Stereotypes Part 2 Americans

Here are the stereotypes about Americans.

Americans are have, eat, want, like, etc.

1. individualistic
2. many wives
3. free education
4. blond hair, blue eyes
5. outgoing
6. small faces
7. engage in lots of PDA
8. eat too much fast food
9. many homosexuals
10. overweight
11. violent
12. big feet, attractive, tall
13. wide noses
14. all Hollywood stars and like to party
15. direct
16. open minded and free
17. use gestures when talking
18. racial discrimination
19. gansters
20. big houses
21. too busy
22. free style
23. many divorces
24. are protective of possessions
25. show a lot of skin
26. impolite
27. friendly
28. see UFO's all the time
29. love Halloween
30. need lots of space
31. watch lots of talk shows
32. many hereos
33. cute babies
34. everyone has a cocktail dress
35. wears blue jeans all the time
36. drinks coffee everyday
37. wears "bling"
38. always smile
39. has too many holidays
40. too much free time
41. loves football
42. always wears bikinis
43. always goes to baseball games
44. likes variety
45. big sweet 16 birthday party

Stereotypes

So the past couple weeks, I've been doing lessons on stereotypes with my students. This is a list of stereotypes that they compiled about Koreans and Americans. You might find it shocking, entertaining or enlightening. Enjoy!

Koreans are, have, eat, drink etc.

1. swear too much
2. in a hurry
3. formal, polite
4. kimchi, dog, rice, garlic
5. care too much about appearance
6. mothers are protective
7. sexist
8. wear glasses
9. black hair, small eyes
10. short, small, too skinny
11. smoke too much
12. dirty streets
13. workaholics
14. traditional
15. hate Japanese
16. smell like garlic
17. plastic surgery
18. always honk in traffic
19. quiet
20. eat healthy
21. have a nice attitude
22. respect elders
23. drive drunk
24. beautiful and smart
25. collective
26. love TV dramas
27. hot-tempered
28. patriotic
29. have bad breath
30. like fashion
31. spit on the street
32. like "red Devil" (Korean mascot)
33. too many internet ads
34. fight too much
35. long history
36. many high rise apts
37. noisy
38. homogenous
39. lots of pride in electronics
40. segregation of sexes
41. stubborn
42. always late
43. kind hearted

Gongju's Got Talent!

So this past weekend, Kayleigh and I went to a chesnut festival that was happening literally in my backyard. We knew it would be there all weekend but we weren't sure what would happen or what the main attractions were. We soon found out that it was very much a cross between a fair and walking through Zoo Lights. There was a floating bridge set up on the river with a little cafe, games to play, chesnuts to sample, and music performances to watch. Friday evening we walked around and tried our luck at some carnival games. Threw some darts, knocked over some pins and shot some hoops. None of which we were very good at, and not to mention that whenever we tried a new one, we drew a crowd of people cheering us on or ready to laugh at the Americans! No pressure! At the balloon/dart board Kayleigh took the first two shots and mananged to hit the only hole in the entire booth. The wall was covered with balloons but both times, she got it right in the hole. It was so funny! But we each managed to come away with a cute little pillow, they may have just felt sorry for us!

We asked one of the ladies to take a picture of us with our winnings but unfortunately I don't think she had ever held a camera in her life. First of all it was aimed backwards so that the photo would have been of her and second, after we got her switched around, she held the button for about one second and then immediately handed us back the camera which at that very moment, the picture took and we got a nice photo of the ground. We thanked her and figured we'd try someone else. :)

Next it was off to try out the food. We had a variety of strange things to choose from including some kind of larvae, pig roasting on a spit, whale, octopus balls, corn dogs, waffles and as many chesnuts as we could ever ask for. They even had some chesnut wine which we sampled. We soon learned that if you stood there long enough looking and trying to figure out what was what, they would just shove some food into our hands. The people of Gongju are very kind to foreigners!

After getting our fill of food, we headed over to the stage for some live music. There were several good performances but throughout the weekend, we definitely had a special place in our hearts for this amazing saxophone player. He was fantastic and on Saturday night, we became friends when he let us pick out a song and he dedicated the Titanic theme to us! Near, far..wherever you are...

