Raccoon Cafe

Korea is known for a lot of its quirky cafes, with dog and cat cafes being the most common. For someone separated from their beautiful babies (puppies that is) by thousands of miles of ocean, dog and cat cafes are the best.

But in my experience, the quality varies wildly. In some places the cats shed a lot, making you wish you didn’t have to bother buying a drink. In some the animals are in a separate section. In others the animals just squat down and do their business wherever and whenever they want. In yet others, the dogs seem to be potty trained, although there’s always a risk. Some dogs are friendly, some are lazy. Some won’t hesitate to jump into your lap and some won’t come near unless you buy them treats.

But this post isn’t about dogs and cats – it’s about RACCOONS!

Yes, there are raccoon cafes in Korea. Yes, there is more than one. So there was some research involved to ensure we got a quality raccoon experience. I’ve only heard of them being in Seoul so far, so while briefly staying there this winter, Erin, Arria and I decided to finally go to a raccoon café.

Erin did her research well and we decided on Raccoon Café Kkukkune (라쿤카페꾸꾸네) in Hyehwa which had 6 raccoons, although it was a little pricier – a 6,000 won entry fee plus the cost of a drink. Here’s a pretty good review of the café, complete with directions and tons of pictures.

There are two other cafés that came up after a quick search. One was Blind Alley at Sookmyung, which has only two small pet raccoons kept in a separate area. If you’re going with someone not too keen on the idea of a raccoon café, this would be a good choice.

Finally, the last place that always popped up was Bonita di Café. The blog post I read on it (which I can’t seem to find anymore) went on and on about the cute raccoons (they mentioned there being 4), but only as an afterthought at the end did the author reveal that the place smelled really bad and that she left with the smell on her too. Sounds like a nope. The café is also mentioned in this article (rightfully) critiquing the use of animals in cafés. Based on descriptions, I wouldn’t recommend going here, but it looks like their business is still going strong.

There were a lot of notable differences at Kkukkune. Upon entering you remove your shoes and put on slippers – not unusual in Korea. As soon as I stepped inside, I saw two huge white raccoons eating from food bowls directly in front of me.

When you buy your required drink, you are also given a sheet of rules, including things like, don’t touch the raccoons when they’re sleeping, don’t feed them, and always watch your drink carefully. They had English copies of the rules for us, which although somewhat awkwardly-translated, were understandable. As the rules instructed, we placed our bags and coats in lockers, keeping only our phones for pictures.

There were lots of wooden cubbies, climbing posts and places for the raccoons to play, hide or sleep. There were cages as well, and another room that was off-limited to customers, but had more cubbies for the raccoons. It’s nice that they had a place to get away from people if they wanted it.

As were putting our belongings into lockers, one of the raccoons climbed onto Erin’s back when she leaned down. The café worker rushed over and kind of hissed angrily at it, making swatting motions towards its face until it backed off. Another one tried to climb up another girl’s leg, and unfortunately its claws tore a hole her pantyhose. Part of the hazards of a raccoon café, I guess, and that was the most contact we had with them our entire stay.

But you’re still waiting for raccoon pictures! Let me highlight a few characters.

 

First was Plank Raccoon, my first photography subject.

Erin, Arria and I sat down at our table, only to realize a little ways in that there was a raccoon above us. Our movements eventually piqued Plank Raccoon’s interest enough reveal more of its cute furry face.

 

There was Pensive Raccoon. (Credit for the name goes to Arria.)

It took a long nap inside of the cubbies – this might’ve been the same raccoon who tried to climb over Erin, but I can’t be sure. After its nap, Pensive Raccoon came out and reflected on life, basking in the spotlight it knew it was getting. Pensive Raccoon stayed there in its post-nap stupor (or deep reflection, I can’t say) for a long time.

 

Finally, the star of the show was Blinds Raccoon.

Blinds Raccoon was preoccupied with the blinds for the majority of our time there. It loved adventure and risk-taking, and wasn’t afraid to look silly.

Later, Blinds Raccoon got tired of the blinds and decided to climb into a cubby with its friend. The friend wasn’t so enthused about this chubby friend’s invasion of its space. But like a good friend, it put up with it.

But Blinds Raccoon soon realized that this wasn’t going to work. After testing the blinds a bit more, it decided on a nap and chose the highest cubby right next to our table. First Blinds Raccoon struggled to get comfortable.

A lot.

Finally, Blinds Raccoon went to sleep. Or tried too. But before settling in too deeply, Blinds Raccoon couldn’t resist a final pose for its adoring fans.

