Category — Video
See Mom, that voice degree wasn’t for nothin’! :o)
A few weeks ago we got an email from our coordinator Chance that read, “Some of you may have heard about a planned “Korean Performance” that is to be put on by us EPIK teachers. If you haven’t heard, this is being planned by the Samcheok Office for December 18th. I don’t want to influence any judgements, so I’ll try to keep my language neutral and unopinionated here. They want us to put on a Korean performance, singing songs or giving speeches in Korean.”
A long string of emails between the other EPIK teachers followed… complaining about how we signed up to teach English and not dance and sing like English monkeys and about how if we don’t do a performance they might take away our banana privileges (as English monkeys) and how we wish we actually were paid in bananas because they’re probably worth more than the won right now… etc.. All said, no one was pleased with this idea.
Over the next couple of days, reports came in from other EPIK teachers about their schools asking (or telling) them to perform. Two Fridays ago Teacher Kim came to our house after school to give us our subpoena to the dreaded performance. She understood how awkward it was for us but said the Principal would be very sad if we didn’t do a performance.. (so, we had to…) We talked with some other teachers and came up with a plan to sing only the choruses of a few Korean pop hits and dance like fools. We put it together last Monday, rehearsed it on Wednesday and had the performance on Thursday evening. Here are two videos from the evening… try not to laugh too much. 
All in all the evening turned out to be just fine. Everyone who performed was nervous and everyone messed up a bit, so it was entertaining. Although we were in a nice hotel conference room, with round tables and glassware (with forks/knives!!), and the entire administration and other school principles were there… it was fairly laid back and everyone understood how hard it was for the EPIK teachers to do this. So, our humorous rendition of k-pop songs was greeted warmly. (Thank goodness!!) And hey, we each got 20,000 won in gift certificates and two boxes of traditional Korean cookies for our performance!!
We all were dreading it, but it turned out well and now I know the words to a few choruses of Korean songs. It’s strange coming from singing classical music in foreign languages everyday (in college) to this… but I’d like to think everyone could hear all the training over the terrible sound system
All for now…
-Chad
Here are some links to the songs we covered in our mix…
“Arirang” (Traditional Korean Song.)
“La La La” (SG Wannabe)
“Nobody” (Wondergirls) — (the youngest girl in this group is 16.. oldest 20. whoa!)
“Ochada” (Brown Eyed Girls)
December 20, 2008 2 Comments
“I Smell Burning” … “Kate’s Making Dinner” :o)
Hummus and homemade pita.. and a bit from the broken Pink Blender 
(Sorry Kate)
Hanging the clock… Long Nails into Cement walls is no fun and proved to be quite dangerous, hence the Elton John Glasses
October 20, 2008 1 Comment
Sports Day and the Nore-Bang…
– Just wait, it was great. I’m writing about… what happened after Sports day….
Teacher Kim (our pseudo-co-teacher Loves Nore-bang!)
After Sports day All of the teachers and staff went out for a traditional Korean Meal. We ate lots of Samgyupsal (삼겹살) and had a great time. The meal is basically strips of pork that are grilled at the table with a few veggies, then wrapped in lettuce with a spicy pepper sauce, radishes, and other veggies. It’s very interactive and communal – like most other Korean food. Kate and I are veterans to this meal as we had it the first night we were in Samcheok. Many of you know that alcohol is a huge part of the Korean dinning experience and their general culture. In small doses this can be kind of fun and freeing. People who never even make eye contact with you normally are “empowered” and want to say every English work they know for you. As this was our first full gathering of the school since we arrived we were treated like the guests of honor and asked many questions about everything from the states to what we call noisy children. :o) I sat across from the principle which was very intimidating as he is known for being “the best with Soju”. Soju is a drink, a lot like vodka, but not quite as strong (but just a gross). So you can understand how sitting here made me weary. The tradition is that you never pour your own drink; someone hands you their glass and you take it – they pour soju into the cup and you drink it. Visa versa… in other words everyone uses everyone’s glass and it’s very jolly and scary. It’s not polite to refuse so you learn (quickly) to say just a little, and thank you quickly as they pour. Then pour it into the other glass you have and sip slowly… That’s my strategy at least. This is only important to understand how the next part of the post happens so naturally. But enough about that… (Hi grandma :o)
We ate and were merry, then decided to go to Nore-bang. (I’m leaving out a pretty important part about a shift in dynamic between the men and women that Kate and I were pretty happy with, but I’ll leave that also for her to explain.) So Nore-Bang… literally “Singing Room” – aka Korean Karaoke, only in a smaller room with just the people you are with… not a bunch of strangers. For those of you from IU – Think Japonai. So imagine what Kate and I were expecting – from our experiences with karaoke in the states… awkward fun. …. no……..
Crazyness!! Everyone just loves it… even our really quiet reserved Vice Principle.
Anyways… that was our Tuesday night last week.
We spent the rest of the week planning lessons for next week (our first week of teaching) and we spent this past weekend hiking in Taebaek with our friends Michael and Melanie for Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving). More on that later. Friday we’re having a Grilled Cheese party.. It’s the little things like cheese that you’d never think you’d miss so much….
-Adios Muchachos! (I also miss mexican food…)
September 17, 2008 2 Comments