Essays, Pork, and Street Music

Before Sunday, I was unaware that being an English teacher in Korea also means being an unpaid part-time model. It's always been a kind of secret desire of mine to be a model but I didn't expect it to happen here. I guess I'm getting pretty used to the unexpected these days.

So on Sunday, my day off, I was required to volunteer at an essay contest outside World Cup Stadium here in Daegu. The stadium area is a very impressive place. Mountains rise behind it and there's lots of park space for kids to run free. There's also some bike and running trails, and even a small Buddhist temple nearby. All in all, not a bad place for some mandatory Sunday volunteer work.

Once I finally got there after getting lost, I was instructed to go around and have my picture taken with the kids who were trying to write their essays. In my opinion, an essay contest should never be a 3 hour event. Writing an essay should be a long, hard-thought out process that takes place over a week or two, not a 3 hour speed contest. Shoot, when I was in college, it took me about three hours just to figure out the first three sentences. But this is Korea. And in Korea, speed is king.

After the contest, the school director took us all out to lunch which was more like a feast. Although my groins are still adjusting to the traditional Korean sit-on-the-floor restaurants, my taste buds are quite at home. In a lot of Korean resturants they have little circular grilles in the middle of the tables where you place the meat, watch it cook, and grab it when it's ready. I'm a big fan. It was probably the best pork of my life which I enjoyed with the only fork at the table.

Since I've been here, the thing that I've probably missed the most is a guitar. I've almost gone insane just sitting in my room with no guitar to play. But on Sunday, I finally found a guitar to borrow and my sanity is slowly making a comeback. So last night, I did something I've never done in the states. I played on the street. Street music is almost unheard of in Korea so it took a little courage. I did it partly to try to meet some more Korean people, which can be a hard thing to do in other situations. But as always, music has a power to bring people together. And it did just that last night as a small crowd gathered around me as I sang.

I met a really cool guy and his girlfriend who was actually born in the states. She speaks very little English but when she does, she sounds like a pure American. The guy has never officially studied English but he's picked up a lot just from movies, music, and talking to foreigners like me. It's very impressive. They are both hip-hop dancers and love street performance kind of stuff which drew them over to me. I am meeting them again tonight to have some dinner with them and just hang out. I also met three pretty Korean girls but I will post about that later. Time for work :)