Monday, May 23, 2011

Can You Wipe Your Own Ass?





At what age should you be wiping your own ass!? Kids usually start potty training between ages two and three. I'm pretty sure that if your old enough to attend school, you should be able to wipe your own tush! Right!? Okay, oaky… so, I teach little kids and they may need some assistance at times. That's okay… really, I don't mind helping them out but the Korean way is just a little ridiculous. The little kids don't even try to wipe themselves after pooping. They can finally handle taking off their pants on their own but that's about it. They scream my name after their done. When I walk in the bathroom they are bent over next to the toilet with their hands around their ankles… this is what their moms probably taught them. I should start making them do it on their own… it's a process, at least they can wipe after peeing without my help! After what Skip told me this weekend… I might re-think my idea. He taught at a private school last year and when one of his 8 year olds asked him to wipe his bottom after he pooped… Skip looked at him like he was crazy and said NO! Confused as ever, the child wiped himself without Skip's help. The student went home and told his mother what happened. Completely and utterly enraged, The mom called school and reprimanded the staff for Skip's wrong doing… "my child should NOT have to wipe his own bottom!!!!" HAHA! Five weeks of teaching left.. what should I do! Risk getting in trouble for not wiping a few tushes or just continue to wipe those tushes!?

This weekend was wonderful. I finally made it to the beach!!! The beaches of South Korea of nothing like the beaches of North Carolina, but they were still pretty great. On Saturday morning, a big group of friends and I met at the bus station with all our gear, where we bought our tickets to Heanam. Heanam is at the southern most tip of South Korea. It is about 2 1/2 hours away from Gwangju. Our bus dropped us off right on the beach, it was so convenient. Luckily, we had warm weather and sunny skies. We immediately set up camp, made lunch and got into our bathing suits. Lunch… haha! Camping to me means roughing it. Skip and I packed our bags full of non-refrigerated items such as bread, peanut butter, nuts, dried fruit, hard boiled eggs (those were fine for 24 hours without being cold), seaweed and fruit. We were happy with what we had until Molly and Fliss pulled out their grill, marinated chicken and veggies.. damn! We were a little jealous. We lathered up in sun block and baked in the sun for a few hours while enjoying a few cock tails. I thought to myself… what alcoholic beverage is always delicious, warm… red wine of course, a little cab sav.. you know Daddio! I don't know many people who sip on red wine on a warm day at the beach. I will say, its quite satisfying. The weekend was off to a good start. Hours went by as I collected handfuls of shells and finished off a few more glasses of wine. As the sun went down, I thought I would try to build a fire. With the help of my toilet paper to get it goin, I made a lovely little bon fire. Thanks to Ryan the pyromaniac… ;) we had a great fire that lasted us until bed time. Luckily the rain waited until we were snuggled up in our tents. The rain scared away the monstrous ants and we slept pretty good throughout the night. The waves crashing and the light rain falling on our tent was such a peaceful, relaxing sound that certainly put me right to sleep… the wine probably helped a little as well. When morning came, we all crawled out of out tents trying to avoid the huge ants and curious Koreans who were fascinated by us. All the old people in the town were walking along the beach in amazement that foreigners knew how to camp. We aren't retorted ya know! Our beach camping adventure had come to an end… and that's probably the only use I'll get out of my new tent. New biggie… It said it was a three person tent but Skip and I barely fit. I guess that means three Korean people… Skip was a few feet too tall for that little tent! WOOPS!

Oh, I am so glad we have three days of work this week! Monday is gone… Tuesday and Wednesday will fly. Thursday doesn't count to me only because we have a fun field trip. Right when school starts, I am taking my cuties to Pizza Hut where we will learn how to make pizzas. We will create our own pizzas all morning then enjoy them for lunch. After lunch, we will come back to school and everyone will head home. That's when the vacation starts. Even though our school doesn't have any money… a huge limousine bus is picking us all up at 2 p.m. in front of TNE. It will take us directly to the airport and we will fly away to Cebu, Philippines. Tune in next week for my Cebu/ scuba blog. I don't get back from Cebu until late Tuesday evening so I will either have a very late blog or I will skip a week.

Korean Facts/ Randomness:

-To carry on with last week's blog… "No Creative Thought" … I was thinking more about it. Even my students agreed with me on the subject. I was praising them for their hard work. They were laughing at me because I said "good job" in so many different ways (wonderful, lovely, great, awesome, fabulous, terrific, beautiful, fantastic, amazing… etc.). We all agreed how crazy it is, the fact that there are SOOOO many ways to say, "good job"/ give praise. It's funny because in Korean, there is only one way to say good job.
-Because Koreans have to take their shoes on and off constantly, all the backs on their shoes are destroyed. The majority of them don't even fully put on their shoes. They step on the backs and their shoes turn into slip ons. I was looking at all the shoes on the shoe rack at my gym the other day. Out of about 45 pairs of shoes, 10 of them, including mine were not ruined by smashed in backs.
-A lot of kids in Korea can't tie their shoes… since kids have to take their shoes on and off so much, their parents buy them slip ons or velcro. They never get the chance to practice tying because they don't have laces.
- Children in Korea are not educated on sex or drugs in school. Korea has the highest abortion rate than any other Asian country because men and women are so uneducated on the subject. I feel like I'm living in the 1950's sometimes… this country acts oblivious to so many things! It's absurd!
- Koreans believe that it is good luck to throw old teeth and umbilical cords on the roof of your home (not just any old tooth or umbilical cord.. I don't know who would have these lying around anyway haha. Obviously, your own teeth and your child's umbilical cord). This is what I researched as far as teeth go: "If it is a lower baby tooth, throw it up onto the roof; and if it is an upper tooth, throw it underneath the 'en-no-shita' (the lower portion below the floor of a Japanese/Korean house). It is done so that the upper tooth grows healthy downwards, while the lower tooth upwards" (Multicultural Pedia).

No comments:

Post a Comment