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16 THURSDAY

SEPTEMBER 4, 2008 COMMUNITY

Expat living is a page dedicated


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daily lives. It is your page,
where you can share stories about
your life in Korea. Send story
ideas to Matthew Lamers
at mattlamers@heraldm.com

DAVID SMEATON’S PHOTO CHALLENGE — Open to all entries —


During a celebration at Jogye Temple in Seoul, people move around
like ghosts beneath the lanterns.
David Smeaton (www.davidsmeaton.com)

Smoke-free Dining:
September tourist festivals

Chungmuro International Film Festival


When: Sept. 3-11
‘Everybody Say No’ O Kitchen 1, Gahoe
Tel: 744-6420

O Kitchen 2, Itaewon
Tel: 797-6420
Where: Chungmuro, Seoul By Tiffany Candlish and I’m the owner.” Most of the change is inevitable.
Chungmuro, which runs through the heart of Seoul, is Healthy in the City their smoking clientele accepts Smoking is commonly associ- Buddha’s Belly Take Away,
widely regarded as a symbolic street for Korean cinema and Seoul is a smoker’s paradise. this policy. ated with Asian culture. In Itaewon 2-dong: 793-2173
remains the Mecca of the Korean film industry. A total of 170 While other cities have com- Sadly, as a non-smoker, there The decision to ban smoking China more than 60 percent of
Buddha’s Belly Restaurant and
films from 40 countries, including the latest in digital motion pletely banned smoking in bars are few options for a smoke free in their restaurants was a re- men smoke, with more starting Lounge,
pictures, will be screened at major theaters throughout Seoul and restaurants, many here night out in Seoul (unless you flection of current global culi- each year. That said, Singapore, Itaewon (smoke free until 10:00
and other venues, including Seoul Plaza and Namsangol don’t even have a non-smoking want to go to a big international nary trends. Even foodie capi- Thailand and North Korea — of p.m.) Tel: 796-9330
Hanok Village. section. For those who don’t chain like Outback or TGI tals, such as New York and all places — have made huge
For further information call 02-2236-6231 or go to smoke, this can be more than Friday). That being said, of the Paris, are opting for smoke-free steps toward becoming non- Istanbul, Itaewon (smoke free
http://www.chiffs.kr annoying at times. options available, there are legislation. As Susumu aptly smoking countries. On a recent until 8:00 p.m.)
As someone who finally freed some good finds. said, “If the French can do it, trip to Singapore, I was amazed Tel: 796-0271
herself from a nicotine addiction O Kitchen is an oasis for the then anyone can.” by the clean air in bars and
Cheongju Jikji Festival Wild Wasabi, Hongdae
eight months ago, this writer is non-smoker. With two locations Buddha’s Belly (in Itaewon) restaurants. Tel: 323-3674
only too well aware of the diffi- in Seoul (Gahoe-dong and has opted for a smoke-free envi- The argument against going
When: Sept. 4-7 culty in finding information Itaewon-dong), it is a great find. ronment as well. The original, smoke-free that is often made Thai Garden, Itaewon
Where: Cheongju Arts Hall and Cheongju Early about smoke-free dining. Both venues are 100 percent smaller location is 100 percent by bar and restaurant owners is Tel: 792-8836
Printing Museum Although I like to think of my- smoke free, even though non-smoking, while the that non-smoking policies are
Jikji, the world’s oldest text printed with metal type, has self as something of a Google Susumu Yonaguni, the co-pro- Restaurant and Lounge is bad for business. SM Vegetarian Buffet, Yangae
been designated by UNESCO as a Memory of the World ar- master, I found little of use on prietor is a smoker himself. smoke free during dining hours, The experience of the owners Tel: 576-9637
tifact. the internet on this topic. Susumu, who co-owns with his but allows smoking after 10 of both O Kitchen and Buddha’s
Meatpacker (smoke free until
Cheongju, home to the world’s oldest movable metal Despite the current “Every- wife Oh Jang-mi, told The p.m. Belly, contradict this point of 5:00p.m), Itaewon
type, has held the Jikji Festival since 2003 as part of body Say No” campaign, neither Korea Herald, “This is a space “We felt that a lot of our cus- view. While a total ban on smok- Tel: 797-7758
plans to develop the city into a “center of printing culture” the local government, nor the for every one. Non-smokers tomers preferred it,” Darrell ing in public places may be im-
like Germany’s Mainz, and to promote Jikji around the tourism hotlines offer a list of have the right to enjoy our Mahoney said. “Even as smok- possible or unlikely in the near Seocho Sariwon, Seocho
world. nonsmoking venues. Research space. ers, we preferred to dine in a future, it would be nice to see Tel: 3474-5005
Programs include taking part in ancient printing methods, for this column had to be done “When people ask about our non-smoking environment.” some more non-smoking sec-
performances of traditional plays and music, “Big 5” con- the old-fashioned way, by going smoking policy, I tell them that Mahoney and his business tions open. Outback Steakhouse,
certs, tight rope walking and exhibitions of old printed texts. out into the real world. even I have to smoke outside partner, Kim Tae-eung, feel that (ms.tiff@gmail.com) ubiquitous
For more information, call 043-277-5767 or visit the website
www.jikjifestival.com

