All Sorts of Cultural Experiences

Hello all! I had a busy weekend/week so it's been a bit crazy. So let me start from the end, then go back to the beginning and make my way back to the end again. Sound good? Great.

First, I have to confess that I have finally gotten off of the Super Junior exclusive playlist on my ipod to become obsessed with one song. Not another group, just this one song:

This is B2st/Beast (I actually think it's Beast now but it was originally B2st still pronounced the same so it's seen both ways) and the song is "Beautiful Night." The music video is cool, but it's also cool if you play the song and read the rest of the blog. If you watch the video you can see that they all look like they're like twelve despite being my age or older. Really. Korean ages, man.

I wish I was joking when I say I've been listening to this song on repeat for 3 days. I think I've listened to other songs only because Tina made me. Anyway, Beast's fandom name is Beauties, which I think is clever enough to excuse anyone ever thinking that spelling their name as B2st was a good idea. This song is incredible. I love it. I like a lot of their other stuff too. There are too many awesome groups and songs to listen to.

Moving on, I got a haircut yesterday so I had my hair straightened. THIS TOOK FOREVER. I mean, it always takes a long time, but still. Tina was getting highlights too, so we were there for like 2 hours. I don't remember the last time a guy did my hair, but these guys were great. We went to Lucy Hair, which has a lot of western style hair knowledge. The guys spoke pretty good English too.

Weird moisturizer vacuum bag thing. 

 It took about an hour to trim and straighten my hair. Their straighteners don't get as hot as ours. I think it's because the voltage is lower here or something, but the resulting hair is not as pin-straight as I experienced at home.

The weather has not cooperated. To protect my hair from the rain, I took a taxi to school, which was almost a disaster since I left too late to make it to school on time without running, and the taxi driver couldn't find my school on his gps so I had to use my limited Korean and hand gestures to explain. I safely made it to school, and the impact of my temporary change of hair exceeded my expectations.

No one has seen me with straight hair. I actually think a lot of the people at my school might not actually realize/believe my hair is naturally curly. So a lot of students and teachers (and the security guard) didn't say hello to me out of what I assume was a failure to recognize my face. Most of the teachers who did recognize me actually stopped in their tracks and said something along the lines of "You changed your hair(style)!" in a way that I have chosen to take as complementary. My coteachers were so cute about it and asked a million questions about my natural hair versus this. The Phys Ed teacher stopped in his tracks when we ran into each other outside the room where we all eat lunch and made his customary surprised noise that he makes whenever I do something not even remotely surprising. He said something in Korean then as he walked to his desk across from me as we put our stuff down he apparently managed to figure out what to say in English: "You hair! You look very slim (accompanying hand gestures to indicate that I think my face looks smaller?). Is very good!" Thumbs up. The other women in the office quizzed me on the lack of perm (seriously they asked every possible perm question) and were shocked at the amount of time it takes to make my hair relatively straight.

Even by the end of the day my hair had started to disobey my will.

The kids were the best, though. Some of the third graders walked by my room and saw me, gasped, and ran away shouting in Korean. So Jung told me they were saying my hair was so pretty. Then they came back with more of their friends. Some of my 6th grade girls came up and just pointed and said "Wow!" and some of my other students simply gasped and stared at me like I was a unicorn. I can't wait to see what they say when I go back to curly!

But, I digress. I know that was a long bit about my hair, but everything here seems worth documenting.

Back to the beginning! This week, Tina and I went with our friend Janell out to the other side of Seoul for some serious man-candy. First, we stopped at a coffee shop that is run by three of the moms of Super Junior members. It looks like an ordinary Kona Beans coffee shop, except there are gifts, posters of Super Junior, and pillows with the members' faces on them. Totally normal. And the cafe only plays Super Junior music. It was really cool. One of the moms was there, but I have no idea which one because no matter how much I love SuJu I do not recognize their mothers on sight.

Next, we got dinner and got ready to see the Mr. Show! I have been waiting for this since before I got here. Tina and her friends saw it and had a good time. Janell even got to be on stage for the audience participation part last time and I was super stoked.

Conveniently there were churches everywhere, including the building that the show was in! Floor 8? Sexy Korean Men show. Floor 3? Jesus.

We had awesome seats - second row.

Hanging out with all dem abs.

Janell and the men.

The idea of the show is that they have a bunch of different types of Korean men so that there is a type for everyone. They have a bunch of different fantasy scenarios (military, uniforms, suits, high school uniforms where they pick someone to be the teacher and interact with her on stage) so there is something awesome for everyone present. No men are allowed to watch the show (except for like one performance) and it's for women (Korean or otherwise, ahem) to be able to be excited and open about handsome men dancing around and ripping off their clothing.

