korea herald 20080904

16 COMMUNITYTHURSDAYSEPTEMBER 4, 2008

Expat living is a page dedicated to the issues that affect expats' 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

Chungmuro International Film Festival

When: Sept. 3-11Where: Chungmuro, Seoul

Chungmuro, which runs through the heart of Seoul, iswidely regarded as a symbolic street for Korean cinema andremains the Mecca of the Korean film industry. A total of 170films from 40 countries, including the latest in digital motionpictures, will be screened at major theaters throughout Seouland other venues, including Seoul Plaza and NamsangolHanok Village.

For further information call 02-2236-6231 or go tohttp://www.chiffs.kr

Cheongju Jikji Festival

When: Sept. 4-7Where: Cheongju Arts Hall and Cheongju EarlyPrinting Museum

Jikji, the world’s oldest text printed with metal type, hasbeen designated by UNESCO as a Memory of the World ar-tifact.

Cheongju, home to the world’s oldest movable metaltype, has held the Jikji Festival since 2003 as part ofplans to develop the city into a “center of printing culture”like Germany’s Mainz, and to promote Jikji around theworld.

Programs include taking part in ancient printing methods,performances of traditional plays and music, “Big 5” con-certs, tight rope walking and exhibitions of old printed texts.For more information, call 043-277-5767 or visit the websitewww.jikjifestival.com

Geumsan Insam (Ginseng) Festival

When: Aug. 29-Sept. 7Where: Geumsan, South Chungcheong Province

Geumsan is famous for its high-quality ginseng. TheInsam Festival, which has been held every September since1981, is a traditional cultural event in which villagers prayfor a good harvest the following year. Programs include gin-seng harvesting, performances of traditional arts and rituals,concerts, an international ginseng trade fair, a ginseng cook-ing competition and more.

For more information, visit the festival’s web site atwww.geumsan.go.kr/festival or call 041-750-2391

Andong International Mask Dance Festival

When: Sept. 26-Oct. 5Where: Andong and Hahoe Village, NorthGyeongsang Province

The Andong International Mask Dance Festival will beheld for 10 days on the main stage in Andong and HahoeVillage. The theme of this year’s festival is “excitingmaskdance, world of pleasure.” In Joseon times the maskdance has been used to indirectly criticize the ruling “yang-ban” class. The yangban were often criticized and condemnedby the common people.

Direct criticism of the yangban was strictly forbidden then,so behind masks the common people satirized the yangban,developing the craft into various forms of masked dance withregional variations.

For more information, call 054-840-6398 or visit the web-site www.maskdance.com (Yonhap News)

September tourist festivals

By Tiffany Candlish

Seoul is a smoker’s paradise.While other cities have com-pletely banned smoking in barsand restaurants, many heredon’t even have a non-smokingsection. For those who don’tsmoke, this can be more thanannoying at times.

As someone who finally freedherself from a nicotine addictioneight months ago, this writer isonly too well aware of the diffi-culty in finding informationabout smoke-free dining.Although I like to think of my-self as something of a Googlemaster, I found little of use onthe internet on this topic.

Despite the current “Every-body Say No” campaign, neitherthe local government, nor thetourism hotlines offer a list ofnonsmoking venues. Researchfor this column had to be donethe old-fashioned way, by goingout into the real world.

Sadly, as a non-smoker, thereare few options for a smoke freenight out in Seoul (unless youwant to go to a big internationalchain like Outback or TGIFriday). That being said, of theoptions available, there aresome good finds.

O Kitchen is an oasis for thenon-smoker. With two locationsin Seoul (Gahoe-dong andItaewon-dong), it is a great find.Both venues are 100 percentsmoke free, even thoughSusumu Yonaguni, the co-pro-prietor is a smoker himself.Susumu, who co-owns with hiswife Oh Jang-mi, told TheKorea Herald, “This is a spacefor every one. Non-smokershave the right to enjoy ourspace.

“When people ask about oursmoking policy, I tell them thateven I have to smoke outside

and I’m the owner.” Most oftheir smoking clientele acceptsthis policy.

The decision to ban smokingin their restaurants was a re-flection of current global culi-nary trends. Even foodie capi-tals, such as New York andParis, are opting for smoke-freelegislation. As Susumu aptlysaid, “If the French can do it,then anyone can.”

Buddha’s Belly (in Itaewon)has opted for a smoke-free envi-ronment as well. The original,smaller location is 100 percentnon-smoking, while theRestaurant and Lounge issmoke free during dining hours,but allows smoking after 10p.m.

“We felt that a lot of our cus-tomers preferred it,” DarrellMahoney said. “Even as smok-ers, we preferred to dine in anon-smoking environment.”

Mahoney and his businesspartner, Kim Tae-eung, feel that

the change is inevitable. Smoking is commonly associ-

ated with Asian culture. InChina more than 60 percent ofmen smoke, with more startingeach year. That said, Singapore,Thailand and North Korea — ofall places — have made hugesteps toward becoming non-smoking countries. On a recenttrip to Singapore, I was amazedby the clean air in bars andrestaurants.

The argument against goingsmoke-free that is often madeby bar and restaurant owners isthat non-smoking policies arebad for business.

