So, today's history class was awkward to say the least. It was the period in history when Japan, Russia, China and basically all of Europe start vying for colonies in Asia and the Pacific. From what I gathered, it appears as though after Korea was forced open by American and other nations, it was on relatively good terms. Though, like most of American history, we did ignore Korea's pleas for help when they were repeatedly attacked by the local imperialist Japan and finally colonized by them. The cartoon shown above here is humorous sure, but darkly accurate about the relationship between Japan and Korea. Now one can truly realize why some Korean people may get a little upset about being called Japanese. Or for that matter why some Koreans may harbor some anti-Japanese sentiment even today.
Though that wasn't the rough part. Like I had to do, two students had to present on the material- both of them were female, Korean and did not have the best presentation skills. The latter is due in large part to the class being in English and also the fact that Korean schooling doesn't focus as much on presenting as much as American education. Thank you, US of A.
Basically what happened was that Girl A presented her part of the period of history, which didn't go very smoothly and then before Alexis (or Girl B) started, the teacher stood up and basicalyl said that Girl A's presentation was bad due to Girl A basically just reading her Powerpoint slides and missing several major world events (such as the Russo-Japanese War, the Opium War, etc.). Though these omissions are due in part to the teacher herself who proclaims that students who present should only present on "the important things" (though she doesn't quite explain what said important things are).
So, this sets a rather uncomfortable stage for Alexis (whom I had become faintly acquainted with prior to her presentation) and her half of the presentation. As I mentioned before, her English isn't fantastic and with her partner having gone down in flames it must have been nerve wracking. Her presentation was a little shaky but much better than her partner's half. Unfortunately, the teacher had decided that given the former partner's poor performance that she (the teacher) should interrupt Alexis at any point during her presentation to insert whatever she deemed necessary rather than wait until the end to add in stuff (as she had done in the past). It was really uncomfortable.
I wished I had done the reading so that when the teacher asked questions of Alexis and her half of the presentation that I could have answered as to make it seem that she had taught us. Alas, I couldn't do it.
After the rocky presentation, Alexis basically came up to me and sighed. I told her that it went alright (which was more or less accurate- it wasn't good, but I'd hesitate to call it bad) and not to worry. She seemed worn out from the whole ordeal. After the teacher had finished eviscerating Alexis' partner, Alexis said that her mind basically went into shutdown mode-that she was having trouble pronouncing words and remembering the reading material. Also, as I mentioned before, Korean schooling doesn't involve presentations and this was the second presentation that she had given in school. Ever.
To make matters worse, there was not very good communication between her and her partner about the presentation and material, leaving a last minute scramble to figure out what to do (mostly on the side of the partner).
I couldn't imagine being in her shoes: having to do a presentation in a foreign language when I'm not used to presenting, not sure if what I'm covering is the right material and living in fear of the teacher interrupting and telling me that I forgot some major event of history. Oy. Headache.
Anyways, we got to talking afterward and ended up hitting lunch. 'Twas a pleasant experience. Had some soup/noodle dish along with a beef/rice dish. For a little over W3000, it was a steal. Worth more than that was the company. Though there are a few people I can carry a conversation with here (Brian, June Bae, Benji and a few others in program- note this doesn't include the people from Sunday), the overwhelming majority give me a few syllables of response and let our conversations end with that.
However, Alexis and I had an actual conversation about different cultural differences between the US and Korea. She asked me what Americans thought of Korea and I admitted while some people realize Korea is a fully developed nation, that a number of Americans still believe Korea to look no different than it did when the 4077 was still in business. She smiled at that and to my surprise, it's not Americans that think that Korea is backwater.
Who then, I asked of her, would have such a distorted view as well? Apparently some Japanese don't understand that Korea is a developed nation as well. Here's a dialogue that she described having with a Japanese guy:
Him: So you are from Korea?
Her: Yep.
Him: So...do you have to worry about getting shot every day?
Her: Um...no...?
Him: I know things are really bad over there and...wait is that a cell phone you have?
Her: Yeah (confused).
Him: Whoa...that's a nice cell phone.
Her: (nods) Thanks...
Him: I know not too many people have cell phones in Korea...Where did you get the money to get the phone? Did you steal it?
Her: Wait, what? No, I didn't steal money for it!
Him: But that's a really nice cell phone...you must be really rich.
Her: I'm middle class...really, I am.
Him: Really? Wow...that's so strange. I heard you guys don't even have that many TVs over there...
Her: (realizing that he's thinking of North Korea, not South) We have FOUR TVs in our house! (at which point, I whistled)
So, yeah. Point for Team USA for not being the only ignorant ones in the world! WHOO! Or not.
Bottom line is, I'm just finding it interesting that people from other countries are a LOT easier to talk to than Americans whom one would imagine that I would have more in common with just coming from the same country. Wonder why that is. Speculation?
Next up was language class which was basically just watching a movie. I didn't know the title, but upon a little research it is titled "Take off." Think "Cool Runnings" except for with Korean guys, the Winter Olympics and the Ski Jump event. Holy crap. It was bad. The characters all had some kind of tragic or angsty back story- all of which were admittedly justified, but it seemed over done. For example, the four teammates have as their back stories this: a junkie, a guy who was sold from Korea to an adoptive American family and has returned to Korea to find his mother, a guy who is aiming to win the gold in order to not have to do military service and care for his very old grandmother and mentally handicapped brother and lastly a guy who not only has the obligatory hardass father figure, but has a pregnant girlfriend who also happens to be an illegal alien from China. I mean, seriously? If you kept two of those stories, it'd be plausible, but otherwise it's just overload. Man. It got so overly tragic that I had to laugh at times. Thankfully, I wasn't alone. But man...the movie was little under three hours and felt all of it. The next time I'm watching a movie of that length, it had better be amazing quality. Ugh.
I didn't go out tonight as it was one girl from here's birthday (she's from Ithaca) and decided to have everyone go out to this really fancy restaurant. Not knowing her well in the first place and being frugal (in that order), I bowed out. I later found a seriously ticked off Little Jay after the dinner (the rest of the group opted for going to the bar after wards and he wanted to return) fuming about having to pay W17000 for very little food and still feeling hungry after.So...yeah...glad I skipped out.
No, my evening was spent with reading for class and watching old Alfred Hitchcock Presents. I recently discovered it for myself on a whim and am hooked. The writing is fantastic and the acting is (mostly) quite good. The most interesting one was titled "Lamb to the Slaughter" which I recognized as a title or a Rohld Dahl short story and found (much to my excitement) that it was the same story and actually screen-written by Mr. Dahl himself. In case you haven't read the short story (which I would recommend over the episode actually) and would rather allocate time to other things, here's the link to the episode. I highly recommend. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmpY9cpe6g8&feature=related-Reven
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