Geumsan Insam (Ginseng) Festival


When: Aug. 29-Sept. 7
Where: Geumsan, South Chungcheong Province
Bringing Web 2.0 into the classroom
Geumsan is famous for its high-quality ginseng. The By Sean Smith I have used Bubbleply (http:// option. Simply add a link to a also useful if your students are
Insam Festival, which has been held every September since EFL www.bubbleply.com) with stu- YouTube video and the video blogging or using Moodle and
1981, is a traditional cultural event in which villagers pray What does Web 2.0 offer the dents. This a great way for stu- will be embedded on the page you want them to have avatars.
for a good harvest the following year. Programs include gin- language teacher? Your first ment due to resource require- dents to interact with a video on with a place to transcribe the There are too many Web 2.0
seng harvesting, performances of traditional arts and rituals, thoughts will probably be of ments such as computer labs, YouTube. Last September I in- video. More than one person sites to use with classes to be
concerts, an international ginseng trade fair, a ginseng cook- sites like YouTube (http:// but it is worth a look. troduced Bubbleply on my blog may transcribe the video and able to fully introduce all of them
ing competition and more. youtube.com) and Flickr Chinswing (http://www.chin- (http://eflgeek.com/index. other users are able to comment here, but others to consider in-
For more information, visit the festival’s web site at (http://flickr.com), but Web 2.0 is swing.com/) offers more struc- php/eflgeek/comments/bubble- as well as rate the transcription. clude: Voice Thread (http://
www.geumsan.go.kr/festival or call 041-750-2391 much more than that. Using ture than Second Life and pro- ply-revisited/) This is definitely a good listen- voicethread.com), Flickr (http://
Web 2.0 applications and web- vides learners with an opportu- Bubbleply takes a YouTube ing exercise for learners. flickr.com), Chuala (http://www.
sites will allow you to extend nity for listening and speaking video and allows you to add a va- Last semester I used chuala.com/), Thinkmap Visual
Andong International Mask Dance Festival your lesson beyond the walls of that is a little more controlled. riety of speech, thought, narra- BitStrips (http://www.bitstrips. Thesaurus (http://www.visualthe-
the classroom and give learners Essentially Chinswing is a mes- tion, or subtitle bubbles to it. com/create/comic/) as a home- saurus.com/), and Word Learner
When: Sept. 26-Oct. 5 the tools they need to continue sage board where you record Clearly this gives the teacher op- work assignment (http://eflgeek. (http://www.wordlearner.com/).
Where: Andong and Hahoe Village, North learning on their own. your voice and listen to other portunities to annotate a video, com/index.php/eflgeek/com- Two excellent blogs that will
Gyeongsang Province “Virtual world” site Second people talk. Instead of reading add English subtitles to aid in lis- ments/bitstrips/) for one student keep you informed of useful
The Andong International Mask Dance Festival will be Life (http://secondlife.com/) is re- threads you listen to them. The tening comprehension, add who was catching up, and will websites for the classroom are
held for 10 days on the main stage in Andong and Hahoe ceiving a lot of attention from site is organized into channels thought bubbles for comedy, or probably use it with all students Larry Ferlazzos Websites of the
Village. The theme of this year’s festival is “exciting language teachers due to the allowing learners to more easily even have students find a video of this semester. Day (http://larryferlazzo.
maskdance, world of pleasure.” In Joseon times the mask high level of interaction between find discussions of interest to their own to Bubblply for task- FaceYourManga (http://www. edublogs.org/) in particular
dance has been used to indirectly criticize the ruling “yang- participants. There are several them. With this site, you could based English use. My students faceyourmanga.com) is an check out The “Next Best ...” list
ban” class. The yangban were often criticized and condemned groups of teachers involved in have a thread devoted to your will be finding their own YouTube avatar generator. Using this site (http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.or
by the common people. promoting Second Life in lan- class where students talk about video to Bubbleply and then you could have learners create g/2008/08/25/the-next-the-best-
Direct criticism of the yangban was strictly forbidden then, guage teaching. One of these is an assigned topic and respond adding it to their class blogs. avatars of themselves, print list/). The second site to watch is
so behind masks the common people satirized the yangban, Second Life English (http://www. to each other. Kantalk (http://kantalk.com/) them up and bring them to Langwitches (http://langwitch-
developing the craft into various forms of masked dance with esl-secondlife.blogspot.com/). Another simple assignment requires the use of Skype class. You can then redistribute es.org/blog/).
regional variations. Using Second Life you could would be to have students (http://www.skype.com) for voice the avatars so that learners If you have other sites to
For more information, call 054-840-6398 or visit the web- bring classroom role play to a choose their own discussion and recording or live chatting. One have to find the person whose share, please leave a comment
site www.maskdance.com (Yonhap News) whole new level. This may be dif- participate in it using a shared feature that I think is useful is picture they have using lan- on my blog (http://eflgeek.com).
ficult for some teachers to imple- link for homework. the “transcribe a YouTube video” guage learned in class. This is (eslteacher@gmail.com)

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