Up for the Challenge Part1

Teaching at a public high school in Korea can be a breezy undertaking. Despite the fact that many foreign teachers are blessed with the daunting task of entertaining, and having to elicit English speech from close to a thousand noisy, often uninterested students weekly, it must be noted that we only have to teach twenty hours a week. Yes, in America, we tend to be captivated by the stories of the prodigious ability of Korean students in the classroom. After living here I must attest that most of that is true, however these Koreans are still students. In my case High School students. So it would only be logical to accept that even Korean students like to be boisterous and turn a deaf ear to their patient American teacher from time to time. It can be disconcerting at times. Although in my opinion, the perks one receives as a high school teacher in Korea heavily outweigh the negatives. At least in my case-especially on Fridays. Since I only have two classes on Fridays, I essentially have an entire day to myself.

If you are reading this in your own nation thinking: "well, I could use an extra day to tidy up around here." Or maybe:"I really want to have more time to sit in a coffee shop and read this highly captivating book I was just given by my friend who said it was unputdownable." Then you are not me! As I am already afforded a light day every week, I have the luxury to spend it idly reading, going to the bank, playing a little guitar, sending postcards to long lost overworked friends, searching for movie times, or even writing in this blog. Whereas my situation two years ago in America was quite different. I actually had to WORK for eight hours. These days I am bestowed with a nice opportunity to ease into the weekend.

Yesterday, in fact was Friday and I must say that I took full advantage of my light working duties to partake in one of my favorite activities; reading. Actually, on Thursday a friend loaned me a book that was rumored to be a good read so I snatched it from him and deposited it in my bag for Friday. I had no intentions of making Friday a reading day, but sometimes once I start something, it's difficult for me to finish. Anyway, the book in question was Chuck Klosterman's IV, which is an unedited creation of interviews with famous people. However, my short description is just to give you the basic idea of the book. What's interesting is not really the concept of the book itself, but the nexus of it is the fact that the interviewer is able to speak to such a diverse sweep of preeminent, big cheeses. He had em' all from Plant, to Brittney.

Anyway, one article that I found curious was Mr. Klosterman's brave undertaking of trying to survive for an entire week on mere diet of McDonald's Chicken Nuggets. Surprisingly he lived to write about it. That was back in 1996, and since he did in fact live to tell his brave tale, he was also fortunate to interview later the gentleman who created Super Size Me. Super Size Me of course is the documentary about the guy who only eats McDonald's for 30 days. Unlike Klosterman, he was afforded the luxury of eating french fries and burgers. However, he ate McDonald's for an entire month! That's a lot of burgers, fries and cokes!

So, as I was reading about McDonald's on my relaxing Friday, I suddenly had the urge to take a little field trip away from school. Around one o'clock yesterday, I sauntered outside, jumped on the 77 bus and traveled five minutes to old downtown to the ubiquitous golden arches. I hadn't sampled their greasy, bland, boxy tasting food for a while, so something inside of me made me compelled to partake in a McDonald's binge. I just had a sudden calling. Reading does that to me sometimes. Especially reading about food. For example; if anyone reads Haruki Murakami novels, they know that writer uses spaghetti a lot in his stories. Every time I read Murakami I crave spaghetti, and only spaghetti. So now here I was at McDonald's with a Shanghai Spicy Chicken Sandwich, a spicy chicken burrito thing, fries, and a Coke right in front of me. It was a quiet, but ambitious challenge, and I rose to the challenge and devoured the food in under five minutes. I was hungry.

Anyway, despite many human's distaste of McDonald's, I have to say if you don't partake in these greasy adventures on a rare occasion, then it is you who is missing out. Although, as I was pondering those brave writers and filmmakers who rose to macho challenges of eating one thing for a particular period of time, I naturally had to think of all the brave, unnoticed souls who curiously eat the same thing in Korea every day and never seem to complain. That food of course is Kimchi. Since I was eating McDonald's, I told myself that I hadn't eaten Kimchi yet this day.

The striking thing is that I can't remember a day in Korea, where I didn't eat it. What was even more unsettling is that I had already made plans to eat pizza with some friends for dinner at Mr. Songs Pizza in a Cup, and he didn't serve Kimchi on the side; just pickles. Therefore, I was looking at my first kimchiless day in Korea. Here I was on a quiet Friday, satisfied from a rare fast food fill, about to return to a pleasant read in a coffee shop. That's how Fridays are for me; pleasant. However, it was strange to discover that I wouldn't eat Kimchi for a day. I actually like kimchi. Since I enjoy sampling it, and it is one of most ubiquitous things in Korea, I think I will take a pause for today and write a short tribute to it next time. It's time for lunch, I'm thinking Korean food today.