Jan 23, 2007 10:28
I recently found out that my town has 40,000 people not 26,000. But still I haven't met anyone my age, everyone is either a child or middle aged. For the past couple of weeks I have been teaching, everyday. I’ve been jogging, sleeping a lot, and reading the Korean Times everyday but I need to find more things to keep myself occupied. TheHopefully, within the next week or two I will begin taking formal Korean lessons at the Non-Profit Organization in my town. Also, I have befriended one of my adult students and we plan on playing basketball every week until he goes back to his university at the end of February. He is a 26-year-old Korean guy whose parents live in my town, but he attends a university a few hours away. Along the same lines, my adult students invited me to dinner and drinks last Friday. It is interesting hanging out with such a diverse group of Korean people. The group consists of the university student, the housewife, and two men who work at the local post office. They are quite interesting, especially the eldest student who is in his late 40’s. He understands a lot more English than he cares to speak…but he is hilarious. He told me that his English nickname is Michael Jackson…haha. And he boasts that he improves the atmosphere of the class. We went to a local restaurant and of course they paid for my drinks and meal. I felt bad though, because it was as if they were paying for my company because I speak English. After all that is what they do when they come to my English class. They practice there conversation skills. It was fun though and I exchanged phone numbers with a few of them so I plan on hanging out with them while I am here.
As for the Korean language, I haven’t been speaking here and there. But since it’s not expected of me at work and I don’t get out much I rarely use it except when asking questions about directions, ordering food etc. However, the other night after hanging out with my adult students in my town I decided to wander around the “town” and I came across a group of young girls. I asked them if they spoke English. But of course if people do they usually are too shy to admit it. So I proceeded to speak in Korean. But it turns out there isn’t much to do in town except go to the PC Bang (Computer room used to play games); go to the bar; eat food; or go to a noraebang (alone). As I talked to them another girl walked up and said “Hey you’re the Liberty teacher!!” In case you forgot “Liberty” is the name of my language school. It turns out these girls go to the local high school student and one of them apparently knew who I was even though I don’t even teach any high school students. However, rest assured I wasn’t trying to hit on them I just wanted to find out if there was anything to do that I didn’t already know about. And there isn’t.