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IN THIS ISSUE

• Pat Moore describes interviewing and checking on teachers for Korea
• Bill McNair wants to know what teachers do in their "spare" time
• Jim Olson forwards a painting and website for the autumn
• Gerrit deLeeuw warns of a shopping scam aimed at men
• Dick Monaghan sends a letter from a technically-challenged senior
• Terry Kelly wrote a song for Remembrance Day
• Bruce Galway, Dick Monaghan, Doris Dignard, and Stan French suggest sites

Pat Moore writes about

TEACHING ENGLISH IN KOREA

It was quite an experience interviewing possible candidates who were interested in going to East Asia to teach English for a year. I had heard there were a few complications in the past with people not being suitable; not everyone has the personality to be a good teacher. I decided to use some personality tests that I had for the initial interviews and was able to narrow down the list to the ones that I felt would be suitable. Then when I met them in person, I could delve a little further into their reasons for going. I also found handwriting tests to be very effective regarding their hidden personalities. Thank goodness I did take the time to do a thorough interviewing process as during the three years I was involved there were only two who did not complete their one-year contract, whereas in the rest of Canada the rate was about 30% returned before their year was up.

During the personal interviews I showed the candidates some of the teaching material I had found at bookstores, thrift stores, material to photocopy, maps of the cities in Korea, etc. and many who went to the trouble of finding teaching aids to take with them said that this helped their transition to Korea and teaching much easier. They would not know the ages they were to teach until they arrived in Korea and were matched with a school - anywhere from kindergarten to high school. If they wanted extra work, they could teach young adults and businessmen in the evenings and on weekends. That was up to each individual.

My comments will be about the experience in Korea, as almost all who went to Korea were young adults just finished at college or university and anxious to travel and also pay back school loans. The people hired for China were mainly early retired teachers or RCMP personnel and managed quite well with no troubles at all.

On my first trip to South Korea, I asked the office staff to pretend that I was coming to work as I wanted to test the system. I was met at the airport by a woman from the office waving a long stick about eight feel long, with my name on it so I could find her in the huge Inchon Airport. I had been told to arrange my flight to arrive in a morning so that I would have the whole day to travel by the transit system, be shown an apartment, taken to a school, and then to the office. The sample apartment was extremely sparse compared to Canadian standards - dishes, glasses and cutlery for two, one set of towels, bed linens, and a minimum of cooking utensils, but no TV or phone. The rent was paid for, including utilities, but not long- distance calls. Most of the schools allowed them to use the internet to communicate with friends and families.

Then we went to one of the schools to see the arrangements there. The apartments were usually close to the school where teachers were posted, or at least near a good transit system. Learning to get around was fairly easy as all the transit lines are color coded. The school principal was there to show me around, and I could quickly see that she was a person of authority. That was the biggest problem - trying to find the right personality match between the person hired to teach English and the principal at a school. Sometimes a few changes had to be made.

Food stall at Namdaemun Market

The office staff tried to have an orientation meeting for each new person - both English-speaking and local, to help the new teacher get familiar with local culture, food, social life, etc., and I sat in on several and found them very helpful. The office staff were lots of fun and there were three fairly new teachers there so we decided to try a few restaurants and night spots and invited all the teachers and the staff to join us. We were quite a boisterous group.

Credit cards were readily accepted. The Koreans really helped us to decide what to try and what to stay away from, unless we were very adventurous! Listed are some of the things we tried over the next few nights: excellent stuffed duck, baked in a clay oven; fresh tuna sashimi style; Kim-chi stew - mixed rice and hash; delicious garlic barbecue ribs; and lots of vegetarian choices as most Buddhists are vegetarians. The staff recommended one dish we Canadians - even the men - turned down: chot, which is live squid fermented for years and once in your mouth is an explosion of flavours. Several had enjoyed the ribs so we thought we would try barbecued ribs marinated in pear juice and garlic - big mistake - it was like fire in our mouths!

One restaurant in particular was great fun as it is well known for its very rude waitresses, who were marvellous - a very entertaining show. Smoking seems to be a passion - mainly the males - and it was almost impossible to find a taxi or restaurant that was smoke-free. Another national passion was on-line gambling.

