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As I write this, I’ve got 40 more days of work left. The time is winding down so quickly. It seems like not long ago that I was waiting for my six monthiversary. I never thought I’d get to nine months, much less eleven. But here I am, fewer than six weeks away from the end of my contract. Erin commented today that it feels like the past few weeks have just dragged on, and I agree. Perhaps now that summer camp is ending, the days will fly by.
I’ve started to do the hardest thing–say goodbye to friends who are leaving. Most of the close friends I’ve made arrived the same time as I did, and they’ve either left already or are in the final stages of packing up. There are some friends who live near New York or who I’ll see while I’m backpacking, but there are others who live on the other side of the world. I’m nowhere near ready to say goodbye to them yet.
That’s not to say I’m not ready to say goodbye to Seoul, though. I remember the night I left Prague a few years ago. Before heading back to my flat to get my bags, I walked around the main parts of the city and the places that had meaning to me. Wandering through the Christmas markets with my arms weighed down by the results of some last-minute shopping, my eyes welled with tears as a few flurries began to fall. A few hours later, I took a taxi from the Kolej to the airport and cried a little more. Leaving Prague was one of the hardest things I’ve done–even harder than leaving my family and friends for a year to come here.
Leaving Prague felt like a break-up of the worst kind, and I know that when I leave Korea, while I’ll be incredibly sad, I won’t have those same feelings. As wonderful as Seoul has been to me, I’ve never felt anything close to the love I had for Prague. The hardest thing about living here is knowing that no matter how hard I try, I will always, always be an outsider. There is no blending into the culture. Sure, I could learn the language and marry a Korean man, but even then, I’d just be that Westerner who is really into Asian culture. In Prague, I could pout my way through the city and easily blend into the crowd of unsmiling Czechs. But here in Seoul, I’m constantly greeted with stares, curious looks and flat-out gapes. A few weeks ago, I was walking around Suyu with a friend. An older Korean man passed us, but not before dropping dead in his tracks, staring at my chest and letting his jaw drop to the ground. I can’t tell you how often I feel like I’m in a zoo or trapped inside some sort of one-way glass box. People on buses will stare and discuss amongst themselves the waegooks, or foreigners, in their presence. Even after making eye contact and sometimes staring them down, they’ll continue to shoot glances my way.
I’m ready to go back to a place where I can go about my daily life without being stared at for being Caucasian and female. Where that place will be, I have no idea. But I’m ready for a big change. And when the time comes, I’ll be ready to say goodbye to Seoul.
Perhaps that title is a bit dramatic. I mentioned the other day that we’d be having two classes of blind students at SEV. To be honest, all week I dreaded today. I even went so far as to convince myself that there was no way I’d actually have to teach Police to blind students. Entirely positive I wouldn’t be teaching the damn class, I didn’t prepare a special lesson or bother to click the links our head teacher sent us about working with the blind (the only help we got from our supervisors at all).
So imagine my surprise at 1:20 this afternoon, when I walked into school and found out that I was, in fact, teaching Police to a class of blind students. I picked up the students and their aides in the lobby and we slowly walked up the ramp to the second floor classroom. June, who I mentioned in my last post about these classes, came into my class to assist in case I needed a translator or something. I started the class by introducing myself and asking each student his or her name. Turns out that these kids all had basic, if not intermediate-level, English skills. All of the aides spoke excellent English, one of them even living in America for several years. After introductions, I chatted with the kids about police uniforms and the sorts of crimes a criminal can commit. I passed around the (very realistic) toy gun and took the kids into the jail. (No joke, the Police classroom has a fake jail, bars and all.) We played a quick game of telephone using phrases from the regular class (example: “The criminal stole the money!”) and then the kids practiced their speaking skills by role-playing their way through a dialogue board. Before I knew it, 45 minutes had passed and the class was over.
I had the same group of seven kids for Grocery class an hour later. I knew Grocery would be a piece of cake because there are lots of props and fake food items for the kids to touch. I passed around different fruits and vegetables and had the kids describe the texture, shape and size of each one. After they familiarized themselves with the different foods, I played a game in which I’d call out some item and the students had to scramble through a shopping cart to find it.
