Oh the people you'll fight..

Hey everybody!

Seems like a long time since I’ve written, but it’s only been a week or so right? Been a long week I guess.

Had an interesting night Saturday night, I went to this traditional-Korean-folk-rock-I-can’t-describe-it concert and then to Itaewon to watch the big South Africa/Australia rugby match/game whatever it’s called, match I think. I actually wasn’t with Alex, but instead with a couple of Aussie friends of mine, so I was rooting for Australia.

Unfortunately the Springboks defeated the Wallabies on a last second kick, so the Australians were dejected. (I was at a primarily Australian bar, and a room fool of half drunk sad Australians is a real bummer)

Rugby’s a lot of fun though-it seems like anyways-and once I really understand the game I think I could get into it. The World Cup is in September, I’m looking forward to that. I just have to pick a team. New Zealand’s team name is the All Blacks. That’s pretty cool, but I hear the team’s a bunch of jerks. So I’m still not sold. Im going to need to do some research on this. I’ll keep you updated.

Anyway, after the match we decided to head home. There was unfortunately 5 of us, which meant two taxis. It’s an expensive cab ride. We decided that I would guy with this guy-brad-who I hadn’t met before that night-we lived closest together-and the other 3 who lived near each other would take the other.

Fair enough.

And a bonus, Brad speaks Korean so there won’t be any confusion! Well, as it happened to turn out there indeed wasn’t any confusion, because Brad could clearly tell the cabby was ripping us off. Well, usually when you call the cabby on stuff like that they just say ok and take you anyway. This cabby did not. He demanded that we get out of the taxi. Eh, whatever, in my opinion, we’ll just get another one and try again. Brad on the other hand, was not happy about it. So he starts yelling(in Korean) at the taxi driver. He finally gets out of the cab, but leaves the back door open. The cabby starts yelling at him through the back door that’s open.(In Korean) and then just as he’s shutting the door says something which pisses Brad off majorly(In Korean) so Brad loses his temper and kicks in the side of the door.

Oh no.

The cabby gets out ready to fight. Brad throws me his bag and says “Hold this while I kick his ass.” Umm…I don’t even really know you guy…so he and the cabby start yelling and pushing and stuff(In Korean) and I kind of start wandering away, a minute later Brad catches up to me(like 100 feet away) and says to walk into the next western bar we see. Unfortunatly the cabby catches up to us before that and starts trying to grab Brad to keep him from leaving. So the fight starts again. This time in the middle of the side walk. Luckily there was a tree for me to lean against as this is all going on. It eventually drew a crowd of Koreans (its their duty in the culture to help settle the argument or something) watching. Again, I took a few steps back. In case the cops showed up, I wanted to make clear I had nothing to do with it. This was going on for awhile. They were arguing about who said what and did what and what not, your typical fight.

I ended up walking over to a couple of imams(Muslim clerics) who were playing chess(at 1 AM mind you) and saying hello in Arabic, the said hello back and asked if I spoke Arabic, I told them not very well, so we switched over to English and I had a little conversation with them while it was all going on.

So imagine that situation. I’m holding the bookbag of some guy I just met whose brawling with a Korean taxi driver, and all the while I’m having a chat with Arab imams. Man, I live a strange strange life.

Eventually it got solved the same way everything here does-with money. Brad agreed to pay a certain amount for kicking in the door, minus what the cabby owed him for the injustice of trying to rip us off. Then the cabby even took us to Brad’s place so he could get the money. I, of course, bolted as quickly as possible(leaving Brad with the whole taxi fair-he was giving the guy a couple hundred dollars, I figured my $10 of the ride was only fair for the half an hour brawl I waited through) Of course, the very next cab I got into that guy screwed me too.(He refused to turn left on a green light, waiting just long enough so the fare would jump up to the next level) but I wasn’t about to get into another taxibrawl because of 80 cents.

So there’s the random story that I’ll tell for years to come. Seriously, I get myself into some weird situations.

Other than that I had a nice calm weekend for the most part. At least comparatively.

Not sure what I’m going to be doing next weekend. I had something planned, but it looks like the weather is going to ruin me again. This time WITH rain. Rainy season starts here on Thursday, so it’ll rain everyday for the next 3 or 4 weeks I guess. Booo.

To answer a couple questions Linda left in the last entry.

I don’t really get assessed for the work I do with the children. My Korean counterparts do, but I don’t. It’s really frustrating for me sometimes-I want my success measured, but I’m treated more like a teaching tool. A real live voice program. More than an actual teacher. It’s been a source of contention this past week in fact, we’re not really told the direction of the program or anything just ‘do this’ and ‘do that’ and then when it doesn’t lead to the goals they wanted they change everything we did anyway, when if they’d just friggin tell us what they really want and not ‘write six listening questions’ we’d save everyone a lot of time.

I put pressure on myself to see the kids improve. It’s been interesting to see myself grow as a teacher over just the past 4 months. At first I liked the kids who were very good at English because they were easy to teach and I didn’t really have to do that much teaching. But now a days I like working with the kids who are at the bottom end, they’re so much happier when they succeed, and it’s so much easier to help them succeed too.

For the most part what it really comes down to is my need to be in control of the end product. I’m not a good assembly line guy(most Americans aren’t these days) I want to help the process from beginning to end, were as here I’m not even considered an assembly line guy, more like a robot to be used on the line.

Again, as much as I enjoy life here and all the experience the Korean way of doing this is certainly not my cup of tea.

As for how long I’ll be here, minimum 8 months maximum 20 months. 20 months is the much much smarter. I can pick my job next year, I’ll get paid quite a bit more, much cushier perks, plus I’ll have enough saved up after the second year for the big trip-the dream of a lifetime trip. But, I’m about 50/50 on how long itll be. Despite all the pro’s in favor of 20 months, I miss America. It’s a big con. So….I dunno.

That’s all I got for this week. More crazy stories later Im sure.