Two female monks enjoy tea in an old teahouse

Another time we went to visit an organic Buddhist monastery near the Sun Tun River where the monks gather the crops from the high mountains, and it was there that I saw my first female Buddhist monks. They shave their heads and I had always assumed the monks were all male. Two female monks were in a restaurant having tea and they agreed when I asked them if I could take a photo.

One-third of the population of South Korea lives in Seoul, which is a mixture of 14th century architecture and very modern skyscrapers, intermingled with thousands of very tall identical apartment buildings. The subway system is excellent and very easy once you get used to the colour-coded system. The taxis are very fast and scary, and if you promise the driver extra money to get you somewhere quickly, they have a great system: the driver holds a special sign out his window and everyone lets him pass. It is frightening but it gets you there in a hurry.

I was surprised to see a very high tower, very similar to the CN Tower in Toronto and the Space Needle in Seattle. Seoul is just 60 miles from the border of North Korea, the most militarized border in the world, and so a lot of conversation and jokes were about the politics. There were umpteen radio, newspapers and TV stations but in South Korea everyone seemed to prefer the western news and music and did not seem too interested in what was happening in North Korea - with a population of only 23M compared to South Korea - 49M. They seemed more interested in the latest gambling and lottery news and gossip. There were at least six newspapers with English pages, and many radio and TV stations, especially the American Armed Forces radio and TV station, which were popular with most Koreans.

Traditional fan dancers perform at the Lotus Lantern Festival

I had arranged to be there over a weekend to take advantage of some of the local festivals, so one afternoon we went to a kite-flying contest being held at Hang Dang Peoples´ Park on Yeoudo Island. We enjoyed much laughter and had a great day until about 5 p.m. when an instant fog descended. This apparently was quite common and we could hardly see our hands in front of our faces for quite a while, so we decided to watch an exhibition of taekwondo. Tremendous training and strength is needed for this type of competition so we were happy just to watch, and we really enjoyed the beautiful fan dance that was the opening ceremony of the exhibition.

Another time we visited Gombak Palace - a glorious and beautiful place filled with many statues of historical heroes. One thing I noticed was a great respect for their heroes. Most Koreans learn about their history in many ways. Playing cards and games have pictures and stories of their history and heroes on them. It would be a great idea for Canadians to learn some of our history.

I was sad to say goodbye to Seoul but anxious to see my daughter and family in Australia, so I was off to the airport to take either a South Korean airline or a Singapore flight to fly to Brisbane for a short visit with them.

CORRESPONDENCE

Bill McNair comments on the statement from an article on teachers from last week´s issue:

You might be a teacher if you want to slap the next person who says, "Must be nice to work from 8 to 3:30 and have summers off."

Our daughter and niece plus a couple neighbours are teachers and always saying this, yet I have never heard one of them say what it is that they do during the summertime, Christmas, spring break, and professional development days ... and I´m afraid to ask! Their pension is to die for and that $40,000 at retirement is another one to die for, here in Ontario anyhow.

EDITOR: Would any ex-teachers like to enlighten Bill about the lesson preparation, the marking of assignments, the filling of report cards, and the university courses that teachers take to upgrade their credentials?

AUTUMN TRYST

Jim Olson writes: Pat Davidson of the Elders Listserv has done some original watercolore. One that struck me particularly was titled "Autumn Tryst." I am attaching a .jpg file of the watercolor. I think it would go well with a rendition of "September Song" such as the one by Frank Sinatra:

Gerrit de Leeuw sends a heads up for those men who may be regular Home Depot or Costco customers:

SHOPPING ALERT

Over the last couple of months I became a victim of a clever scam while out shopping. Simply going out to get supplies has turned out to be quite traumatic. Don´t be naive enough to think it couldn´thappen to you or your friends. Here´s how the scam works.

Two seriously good-looking 20-21 year-old girls come over to your car or truck as you are packing your shopping into it. They both start wiping your windshield with a rag and Windex, with their breasts almost falling out of their skimpy T-shirts. It is impossible not to look. When you thank them and offer them a tip, they say, "No," and instead ask you for a ride to another Home Depot or Costco.

