One thing I meant to talk about last week, but forgot to mention was my
Korean medical examination. In order to teach in Korea, I had to do
a mandatory medical examination a few days after I arrived. I feel
like Americans complain all the time about hospitals, health care,
doctors, etc. While I realize our system isn’t perfect, my hospital
experience made me realize how lucky we really are. Here is a list of
disturbing things I noticed about Korean hospitals...
Instead of going into one room for an examination, you have to go to a
bunch of different stations in different rooms. This really isn’t
disturbing, just inconvenient. What is disturbing was that I felt like
the hospital was pretty unclean and unsanitary …
I had to do a pee test in a filthy restroom that didn’t have liquid
hand soap…only a grimey looking bar of soap…thank God I carry Germ-x
everywhere here.
The man taking my blood wasn’t wearing gloves. I might have been
alright with this if I hadn’t just seen the nasty soap in the
bathroom. He also felt around on my arm where my veins are with a
puzzled look and then pressed on a spot and said “Is this your vein?”
At this point I was terrified that it was going to be pretty painful,
but he ended up doing a good job.
You know those rubber things they tie around your arm when they take
your blood? Apparently, in Korea, instead of throwing them away, they
reuse them. The X-ray gown was reusable too. I actually had to hang
it back up when I was finished.
Instead of giving me a bandaid to stop my bleeding, they gave me a wet
cloth. A nurse saw me take it off when the bleeding stopped, so she
put out her hand to throw it away for me. The bloody part of the cloth
definitely touched her hands, and she didn’t wash them afterwards.
They took my weight in the waiting room, and the nurse told me
out loud in front of everyone. Awesome.
A man asked me what prescription meds I was on. When I said the names,
he had no idea what I was talking about, and I had to describe each
one in depth. Example- for my inhaler. I had to pretend like I was
using it, and try to make the noise it makes.
This past weekend, I experienced my first Korean national holiday-
Chuseok. It is a harvest festival that is somewhat similar to American
Thanksgiving. The actual holiday fell on Saturday, so we had a Chuseok
activity day at our school earlier in the week. The students and some
of the teachers (including myself) dressed up in traditional Korean
clothes(called hanboks). It was so adorable to see all of the kids in
their clothes. They played a few games...I forget what they were
called, but I will try to describe them. For the first game, we had
newspapers which were rolled into sticks. The students had to stand
behind a line and throw the papers into a bucket a few feet away.
Traditionally, this game is played with arrows, but that obviously
wouldn’t work with preschoolers.The second game was similar to jacks. The third game
involved folding up paper and throwing it on the ground. I really
didn’t understand the point, but the kids loved it. The kids also made
songpyeon, a traditional Korean food described by Wikipedia as “a
crescent-shaped rice cake which is steamed upon pine needles.” I tried
it, and didn’t like it, but most of the kids couldn’t get enough.
Preschoolers on Chuseok Activity day (I'm in the back with the yellow dress)
More preschoolers:)
The paper throwing game
The jacks game
songpyeong
Link to video of kids playing a Chuseok game...
Our school had the day off on Friday which was really nice, and gave
me a day to just hang out and relax. On Saturday, the actual Chuseok
day, two of my friends, Wang Fang and Tingting, who are actually here
from China to teach Chinese, planned an excursion into Seoul to visit
Gyeongbokgung Palace. Before we got to the palace, we decided to
stop for lunch. Because it was a holiday, most businesses were closed.
We managed to find a traditional Korean restaurant that was still
open. When I got inside and found that the menu was written only in
Korean, and saw what the people around me were eating, I decided I
would venture off in search of an American restaurant. Luckily, I
found Popeye’s chicken, and brought my food back to the Korean
restaurant to eat with my friends. I was afraid this would be considered
rude, but to my surprise, one of the Korean girls in our group told me
that it was completely okay. The waiter at the restaurant even offered
to serve me water when I returned with my American food.
After lunch, we went to the palace. According to the tourist book I
was given, the original palace was built in 1395, but no longer
stands. Apparently the palace has been rebuilt several times, usually
thanks to the Japanese burning it down. The palace consists of several
buildings, each serving different purposes (sleeping rooms, offices,
libraries, etc.). There was also a lake on the grounds that was very
beautiful.
One of the cool things about the palace was that they had a little
corner where visitors could dress up in Korean hanboks. I decided I would do it again. After a Korean woman wearing a mask
(see last post, Koreans are terrified of getting swine flu) literally
dressed me, she told me I had 5 minutes to take a picture by the lake.
So Tingting and I headed in that direction. Apparently Koreans got a
kick out of the fact that a white girl was wearing a hanbok. When we
stopped to take a picture, an old woman followed by a middle age
woman, then another old woman, and then a man and his young son, all
asked to take pictures with me. Others didn’t ask, and just took
pictures with their cell phone cameras. One man couldn’t speak English
very well, but he kept laughing and saying “Westerner Korean.” I was a
little embarrassed, but it was pretty funny, and all of the people
were very nice.
The National Korean Folk Museum was also on the palace grounds. We
really didn’t spend a lot of time there, but we browsed a little bit,
and the museum was really nice. Also, we saw a few traditional Korean
ceremonies. At least that is what I am guessing they were...I’m
not really sure. I took some videos...the links are below.
Pictures from the palace
Other exciting things which happened this week:
-i finally got a Korean cell phone
-i got wireless internet in my apartment
-i found 2 new Korean foods that I really like...one is called omu
rice which is basically a rice omelet. i keep forgetting the name of
the second one, but I call it a lamb taco because it is pretty much
like a gyro with hot sauce and vegetables.
-a girl in one of my classes wore a shirt with my name on it...apparently
it is some sort of popular brand of Korean children's clothes.
Look closely at the shirt....
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