The Soundtrack of our Lives: Part 3
And then there is this…..
Posts Tagged ‘teaching’
P.S.
As as follow-up to my previous post, I’ve compiled a list of various media sources on South Korea which I think express the nature of our situation here in a more concise way. First is a video about the education system. It describes the environment here well– pretty much everything you see in the video we have seen here ( aside from the sections on tongue surgery). Unfortunately, the video has no English subtitles, but the English narration is interesting.
The other side of things
This week marks a month and a half for us in Korea and we hope that our friends and family (those who still read this blog) can tell from our posts that we are happy, healthy and settling in nicely. We really feel like we have hit the lottery with our jobs and with the life we lead, but we would be remiss to say that there is not a whole lot about our lives here that we also find aggravating, perplexing, frustrating, exasperating and just plain backward. The following post is a bit long and no one should feel pressured to read it word for word. Mostly it has just helped me work out some of my confusion and frustration and understand that many of the problems I have come across in these two months are bigger than myself and thus beyond my control.
School Pictures
One thing about KoC that we have a love/hate relationship with is their desire to thoroughly photograph and document certain events like cooking class, field trips, and birthday parties. It’s kind of a pain when they barge into class with a camera and want every kid to pose (and I mean every kid, so their parents have proof), but on the other hand, they load some of the photos up on the staff computer so we get some great shots of our cute kids.
(Baby) One More Time
So, Greg and I have been in Korea almost a month now and I think we’ve covered most of the basics—the good, the bad, and the ugly—in terms of things that can induce culture shock here. One thing we haven’t discussed, and which definitely deserves it’s own post, is the music. From what we can tell, 1999 is alive and well here. Yes, Koreans LOVE their pop music. Every time we are at Lotte Mart, or walking past a small shop with its doors open, it seems like we hear the same four songs. Lately, even in school, our kids have been singing and mimicking the choreography from a few of these songs. For example:
