I had big plans for December blogging. Posts about sprucing up my tiny apartment, Christmas shopping, wine-cheese pizza-sex and the city marathon-girl's nights at my place, and weekend parties. I did all these things, and was too busy to post about it.
After a majestic first two weeks in December with lots of cancelled classes and desk-warming, came a week of EPIK teacher training from 3pm to 6:50 daily. I left my school everyday that week around 2pm and went to the Nescafe in Yeonsan to meet up with other teachers to split a cab to our destination. The building in which the training workshops were located was literally on a mountain.
I learned later that our training center is about a 5 minute walk from a school for children with physical or mental disabilities. Tells you a lot about the Korean culture's way of thinking, doesn't it?
No, we're not ashamed of our children with disabilities at all.
We just make them attend a special needs school located at the top of the mountain somewhere in the outskirts of the city.
It reminded me of volunteering at that orphanage for children with disabilities. They weren't orphans; they were just left there by their biological parents because it's still considered shameful to have a child with any disability. For a country that's so advanced, Korea can be so behind. I've seen Koreans visibly recoil from anyone who has a disability, whilst texting away furiously on their newest phone models.
It was great being able to see some familiar faces everyday, and getting to leave school early, but since the workshop wasn't mandatory, I probably wouldn't sign up for it again next year. It was a positive learning experience, but it really wasn't worth going home three hours later for.
Not much else to say about it, except that I didn't really enjoy it.
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