Korea's Next Top Models

Hey again.  Remember me?

I was all ready with a post (well, half a post really) about some wanderings I've had around our neighborhood, but recent developments have forced me to delay that post.  Because this news is BIG!

A couple of weeks ago, Alex our school director called Devon and I into a meeting.  Unsure what to expect, we ambled into the school's conference room and met with him and another Korean teacher, who was translating for us.

"Thank you for meeting with us today," he said.  "Can you do modeling?"

It was a strange question.  "What do you mean?" Devon asked.  Neither of us had ever done much modeling, though Devon had watched it frequently on TV.

"We want you and Jake to wear the hanbok.  We will take pictures of you.  It is for ECC."

Devon and I looked at each other, and began to get excited about the prospect of wearing traditional Korean clothes, though we were a little unsure about what the pictures would be used for.

Can you tell my ankles are being crushed?

A little less than a week later, Devon and I were kneeling on the floor in a traditional pose of respect, in rented hanboks, while the photographer asked us to hold our head just so. 

My knees and ankles hurt from kneeling for so long, I was freezing, and I didn't know what these two Korean men were telling me to do.  So far, being an international supermodel wasn't turning out as I had hoped.

"Think happy thoughts for the New Year," Alex instructed us.  "We will mail this card to the parents.  Wish them good fortune with your smile."

I did my best to think happy, fortune-sending thoughts to my students' parents as I did my best to keep from shivering in my silk shirt and pants.  When I stood up, I did so slowly, letting the blood return to my feet.

Happy I can feel my feet again.  Oh yeah, and prosperous thoughts.  

Always thinking prosperous thoughts...

The next day, Alex called me into his office to show me how the pictures turned out.  "I think this one, Devon is very pretty.  You are..." he sort of trails off, his face in a grimace.

"Thanks Alex," I laughed.  "Sorry I ruined the pictures."  After a thought, I asked him, "Hey Alex.  Do you think I can get one of those cards when you mail them to the parents?"  I thought it might be cool to get one to send to my parents.

"What?"  he asked.  I wasn't sure if he hadn't heard me, or didn't understand what I was asking.

"Well, what are you going to do with these pictures?" I asked him, hoping to get at the issue that way.

"We will make a big, how do you say..." He made a rectangle with his fingers.

"A poster?"  I asked.

"A big poster.  To go on the side of the ECC.  And one for the first floor, and on all the buses."

"Ah good!"  I laughed.  "Then we will be famous!"  I left the office chuckling to myself.


Two days later, Devon and I walked into ECC and were greeted with a modestly-sized poster on the window of the conference room, splashed with a pink and orange background, and some Korean writing over us.

We were surprised.  "I thought he said they were gonna put the picture on a bigger poster" Devon said, clearly relieved that they hadn't.

"I guess not," I replied.  "It must have just been one of his jokes."

"Let's hope so," she said.  "I want to see those cards."

The next day, on our walk into school we saw it.  A huge banner- maybe 6'x12' in the front entrance to ECC.  The same picture as the poster on the conference room window, except our images were life-sized.

Life-sized.  Can't read what it says though.

"Uh-oh," Devon said.

"Come on!  Let's see if they've put a big one up!"  I exclaimed.

We walked around the front of the building and saw another giant poster, even bigger than the one inside.  Again with our faces wishing prosperous thoughts on our students' parents.

The camera clearly adds three or four feet

"I don't like where this is heading," Devon said.

We continued around to the corner of the building and looked up.  Hanging from the top floor was a huge banner covering the entire corner.  Five stories tall, with our pictures stretching across two of them.  We looked more like giants bent on eating children than happy, benevolent teachers wishing prosperous thoughts.

Later that day, the buses pulled up and stretched across their sides - if you guessed a big banner with our picture on it, you'd be right again!  These buses go all over Gwangju, as Alex told me later, and soon everybody would recognize us as the faces of ECC.  "We are hoping that parents will see you, and want to send their children here," he said.  Yeah, right.  No pressure.

We're huge in Korea.