To kick off the show on Friday night, they had a fantastic fireworks display and in the background was a song by Yanni. Many of you may not know who this is but if you grew up in the Hixson house, you most certainly know! My dad is a huge fan and it was fun to hear such a familiar song from so far away. We sat and listened/watched many performances and while the crowd thinned out, we moved closer and closer to the front so that by the end we were in the second row. Towards the end of the night, after much chesnut wine had been consumed, we found ourselves sitting amongst a very cheerful group of men who quickly starting speaking to us in whatever English they knew. They said things like "Congratulations!" and "It's my birthday!" and "Old friends." It was hilarious. The guy sitting next to me was singing along to every song at the top of his lungs and so Kayleigh and I just decided to join in. Soon we were making up words and cracking up at our situation. But when it got to a point where we were attracting more attention than the people onstage, we knew it was time to make an exit. As we left, they shook our hands and said "Sa rang hae" which means I love you. We were laughing so hard by this point!

On Saturday night, while watching the sax man, he recognized someone from the crowd and people starting applauding. We had no clue what was going on, so we just followed suit. A few minutes later, the guy came and stood by us, introduced himself as the Mayor of Gongju and gave us his business card. He then took my hand and made me take Kayleigh's and started waving our arms in the air to the beat of the music. He must have held my hand for about 4 long uncomfortable minutes but it was so funny that there was nothing I could do about it. Mind you, we were the only ones waving to the music. haha!

To culminate the event on Sunday night, they had a giant stage set up at the park near the river. We were told that a major popular rap artist named Drunken Tiger would be performing. So we chilled out on the floating cafe and waited for him to get started. There were tons of opening acts but finally we heard enough screaming that we knew it was his turn. We leisurely made our way to the stage and literally about 10 seconds after we got there, he finished. He walked offstage and this crowd starting rushing him. We were like, what? That's it? He only did maybe 2 or 3 songs. They had been building up to him all night and as soon as it started it was over. Oh well, culture difference. I found out later that this is the norm. Overall we had a fantastic weekend! It really felt like we were part of the community because every night we would run into people we knew from school or church or other foreigners etc. It's nice to feel more at home here. Thanks Gongju!

My strange-named students

During the very first class, my students were able to pick an English name. I had a list of names they could choose from or they could make their own. Here are some of the funny and creative names that the students made for themselves.

Harry Potter

Animal

Head Shot

Many girl names including Jessica, Sophia, Abby, etc…

English

Bush

Pig

Octopus

Bobo Club



Every week we have a listening test. They always write little notes to me on the tests when they give them back after the test. Here are some of them…

“heart breaker”

“the best in the history”

“sleepy”

“common boy”

“I love Ms. L”

“Would you marry me?”

“hello!”



Every day brings interesting stories!

Death by Taxi

This last weekend Michelle and I met up with some friends in a city called Incheon (it is a suburb of Seoul). It was the first time to take a bus to Seoul and costs about 8$ and is 1.5 hours. While we were in Incheon we went to a Bboy Tournament at a festival being held at the fairgrounds. It was a lot of fun. (FYI: Bboy are break-dancers). This was an international competition so we saw teams from all over the world, such as Holland, Taiwan, Japan, Finland, Russia, Ukraine, USA, China, Poland, etc. We would like to give a shout out to the South Korean team (who we think should have won against Holland) and the Taiwan team! The Taiwan team in our opinion was one of the best! The finalists were Russia and Japan, and Japan took the gold! Check out the videos we posted. Now, although Korean transportation is indeed wonderful, the competition ended after the last bus to our city (Gong ju) left! So, we had to resort to paying for a ticket to a nearby city (Daejeon) and then take a 20/30min taxi drive to Gongju. Once we got to Daejeon a taxi diver was available to take us to our city. It cost 40,000won (little under 40$) and there were 4 of us to split that. It just so happened our taxi driver was a former NASCAR champion; he was a speedy little guy! We were weaving in and out of cars going 120-140km/hour! At one point we hit a top speed of 160km (99mph)!!!! It was seriously like a rollercoaster at Six Flags. We thought we might die on several occasions but said “well at least we die having fun!” While the sudden stops and curves throughout the race track on a little 2 way highway and even city streets didn’t phase our driver, he delighted us with a couple stanzas from some American songs. At about halfway through our journey in the taxi, he told us that his car wasn’t going as fast because we were weighing it down (there were 4 Americans in this taxi!). We’re thinking 99mph was plenty fast :)

You Can't Make this Stuff Up!

