Two Things I don't Understand ...

1. Fashion vs Comfort.

Here in my school the girls all wear teeny tiny skirts, they tell me they have to because that is the uniform. But, I happen to know that a number of them have had them altered in rather substantial ways, such as sewing the skirt pleats closed to make the skirts straight and tight while technically still pleated. So I hazard a guess that there would be no problem in letting the hem down.

Now I have no problem understanding the drive of vanity and conformity, both of which are largely in evidence. What I don't understand is the fact that now that it is winter the girls wrap large blankets around their waists, effectively making a floor length skirt that is so ugly even your blind grandmother wouldn't wear it.

Wouldn't it be better, warmer and way more attractive, to just get a longer skirt???

2. Bathrooms - specifically the room where you pee.

In all four schools that I have taught in here in Korea the bathroom is the coldest room in the building. What is the logic behind having the one room where you take off half your clothes be below freezing?

In my current school they try to compensate for this lack of logic by having heated toilet seats. You would think that is a good thing, but in reality it is slightly uncomfortable - that feeling you get when you sit down too quickly after the last occupant leaves and you feel the lingering traces of their body heat ... not my favourite ...

The Kindness of Strangers

Today I went to pay my utility bills. I've never had to do this in Korea before. In my first job part of the contract was that the school paid all the utility bills. In my second job my roommate and I gave the bills and the money to the real estate man and he paid them for us. In this new job I'm on my own.

I went searching for a post office because my Korean friend had told me that if I took the bills there, with my money, they would pay for them. So off I trotted hoping to bump into a post office. After ten minutes of not bumping into one I decided that maybe it would be a good idea to ask someone where to go. So I looked up the word for post office in my dictionary and in my head I practiced a sentence that I hoped would get me the information I needed and then approached a likely looking lady on the street.

My sentence must have been ok, since she started looking on the Korean internet - the one I can't understand - via her phone - for the nearest post office. Then armed with her information I headed off to snaffle a taxi to take me on the next leg of my journey. Also managed enough understandable Korean for the taxi driver to get me where I wanted to go.

Then at the post office I discovered that that particular post office did not do the bill paying thing. It was a little one that only does the mail. But the lady took me in her own car to the closest bank and then showed me how to use the ATM to pay my bills and she made sure there was a bank assistant to continue helping me before she left and went back to her job. All I have to say is WOW, talk about going the extra mile. the Korean postal service should be proud of their staff!!!!!

...

So I'm sitting on a bus. The driver is having a long and loud conversation on his cell phone. We come to a red light, he hangs up, climbs off the bus, closes the door, stands in the middle of the road in front of the bus and lights up. After maybe half a cigarette the light changes to green so he flicks the butt away, climbs back on the bus amidst a cloud of smoke and we continue on our journey. Nobody else even blinks. I think this goes in the "Only In Korea" file.