Korean Training: The Mind and The Body.

A few days had passed since my intense, intensive training and my mind felt as sharp as a wooden spoon. But it began to dawn on me that for all the cognitive workouts I was getting, I had neglected by body for too long. My body! That thing which my worldy wise brain relied upon to get from place to place spreading knowledge to all and illuminating the darkest corners of ignorance with the light of my insights.

In fact it had been eight long years since I did any regular exercise or set foot in a gym. I knew this feeling of shame well. I had had the same thoughts at the seven year mark, but pushed the concerns deep into the corners of my psyche and then drowned them with fine wine and Guatemalan rum.

Only this time there was no fine wine to hand and the Korean corner shops selection of South American aged rums was frankly a disgrace.

More worryingly I was surrounded by teachers who worked out. Eddie was and is a gym addict. He is named Eddie due to a love of Iron Maiden who you might not (but probably should) know have a massive monster called Eddie as a mascot.
Eddie was leaving soon, but I had been subjected to seeing his dedication for nearly three months and he was not the only one.

Blancquita was often to be found in the gym. Dubs had just joined Eddies gym and fucking Little Spoon had only last week run a half marathon with Korean soldiers! I have long prided myself on my lethargy and general disdain for anything that hints at hard work, but enough was enough.

I was going to join the gym. Soon my body would reflect my mind; a hulking powerhouse of super human agility and speed. But before I had even put pen to paper at the gym, I made an important phone call.

Little Spoon: "Hello"

Me: "Ah hello Little Spoon what do you want?"

Little Spoon: "You called me idiot, and stop calling me Little Spoon."

Me: "Ah yes...so I did, and no I wont stop. I rang you to challenge you to a race. I'm going to race you Little Spoon and I'm going to defeat you."

Laughter was coming out of my phone. How odd, perhaps it was a crossed line or maybe she was watching a particularly amusing episode of a Korean soap opera.

Little Spoon: "You don't do any exercise, you probably can't even run, I run 7 or 8 miles a day, sure come running with me."

Unbelievably she had been laughing at me! I didn't like the cut of her jib and I told her so...

Me: "I don't like the cut of your jib Little Spoon, but I will buy some new trainers or 'sneakers' as you barbarians call them and I will do a quick fitness test at the gym and then I'll prepare to race you and destroy you"

The challenge was set. On the face of it a person who runs daily, just ran a half marathon with apparent ease and a man who hasn't jogged in eight years and drinks far too much would not be much of a contest. But I was confident my body had simply kept itself honed and ready for action over these recent indolent times.

I hit the gym hard. I was going to run first to see how many miles I would speed through in twenty-five minutes and then pump some serious iron to make sure the guns were still firing.

Fourty minutes later and the results were in.

I had the upper body strength of an unusually scrawny toddler and the aerobic fitness of a morbidly obese asthmatic. I was both perplexed by my bodies inability to perform physical acts of almost any description and feeling marginally less confident about my race.

As I write this I am aching slightly, from my fourth "gym day" and there has been improvement; I am perhaps less scrawny toddler and now into the realms of distinctly average five year old.

But I will buy those new trainers and I will defeat Little Spoon.

Teaching in Korea: Intensive Training for an Intense Mind.

My Summer Intensives were announced to me half way through July. You might wonder why all my blogs are so far behind the actual date, but I promise to catch up and begin to update more often with more dull and yet informative posts that actually give some semblance of an insight into teaching. But this is not the time.

The new manager has told me I need to see him for training on my summer intensive classes and for a guide to the syllabus. I have been given two classes per week extra, teaching "Newspaper Writing" for three hours per class.

So my manger (the one with the face of a young boy playing pranks on his school mates) comes wandering into my class room to prepare me and give me the materials for this nightmarish new schedule. Apparently I teach them the subject for an hour or so, for 45 minutes they read the materials and in the final hour they make a newspaper article on the subject.

He hands me a piece of paper and says "Here is your syllabus".
I see. The "syllabus" consists of literally one or two words per lesson.
Lesson One: History.
I look up at him. Ah I see, this little whipper snapper is playing one of his pranks. The cheeky little rascal; any minute now he will shake my hand with one of those joke shop buzzers that gives you a shock, or offer me chewing gum that turns my lips blue. I smile at him. "Ah good, so where is the material?"

My manager pauses and says "That's it, we want you to make up the class, find the materials, use your own teaching style, not company ones, your own style"

I wait for the punchline. Oh right it's not a joke.

Well here is the problem boss, I'm not a qualified teacher remember? That's why you can pay me a pittance compared to the other teachers who have taught before or even expressed an interest in nurturing the minds of children.
Remember me? No experience, no teaching qualifications, not even an enthusiastic interview.

