kimchi recipe (and bonus essay)

(click on picture to enlarge)

As I've said before, I don't care for kimchi. It's not that I don't like spicy food, as most Koreans seem to believe is the only reason foreigners could possibly not like "the most delicious and healthy food in Korea." (See essay at the end of this entry.) I love spicy Mexican and Thai food, just to name my two favorite cuisines. Kimchi is slimy and sour, in addition to being spicy. I've been told that if I keep eating it, I'll eventually grow to like it and even become addicted. To which I reply, why would I want to force myself to become addicted to something?

Many people (including Matthew) do like kimchi, however, and might be interested in making the stinky (seriously, when Matthew opens a jar at home, I start inspecting the boys' diapers to see who made Mommy a present), slimy stuff. A new Korean teacher at Matthew's school wrote out the recipe for him. This is a bit amazing, since most Koreans I've asked don't know how to make kimchi themselves. Their mothers or mothers-in-law do all the kimchi-making. I wonder if it's becoming a lost art among the younger generation of Koreans.

I will do my best to type it below, in case you have difficulties reading the photograph above. Some parts do not entirely make sense to me. Some quantities/amounts she added in to the original directions. I don't really think 2 c of red pepper powder means 2 cups, maybe 2 ccs. Also, she doesn't say anything about letting it ferment. Maybe you can figure it out. Think of it as a culinary adventure.


Kimchi Recipe (by Jane)

1. Cut the cabbage into quarters.

2. Spread salt on the cabbage. And let it be 4-5 hours. (The salt should be bigger one like this [sample salt is taped to page] One handful of salt per 3 quarters of cabbage)

And Now Let's make Sauce
([for] 3 cabbage) Get ready --> Red pepper powder (2 c), well minced garlic (7-8), well minced green onion (3), salted fish juice (2 table spoon per one quarter of cabbage), sugar (2 tablespoon), salted shrimp (2T), 1 fresh oyster, 1 onion, 1 pear or apple.

3. Put onion and pear in the blender.

4. Put everything in a bowl and mix well.

5. Pour half cup of water in a pan, and put 2 tablespoon of wheat flour. Boil it with low temperature. Keep stir it. When it looks like glue. Then stay it to get cold. And then mix with the sauce.

Sauce Ready!

6. Wash off the cabbage and let it water drip.

[illustration of cabbage on a wicker tray]
(It'll take 3 hours to dry.)

7. Finally spread the sauce on the cabbage. Yummy~

[And then an illustration at the bottom. It's apparently Matthew as Dr. House from "House MD," yielding a scalpel and proclaiming, "I'm a surgern." Hmmm...maybe an allusion to his ambition to become an MD? Or maybe she thinks his personality is like House?]



Finally, as promised, a middle school student's essay that I corrected this week. The prompt was, "Does Kimchi have medicinal properties beyond fresh fruits and vegetables at increasing the body's resistance to swine flu, the HIV virus, and other diseases?" I'm typing out the student's original response, without corrections. (Although there are some errors and the student doesn't actually answer the question, you have to admit this student's mastery of a foreign language is pretty darn good for middle school, an age when many American students haven't even begun learning a second language.)

Kimchi has been the most delicious and healthy food in Korea. Many Americans hate to eat it because it's too spicy. However, they will start to it at once if they know how good Kimchi is.

First of all, Kimchi is a anti-cancer food. Many healthy ingredients are included in Kimchi such as cabbage which prevents intenstine cancer and garlic which prevents stomach cancer. those who don't want to get cancer really should eat Kimchi.

In addition to that, Kimchi is a vitamin-containing food. Besides, when Kimchi is passing through the fermenting stage, containment of vitamin increases up to over two times than initial containment of vitamin.

What is more, Kimchi is a low calory food. It contains a lot of eatable fiber. Thus, it prevents and treat all kind of adult diseases like diabetes, heart diseases and fat, etc.

Now you see how healthy you would be to eat Kimchi. I'm proud of my ancestor who invented a laudable food -- Kimchi. I highly recommend people to eat Kimchi, and hope they like it.

Obama admires Korean schools?

Full article: Obama urges longer school hours, extended school year

Excerpt:

"We can no longer afford an academic calendar designed when America was a nation of farmers who needed their children at home plowing the land at the end of each day," Obama said, adding U.S. education to his already crowded list of top priorities.

"That calendar may have once made sense, but today, it puts us at a competitive disadvantage. Our children spend over a month less in school than children in South Korea. That is no way to prepare them for a 21st century economy."

He urged administrators to "rethink the school day" to add more class time.

"I know longer school days and school years are not wildly popular ideas," he said. "Not in my family, and probably not in yours. But the challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom. If they can do that in South Korea, we can do it right here in the United States of America."

South Korean public schools are "closed" for almost two months following Christmas, although many students attend "winter camps" and other school programs. The students also have a month-long vacation in summer. My hypothesis is that the schools are closed during the most extreme weather of the year to avoid atrocious conditions or the energy bills that would come with keeping classrooms at bearable temperatures.

