Misunderstandings

One of the things, we, as foreigners struggle with in this country is communication.  Communication is not just about talking, but relaying meaning and many times, even though plenty of words are said, the meaning gets lost.   English, because we are teaching at an English academy (of sorts) is the language of choice. One reason, communication is an issue here, is that it so rarely happens. This Sunday, Kyle had to work. On Wednesday, he was told he wasn't needed, however, on Friday, the Friday before this Sunday, he was told, it was a possiblity that he was indeed needed. However, there was no confirmation.  Saturday, Kyle had to seek out the scheduler to find out for sure if he needed to come in and if so, what time. Last minute, has a new meaning in this country, or possibly this school. No one seems to talk to anyone, and no one ever seems to know what is actually happening, or who should know what is happening.  The director of the new high school on our campus, told us a story, of trying to find a key to the sports equipment room.  He asked director, after director, maintenance after maintenance to no avail.  Not only did no one seem to have the key, but no one knew who should have it.  Clear communication is severely lacking in this school.  The foreigners often blame it on the language and cultural barrier, but I think it runs deeper than that. Friday, my co-teacher, Cindy came into work dizzy.  She had a difficult time concentrating. Monday, Cindy was still struggling with the dizziness and had even fainted in her apartment the previous evening.  She made a quick trip to a clinic, which result in the doctor telling her she had some type of ear disease which often occurs in old age. (it was a wrong diagnosis she was later to find out)  She told our boss (in Korean, their native language), who then told the education department.  When a teacher was sent from the education department to replace Cindy for the day so that she could rest, we were told, that the education department had understood Cindy to be quitting, and they were therefore already looking for someone not only to replace her, but to take her apartment.  Cindy was horrified.  She didn't want to quit, she wasn't going to be permanently dizzy.  She hadn't in anyway insinuated that she was leaving, and yet, a search for a permanent replacement had already begun.  All of this communication had occured in Korean by Koreans, and yet the communication had been severely butchered. How would this information have been misinterpeted if it been communicated in English, I wonder?


Communication is a complicated beast, and when you add in culture and language deficiencies, the equation gets even murkier, making for exciting times here in the Village.

North Korea is at it again...

For those of you who haven't heard yet, we're fine. Nothing to worry about yet so everyone can relax (talkin to you mom WINK). If you don't know what happened just take a quick glance at any of the major news networks, ORRRR you could just read my lil take on the whole ordeal right here!

In my opinion, this can be almost directly compared to an Elementary school playground gang war. NK has never liked SK since that one day that NK tried to bully SK and all of SK's bigger, stronger friends got involved. Even before that little tiff NK was always a bit jealous of SK for always having spending money to buy a coke at lunch with and always having the newest Air Jordans but mostly just because all the big kids liked SK and never wanted to play with NK very much. So every now and then NK has to do SOMETHING to show SK that they ain't all that and a bag of chips and more importantly NK has to show all of the big kids that theyz bad and if anyone messes with em, they gonna get schooled Supreme Leader style.

So what happened yesterday was not necessarily routine, but also not exactly unexpected. Essentially, SK got too close to NK's side of the playground AGAIN and threw the first stone! So NK tossed a few stink bombs over at the monkey bars which to be honest wasn't THAT big of a deal as no one really plays on the monkey bars very much, so SK tossed a bunch back at them and shot some spit wads and such and now everyone has run back to their bases and are plotting what to do next. So right now, NK is pretty P.O.ed and is just waiting for the day that the big kid on their side, China gives them the go ahead to just run up and kick SK in the gonads but at the moment, China has a bunch of friends that like to hang out on the swings on SK's side of the playground so that just wouldn't be cool cause, let's face it, NK doesn't have very good aim and while they MIGHT hit SK in the gonads, they're gonna be kicking a whole bunch of people in the gonads in the process sooooo, we should all just wait and see what China decides to do.

IF, and this is a big if, China decides to call their friends off the swings and back over to NK's side of the playground then we will be booking 2 tickets stateside asap, otherwise I think it's safe to assume that this was just another one of those temper tantrums that NK has every now and then when no one is paying any attention to them.

The fact is, NK is that cranky kid who comes from a rough upbringing on the crappy side of town but hates being thought of as less important. I'm not saying that it justifies what they did yesterday and I certainly don't mean to belittle the fact that people were killed and several seriously injured. That is NEVER not a big deal. But in the grand scheme of things, all this talk about "War" and "escalation" is pure spin and has very little evidence to support it. So like I said, when the big kids start treating this as a more serious situation, then so will we, otherwise don't worry folks. It's just another day in the life around here.