I would describe the show as Korean Chippendale's but the Mr. Show is much much much much much much much much much more tame than the American counterpart. Yes, they strip and rip their clothes off, but it's a lot more suggestive than explicit. The three of us were obviously the most obnoxious since Korean women tend to be more reserved than we Americans are. I swear some of them must have been like "Okay foreigners, calm down" but whatever.

I must confess that the experience was soured quite a bit for me. This is probably TMI but thanks to a ton of colliding circumstances, I had to use the restroom during the show. I left after the second dance, about half an hour into the show. When I tried to get back in, they wouldn't let me immediately. They said I had to wait a few minutes. I waited. Someone else came out and when I moved to the door they said I had to wait 10 minutes. Really? I had already been out there for like 5. Whatever. While I was waiting some of the guys came to the back doors to serve drinks from that direction and they said hi to me. Yay. But time kept passing, and I wasn't back in. An older women began to curse out the guy who wouldn't let us in, and some other girls on the other side were crying because they wouldn't let us back in. I was not that upset, until I went back in.

I am going to allow myself to be angry about this for a while. THEY WOULD NOT LET ME BACK IN FOR 20 MINUTES. THAT IS OVER A THIRD OF THE SHOW. ALL BECAUSE OF A NORMAL BODILY FUNCTION. THEY WOULD NOT EVEN LET USE STAND IN THE BACK. WE MISSED A LOT OF THE SHOW.

When we were finally allowed back in, I could have just left. I walked down the aisle to see that not only had I totally missed the audience participation part of the show, which I had reeeeally wanted to get picked for because COME ON, but that Tina was on stage.

I MISSED MY CHANCE TO SEE TINA GET DANCED ALL UP ON HER BY A HANDSOME KOREAN MAN. I basically started crying when I got to my seat because I was so pissed off. How could they not let us in for 20 minutes? I was more mad that I had missed Tina up there than mad that I had missed out, but it really really sucked.

I watched the rest of the performance, which was awesome, but it definitely lost a bit of the experience for me. Fortunately, the show is coming over to this side of town from November onward, so I will get my chance again.  I will just hope that I didn't miss my chance because I was forced to stand outside a show I paid for for 20 minutes despite there being no actual reason given for it.

Whatever. I'll live.

On Sunday, we headed waaaaaaaay up to the northern part of Seoul to see another cultural (arguably more cultural experience than the Mr. Show... jury's still out, though) experience. Tina's amazing and awesome coteacher Young Ah plays the janggu, a traditional Korean drum, in a group. There was some ceremony about getting rid of bad luck and welcoming good luck for everyone, so it wasn't a performance so much as a ritual. Tina and I were like the only foreigners there, so we got a lot of attention and people taking not-so-sneaky pictures of us.

Anyway, it was AMAZING. My face hurt from smiling so much. I'll put some videos and photos here, but it's hard to describe how awesome traditional Korean stuff is to me. Young Ah came and explained stuff to us periodically, but it's hard to keep up with all the traditions. They even gave us food and makgeolli. Awesome.

Here are some highlights:

I love the outfits!

This is not  a janggu but idk what Young Ah was playing.

The one on the far right has a janggu.

Flag dance! The red flag is good luck!

Fan dance!

Love these outfits

So colorful and pretty!

SPINNY HATS!!!

Busan (southern) style

Different spiny hats!

Puffy hats!

Gettin a good view

Thanks, Young Ah! You were awesome!

Tina and one of her favorite Koreans! 

For more photos: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10153368145029968.1073741838.697649967&type=1&l=22cd7c1869

So that was it for the weekend. On Monday, I had an "Open Class" with my 3/4 coteacher, Su Hyeon.  That means that the Principal, Vice Principal, and anyone else who wants to can come see the class and evaluate it. In this case, the teacher of the class we selected (4-1, my best 4th grade class), a couple of the fifth grade teachers, and the Phys Ed teacher sat in, with a few others popping in and out. It was actually her open class (she started at the school at the same time I did) and I didn't have to participate, but everyone said they reeeeeeeeeeally wanted to see coteaching/us coteach together. I was planning on doing it anyway, so it was fine.

Well, actually it was terrifying. Everyone came in at a point where Su Hyeon was speaking a lot of Korean, so I was afraid they would think I did nothing. But I do a lot more at the end of classes, usually, so it worked out. Apparently some of the feedback so far was that I have very good and clear pronunciation (we do a lot of repeating after me), our games were cool (we played a snowball game where one student said "I want pizza, what do you want" and the next student said "I want pizza and salad" and so on, and a pass the ball game like hot potato), and our time management skills were great (we said goodbye as the bell was ringing). So it went great! I am glad that I could help her do well, since she's awesome and has been super helpful to me.

Well, that's about it for me. To leave off, here's the dance practice version of the song I posted in the beginning. I'm obsessed with it, and I always love seeing the dances to the songs. Enjoy!

This weekend I have my teacher trip. I hope I can understand what's going on!