Harms-Boone Productions » Schoolhouse: ROK

Steve Jobs

Greg Boone — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 14:00:04 +0000

Steve Jobs was a great man who invented some amazing devices that have changed the way we interact with technology. Today we’ve changed our look, (inspired by boingboing.net) to a retro mac theme in his memory. I never knew Jobs, … Continue reading →

It’s a Map!

Greg Boone — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 16:20:30 +0000

We made a map showing our travels. This post tells how it was made, and where you can see it. Continue reading →

Seoul, Hope, and Mustard Seeds: A Short Film on Philanthropy

Danielle Harms — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:42:45 +0000

You don’t have to be in South Korea long to notice two things: there is a large population of foreign English teachers and it does not have the best reputation. Truth be told, it is no struggle to find examples … Continue reading →

Living Strong in Korea

Greg Boone — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 03:00:38 +0000

I had that dream again, the one where Lance Armstrong visits my little city in the Seoul suburbs as part of a new tour for LIVESTRONG, and for some reason, the powers that be put me in charge of giving him the bike tour of the city. It’s a strange dream for a few reasons, chiefly among them being that I’m not Korean but in fact a temporary resident of this town, here to teach English for the year and then be on my way. It starts at my tiny office-tel apartment wheeling my Surly out of the oversized walk-in closet of a living space I call home. Continue reading →

Gyeongbok Palace: A worthwhile stop

Danielle Harms — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 18:39:15 +0000

Home Again Having recently returned to the land of parking lots and fast food, bread and cheese, and friends and family, I find myself in the United States with an an abundance of both sentimentality for all things Korean and … Continue reading →

Boseong’s Green Tea Plantations

Danielle Harms — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 12:00:10 +0000

Traveling from place to place, I often marvel at the luckiness of creatures who call some of the best places the world has to offer their humble homes. A mere human couldn’t scrounge up enough of anything to land themselves … Continue reading →

A Home-brewer’s Guide to Makgeolli (막걸리)

Greg Boone — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 20:56:09 +0000

We took our first sip of makgeolli back in late September on the first night of our farming adventure with Wooriwa, pouring from enormous drums like the kind my Grandpa once used to fill up the pontoon with gas at the … Continue reading →

Globalizing Korea: A Rhetoric of Food

Greg Boone — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 05:02:18 +0000

Daniel Gray, a Seoul Eats food blogger, recently published an op-ed in the Korea Herald regarding the public and private efforts to export Korean culture to the West—particularly to the United States. With coverage from the New York Times, CNN, and other high profile news organizations in the US, the government seems to be doing a fair job of gaining the attention of Western eyes, and now is focusing on making Korean food America's Next Top Asian Cuisine. But these agencies certainly could be more effective in their pursuit. Continue reading →

Biking among the cherry blossoms

Danielle Harms — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 07:38:28 +0000

The timing of our trip to Gyeongju couldn’t have been better. We left on the tail end of the first week of April and a cycling challenge I am participating in called 30 Days of Biking. It was also smack … Continue reading →

International Underground

Greg Boone — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 10:02:33 +0000

Greetings Loyal Readers, The real news with this update is an announcement related to another project both Danielle and I are working on called International Underground. We blogged about International Underground once before, alerting you of its existence, but now … Continue reading →

What in the World is Kimchibilly?

Greg Boone — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 08:52:36 +0000

In 2001 when Tiger, Velvet Geena, Eddie Tarantuala, Roy, and Jack "The Knife" burst onto the Seoul club scene as the Rock Tigers. The self-described pioneers of Korean Rockabilly call their aggressive, up-tempo music, Kimchibilly. The bad throws a show each month to showcase Kimchibilly, and this month, it will bring in a Rockabilly group from Japan called "Swamp Rats" as part of the 14th Kimchibilly night at DGBD (sic) on March 27th. Continue reading →

Dispatch from the Classroom: First Grade

Danielle Harms — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 09:48:42 +0000

Don’t Pick the Flowers “Don’t pick flowers,” was the immediate response when my first grade students were asked recently to imagine that our class had been whisked away from our room in Ilsan, South Korea and plopped down on an … Continue reading →

Perhaps The Grammar Lesson Could Wait: “Teacher he ate too many soju.”

Danielle Harms — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 07:14:49 +0000

Hearing amusing thoughts in the classroom is standard practice when you spend each day hanging out with kids. There’s rarely a week that goes by without hearing something that makes me scramble for a pen so I can recount it … Continue reading →

Snow Day in Ilsan

Danielle Harms — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 03:02:27 +0000

After a week spent in the crunchy snow and shiver-inducing temperatures of the Midwest, my winter boots got plenty of use. When it came to packing them for my trip back to Goyang, South Korea, I nearly left them behind, … Continue reading →

Happy Thanksgiving from South Korea

Danielle Harms — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 00:34:53 +0000

All the students at school would like to wish you a Very Merry…Thanksgiving! I admit I’m a bit late with this sentiment, as that day of family feasting is likely fading in some people’s memories as Christmas approaches, but the … Continue reading →

Less Bang For North Korean Bucks

Greg Boone — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 05:53:04 +0000

Much ado was made this week about North Korea revaluing its currency. The story first caught my eye as a headline on Twitter and, given the near lack of an economy up north I didn’t think much of it, but … Continue reading →

Closer Than We Think

Danielle Harms — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:15:24 +0000

