Chungcheongbuk-do Science Forest Museum and Hagwon Ramblings

I've been kind of lax with updating lately, dealing with some current fun here at our school. So I figured I should probably update with a field trip we took in April to a nature preserve/museum/hiking hub here in Chungcheongbuk-do. It was a fun day, though we ran into a little bit of rain during our lunch/snack. More on that one later. It was a neat trip though, I just wished that we had gotten to see more and that the things in the museum were understandable to us.

The reason I say that we're dealing with some things lately is because as always, our director has something up her sleeve that we don't really agree with and/or like. By that I mean that she informed us that she wants us to teach a Saturday class for an hour for 4 weeks. At least, that was the first time she brought it up. The following time when we went to tell her that no, we were not going to be doing this, we were informed that this would actually be a 6 week venture with an hour class from 10 to 11am and that we would be getting paid 20,000 won for it. Additionally, she's also bad at being a boss, I'll just put it that way. Instead of asking me initially, she just kind of presented it expecting me to probably say "Okaaaay!" because I should somehow feel obligated because she's my boss and elder. Then when we spoke to her that second time, she tried to bring out the emotional tactics, that we needed to help her before we go back to America.

Well, let me be the first to say that this is not happening. Sure contracts will say that you may have to attend the occasional weekend event without being paid for it and that's okay. This, however, is not okay. Yes, per our contract, the 20,000 won per hour of overtime is correct, but with her history there is no way it's happening. Some hagwon directors can and will try to squeeze every last thing they can out of you and this is just another case of it. Zach is also working at another school and is getting paid overtime for it. In my case though, I haven't seen a cent of overtime since we arrived and let me just say that I have been denied a lot of overtime.

Anyway, without further delay or excessive discussion, here are some pictures from the (now long ago) field trip!

Psssh, we don't need no stinkin' car safety. No seat belts in use here. 

We have arrived! It was a little chilly, but a fun day.

Inside the welcome center there was a neat display of the whole area including the mountain range that stretched around that people can and do hike on.

Here's one of the entrances to the area we headed toward with the "tree museum".

The museum itself seemed interesting, a lot of natural history type things. Our director would sometimes stop and have the children read the displays in Korean which was kind of neat. There was that one time where she had me say photosynthesis for her and the kids to attempt to pronounce. 

Things I can read! This was actually really neat because it showed the mountain ranges of Korea.

This was neat, I think it even had some fancy speakers with spoken information along with it. I'm liking the won symbol on top of the building.

An area with flora and fauna, neat!

These folks were kind of creepy though. Especially the eyes.

There were petrified tree cross sections galore in one area. They were really fascinating.

I thought this was kind of cute on account of the heart shape.

Large petrified tree trunks!

Snack time, a time we will be very familiar with in the upcoming months.

There were a handful of nuns that gathered to take pictures around these characters and I went over to take a picture of the group so they could all be in the picture. My kind deed of the day. :)  I think these characters are maybe a regional thing? Cheongju has their own logo mascot things and I think these characters are for Chungcheongbuk-do? Don't quote me on that though.

The field trip was fun though, we got sprinkled on a little during snack time and us 4 adults had to hold a tarp over the kids head for a while until it passed. Then we headed back to the school, had lunch and continued with the rest of the day. Since there have been several field trips since then I'll have to play catch up and give a quick recap of our roaming adventures!

Interesting things I learned from teaching college aged kids

I am using this post in part to add much needed content to the blog after it slowing to a trickle.  The warm summer months  has that sort of effect on things, it is too nice out in Korea for me to want to spend time blogging but anything for our ESL Honeymoon Adventure!
 I also want to use this post as a reminder of some of the weird and interesting things I learned both about Korea and about the youth of Korea during our year long stay.

Driving

• There are actually two or more types of drivers licenses in Korea, a dry weather license which you get first, then a wet weather/snow driver's license afterward.  Not many people bother getting the second one and drive in wet weather anyway, but it gives them a lot more issues if they get into an accident when its raining.
• Also according to my adult students literally no one pays attention to the rules of the road, it is pretty much just accepted that people aren't going the speed limits and running red lights and stuff.
• Related to this the in vehicle fatal accident rate is almost double that of the USA.

Homosexuality

• Gay people do not exist in Korea according to adult (middle aged), but is pretty accepted and okay among the youth of Korea.
• Due to the older generation not being accepting of homosexuality most gay people have to keep their sexuality discreet.  
• The government is very big into censorship on the internet and any website they deem even vaguely against the interest of Korea gets blocked.  This includes any website thought to be even gay friendly.

The Internet/games

• Most Koreans don't really use the internet to browse or anything other than social networking.  Most of their internet usage is on either games, or social media sites like facebook.
• Despite being the world capital of Starcraft almost all of the Koreans I have met have never played the game and don't like online games.
• The games Koreans DO like are phone games especially ones which scores are shared between social media like Anipong.
• The mobile version of Minecraft is also massively popular, though I've mostly seen it with high school aged kids not so much college aged students.

Dating

• It isn't really considered cheating if you date other people until you actually are married, then it is wrong.
• Sex before marriage isn't thought of as wrong and there is no real concept of "saving yourself" for marriage.
• The average price of a meal you should be spending on the first date is around 50-60 dollars for the woman's meal according to the female students in my class.  This was confirmed that it should be about the right price according the the male students.
• Men are supposed to dress in full suits (not tuxedo but a suit) during a first date here.  Women are supposed to dress in a business casual type dress.

Those are a few things I've learned from my time teaching college kids.  Sadly I finished up my time teaching college aged kids.  Mind you half the things they told me could be fake but I chose to believe them because if you don't believe you'll kill Tinkerbell.