Speaking Tests

The chair was really cold and uncomfortable. Actually, the entire hallway was freezing, and I was shivering in my winter coat and scarf while my students, who I could see through the classroom windows, laughed and chatted in a comfortably heated room. I tried not to think This sucks, because how many more times would I have to do this? Another fact I didn’t need to concern myself with.

Finally the first student noisily pulled open the sliding classroom door, gave me an anxious glance, and closed the door behind her in an equally noisy fashion. She walked over to the chair in front of me quickly, fueled by a nervous sort of energy, and I smiled to reassure her. But in the short time that she confessed her nervousness to me, I had already prepared the timer on my phone, picked up my rubric and pulled out a pencil.

“Are you ready?” I asked, even though we would start regardless of her answer.

–

Around mid-November, I had my first experience with speaking tests. My previous school didn’t require them, and upon telling some former coworkers that I had to do speaking tests, their responses were, “What? Why?” “Are your students really high level or something?”

I laughed but wondered the same thing. When it’s nerve-wracking for my students to even answer the question “How are you?” (with something other than “I’m fine thank you and you?”) how was it fair to make them take a speaking test?

On the one hand, it ended up being nice to have individual time with each of my students. On the other hand, that time was extremely rushed and I came away with a passionate hatred for speaking tests, wishing I never had to do them again. That feeling has somewhat subdued, but I know there are revisions I can make for next semester to slightly improve the experience.

The demands of the test were the most frustrating. My coteachers expected the test to be done in one class period. I had originally planned for students to speak for three minutes each, but now this wasn’t feasible. Instead I cut the requirement down to two minutes and we still ran over time in most classes.  While my classes are pretty small, it was impossible for classes of 24 or 26 to be finished within 50 minutes. Even for classes of 22, we often didn’t move fast enough to get through everyone before the bell rang.

So students came to me nervous, sometimes unprepared, and while I wanted to take my time, reassure them and let their catch their breath before starting, I had to hurry them along. They were not sufficiently prepared for speaking tests, really, which is partially my fault. I hadn’t realized that I was supposed to be teaching in a way that would prepare students to speak on any topic we’d covered. In October, one of my coteachers suddenly began pushing me to cover more topics in class so that there would be more possible fodder for the speaking tests. Unfortunately it hindered the way I went about lesson planning and unnecessarily stressed me out.

In the end I managed to give students a set of 10 topics. They would have to study all 10, but on the day of the test, they would randomly choose three topics, one of which was “free choice” – choose any of the above. They could talk about one topic, two, or all three, as long as they kept talking for two minutes.

During the test, some had the bravery to admit to me that they hadn’t studied the topics they’d drawn well enough and asked if they speak on a different one. Some students had the audacity to tell me they didn’t study and just wanted to do number 1 or 2 (the easiest ones). These students essentially did the same thing, but some I viewed as impressive, having the courage to assert themselves in English, something I rarely saw displayed in class. But others I saw as clearly not having put in any effort and trying to take the easy way out – and assuming I would let them take it! I guess I made this judgment based on my biases, formed from their personalities and participation in class. A lot more students asked to do different topic than I expected. So in the end, I just became annoyed with all of them.

While I can’t change the time constraints or student effort, a couple of my frustrations, can be easily changed or made better through improvement:

Frustration 1. Listening to students say the same things over and over again.

Since introducing themselves, me, or their family members were the easiest topics, these were disproportionately chosen. I started to grade more favorably if students had something unique to tell me, which gave the first class an unfair advantage. And this leads nicely to the next point…

Frustration 2. Grading objectively!

This was so much harder than I thought. Although I’ve gotten the hang of judging speech contests, grading so many students so quickly was an entirely different beast. After my third class, which was my first time testing beginner level students, my coteacher spoke to me privately at the end of class. He asked me to go easy on these students because they tried really hard and studied a lot, but their abilities didn’t always match their efforts. So I agreed to grade easier, but…he might have completely thrown me off. The rest of the week, each class’s scores were consistently higher than Monday’s classes, although that wasn’t an honest reflection of their actual abilities. In short, next time a more clearly laid out rubric is necessary. And maybe ignoring coteacher requests, at least until the end. So this is how curving is supposed to work…

Next semester I’ll change the way topics are chosen – planning an entire semester’s curriculum around a two minute test is ridiculous – and give more variation – for my sanity. What students’ choices told me about this past test was that either some questions were too difficult so only a few were willing to attempt them or some were too easy, low-hanging fruit, if you will. I still hate grading, but I’m learning how to conduct this necessary evil.