What the fuck do you mean use my "style"? My "style" is lounging around my apartment in boxer shorts drinking beer and watching football. Shall I teach the kids in my underwear and get them wasted? My "style" is illegally downloading copyrighted material and listening to violent, misogynistic rap music. How's that for lesson two?

I shake my head and skim through this bulimic syllabus. Lesson Six: Ivy Leagues.

Me: "Erm...I don't know much about Ivy Leagues, what do you want me to talk about for over an hour?"

Foetus/Manager: "Just talk about how big they are in American culture, how much we hear about their importance in the US media, about parents hopes for their kids etc, anything."

Right, there appears to have been a misunderstanding. You want me to talk about a range of experiences and attitudes prevalent in America? That's lovely. Except I'm not from America am I, you infant faced imbecile?

I'm BRITISH. Do you see a cowboy hat perched upon my noble brow? Is there a star spangled banner tie around my cultured neck? NO. Because I'm fucking British.
I know nothing of your Ivy Leagues you oik. Do I sound American? Do I look American? Well? Look at me! I'm wearing a top hat and a monocle. Damn your eyes man, you're sat only 3 feet away from me. As you walked through the door I was pouring myself a cup of tea and as I sit here now I'm preparing crumpets.
What the hell is wrong with you?

He seems perplexed by my issues surrounding Ivy Leagues, but tells me to do my best. I will. Only my best is going to be some of the worst teaching that the continent of Asia has ever been subjected to.

I might make up a pretend league table of different types of Ivy and get the kids to rate them in a series of match ups. So Common Ivy or Himalayan Ivy which is the best? No Kim Jae Yong, Boston Ivy is actually a member of the grape family and not a true Ivy, that's an F for you.

I make my way home to sulk, strip to my underwear and download a film in my own special teaching style.

A Morale Boosting Meeting...

It was Monday morning and the English teachers of our school had been summoned to a meeting with the schools owner and our new manager. Apparently we were to be introduced to the manager, and given a morale boosting talk that would have us brimming with excitement and enthusiasm for the upcoming weeks.

I could barely contain myself; coming into work an hour early is something I have always relished, especially when it is unpaid and I spent the previous evening drinking heavily.

We take our seats and the owner and the new manager stroll in grinning like the Cheshire Cat and...the manager looks about eleven. This boy is my manager? When he first walked in, I was about to tell him to go and wait for class and buy himself a lollypop. He'd better be good.

Little Boy in his Dads clothes:"Hi guys, first of all thanks for coming".

Reasonable start, I decide to stay and hear him out.

Little Boy in his Dads clothes:"The owner is a bit disappointed in some of the things you guys have done. Many of you have only got 24 or 27 hours work a week and yet not one of you has asked if you can do anything else"

Right. My usually sunny disposition had rapidly clouded over and rain was on the way. I look around the room and see a mixture of bemusement and distaste.
So let me get this right. You give us our contracts and assign classes, you then feel that outside of the job we are here for, we should offer to do little extras?

Like what? Perhaps I could nip in on my ONE DAY A WEEK OFF and say, mop the floors? Maybe you would like me to finish teaching 6 hours of lessons and, I don't know...clean the toilets, repaint the ceiling, build you a fucking extension and kit it out with a rocking horse and some crayons so the new manager has something to do?

So you're dissapointed that we haven't asked for a list of chores to do when we are not in class? Well I'm dissapointed too. I'm dissapointed that I can't come to work drunk. I'm dissapointed that I can't slap the kids. So we're both dissapointed, let's just move on.

And then we are informed that if we don't get more students some of us might be sacked. Excellent. Now I'm not sure if "morale boosting" means something different in Korea, but considering this is an English school they seem to have their definitions a little confused.

But now it becomes some sort of surreal good cop, bad cop routine.

Owner:"And please don't think that you should just do your one year, we want you to stay for two or three years, all of you."

Ah...so we might be sacked at any moment, but we can stay for several years. Gottya.

Then we hear about "Summer Intensives". Additional classes that are from 9.30am to 12.30pm, and we get no extra pay. YES! Sign me up.
Apparently intensives offer us a "great opportunity". Hmmm...there's that translation issue again, this is like when you told us you wanted us to stay for ever, but you might sack us. It is like when you told us you would boost morale and then you crushed it.

I think you confused the meaning of "great opportunity" with the meaning of "complete fucking pain in the arse".

The manager is still smiling and asks if we are all good. Allow me to answer in the theme of the meeting. "Yes we are great, that was a fantastic meeting, I look forward to the next one." Oh my mistake, translation problems you know how it is;I meant to say "No we are borderline suicidal, your meeting was fucking retarded and I hope you are both run over by a sewage truck on the way home".