This past weekend, Kayleigh and I went to Daejeon, had a great Costco samples treat day and learned how to use the subway and other bus routes. It was a nice day and we enjoyed hanging out with a new friend from church. As we were walking around, we happened to bump into someone else that she knew, also from our city, and we four enjoyed some pizza and hot dogs! On our way to Costco, while on the subway, we were all standing and chit-chatting and then our exit came up. I started to walk off the subway car, but didn't get very far because a Korean man was pulling on my shirt and saying something. I was like, Sir, this is my stop. Let me go! I soon realized why he was hanging onto me. We were attached. Somehow a stray string from my shirt had wrapped its way around the button of his sports coat and we were literally connected. I started laughing and pulled at the string muttering, Mianhamnida (I'm sorry) to the poor man. I barely made it off before the doors closed and I rode to the next stop! My friends were already ahead of me and hadn't noticed my predicament. So funny!

Then today while I was at school, I had my students create their own dialogues of "small talk" using vocabulary words from the lesson. This was what one of my students wrote. It was awesome!

A: Did you have a good night?
B: No, it was terrible
A: what's wrong?
B: Last night, I watched the TV program and I go to the toilet because I'm constipated.
A: Oh, that's too bad.
B: So I stayed to the toilet for a long time. Last, I went to my bedroom at 2:00am
A: Oh, what a pity!

I laughed so hard...God is good to me~! I really love the girls I teach! Couldn't resist sharing.

Really Fresh Food...Fear Factor Here I come!

So I thought I had experienced my fair share of Asian cuisine but no, I was totally unprepared for the meal I had last week. My co-teachers invited me to come eat with them after school. I was told we were having prawns. Ok, fine, I can do seafood right? So they picked me up and we drove to this restaurant about 10 minutes away. The table was typical Korean, long tables where we eat on the floor. I saw frying pans with salt in them, placed intermittently on the tables. Then we all started taking our seats and I waited as the food began to come out.

Well the waiter brought out three giant tupperwear containers filled with shrimp. LIVE shrimp. I was thinking, what did I just get myself into? So these shrimp are seriously jumping in the container, flopping around this way and that. At one point they bumped the top off the container and one jumped and landed right in my soup. It was trying to make a run for it. I screamed as others began to follow suit and quickly pushed back from the table. My co-teacher, Mr. Kim, put the lid back on as though this was normal behavior and I got embarrassed for screaming and began laughing and really couldn't stop. So my teachers were laughing at me and I said that I had to take some pictures. They didn't mind so I busted out my camera and got a few good shots. Well the waiter came by and began taking the live ones out and plopping them in the frying pan. There went the shrimp, twiching as the last bit of life was sucked out of them. I felt a little bad for them. Heads, eyeballs and all thrown in the pot. Then Mr. Kim proceeds to take a live shrimp out, pop the head off and offer it to me. I knew I couldn't refuse so down the hatch. I totally ate a grey, just been killed, shrimp and it was not "on the barbie". Not even close.

So throughout the course of the night, soju was passed around (Korean whisky) and each time a new teacher joined us, they gave me a shot of soju and another raw shrimp as though this was some kind of honor. I took a sip at a time and focused on eating yet another raw shrimp. As the night wore on, Mr. Kim got livlier and livlier, yet his English got worse and worse. It was hysterical since he was the only one who even had a chance of interpreting for me. I ended up downing 4 or 5 by the end of the night.

Eating the cooked shrimp also provided another challenge as I had to then pop the head off and de-peel it. With chopsticks! I consider myself a fairly proficient chopstick user, however, I learned that I cannot under any circumstances pop the head of a shrimp off using them. I had to go American style. Using the old fingers. It took me about 5 minutes to eat one or two shrimp cause I had to wait till they cooled off. I consumed a fair portion throughout our 2 hour meal and thought it was over, but no, I forgot about the rice. Where did I think I was? There is ALWAYS rice! I tried to muscle a few bites down but seriously thought I was gonna puke. Might have been the raw fish rolling around in the stomach. Anyways, had an enjoyable night overall and got to experience my first Korean karaoke night. They call it noriban here. Good times!