Students attend school five days per week, plus a half-day every other Saturday. Probably this is where they make up extra time. But unlike the U.S., where grades 1-12 must put in the same number of hours per day, South Korean students put in longer days as they get older. Although they're not in academic classes the whole time, high school students are at school into the evening for required activities and study time.

I'm not convinced all that time is well-spent. The normal teaching style here is lecture and listen. Many teachers do not even allow their students to take notes during lectures. Students are merely to absorb the knowledge, then regurgitate it via standardized tests. Middle school students spend weeks studying for their midterms and finals. In fact, coming here directly from teaching public school in the U.S., I saw the South Korean system as a ghastly example (think Dickens' ghost of Christmas future) of what may happen to the American public school system if the test-focused "No Child Left Behind" madness continues. The South Korean model lacks creativity, problem-solving, and independent thinking, important skills if we want American students to be globally competitive.

Now I realize that Obama was only referring to the scheduling side of South Korean schools, but I don't think you can extricate that part of the system. It's a whole: long hours, including weekend, standardized tests, fear of failure (rumor is, no one ever gets held back because they would lose face), school uniforms and single-sex education after grade 6, etc. If that's what we're heading for, I'll pursue other options for my sons. (I could get behind the school uniforms, though. Korean middle and high school students look very snappy, even when they wear sneakers with their uniforms.)

I still support Obama, but I hope he gathers more information before he holds up the South Korean system as any type of example.

job security

Several times each week Matthew brings home essays and diary entries to correct. Some are from his advanced classes and are well written. Most of them are assigned by his Korean co-workers and those can be the most entertaining. I often help him correct them because (a) I might as well use the degree we're still paying for and (b) they're entertaining.

It's good to know that Matthew's skills as a native English teacher will be needed as long as we choose to stay here.

Here are a few of the...um...good ones.

#1: Subject: My characterist!
Feb/21 (토요일)

My mom called me.
"[Girl's name]! 2 Socks gave down on street."
but, I gave down one box socks.
So, My mom said, "You're foolish."
"umm...maybe".
And, I come back home.
I thought for foolish.
"[Girl's name]"


#2: Untitled

Today, I went the kumdo academy. And I start kumdo. Today I had worn hogu. After about 10 minutes. Suddenly, I felt the call of nature. So I had tried to go. I nearly taken bamboo knife in bathroom of forgetand. In bathroom, someone turn off the bathroom light. But, my friend is turn on the light. After about 40 minutes, I went home. But, I nearly taken bamboo knife in home. I may be amnesia.


#3: Sunday, Feb. 22nb

Today I ate a hamburger. It is very delicious.
However...my embryo was very very sick. So I go to the bed.
I think, 'I may have a stomachache.'
But, no It was Ok.
I will not eat hamburgers...
The hamburger may have spoiled.

Konglish

As I mentioned in the previous post, Konglish is the term used for words borrowed from English, but usually with their own uniquely Korean pronunciation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konglish
Ironically, Konglish can make it easier for foreigners to communicate outside the classroom, and yet frustrating to communicate within the classroom.

Case in point: my middle school listening/conversation class several years ago. The text I was using contained thematic units with completely random vocabulary. One of the listening activities is to choose from several sentences the one which best describes a tiny black-and-white photograph in the book. I think the sentence in question was, "The woman is reading the label." Students didn't recognize the word, "label." After I explained it, one girl said, "Oh, LA-BELL." Of course, la-bell.

Same class, this time the word is "matinee." I explained that it's a movie showing or theater performance in the afternoon. No recognition. I looked it up in the English-Korean dictionary. The first Korean entry was met with blank stares. The students didn't understand. I carefully sounded out the second entry: mah-tee-nay. I almost slapped myself in the forehead as I reitterated, "Come on, guys, mah-tee-nay." "OH, MAH-TEE-NAY!" my class replied.

The biggest slap-myself-in-the-forehead moment was when an elementary school student corrected MY pronunciation of Hawaii. "No, teacher, ha-wa-ee!" Now I realize that her pronunciation is probably closer to the original, but being corrected by a ten-year-old on the pronunciation of a state in MY home country is a little ridiculous. American teachers are hired to teach American English, and if we want to mangle the pronunciation of our states, then so be it.

My friend Sara tells a particularly hilarious story (as all of Sara's stories are) of explaining, drawing, even pantomiming a parachute with no recognition from her students. Finally, she looked it up in the dictionary: Pah-lah-choot. Her students swore they didn't understand any of her attempts, but she suspects they were just toying with her.

Outside the classroom, if I don't know a word in Korean, I often try to Konglishize it: z becomes j, f becomes p, compound consonant sounds are separated (i.e. bl become bul), and often extra vowels are added at the end. It's amazing how well this works.

Some Konglish words, written as they sound:
ice cream: eye-soo-cu-reem-uh
cheese: chee-juh
pizza: pee-jah
hamburger: hame-buh-guh
steak: suh-tay-ee-kuh
coffee: cah-pee (sounds like copy -- so my students were always confused when I said I was going to make a copy during class)
vitamin: bee-tah-mean
bus: bu-suh
taxi: take-shi
motorcycle: oh-toe-bah-i (supposed to sound like "autobike")
cell phone: han-duh-pone (supposed to sound like "handphone")

The Korea Top Ten Lists (originally posted 28 August 06)

[Note: Looking back through these old blogs that I posted on MySpace during my first sojourn in SK has really brought back memories. Some are good; some are at least amusing. Since I'm planning to delete my MySpace account soon, I wanted to preserve them here.]

