Did You Take Your Mean Pills Today?

So there is definitely a dark side to Korea...and we're here to tell you about it. Allow us to paint you a picture of just how evil this place can be...in one day!

The first offense was at school. We had a "special" day when the superintendent of the school came to see how the English town works. We showed them what we do in a normal day...OK actually we rehearsed what we were going to do WITH the students many times before the superintendent showed up, so it was really more like a play. Anyway, at the end of class one of the teachers was trying to get the students to show that they understood the phrase "Wow, so beautiful", and she asked one of the girls in class to stand up. None of the students could understand what she wanted from them and she had to prompt them with words like "cute" and "pretty" to get any results. Well after class our co-teachers asked us what we thought of the girl that she pulled up to the front class...did we really think she was "beautiful". Both of us answered yes of course (because she is a cute girl). Our co-teachers LAUGHED!!! They asked us if we were telling the the truth or not...and we answered that yes, we were. The next response was "give me a break". They simply could not believe that we could find this little 11 year old girl beautiful. Could any one give this girl a break? First of all, she is sporting a cast because she broke her arm, and couldn't be smarter. Also, we have not met such a personable child. She's always the first one to run up to us and say hi and give us hugs. I wish we had a picture to post of her (even though that would be unethical) so that you could see the insanity of this situation. We're not being biased, but who says these things?

The next "incident" happened after lunch. We stopped for a leisurely sit under a tree to watch some of the students high jump (on to a mattress) in their PE class. One of the girls in our 6th grade decided to stand next to us to say hi. Well after the high jump was finished the PE teacher walked by and said "hi" to us and hit the girl in the stomach with a rolled up piece of paper. Immediately following this the boy who was carrying the mattress hit the girl with it and almost knocked her over! As we walked up the stairs Shawn said to our co-teacher that it was wrong for them to hit the girl, especially as it seems she has no friends at all (she is often the victim of ridicule). Our co-teacher's response was...why? She could not understand why the other students (and teachers for that matter) should be nice to her. She was different and apparently should be reminded of it as often as possible is what we got out of it. We mentioned to her that we feel this is how serial killers are born (constant abuse with absolutely no sympathy), but the comment seemed to be lost, as we only got a little chuckle as a reply.

And finally, to end our little story, we were walking home from school and heard what sounded like arguing. We happened to glance over at the apartment across the street from ours and saw two ladies standing outside. When we looked closer, we saw that they were the ones who were arguing. And not just with words, but there was an all out brawl going on. These ladies were pushing, shoving, and swatting at each other like they were on WWE. Oh, did we happen to mention that these ladies were probably in their 60's? Never in our lives have we seen two older women fighting like this. If only we knew what they were fighting about! They were screaming things in Korean so it was obviously difficult to understand. I guess it is what it is, what else can we say. We love it here, but WOW!

Side note...We are leaving for Bali, Indonesia for a holiday, so check back in a couple of weeks for an update! Love y'all and keep reading!!!!! :)