The experience of the ownersof both O Kitchen and Buddha’sBelly, contradict this point ofview. While a total ban on smok-ing in public places may be im-possible or unlikely in the nearfuture, it would be nice to seesome more non-smoking sec-tions open.

(ms.tiff@gmail.com)

O Kitchen 1, GahoeTel: 744-6420

O Kitchen 2, ItaewonTel: 797-6420

Buddha’s Belly Take Away,Itaewon 2-dong: 793-2173

Buddha’s Belly Restaurant andLounge, Itaewon (smoke free until 10:00p.m.) Tel: 796-9330

Istanbul, Itaewon (smoke freeuntil 8:00 p.m.)Tel: 796-0271

Wild Wasabi, HongdaeTel: 323-3674

Thai Garden, ItaewonTel: 792-8836

SM Vegetarian Buffet, YangaeTel: 576-9637

Meatpacker (smoke free until5:00p.m), ItaewonTel: 797-7758

Seocho Sariwon, SeochoTel: 3474-5005

Outback Steakhouse, ubiquitous

Healthy in the City

‘Everybody Say No’ Smoke-free Dining:

By Sean Smith

What does Web 2.0 offer thelanguage teacher? Your firstthoughts will probably be ofsites like YouTube (http://youtube.com) and Flickr(http://flickr.com), but Web 2.0 ismuch more than that. UsingWeb 2.0 applications and web-sites will allow you to extendyour lesson beyond the walls ofthe classroom and give learnersthe tools they need to continuelearning on their own.

“Virtual world” site SecondLife (http://secondlife.com/) is re-ceiving a lot of attention fromlanguage teachers due to thehigh level of interaction betweenparticipants. There are severalgroups of teachers involved inpromoting Second Life in lan-guage teaching. One of these isSecond Life English (http://www.esl-secondlife.blogspot.com/).Using Second Life you couldbring classroom role play to awhole new level. This may be dif-ficult for some teachers to imple-

ment due to resource require-ments such as computer labs,but it is worth a look.

Chinswing (http://www.chin-swing.com/) offers more struc-ture than Second Life and pro-vides learners with an opportu-nity for listening and speakingthat is a little more controlled.Essentially Chinswing is a mes-sage board where you recordyour voice and listen to otherpeople talk. Instead of readingthreads you listen to them. Thesite is organized into channelsallowing learners to more easilyfind discussions of interest tothem. With this site, you couldhave a thread devoted to yourclass where students talk aboutan assigned topic and respondto each other.

Another simple assignmentwould be to have studentschoose their own discussion andparticipate in it using a sharedlink for homework.

I have used Bubbleply (http://www.bubbleply.com) with stu-dents. This a great way for stu-dents to interact with a video onYouTube. Last September I in-troduced Bubbleply on my blog(http: / /eflgeek.com/index.php/eflgeek/comments/bubble-ply-revisited/)

Bubbleply takes a YouTubevideo and allows you to add a va-riety of speech, thought, narra-tion, or subtitle bubbles to it.Clearly this gives the teacher op-portunities to annotate a video,add English subtitles to aid in lis-tening comprehension, addthought bubbles for comedy, oreven have students find a video oftheir own to Bubblply for task-based English use. My studentswill be finding their own YouTubevideo to Bubbleply and thenadding it to their class blogs.

Kantalk (http://kantalk.com/)requires the use of Skype(http://www.skype.com) for voicerecording or live chatting. Onefeature that I think is useful isthe “transcribe a YouTube video”

option. Simply add a link to aYouTube video and the videowill be embedded on the pagewith a place to transcribe thevideo. More than one personmay transcribe the video andother users are able to commentas well as rate the transcription.This is definitely a good listen-ing exercise for learners.

Last semester I usedBitStrips (http://www.bitstrips.com/create/comic/) as a home-work assignment (http://eflgeek.com/index.php/eflgeek/com-ments/bitstrips/) for one studentwho was catching up, and willprobably use it with all studentsthis semester.

FaceYourManga (http://www.faceyourmanga.com) is anavatar generator. Using this siteyou could have learners createavatars of themselves, printthem up and bring them toclass. You can then redistributethe avatars so that learnershave to find the person whosepicture they have using lan-guage learned in class. This is

also useful if your students areblogging or using Moodle andyou want them to have avatars.

There are too many Web 2.0sites to use with classes to beable to fully introduce all of themhere, but others to consider in-clude: Voice Thread (http://voicethread.com), Flickr (http://flickr.com), Chuala (http://www.chuala.com/), Thinkmap VisualThesaurus (http://www.visualthe-saurus.com/), and Word Learner(http://www.wordlearner.com/).

Two excellent blogs that willkeep you informed of usefulwebsites for the classroom areLarry Ferlazzos Websites of theDay (http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/) in particularcheck out The “Next Best ...” list(http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2008/08/25/the-next-the-best-list/). The second site to watch isLangwitches (http://langwitch-es.org/blog/).

If you have other sites toshare, please leave a commenton my blog (http://eflgeek.com).

(eslteacher@gmail.com)

Bringing Web 2.0 into the classroomEFL

DAVID SMEATON’S PHOTO CHALLENGE — Open to all entries —During a celebration at Jogye Temple in Seoul, people move aroundlike ghosts beneath the lanterns.David Smeaton (www.davidsmeaton.com)