Kidnapping at my school

I waited to write about this till things have finally settled down about this here. About two weeks ago now I started hearing strange announcements during the school day. Sunny told me that one of the 3rd graders hadn't made it to school and the principal wanted to know if anyone knew anything about it. At the end of the class day the students all went home but the teachers walked around the area trying to find him. Around 4:30 when I go home I was walking down wondering what was going on and I found out that the student had escaped from where his hands, feet, mouth and eyes had been tapped and he'd been put in an abandoned house in another part of Daegu. The boy's father had been called for a ransom but the student had escaped and been heard by a neighbor and they got him to the police. He was back in school two days later but they still hadn't found the kidnapper. So for about a week I walked to school past crowds of police both in uniform and out. It was a little crazy. I know that the only reason I wasn't stared at harder was that every morning I'd walk with some students and they always came running at me and yelling my name.. so it filtered through the police ranks that I was the English teacher at the school so I wasn't a threat to the kids.
I heard yesterday that they finally caught the guy in Busan. I guess he'd run to a family members house. Through the whole thing I was thinking that I really hadn't appreciated amber alerts and such much till now. Cause there are no systems like that in place here in Korea.
I'm just glad the kid is back safe and sound with no major injuries. (though that is a relative statement cause I've got 3 students with casts on right now.) But he's actually really good no injuries and back happy and talkative in class.

Been Slammed

Not sure where to start. There has been a lot going on over here. I've been grappling with getting to know the kids better and running head long into some of the same things I found in Atlanta. Kids learn what they see around them so if all they see are negative images of people other than Koreans they are going to pick them up. I had a child tell me that she likes Africans cause they are made of chocolate. I'm not sure if that is just the color she knows their skin is or if someone unthinking said that and it stuck with her. I showed her some pictures of my old students and she was trying told me they were all chocolate. It was then followed by a conversation about why their hair was in braids. I've been talking to a friend here who has it worse. His students pull on his skin and say "Yo, Man!" in greeting because that's what they see.

Then I have the joy of listening to and judging speech contests. I really hate that I feel like some of the kids got an unfair advantage because their homeroom teachers came to me and asked me to edit their speeches. Which I did happily. The ones who didn't had potential but the English was so bad it took away from their over all scores. I'm taking time these days to work with the students more on finding a rhythm and tone in how they speak. It's interesting to see the kids realize without fully understanding my words that you don't yell when you are asking someone for directions so it makes sense to speak in a normal voice while practicing. Some days teaching here is easy and fun others it's painful. Overall I love my students and I really enjoy working with them. The current class of 6th graders are really getting comfortable with me so they come in to my office and hang out and talk with me. The only downside of this is I'm picking up more and more Kpop references. I now can throw out singer and band references at them and cut them off before they start singing things like Super Junior at me.
I thought American kids were good little consumers but these Korean kids have them beat. They can rattle off cellphone ads, chicken ads, you name it. They also can do all the dances that go with the songs on command (I just had 3 girls doing the dance to that video in my office when they heard it playing.)

Time to get back to teaching... I'm staying in Daegu this weekend to go to a festival downtown and catch up on sleep. Next weekend I'm headed to Seoul. I'm going to really miss being able to hop on a train anytime I want to get anywhere when I go back to the States.

Lotus Lantern Festival in Seoul

Sports day in Pictures