You agree and they get in the back seat. On the way, they start undressing. Then one of them climbs over into the front seat and starts crawling all over you, while the other one steals your wallet.

I had my wallet stolen October 4th, 9th, 10th, twice on the 15th, 17th, 20th & 24th. Also November 1st, 4th, twice on the 5th, three times just yesterday, and very likely this coming weekend. So be careful.

Dick Monaghan forwards

A LETTER FROM A CHALLENGED SENIOR

I thought about the 30 year business I ran with 1800 employees, all without a Blackberry that played music, took videos and pictures, and communicated with Facebook and Twitter. I signed up under duress for Twitter and Facebook, so my seven kids, their spouses, 13 grandkids and two great-grandkids could communicate with me in the modern way. I figured I could handle something as simple as Twitter with only 140 characters of space.

That was before oe of my grandkids hooked me up for Tweeter, Tweetree, Twhirl, Twitterfon, Tweetie and Twittererific Tweetdeck, Twitpix, and something that sends every message to my cell phone and every other program within the texting world.

My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of everything except the bowel movements of the entire next generation. I am not ready to live like this. I keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf bag.

The kids bought me a GPS for my last birthday because they say I get lost every now and then going over to the grocery store or library. I keep that in a box under my toolbench with the Blue tooth (it´s red) phone I am supposed to use when I drive. I wore it once and was standing in line at Barnes and Noble talking to my wife as everyone in the nearest 50 yards was glaring at me. Seems I have to take my hearing aid out to use it and I got a little loud.

I mean the GPS looked pretty smart on my dashboard, but the lady inside was the most annoying, rudest person I had run into in a long time. Every 10 minutes, she would sarcastically say, "Re-calc-ul- ating." You would think that she could be nicer. It was like she could barely tolerate me. She would let go with a deep sigh and then tell me to make a U-turn at the next light. Then when I would make a right turn instead, it was not good.

When I get really lost now, I call my wife and tell her the name of the cross streets and while she is starting to develop the same tone as Gypsy, the GSP lady, at least she loves me.

To be perfectly frank, I am still trying to learn how to use the cordless phones in our house. We have had them for four years, but I still haven´t figured out how I can lose three phones all at once and have run around digging under chair cushions and checking bathrooms and the dirty laundry baskets when the phone rings.

The world is just getting too complex for me. They even mess me up every time I go to the grocery store. You would think they could settle on something themselves but this sudden, "Paper or plastic?" every time I check out just knocks me for a loop.

I bought some of those cloth reusable bags to avoid looking confused, but I never remember to take them in with me.

Now I toss it back to them. When they ask me, "Paper or plastic?", I just say, "Doesn´t matter to me. I am bi-sacksual...." Then it´s their turn to stare at me with a blank look.

LEST WE FORGET

On November 11, 1999 Terry Kelly was in a drug store in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. At 10:55 a.m. an announcement came over the store´s PA asking customers who would still be on the premises at 11:00 to observe two minutes of silence in respect for the veterans who have sacrificed so much for us.

When eleven o´clock arrived, an announcement was again made asking for the two minutes of silence to commence. All customers, with the exception of a man who was accompanied by his young child, showed their respect.

Terry´s anger towards the father for trying to engage the store´s clerk in conversation and for setting a bad example for his child was channeled into a beautiful piece of work called, "A Pittance of Time". Terry later recorded the song and included it on his full- length music CD, "The Power of the Dream".

SUGGESTED WEBSITES

Bruce Galway recommends the video of an elegant Friesian horse:

Dick Monaghan forwards the URL for a short film about the "ghosts of the forest," a white deer herd in Wisconsin:

Doris Dignard suggests a video of The Diamonds, a Canadian group originally out of Toronto, performing a repeat of one of their hit songs from the ´50s:

Stan French sends a URL for a video of Terry Fader, the ventriloquist who won last year´s America´s Got Talent grand prize:

J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter books, gives a fascinating, inspiring, and often funny commencement address to a graduating class at Harvard: