly attracts over 2 million people during its two week run.

Events/Attractions:

- There is a closed off area with a 5,000 won entry fee (less than 5 dollars) where you can go in and do mud obstacles, big blow up slides, mud pit wrestling, and a mud jail. The lines were pretty awful, but it was fun wandering around covered in mud. 

-Mud fountains (outside the closed off area), where you can grab handfuls of mud and attack friends/passerby.

-Free body painting

- Bands/dancing by the beach

-Daejon beach.  The beach is the backdrop of the festival, and it is lovely.  Many festival goers have fun in the water.  Mud wrestling was happening on the beach as well.

-Food stalls, mud product stalls, souveneir stalls.

-Convenience stores and restaurants.

colorful costumes at the boryeong mudfest

Food:  We had street food at night (skewered chicken) which was delicious.  For brunch we wandered down the street parallel to the beach and ate at an American style brunch.  I had some pretty decent waffles.

How to get there: My friends and I went through a travel club called I.F.X. (Intrepid Foreign Excursions) who took care of transportation, entry ticket, lodging, and t-shirts.  I paid 99,000 won for two days and one night (the two night option was 111,000 won) which is about $86.00.  The trip took over three hours from Geumchon Station (we're an hour north of Seoul).

I forget which ninja turtle I am...

The experience:

I wasn't sure what exactly to expect - I had read a lot of positive accounts, but quite a few negative ones too.  Also, the forecast was for rain which didn't sound like a ton of fun for someone who gets cold really easily. (While we're on this subject, I don't recommend public school hallways during Korean winters).  And although I'm social, I'm not a big partier and wasn't looking for a Spring Break experience.

Ah, but I had a great time.  My friends and I immersed ourselves in green paint (we were the ninja turtles), and had fun diving through a muddy obstacle course.  I didn't bring my nice camera because I knew it would meet an untimely, dirty death, but I managed to get some good photos and footage on my iphone.  Check out my video:




I.F.X.

I.F.X. did a decent job of things - we were picked up from a convenient location, and we got t-shirts that were awesome.  However, our accommodations were way overbooked which meant 12 peopl in one room with very limited amount of blankets/mats.  I.F.X. also didn't have a decent description of what to expect for accommodations.  After two overnight trips, I now know that staying in pensions in Korea means sleeping sandwiched between blankets on the floor with a group of people, but I would have appreciated the knowledge up front.  It was totally fine, but part of letting an organization take care of you is getting all the details taken care of and relayed to you beforehand.  Oh and they juggled the roommate situation and our Geumchon Crew was split into separate rooms.  As one of the more expensive tour groups, they could have done better.

We did have a great location though, and the I.F.X. crew that I bumped into seemed like fun, friendly people.

Muddy Ninjas!

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Behaving very politely at the DMZ

My trip to the DMZ

South Korea, click to enlarge

I live in Paju, which is a large city/county that borders the Demilitarized Zone.  Paju is pretty large, and I'm not in the town (Munsan) directly on the border, but I'm pretty close – about half an hour away by bus. 

My group used the USO (United Service Organization, affiliated with the US military base) to book and provide the tour, which meant that our tour was conducted by some extremely well-briefed army officers.  Our tour cost 96,000 won each (82 dollars), but I believe there are cheaper options.  Wed did everything available and it lasted from about 9-5 (including travel time).  Check out their Korea site for more information on how to book. 

DMZ Tour Rules:

1) Conservative clothing.  No bellies, shoulders, or shorts.  Nothing baggy, no skirts, no open toed shoes.

2) Absolutely no gestures toward N. Korea/N. Korea soldiers when at the DMZ.  Our guide's mantra went like this: "Do not wave, gesture, point, or attempt any communication with N. Korea."  Basically don't give N.K. an excuse to start some friendly fire.  This rule was rather one-sided: our tour guide told us that the North Korean soldiers liked to amuse themselves with flicking S.K. off, or miming slitting throats.

3) The U.S. and S.K. will not be held responsible for your death/injury at the hands of NK.  Really.  I signed the paper.  Actually, just read the paper for the actual rules.

        







































Stepping into North Korea at the JSA (Joint Security Area)

The only place on the DMZ where you can actually (safely) step foot into North Korea is in a small blue conference hut (the MAC conference room), half of which is in N.K.  Two S.K. guards were posted inside with us, and we quietly walked around, taking photos and nervously laughing about our location. 

When an S.K. or N.K. tour group (yes, N.K. also finds the DMZ profitable) uses the room, the other side stays out.  Our guide told us that he'd been on tours where N.K. soldiers made faces through the windows or stood up against the windows with binoculars, staring in at the group.

Notable moments in the MAC room include NK soldiers blowing their nose/wiping their foot on the US and ROK (SK) flags, prompting a switch to small flags inside a plexiglass cover.  Also, there was once an 11 and a half hour meeting between the sides (nick-named "the battle of the bladders") which lasted so long because no one wanted to get up to go to the bathroom first.

I didn't bring my camera into the MAC room because I didn't realize we were allowed, so the following pictures were taken by my friends Anel and Area:

blowing a kiss to the ROK soldier on duty in the MAC room at the DMZ

our group standing in North Korea.  or possibly South Korea.  I forget which side is which.

And of course, my iphone:

Area approaching the guard

ROK guard in the MAC room

Hey buddy

outside view

I want to say that this is North Korea and I didn't just take a totally random scenery shot. 

My wonderful friend Area planned and booked the trip, and wrote a great blog post about it which has lots of historical information.  Check it out.

