여러분 짜장면을 먹은 적이 있나요? 없으면 바로 먹어 봐야해요! 고아원에 매월 마지막 수요일에 어린이들이 저녁으로 짜장면을 먹어요. 까가운 중화요리집이 짜장면고 탕수육을 만들러 와요.

Have you ever eaten jjajangmyeon? If you haven’t you really should try it! At the orphanage, the children eat jjajangmyeon on the last Wednesday of every month. A Chinese food shop from nearby comes to make jjajangmyeon and sweet & sour pork.

짜장명 is sort of like the macaroni & cheese of Korea. It is dirt cheap, and an absolute favorite of kids everywhere. Of course, adults like it too! It can be found just about everywhere, but unless you live in LA or NY, I wonder if you can find it at a restaurant in the States. ㅠ.ㅠ Basically it is a noodle dish with a black bean sauce, onions, and pork bits. I know, I know, that description doesn’t sound so delicious, but trust me. I’d eat it 2 times a week if I thought it was really healthy!

I’m not sure about the origin of this dish, you can usually only find it at a “중화요리 집,” or Chinese restaurant, but those are all “Koreanized” so don’t expect to see it on the menu at your local Western Chinese carry-out!

Anyway, the kids at the orphanage rarely get to eat so well. Don’t get me wrong, they are fed each and every day, but it’s not always so appetizing. So 짜장면 Wednesdays are a real treat. A local Chinese food restaurant loads up their gear and hauls it over the orphanage once a month to serve noodles and sweet & sour pork. There is a picture below of the noodle slicing machine. Fresh noodles do taste so much better!

I usually go to the orphanage two days a week. Saturday and Monday. On Saturdays several friends from my church go to work with the pre-school aged children. Typically we try to teach them some stories from the Bible. (It is a Christian orphanage, and my church has been working there for the past several years.) Sometimes those regular plans get changed.

Living in Korea has challenged me in several ways. But perhaps the most difficult to overcome is how schedules can be changed so suddenly. And many times, decisions aren’t made until very late – something that makes Westerners really nervous. As an example, the day I write this is about 5 weeks before the Winter English Camp that I will have to teach. However, no final decisions have been made about location, content, schedule, which students…etc. And until it actually starts, nothing is set in stone.

So sometimes we experience this with the orphanage too. Today I showed up with my friend at about 10:45. But along the road, I kept seeing all these kids filing out carrying boxes full of stuff. I asked them where they were going, and it took me a while to figure out that they were going to have some sort of “sidewalk sale.” We thought it might just involve the older kids, but soon, all the adults workers were bringing EVERYONE outside. So, we just turned around and went to this street corner. Sure enough, the kids were selling tings. Old comic books, candy, notebooks, pancakes, roasted squid, etc. It was really bizarre. Initially we thought that maybe they were doing some more fundraising for the new building, but that just didn’t seem right. Every kid had a little chart where they wrote down each transaction, and had my sign my name. 100원 for candy, 500원 for a chocolate-covered banana, 1,000원 to through water balloons at a high-schooler’s head… strange.

So I asked one of the 5th graders: “오늘은 왜 많은 물건을 판매해?” (Why are you selling so many things today?)

-“경제 공부” (Economics study)

-“경제 공부 대회?” (is it an economics study contest?)

-“네” (yes)
-“1등 사람이 어떤 상품을 받을거야?” (What prize does the 1st place person get?)

-“50,000원” ($50)

Sorry there are no pictures of this event! I wasn’t prepared for it!

There is a major construction project underway right now. Recently two buildings were torn down to make way for one larger multi-purpose building. All of the girls from elementary-high school moved out of their building and are now cramped into even tighter quarters for the next 8 months or so. The chapel was also torn down. Here is a picture of the current progress. I don’t have good information about what is being built, but I sure hope it will be an improvement. The kids tell me that the new building will have a “gym” which really would be awesome. There isn’t really any good place nearby for the kids to play. And when it is as cold at it is right now, being inside is really the best option. The new building will also house some of the kids. But in the meantime, things are pretty tight. I’ll be posting periodic updates so you can see how the construction is coming along.

With Christmas around the corner, you can expect some stories about what the holiday is like for these kids.

In fact, Christmastime marks my one year anniversary of working at the orphanage.