Do you ever wake up in the morning, pour some milk into a bowl of cereal, and think, "Hmm, I wonder what on Earth children in South Korea eat for breakfast?" Find the responses to this query and plenty of other questions about the daily life of a student in South Korea in this video. Continue reading →

If You Thought You Had Heard the Last of Jagalchi, Think Again

Danielle Harms — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:14:28 +0000

Undoubtedly alive upon delivery, the shrimp we ordered for lunch retained their capacity to move, and move they did. I could list every synonym in the thesaurus for jump, wriggle, scurry, writhe, and twitch in the dictionary, but this is a moment best watched. Continue reading →

Shots Fired in Contested Waters

Danielle Harms — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:52:04 +0000

As Barack Obama’s scheduled visit to Seoul approaches, and bilateral talks between North Korea and the U.S. are in the works, it would seem the winds are shifting towards increased diplomacy. An incident today between North and South Korean naval … Continue reading →

More poetry from the classroom

Danielle Harms — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 04:06:02 +0000

After some brainstorming about sensory details and exploration in the exciting world of similes, a refreshingly fun concept to teach, my 2nd grade class created these haikus together. Let’s move with the rain, God is showering at sky,* Tok tok, it’s like beans. Continue reading →

An Update on Swine Flu

Greg Boone — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:12:33 +0000

We were told this week by our Academic Coordinator that in the event we do close, all teachers are expected to come in on Saturdays and Sundays to make up for lost time. Rumors about a government edict closing all … Continue reading →

Brief Encounters with Hideous Fish

Greg Boone — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:09:09 +0000

Our good friends Anna and Andre over at Seoulful Adventures just posted a great post and video that more vividly details our encounter with the notorious Hagfish. This is a fish so disgusting “[its] other name is the slime eel … Continue reading →

Poems from Korean Children

Greg Boone — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:06:25 +0000

Greg Teacher: A Haiku Greg is my teacher. Greg Teacher is very tall. I like Greg Teacher My fifth graders collectively A Limerick About a Cat There once was a funny cat. Who was also very very fat. He went … Continue reading →

No Doubt About It: Something is Definitely Fishy in Busan

Danielle Harms — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:26:46 +0000

Saturday Morning Sights and Oh-My-Goodness Smells of Busan There is something surreal about emerging from the underground isolation of a subway station into the open air of a new place. Our first Saturday morning steps out of the station and … Continue reading →

Korean Family’s Tale of Emotional Reunion

Greg Boone — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:34:31 +0000

Lee Kyong-hee, 62, tells the story about being reunited, if briefly, with a sister she hasn’t seen since being separated at the end of the Korean War nearly 60 years ago. Lee, her mother (now 100 years old), and other … Continue reading →

Jagalchi

Greg Boone — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:36:37 +0000

It writhed around for a bit in the small plastic bowl before finally dying, the way any animal might after having its head impaled and skin removed. Without hardly flinching the man grabbed another hagfish from the pile, removed the … Continue reading →

Pusan International Film Festival

Greg Boone — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 23:13:45 +0000

We took a trip to Busan (or is it Pusan, you decide!) this weekend for the annual International Film Festival. We’re told it is the largest in all of Asia and in the second largest city in Korea. We’ll have … Continue reading →

Chuseok

Greg Boone — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 00:49:02 +0000

Cafe Pascucci is one of the few places open today. A big corporate chain, Pascucci is a cozy cafe in LaFesta catering to the Western tastes many Koreans have for coffee and cafe sandwiches. It stays open for the same … Continue reading →

Getting Creative

Greg Boone — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 18:08:45 +0000

Last month was my first with a new batch of students and classes. I am now teaching all the elementary grades we have at our hogwon. I teach a different subject to each of my classes and it is only … Continue reading →

Wooriwa: A Weekend in Pyeongtaek

Greg Boone — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 22:44:59 +0000

We left Goyang immediately after work bound to Jinwi station where we were promised a farming experience. So began our farming experience: three hours on public transportation, two backpacks, a couple of sweatshirts and some basic supplies, a guy named … Continue reading →

Brief Encounters with Businessmen

Greg Boone — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 13:28:57 +0000

Part One: MOULARD PUZZLE CAFE, ILSAN — I am seated outside piecing together the last of the Starry Night puzzle’s frame. A puzzle cafe is exactly as it sounds, a cafe where you may sip a coffee of something a … Continue reading →

On: The Hogwon

Greg Boone — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 11:33:12 +0000

Most people outside of Korea might guess that the word “Hogwon” is the Korean word for a hog farm or the name of some kind of hog-based commodity. I’ll admit I didn’t have a clue about what a Hogwon was … Continue reading →

A Diamond in the Rough

Greg Boone — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:13:14 +0000

Summer vacation came and went this week and, given that we have not yet seen a pay day, we decided to explore our suburb’s parent city, Seoul. We toured the Changdeok Palace in Seoul. Rich with history, it is among … Continue reading →

One Man’s Trash

Greg Boone — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 13:11:02 +0000

The trash piles on the ground floors of apartment buildings in Korea are veritable gold mines for the visiting foreigner looking to furnish a studio-size room. Everything from kitchen supplies to living room furniture, can be easily found lying on … Continue reading →

When it Rains, it Pours

Greg Boone — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 00:53:04 +0000

When it rains it pours. While this old saw usually refers to a series or chain of bad events each subsequent event getting worse and worse as the event or moment in time proceeds�like when an organization suddenly sees four … Continue reading →