And if you want a video of a tour pretty similar to ours:

Dorasan station: Area chilling in front of the unused train that connects NK to SK

DMZ sign at the 3rd Infiltration Tunnel. Ross and I have gone native with our poses.

About to look across into N.K.

With 10 minutes to kill, we're obviously going to make a DMZ sign with our bodies.

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Why I decided to teach ESL in Korea

Sexy Korean men...was not on my list of reasons for moving to Korea.  Not that I didn't find Korean men attractive; I just already happened to be in a relationship.  So, in fact, the man situation in my life was actually working against my move.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Sometime in 2010 I realized that job hunting in California without a car as a fresh liberal arts college grad was not my ticket to a successful career.  (On a related note, my plan to take Hollywood by storm through never finding an agent or going to an audition was not my ticket to fame and glory.) 

I was also getting antsy. As in, location antsy.  As in, I no longer desired to live in America. So I sat in my room playing bellydancing music and reminiscing about my childhood.  I became overly enthusiastic about meeting Middle Eastern shop owners, and paid frequent visits to my fellow TCK friend where we cooked Ethiopian food and reminisced about being evacuated from civil wars and fires.  (OK, there was only one civil war, and the fire was in California.  Still.) 

The antsy thing thing happens to me every few years and I blame it on my childhood.  And also my personality.  Basically on anything that allows me to pass on the responsibility for my psychological demerits.

Anyways, my original post-graduate plan had been to get a job in a writing field.  Or possibly join the Peace Corps.  Grad school also sounded like a good idea - maybe a bit of international relations to ease an entrance into NGO or State Department work.  Grad school also sounded good because I'm an excellent test taker.  (It's probably my strongest skill.  So, if I'm going by pure skillset, I should get into the perpetual student field of academia.)

I'm not sure when Korea came up in a list of life possibilities, but it was hardly a surprising idea – I had a college friend who was currently teaching ESL in Korea, and I was also interested in the Korean culture.  L.A. has a strong Korean-American community, I had a Korean-American roommate (who was and is a superstar), and I was working at a tutoring center which was basically an Americanized hagwon filled with Asian-American students.   

Teaching in Korea is an attractive prospect to recent college grads for quite a few reasons.

1) It's a guaranteed full time job in an otherwise questionable economy.
2) It pays pretty well, especially when perks are taken into consideration - Free roundtrip airfare, free housing, low/no taxes, subsidized healthcare.
3) It's an opportunity to travel and live overseas.
4) It's a better resume filler than the part-time/waitressing work that many grads do while looking for a job.
5) It's fun.  (Subjective, yes.)  You get to hang out with kids, make international friends, eat weird food, and shake your world up.

 

My third graders.

So, with these reasons in mind, two of my roommates and I started discussing the possibility of teaching ESL in Korea.  (These roommates also happened to be my best friends, which is a potentially wondrous and disastrous thing – mixing friendship with rooming – but that's for another post that I'll never write.)

I moved to Sweden.  Roommate #1 moved to DC to work on the Hill, and roommate #2 got a full time job and engaged.  They both had decided against the idea (in favor of becoming adults), but it still sounded attractive to me, especially when I realized that Sweden involved nine months of icy darkness.  So I convinced my newly minted communications grad brother (if ever a major needs a job, it's communications), to join me, and he and his then girlfriend began the application process with me.

He is now teaching with Americorps, but his (ex) girlfriend did make it over and is living in Busan.
Her blog title is much better than mine.

And that's my story.  My reasons are pretty typical - a love of traveling, an enjoyment of working with kids, a desire to save money while thinking about my next plans, and an interest in Korea. 

I would definitely say that if you don't like kids or are pretty inflexible, teaching ESL here isn't the best idea for you.  OK, and no-one is going to describe themselves as inflexible, so let me put it like this: if the idea of having work/classes/meetings constantly changed on you at the last minute makes you feel sick to your stomach, Korea isn't for you.  Really.

Also, if you have a serious bf/gf, go the Hardy Boys route and knock them out with chloroform and take them with you.  Long Distance sucks.

(No, Frank and Joe never chloroformed anyone, but everybody they came across did.  I knew that word at a very young age.  Thanks Franklin Dixon/ghost writer.)

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Quirky Korea

There have been many incidents that have happened to me in Korea that aren't enough material for a blog post, but that definitely add colors to the picture of my life here.  I've decided to start putting these into Quirky Korea lists.

Quirky Korea

1) Metro announcement music. At the subway in Seoul, when your train is about to pull into the station, it is announced with trumpety fanfare over the PA system.  Kind of like the president is arriving.  Every 8 minutes. 

2) This month I accidentally ate jelly fish legs.  How does one accidentally eat jelly fish legs?  The same way you accidentally eat anything - someone sticks a plate in front of you, doesn't tell you what it is, and you assume it's noodles.  For the record: no, they weren't delightful enough to compensate for the weirdness of the idea.

3) Service. If you make a big or specific order, vendors will often throw in a free gift.  This is service.  Literally, that's what they call it, so if you aren't sure if they accidentally stuck something in, you can ask: "Service?"

Last week I bought a pack of batteries and received service: a packet containing some sort of white material.  I was pretty excited because I love free stuff.  It turned out to be one of those face masks that are worn by a) Zach Braff and b) bus drivers in my neighborhood.

4) Speaking of service, pizza places give you free sides of sweet pickles with your order.

5) There's no such thing as sending an unruly student to the principal's office here.  Teachers are expected to deal with students by themselves.  My co-teacher and I usually send disrespectful kids to stand at the back of the class for a while.

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