Friday has come around again, and that usually means a story about the orphan children I work with. However, today I want to take the opportunity to tell you about something I got to do last weekend.

There are a lot of foreigners in Korea. Many are English teachers. But there are also lots of migrant workers and students from all over the world. When Koreans meet a foreigner who can speak Korean, even something as elementary as 안녕하세요?, they are really impressed. Part of the reason in that the westerners who stick out the most here don’t often bother to learn a lot of Korean. If you come to Korea, and start a conversation with a taxi driver, a shop clerk, or a waitress, you are bound to get complimented with “와! 우리말 되게 잘 하시네요!” (Wow! You really speak Korean so well!)

Korean-speaking foreigners are something of a novelty here, so there are some TV shows that feature foreigners doing all kinds of things in Korean . The Lunar New Year is approaching, and apparently every year, they have a game show for foreigners – played entirely in Korean. This year, I managed to get a space on the show!

Now, among English teachers, I am pretty proud of my Korean level. But I was up against a completely different league in this game show. Out of 100 competitors there were perhaps 6 from English speaking countries. Everyone else was here as a full time studen from China, Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia.. They are really really good.

Anyway, the game show was “도전 걸든벨,” Golden Bell is a quiz show. Each contestant has a whiteboard, and they write an answer to the question. If you get it wrong, you’re out. The last person surviving has to answer a few additional questions. If they get that far, the will “ring the golden bell” and in our case, come home with about $4,000.

The whole experience was really loads of fun. I’ll tell you right now that I didn’t win – and I’m not even sure I’ll make it on the broadcast. The game took several hours, and only 50 minutes will be shown on TV, so…you do the math. When you get a question wrong, the announcer might come over and interview you. I’d love the chance to do the interview over again, cause I really made a lot of mistakes… but see if you can pick up something from a recent KClass lesson.

When they asked the question, the showed a picture on the screen, and asked us to write the name of the animation. Now, I really don’t know anything about Korean animation, so I knew I was cooked. I just wrote down the silliest answer I could think of: 마시마로. The picture was actually more like this.

Anyway, he came over to me, and asked what I wrote and why. I responded with “저는 한국 애니메이션대하서 아무 것도 모라요.” (Check Intermediate lesson 4) Then I fumbled through the rest of the interview, even managing to sing this song!

After lunch we got to play a second round, but I got out on the first question! Too bad.. cause those questions were a bit easier than the first round! All in all, I think I could have answered about 60-70% of them right, had I not been eliminated so early!

It was a great day, and I really had to practice my listening skills, because no one was giving directions in English!

These days, Korean students are in the middle of 겨울방학 (winter vacation) so things are pretty quiet around the orphanage.  Kids go home (remember that some of them still have parents) and a few are away on some sort of school trip.  I also haven’t been around there as often as I usually am since my own schedule is a bit different right now.

It must be pretty boring for them.  Since they aren’t in school, they stay home all day.  It’s too cold/dangerous to play outside, so they are stuck watching TV, or maybe going to the computer lab.  For many of them, that is their day!

I’m sorry there isn’t much else to report.  I hope to get a new video made with some of them this week, and have it up for the next post.  I could get them to make a video that would tie into one of the recent KClass lessons.  Anything in particular you’d like the kids to help you with?  Let me know!

I spent my Christmas traversing around Korea, so I’m sorry I can’t tell you what happened on Christmas Day. Perhaps I’ll have some things to report after my next visit. Today I want to share about something I got from them just before my vacation. On Friday that kicked off the winter holiday, my friend Josh and I had a little Christmas party with the elementary boys. We went to Costco, bought some snacks, and rented Harry Potter.

That evening, after dinner, I couldn’t find any of the official orphanage staff. The kids were a little rowdy, and they don’t really listen to us well, so I was looking for a Korean adult. One of the boys told me that 오마 was out “buying clothes.” Seems like a strange errand for 7PM on a Friday, doesn’t it? Anyway, the 6th graders were in charge. That happens a lot actually, and seems to work most of the time, but that is a different topic. Anyway, I soon found out that she had gone to buy sweatshirts for me and Josh! A cool gift. But the really neat part is that each of the boys had written a little card to go with it. Almost each card is identical, they say things like:

안녕하세요? 같이 놀아주었던 것 감사합나다….감기 조심하세요…옷 따듯하게 입으세요

Thanks for playing with me…be careful of colds…dress warmly!

Here’s a great winter phrase to use with your Korean friends. You’ll score big points with it, I promise: “감기 조심하세요” Be careful of colds!

These children have precious few possessions. Most of what they have is shared. They wear whatever fits, and often it fits several kids. Seems like an unfortunate way to live. But the alternative isn’t really any better is it? Simply having lots of stuff doesn’t bring happiness or stability to your life either. But it is a real honor to bless the kids with something even if it’s just a new pair of awesome Spiderman shoes.

 Giving the presents was a real treat.  It was a lot of fun, as you saw in the video from last week’s post.  The children were overjoyed, and surprisingly grateful.  They usually don’t have the best of manners, so it was refreshing to see them say thank you! 

Christmas is not quite the same in Korea. Christmas Day is a recognized holiday, but many schools aren’t closed during the week that follows. Gifts are exchanged, but not to the degree that some of you might be familiar with in Western, Judeo-Christian environments.

Christmas at the orphanage is somewhat special though. Several different organizations and companies donate gifts to the kids. My church arranges funds to buy some new clothes for the pre-schoolers. Today was the shopping day.

Each volunteer was given an envelope with 100,000원 (roughly $100) to spend on the kids. $100 goes a long way, and if you go shopping at the right places, like 동대문 (where 현우 and I went a couple weeks ago), you can REALLY stretch it.

In 동대문 there are about a dozen buildings stuffed to the gills with clothes. It is truly remarkable. Armed with my cash, I set off to buy some clothes for 2 of the children from the orphanage. We were supposed to buy clothes, shoes, and jackets. Some other things had been prepared separately. So what can you get for $100? I managed to get a nice winter coat, a pair of shoes, a pair of jeans, some underwear, pajamas, gloves, and 3 shirts for each kid.

And yeah, I did manage to get a lot of discounts when I told the vendors I was buying clothes to give to an orphan. Sometimes it worked like a charm. One lady even gave me 10 fleece hats for free! But, some people weren’t so interested in cutting their prices! Other times, things were cheap enough, that I didn’t bother asking for any sort of discount.

Those sort of situations are sink or swim when it comes to using Korean. The vendors don’t speak much English. Sometimes they know how to quote a price, but that’s about it. And that’s when you realize just exactly how much you can communicate! I had to do all of the shopping and negotiating in Korean. While I get it wrong a lot, I am always amazed when something works out just the way I hope it will!

I wish I had a video of the shopping. That would have been fun. You’ll have to settle for Part 1 of the gift giving. I did my best to subtitle it in English and Korean. What I said is in orange, and the kids speech is in white. Enjoy, and part 2 should be out next week.