Think of the children

Its my second week of teaching (only 51 1/2 to go! start baking that 'welcome home' cake, no yams!) and I've started to notice that kids here are really strange. Or maybe they just don't speak english. but maybe its a bit of the both.
I didn't really come to Korea to work with kids, I mean that wasn't my prime reason for making the trek out here. As far as I know we've gots kids in Canada too, and ours are fatter so they're easier not to trip over (and softer to hug). But I took kindergarten/elementary classes because I liked the hours better than the adult classes. So I've been forced into close quarters with these little monsters and for the mosy part its going fine. But there are a few situations that are still a little offsettling.
Firstly I made the mistake of hitting the sauna on Sunday this week. Since I shower there rather than deal with my own bathroom its sometimes relaxing to just hit the hot tubs and saunas on a lazy afternoon. That lazy afternoon becomes less lazy when there are a dozen kids running around laughing and jumping. And they are all very much naked. The last time I saw a naked kid was years ago in a mirror and I was very happy to leave it that way. Its just a little uncomfortable. I mean culturally bathhouses are a Korean thing and its really me that needs to adjust but I would feel more comfortable if the gym ran background checks before admitting members. But all pedophila issues aside it is tough to relax in a hot tub when someone is doing a cannonball right beside you.
My first class on Monday also had my first kid wet themselves. It happened in between classes and when I walked in this girl April (about 3 years old) is pulling at her skirt and tights trying to tell me somethign in Korean. I was just trying to make sure she didn't take her clothes off in front of the class, thinking she just needed to go to the washroom. In the end I figured it out and send her to one of the korean teachers at the school. Even if it was a guy I probably still would have done the same. My classes are just english speaking, luckily they have others to take care of the icky stuff. So naked boys in the sauna and little girls disrobing in the class, but it really got topped by what happened today (tuesday).
this morning about two minutes after my alarm woke me up there was a buzz at my apartment, I answered the door to see two little kids, a boy and a girl, outside my front door. The girl was trying to tell me something as she pushed her way into my apartment. I had no idea who she was or what she wanted but I was convinced at this point that I was the victim of a police sting and bustled her outside, trying to explian that I couldn't speak any Korean and I didn't understand her at all. Perhaps I said those two phrases too well because she looked very confused as I shut the door on her, and kept on trying to talk to me. A few minutes later they rang again, I opened the door and this time she ran right into my apartment (after first taking off her shoes of course) and jsut stood there talking to me. Her little brother was still hanging out in the hall way. I was starting to think that these kids were homeless or something and begging. She definitely seemed to want something. She was underdressed for the cold weather and looked very cold (I had originally mistaken her dancing around for having to go pee) she started grabbing at my hooded sweatshirt that was hanging up and was saying something about Americans. I've been mistaken for american many times by people here and know what the Korean words sound like for it, but this girl seemed nonplussed by my explaination that I was in fact Canadian. In any case my wallet was in that hoodie and I was not yet convinced this wasn't some sort of scam so I bustled her out. I brought very few clothes with me and honestly didn't have anything to give her that would have kept her warm, and heck I don't even know if thats what she was asking. I was tempted to go next door and wake Patrick up just for some translation, but it was about five hours before he usually gets up so I decided against it. Whatever thier case they would be much better served by any of the other apartments in my building that actaully spoke Korean.
So yeah, little girls forcing thier way into your apartment at 8 o clock in the morning is a little disturbing.
But in all my classes have been going well, I seem to be getting a little better at this 'Edutainment" thing. I even got the little no english kid in my little class to behave by taking his toy car away and then giving it back shortly afterwards when he promised to be quiet. A lot of the teachers here reward thier students with candy, and I really can't bring myself to do that. Its the healthy eater in me but there is no way I'm going to give a kid some super hydrongenated, high fructose corn syrup treat for doing good. I see that as a bit of a punishment, really. The teacher at my elementary school is wild with the sugar treats, handing out candy just for showing up to class and cookies for doing your homework. But this country seems to be really big on sweets for kids, and alcohol for adults. Both are ridiculously cheap. Its somewhat typical for cultures with a large working class, they are both ways of pacifying the masses. One leads into the other. Heck I saw a picture of Buster Bunny holding a bottle of Soju today in a store window. I highly doubt Warner Brothers licensed that one (although it does explain what the Tiny Toons are up to nowadays).
I have a bunch of stickers I brought from Canada that I have been doling out very sparingly, and thats the extent of the physical rewards for my classes. There have been some slacking teachers in the past where I'm teaching and the kids want to play games and get candy after ten minutes of class work. And yes it would be easy to just give in and play games with them all the time, but theres no way they're going ot learn much english that way, much less any work ethic. I've had some sucess with classes by showing them that they only get to play games if they are good, which seems to be a new concept to them.
Now thats what I keep to most of the time, but even I am guilty of plaing some loosely educational games in the name of killing time. I played one with my elementary class called dog vs monkey. We've been studying enlgish names for animals and babay animals and so today I gave them all pieces of paper with differnt animals names on them, split them into two teams and had them pick another random person in the class and see what animal they had. And basically if your animal could beat up the other animal you won. Baby Bird vs. a Dinosaur was baout the most one sided battle today. Did they learn much english? A bit. Did they have fun? Oh yeah. The regular teacher saw them on their way out and said she's never seen them so interested in english class. Its a step I figure.
Anyway it looks like it will be about another week or so before I can get my internet set up in my apartment, and therefore get a better link to back home via internet phone, downloaded television and whatnot. I am still wondering what to do about my apartment, if I shoudl argue for a better one of not. I think Schwindt might be right that I could get stuck with something worse. But its more that I feel like I've been a bit of a pushover than wanting a new place. I think I'm just going to write a letter to them stating that I have not been happy with my apartment and I didn't like how they dealt with the situation. I want to let them know that I can only be pushed so far, because this is exactly the type of school that will squeeze you dry if you let them. If I convince them that I am on the edge already I figure they will be less likely to try to push me any farther.