Batman, Monkeys, and a Warrior Princess

There was one stand-out moment during our mindless Orientation Week, one presenter that actually engaged me, and that was the representative from T-Hope. T-Hope stands for Teachers Helping Other People Everywhere. It's an organization that raises funds for charities, donates their time to these charities, and reaches out to underprivileged children.

The organization is run entirely by volunteers, and it was started by a Canadian! Dan Gauthier founded T-Hope in 2006, six years after moving here from Ottawa. Dan is highly respected among both the local and foreign communities for his work helping underprivileged children in Ulsan.

In October, T-Hope will announce its plans for a new program that will aim to help Korean children with Autism by providing 1-on-1 time with volunteers looking to spend a day with a buddy. I'm really excited for this program because of the time I spent working as a Respite worker in Toronto. To date, it's the most rewarding job I've ever had.

Today, though, we visited another one of the charities T-Hope is involved with: The Ulsan Orphanage in nearby Eonyang. I had signed up to hang out with Elementary school aged children, making crafts and going for a hike. Others were taking care of babies in a nursery, playing soccer, or dancing with teenage girls.

Unfortunately, as we rode the 40-minute bus ride from downtown Ulsan to Eonyang, the rain started coming down something fierce. Obviously the hike wasn't going to happen.

But hey, who needs hiking when you can make superhero masks and swords and shields and watch a bunch of boys chase each other up and down the hallway like monsters straight out of Where the Wild Things Are? Forget hiking!

And that's exactly what we did.

We were given construction paper, scissors, glue, glitter, and yarn and told to go nuts and do whatever we wanted. Now what do little boys love to play more than anything else in the world? That's right, superheroes. A pair of teachers had the brilliant idea of making superhero masks, and from then on, there was no going back.

Within no time, there were billions of scraps of paper strewn along the floors and tables like confetti on January 1st in Times Square. I know that there were 9 teachers present in the game-room-turned-arts-and-crafts-room, but I honestly can't tell you how many kids there were. There might have been 20 or so, but they ran around with such energy and excitement that it sometimes felt like 40.

I think it's fair to say that Iron Man, Batman, and Spider-Man are the fan favourites in Korea, in that order. Soon enough, Batman and Spidey were having it out, swords in hand, because that's totally how Batman and Spider-Man roll. It was glorious.

There was something missing, though: Shields. If you're going to give Batman a sword, you might as well at least give him a shield. So I got to work making a Hylian Shield for Batman, because everybody knows Batman and Link get their equipment from the same Bazaar in Hyrule Castle Town. Once Kat heard was I was doing, though, she turned and said she was making a shield too! Great minds think alike. We had basically become nothing more than a production line producing weaponry for the Epic Superhero Battle of Eonyang.

Once I'd witnessed enough bloodshed and violence, though, I turned my attention to more peaceful endeavours. That's when I fell in love with the cutest little angel I'd ever laid eyes on. She must've been no more than five or six years old. I thought back to when Doris was that age, and I decided this little one was going to be my new buddy. She had no idea that I was trying to tell her that I liked the monkey on her shirt, so I started acting and talking like a monkey to clear things up for her.

She laughed; I was in. She asked me to draw a monkey for her, and I did the best I could, but for some reason, my monkeys and my bears share a striking resemblance. I gave it to her and got a smile of approval. Then I saw her reach for the green crayon. She was colouring my awesome monkey-bear--this masterpiece that that I'd just put my heart and soul into--green! And you know what? She made it awesomer. She cut that sucker out and added it to the butterfly mask somebody had made for her earlier.

I've always wanted to own a monkey, but now I desperately want to own a green monkey. He will be mine one day. And his name shall be Ricardo.

At this point, I got distracted by a bunch of boys who wanted me to make airplanes for them. Every few minutes, the same boy would come back with another friend and ask for another plane. They were amassing an army of paper war planes. By the time I was done making all of their planes, my monkey friend had disappeared.

That's when Kat introduced me to the Warrior Princess. Kat had fashioned a crown and a sword for this fearless warrior, and so I go to work on a heart-shaped shield for her to carry into battle. She would unleash a fury of cuteness upon all the boys on the battlefield and take no prisoners.

Sadly, shortly after that, we were told that it was time to pack things up. It had only been 90 minutes, and we were supposed to go for the full two hours, but we did as we were told. The room was cleaned in no time, and you would never have guessed that a hurricane of construction paper had just ripped through there.

While we were cleaning, the Warrior Princess and her friend climbed on top of Kat like she was a mountain to be conquered. One of them gave her a hug, and once she put the girl down, she then tried to pick Kat up by wrapping her arms around one of Kat's legs. It was such a cute moment that it made me wish I could become a professional Orphanage Arts And Crafts Maker Person Guy so I could see that everyday. If that's not a real job, somebody needs to invent it.

Maybe I'll do it; just you watch.