That Time We Got Famous in Korea and a List of Gifts

Hello friends, family, and blog readers!  Happy May Day!  This week is sure to be a fun one, as we are celebrating Children's Day on Friday by hosting "Market Day" at school.  Basically, this is a school festival all day with games, candy, and general mayhem.  I'm looking forward to it and hope I'm going to be posted in the facepainting room!

Today's blog is going to be devoted to two topics:
(1) The time we were on Korean national television.
(2) The crazy gifts we get because we're waygooks (or foreigners).


Famous in Korea
Two weekends ago, we received a text from our boss asking us to come in for a television interview on a Sunday.  A SUNDAY.  We have a pretty busy schedule throughout the week, so the idea of coming in on one of our days off was not too appealing.  Unfortunately, we let ourselves get guilt tripped into doing the job, so on Sunday we found ourselves back at school.  We didn't know a whole lot about what we were going to do, but our boss told us it was just an interview on behalf of one of our better speaking students.

Turns out that we were being interviewed by SBS, one of the major broadcasting companies in Korea (comparable to CBS or NBC).  They set us up in funny little "scenes" where we acted like the professional teachers and K, the student, pretended like she had never met us before.

The whole filming process took about an hour, and the spot aired on national television at 7:30am the following Tuesday.  Here is the spot in full below:

So on Tuesday, all of our students told us they saw us on television (they were fairly impressed).  Apparently even a lot of our students' moms called the school to tell our boss that we "looked nice" on television.  But was that the end of our fame?  Oh, no.  On the way down the escalator to the subway station at home, an old man shouted at us ("HEY!") and waved.  He then gave us a giant thumbs up.  So yes.  We are now officially famous in Korea.

Let's Give the Waygooks a Gift!
I mentioned in my last post how an old man on the subway gave us candy.  Well, this isn't the only gift we've received since getting to Korea.  Almost every week we get something or other from our students or the kids' parents just for being teachers-- candy, fruit, cake, cookies, juice, coffee, etc.  These are normal gifts.

Funnier to talk about, however, are the gifts we get from complete strangers (or bare acquaintances) on the merit that we are waygooks, or foreigners.  Below is a list of the gifts we have received so far (and I imagine this list will continue to grow!).

1.  Candy from a total stranger on the subway.  We threw it away.  It was old man candy.
2.  Candy from a convenience store owner near our school.  He calls us his "friends" and often throws in a pack of gummy bears or M&Ms for free when we stop by.
3.  Nachos at a beer garden.  Granted, we were with a friend of the server's at the time.
4.  Shot of spiced rum from a bartender.  Again, we were with a friend of the owner/bartender.  And he took a shot with us.
5.  2 eggs in a plastic sack from our bus driver on the way home from work.  We had gotten up to indicate we were getting off the next stop.  He asked us "Oria?" (Ori Station?) to pretty much verify that we knew what we were doing.  When we said "Neh," (Yes), he held out a sack to me, nodding and smiling.  Inside were two eggs.  We thanked him and smiled.  And proceeded to throw away the eggs once we got home.  Sorry, bus driver.  We still follow the "don't take candy from strangers" rule, and I think that rule extends to eggs, too.  Besides... they were eggs.