And the news just keeps getting better. I have been given two summer intensives per week for the next month. Oh joy of joys. And then the toddler in charge tells me to come and see him for my training, this should be brilliant. What are you training me in? Finger painting? How to make a farting noise with your hand under your armpit? I look forward to it; or should I have said I'd rather gouge out my own eye with a rusty spoon? It's so tricky to find the right words in these meetings.

Marine McLovin and the Watch Negotiation

Six proud days had passed since I had sung my way to glory and now I was back on my old stomping ground with only two friends in tow. Dubs had joined me for a night of tequila and watery beer and with him was our schools head instructor Stanley. Stanley is from Chicago and acquired his name due to his delight at some ice hockey team winning something called the Stanley Cup. He even bought a cigar for the occasion, so Stanley seems a fitting moniker.

It was to be a lowkey evening of drinking, eating chicken and complaining about trivial matters that do not warrant complaints. But as we whined and sank shots of tequila, a group of five US Marines approached us and asked us where we were from. Teachers and soldiers don't tend to mix a great deal and it is fair to say that amongst the teaching community in general the opinion on soldiers is somewhere between poor and diabolical.

But this group of shaven headed, hulking, trained killers seemed a friendly bunch and before long we were exchanging stories. For every tale I heard of a gun battle in Basra, I would regale them with the time that the air conditioning in my classroom was not working and the temperature soared to 32C!!

As they ran us through their weapons training, we told them about photocopying our weekly test sheets, and I believe both groups got an insight into a way of life they could barely have imagined before this informative meeting.

The Marines were all called incredibly American names such as Chip, Hank and Donovan. But I liked them, and we soon agreed to head to a Sheesha bar and smoke flavoured tobacco over a few more drinks.

And it was here that Corporal Mclovin bared his soul. If you have seen the movie Superbad, then you know full well who Mclovin is. If you have not, then google him and imagine an identical human being on steroids.
Mclovin had been the quietest of the bunch until we got to smoking and now he began to tell us about his fiancee who had ended their relationship by text message saying "the distance was too great".

Stanley asked where they lived in the US, and Mclovin explained that she was a soldier too and she was based in fucking Seoul. I wasn't having that.

"The distance, is too great? No disrespect Mclovin mate, but she's a fucking idiot. The train gets you to Seoul in less than 2 hours. I know you loved her, but this might be for the best, you don't want simpletons for children."

Mclovin went very quiet and our group stopped talking. Apple flavoured smoke drifted past my face and the only sound that could be heard was a gentle bubbling of the water in our sheesha as Dubs smoked thoughtfully and watched.

Mclovin: "Yeah. It was some bullshit. I found out she cheated on me dude, I did everything for that bitch...but fuck I still love her."

Me:"I understand lad, but listen, to me Mclovin, you have to move on, be glad you found out that she was a selfish, cheating bitch now and not when you were married with 2 or 3 little Mclovins running around."

Mclovin looked at me and nodded, but his lip was trembling,"I know, but I don't know how to get over her"

I suggested that maybe he could turn his unhealthy love for her and the pain of loss into a more constructive hate. To take every happy memory they had and twist it in his mind into something poisonous and vile, wish ill on her and hope that she got moved from Seoul to say Afghanistan.

He didn't seem so sure. In fact I could see his eyes beginning to well. NO! I could not see this. I don't like to see a grown man cry at the best of times, but a grown man who looked uncannily like Mclovin from Superbad? That would be awful. And a grown man who looked like Mclovin from Superbad who was a trained killer and had bought me a beer? That would be unspeakably dreadful.

I needed to think fast and I needed to make him see the positive in all this. But how? Some sort of snappy one liner that offered hope. Something original and maybe using a metaphor or two. He saw this woman as the one that got away. How to symbolise this?
Of course! Fishermen. Fishermen talk of the one that got away about a prize fish. So women could be called fish for the purpose of my line. Brilliant.

All I needed was to give him hope, let him know that out there in this vast world there were many women who he could find who did not think 1 hour and 45 minutes on a train was too far to make an engagement work for a year.
But what to call the world?

Think Roberts, damn you, think. YES! It was so obvious, the sea. Fish live in the sea and if one gets away there are always more. I smiled to myself; a moment of inspiration once again, and I could avert the disaster that would be a US Marine sobbing onto my perfectly ironed polo shirt.

I tried it out. It did not fail, although I thought for a moment I caught Dubs and Stanley rolling their eyes. Perhaps the metaphors were too subtle for them, who knows and who cares?
The important thing was that Mclovin was back from the brink and our group began to talk of better times and more beers.

