Workshop - Complete

 

Our annual teacher’s training was pretty much what I expected it to be. The lecturers were OK and gave me a few ideas that I would like to try and work in to my teaching. There were the usual attendees who felt that they absolutely HAD to point out, loudly but not directly at the lecturers, that what the information presented was irrelevant because it did not apply to them in particular and there should be left out altogether. All in all I felt that the workshop was worth my time.

There were a few interesting things about this session that did stand out. Firstly, the location. The resort we were at is located in a gorgeous mountainous area. Places like this are why so many Koreans believe “Korea is a beautiful country”. I put that in quotes because I come from South Africa. SA earn money with it natural beauty and wildlife. Korea is not going to impress me in terms of general natural beauty. The resort we were at is nestled in these lush green mountains and offers various activities from the mundane, for Korea, like hiking to the more adventurous, paragliding. Right next to the main building is a short walkway with statues lining the way. ALL the statues are of women, and more than half are of what you could call a soft erotic nature.

The statue in the first photo was my personal favourite. It is of a women resting on the railing looking at the scene below. The detail on the underwear and body is amazing and I was looking at that particular piece for quite some time. If only the artist had put in a tenth of the work on the hair that he had put in to the body and underwear...

Also something to note about this workshop was that we were not allowed to drink alcohol, at all. See, the thing is that there are always people who drink, get drunk, and then do stupid things. Apparently this time they took photos of what they did and put it on Facebook. These people just refuse to accept that we are held to a far stricter standard that any Korean will ever be. You see, our beloved Korean media found photos on Facebook and published it to show just how well behaved us non-Korean teachers are. It is OK for Korean teachers to go away for a weekend, on the department’s expense mind, to basically climb a mountain as an excuse to get drunk, but it is not OK for us to buy our own booze and get drunk after hours. Yes, indeed, we welcome foreigners in Korea. If they were not here then we would have to write more about the bad behaviour of our own people.

Note: Most of the media publishes stuff like this because it sells. Some people read it, many dismiss it. Just what numbers ends up believing it I will leave up to you to decide.