I've compiled the following lists of things that I expect to miss and things I believe I will happily leave behind. I've excluded things that are completely obvious or things that are lacking (i.e. variety of food).

Top 10 things I will miss about Korea (kind-of, sort-of in order):
10. the occasional thrill of getting to use my limited vocabulary and phrases
9. coffee vending machines everywhere -- 30 cents for a small cup
8. a free apartment
7. cheap knitting needles and other domestically-made goods
6. cheap and readily available buses and taxis, which eliminate the need for a car -- also, the extra money saved on car insurance, gasoline, and maintenance
5. the amusement of reading ridiculous English sayings everywhere (t-shirts, menus, walls, etc.)
4. meeting and working with people from different countries and backgrounds -- we're all some kind of crazy!
3. living 5 minutes from the beach and 20 minutes from the mountains
2. noraebang (private singing rooms)
1. kids who crack me up on a daily basis and really want to learn English

Top 10 things I will NOT miss about Korea:
10. air-drying all the laundry, including towels (ugh...crunchy)
9. my feet being the only "average-sized" thing about me
8. smelly kids who shower once a week (the minority) and/or don't want to learn anything
7. crowds and people getting into my "bubble" far too often
6. soju- and kimchi-tinged body odor (not mine, because I don't imbibe -- other people's)
5. humidity
4. mosquito bites
3. not-quite-right food: whipped cream on a baked potato, maraschino cherries on nachos, etc....
2. the sewer and fish smells that pop up randomly on the street
1. being stared at constantly and often talked about as if I am not there or cannot understand (which I sometimes can)

The politics of dancing (originally posted 26 May 06)

When Korean people do something, they do it ALL THE WAY. This applies to working, drinking, eating, protesting, and -- the latest development -- politicking. Local elections across the country will be held on May 31st. (I'm glad I won't be around for any national elections.)

It started out somewhat slowly, about a month ago. Huge posters began appearing on buildings all over town: headshots of men in suits between five and ten feet high. I noticed similar-looking men wandering around at bus stops, grocery stores, even on the city bus, talking to people and shaking hands. (I haven't seen any baby kissing, though.) Then last weekend, the real fun began. When I went to E-Mart, there were groups of young people clad in matching brightly colored t-shirts, dancing and cheering on the sidewalk in front of the store. Across the street there were trucks with huge banners (again the headshots), playing very loud music. One of my friends said the same scene occured in front of her apartment building. She could barely get in.

Within the past weeks, these campaign trucks have been everywhere. They just park on the sidewalk and start blasting music. Because it's warm and we keep the window open, we can hear speeches, cheering and music coming from near the beach, beginning fairly early in the morning. Luckily, the madness should end on Wednesday, and we have the day off.

The public schools are closed, so many of the foreign teachers convinced the hagwon owners to close as well. It's only fair, considering that all the hagwons in town were open on Teacher's Day, even though the public schools were closed. (Apparently, we're not real teachers. I did get some sweet gifts from kids, though.)

An-young Haseyo (originally posted 05 December 05)

Finally, I am surfacing to write another entry. South Korea is fantabulous, and obviously has been keeping me quite busy. It's a bit strange having a job again after almost 5 months of basically unemployed bliss. But I really love my job (most of the time). It's a completely different experience than teaching English literature and writing in the States, but I think I like it more. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE teaching poetry, novels, all that stuff, but it gets really LAME when 90% of your students don't give a crap. Here, my students (with a few exceptions) WANT to learn English. They're attentive, polite, and enthusiastic...of course, some of them are so shy that their enthusiasm comes out as a whisper.

The food here is great (for the most part) and I feel safer here than I did on the streets of the 'Couv.' I haven't been to Seoul yet, but from what I've heard, it's almost as safe in the city of 10 million as it is here with only 90,000. The people we've met have all been very helpful and understanding and our bosses have gone above and beyond our expectations at almost every turn. Matthew and I know enough Korean to get by: Hello, Please, Thank you, I'm sorry, Excuse me, How much is it?, etc. and pointing/pantomiming has gotten us through the rest.

The only thing that's given me any kind of anxiety is shopping for groceries. We have five different kinds of cookies in our cupboard right now. Why? Because cookies are safe. There are usually pictures on the front and you really can't stray too much from the American concept of a cookie. Other fairly safe items are juice, bread products, fruit, vegetables, and yogurt. Meat starts getting scary, as does any kind of canned goods. We've managed to find spaghetti and marinara-type sauce and we purchased some pre-seasoned beef that we cooked up and ate with rice. Other than that, it's been frozen foods that require frying (little dumplings stuffed with some meat and veggies), breaded shrimp, etc), noodle bowls, etc. Actually we eat out a lot because it's so inexpensive. We've found a few restaurants with English menus...oh, we even found a good Italian restaurant for my b'day dinner.