We headed out into the night and as we wandered towards our next venue, another soldier appeared, shouting to our soldiers (yes they were ours now) he ran up to join us and then without warning looked at me, looked at my wrist and said "Hey dude, nice watch. I want to buy it, how much?"

I would be lying if I said I was not a little taken aback. But my time with the US Marine Corps had taught me to be prepared for anything at any time. I gave him a quizzical look and said "Sorry?"

Marine in need of a watch:"Your watch man, I like it. I want to buy it off you, seriously. So just give me a price, but listen don't be a dick and say something stupid like One Million Won okay? So come on, how much?"

I affected a look of contemplation and pursed my lips as if battling with numerous thoughts and then looked at him with as blank an expression as I could muster...

Me:"Erm...I'd say about One Million Won".

The sale fell through, and after a brief visit to Mcdonalds, our trio of intrepid teachers parted company with our military friends and headed for home, afterall we had a busy week ahead of us and the owner of our school was holding a meeting this coming Monday to "boost morale".
Perhaps I should have invited Mclovin in hindsight, but I think his morale was boosted enough for one week, so it would have to be a teachers only affair at our teachers meeting.

And what a meeting it turned out to be...

Until next time, this was Monkey Roberts.

I Sing, Therefore I Am...

I am walking down the neon lit streets of downtown Daegu, deep in thought and more than a little broken. My moment of inspiration only moments earlier had led me to invent a new sport that would sweep the globe to rapturous praise, but my colleagues either scorned me or looked mildly amused. And not amused in the way someone is by a fantastic comedian, but more how they snigger when someone dancing, slips and falls into a table, badly injuring themselves.

Although my friends were still with me in the flesh, I could feel I had lost them in spirit. I had slipped in their eyes, gone from being a role model and perhaps even an icon to being the class clown. Maybe even an object of mockery.

This was serious. I am the one who does the needless mocking and covers up my own inadequacies by picking on people in my circle of friends. I needed Tiny and Little Spoon to look up to me once more (as I am sure they always did) and not in the physical sense.
I needed Justice and Dubs to forget my moment of insanity with the "Small Off" and again see me as a mind of infinite wisdom and wit. At the moment the only virtue I would still be recognised for was probably my humble modesty.

Little Spoon suggests going to a Norebang. Jackpot.

Norebang is Korean Karaoke, you have a private room with hundreds of songs to choose from, snacks and an overpriced bar. Overpriced bars are not usually my thing, but I enjoy a snack and I felt confident that I was probably one of the best vocalists currently alive.
No sooner had I fallen from grace, than a chance to redeem myself had arrived.

We all agreed, it was time to sing. Ha. I very much doubted that this band of English teachers were much in the way of singers. I've never sang in a karaoke back home, but the more I thought about it, the more it became obvious that this was simply because it was too small a stage for my talents.

Time to go to a shop and buy cheap booze to smuggle into the Norebang. Spoon and Tiny pack their oversized handbags with Soju and beer.
We approach the front door. I look at my hapless friends, smiling away, unaware that after my first song they will be too ashamed of their voices to dare touch the mic. Tonight will be an audience with Monkey Roberts.

We walk in and I push my way to the front; out of my way amateurs I'm the greatest front man who lived on my way to the stage.
We choose our booth and Dubs has had the nerve to pick up the song book. Give me that book boy, I'm Otis Redding reborn.
I pick the song, the music starts. I'm Mick Jagger.

I sneer at my friends as they take a seat and I grab the microphone. I'm James Brown.

I sing.

I'm fucking dreadful. Absolutely appalling.

I glance around to make sure an impostor has not sneaked in and begun wailing like a demented baboon in order to ruin my moment of redemption.
I see myself in a mirror, my mouths moving. This cacophony of hellish sounds is coming from me.

There is a mixture of shock and fear upon the faces of the people who had come here to hear me perform. I should stop. I must stop. But the failure, the shame, the final nail in my coffin.
No,I will not stop. I will sing louder and I will climb up onto the table in the middle of the room.

I knock over the bowl of snacks. Fuck it, if these bastards are hungry they should have eaten before we came out. I begin jabbing my finger angrily at each of their startled faces and my off-key, flat warbling turns into a bestial howling.

It works. Justice is ad libbing parts of the chorus. Dubs is grinning like a mad man who just had his strait jacket cut off and Tiny is laughing and bobbing her head. There is another screeching sound that is cutting through my nightmarish performance like finger nails down a chalkboard. It's Little Spoon. She is also ad libbing. Only she has her back to the screen with the lyrics and is just roaring and screaming unintelligble gibberish.

I'm back. I've won. Come Monday, I can once more swagger into school with my head held high and look my workmates in the eye with my steely gaze.

My debut album will be out next year. This was Monkey Roberts.