Every year the orphanage sets up a bazaar to raise money. It is usually at the end of October. I wasn’t volunteering there last fall, so this was my first one. Preparations started a few weeks before. Josh warned me that the staff would be pouncing on us to buy some tickets for the event. Each ticket cost 10,000원 and then could be spent on various things at the bazaar.

Each staff member is charged with selling 10 tickets. So, one called me up and asked if I would buy some tickets. I agreed to buy 2. Then, I decided I could afford to invest a little more in the event, so I gave her enough money for 5. But I should have been more discreet. Another worker (the one Josh and I call “Mean 오마” overheard our conversation. She cornered me and begged me to buy tickets from her too. She was practically screaming about how I bought 5 from the other lady, and how I should have spread it around instead. I could only look at her sheepishly and say how I bought 5 already, and I didn’t need any more. Then really started twisting my arm (literally). She grabbed my hand, starred intently into my face and made me promise to buy 3. She was unrelenting! I tried to tell her how I didn’t have any more cash..but that wasn’t good enough. She was happy to take the money later, in exchange for my promise to bring the money next time! Phew!

The day of the bazaar finally approached. The plan was for all the foreigners who volunteer at the orphanage (there are about 4 of us) to sell some cookies and brownies. Josh also bought an ice cream machine so we could sell “home-made ice cream.” We set up our table. It was a great opportunity to practice some more Korean in a setting I never have before. If you’ve spent any time in Korea, you are familiar with the salesmen on the subways. They wheel their carts on the train and very politely introduce their product, going through this whole spiel about how wonderful it is and how great the value is. But that wasn’t my model. I was going more for the street salesmen in a market. These guys scream, and basically just repeat the same thing over and over again. So I started bellowing:

“맛있는 크키이에요. 천원이에요”
“Delicious cookies…just one dollar!”

That is my best guess as to what the guys on the street say. Its probably not all that correct, because the Koreans kept looking at me and laughing (although that’s also because it is so rare to see foreigners making fools out of themselves in Korean). But, we did manage to sell all of our cookies, muffins, and ice cream! I did have to make some deals when we got to the end. Some people really scored with 1/2 price or 1/4 price discounts!

Working at the orphanage always provides me with some great language experiences. Sometimes I get caught off guard that I am understanding the conversation. It seems when I TRY to listen I have a harder time getting it. However when I just participate, subconsciously expecting to understand, I find my comprehension is much higher. That day I was able to translate for a friend and answer a lady’s question without missing a beat. She wanted to know “why foreigners were selling things at the bazaar.” The tone in her voice was not so pleasant actually. But I just told her that “우리 보유관에서 봉사해요.” “We volunteer at the orphanage.”

This picture is of 성태 helping crank the ice cream machine.

오스틴

Something really serious happened when I was home for vacation. My friend Josh, who also volunteers at the orphanage told me that some of the older boys were caught with stolen money! Apparently each kid is given 5,000원 (about $5) each month as “allowance.” I’m sure it gets spent immediately on 컵라면 and other unhealthy snacks. But sometime during the summer break, a few of the older stole 500,000원 (about $500) from a man in the neighborhood. You might think that they would have tried to hide it really well, but money really burns holes in these kids’ pockets. So four kids split the money amongst themselves, the older ones threating the younger ones within an inch of their lives to keep silent. It wasn’t long before the staff got really curious about how these kids kept having money to buy things. The older boys wouldn’t talk. But one of the younger ones fessed up, and finally the truth came out. They now have to forgo their allowance until the debt is paid.It really represents a larger problem there. Things get stolen quite frequently. But usually, they steal from EACH OTHER. In Korean society, being a little bit older comes with some real tangible benefits. And the kids at the home squeeze everything they can get out of it. There are middle school and high school students on the second floor, above the elementary kids. They often exploit their seniority. Here is one conversation I witnessed about a cell phone. Remember that I said some kids have parents. Some parents have bought cell phones for their kids.

고등 학생: 전기 줘! Give me your cell phone battery! (they have the same model)
4학년 학생: 왜? Why?
고등 학생: 형! Because I am your big brother! (no blood relation, but since he’s older, he is 형)

So the kid gave up battery. And he might not have seen it again. I wouldn’t be surprised.

Last weekend a 5th grader told me how he used to have a Nintendo DS. I have no idea how he managed to have one of those, but he did. Once the older boys found out about it, it was gone. They stole it, and probably sold it online! The same thing happened last year with someone’s Playstation Portable. The older boys throw down the age card, and there is nothing the younger kids can do about it!

오스틴