It was sad to drop the kids off at their final class this afternoon. I was almost embarrassed by all of the kvetching and complaining I had done all week. To lack something as crucial as sight, something we take for granted, and to have the determination to learn a whole other language…I was simply blown away. I had one girl in my class who had some degree of sight. If she squinted her eyes and leaned in, she could read the dialogue board in front of her. This girl–who can hardly see, who looks at her friends and family and teachers and sees nothing but blurry blobs–had made the effort not only to learn how to speak English, but to learn how to read it.
After Grocery class, my cheeks hurt so badly. I don’t know if I had been smiling the entire time because the students were nothing like what I expected, or because they were an interested group of kids or because I was watching them squeal and shriek and laugh every other second. Each time I handed a student a classroom prop, I watched him explore it with his body. Some of the kids fiddled with the tiny pieces of the gun, stuck on there for aesthetic purposes. Other kids would take the plastic bakery items and twirl them around, figure out what they were and then come up with some other use for them. But most fascinating was watching a boy named Isaac acquaint himself with the plastic banana I handed him. He explored every inch of it, every crevice, indent and lump. He would rub each fruit on his arms and his head, taking in all of the different sensations.
After work, I met up with some coworkers for a drink. My friend Nicky brought up a critical thinking question from SEV’s Comprehensive Reading class: If you had to lose one of your sense, what would it be and why? I thought about it for awhile, briefly considered losing touch, but settled on smell. After an afternoon with the blind students, I better understood how they see and experience the world. The idea of losing one of my sense after using them all for 22 years is unfathomable. But could I get by knowing that I wouldn’t ever see my friends’ faces again? How would I last more than a week or two without the taste of of mac and cheese on my tongue? I couldn’t imagine not hearing my favorite music ever again, or feeling nothing when a loved one hugs me.
I’m going to end this post by asking you the same question we ask kids here: If you were to lose one of your five sense, which would you choose to lose?
One of my biggest flaws (that I’ll admit to) is that I try very hard not to let people see me upset. I’ve countless smiles and laughs and fooled a lot of people. I hate giving off the impression that at any given moment, I’m anything less than happy and content. Any display of sadness was a sign of weakness and defeat. It’s always been a struggle for me to admit to anyone, even my close friends, when I’m having a rough time with something. Acknowledging that is half the battle. Dealing with it is the other half.
I was told a few days ago that SEV would have two teams of blind students this coming Thursday. Ten students on each team, as well as an aide accompanying each student. My schedule has me teaching them Grocery and Police classes. The former will be no problem; there are enough plastic fruits, vegetables and pastries to occupy an entire class period. The latter is proving to be much more difficult. The regular police lesson plan calls for playing a game in which students describe what their classmates look like. The game takes up the bulk of the class and also involves dialogue and role-playing. As awful a class as Police is, this game makes it bearable and is a great way to get the kids to speak English.
Of course, this game could never work with kids who can’t see how tall or short their classmates are and who don’t know what color shorts their classmates are wearing. When I explained this problem to our supervisor, she seemed to understand. She even suggested I teach Dance instead. I said Dance would be an awesome class to teach, and I’d be able to use simple moves and words such as “right foot” and “left hand.” My supervisor replied, “Oh, well…they probably won’t understand that. They’re very low-level.”
I feel for these kids, I really do. But I don’t see the point in visually-impaired students with virtually no English skills coming to an institution where classes are almost entirely based on describing the things you see. Situational learning is difficult enough with a language barrier, and now a sight barrier has been thrown in as well.
Equally frustrating is that there is no help being provided to the teachers who are stuck teaching these classes. Our supervisors say nothing more than, “You don’t need to stick to the lesson plan.” We have no idea what to do, and they don’t have any answers for us. Wouldn’t it make sense to give these kids classes from which they can take something? Why schedule the students for classes that are pointless to them? Why not assign a Korean teacher to those classes, opening at least one doorway of communication; or at the very least, why not stick a Korean staff person in the class with the foreign teacher to help translate?
After walking around all weekend with those questions bouncing around my head, I finally found an outlet for my thoughts. One of the programmers, who I’ve become close with since coming here, came up to me today and told me I looked tired. I’ve decided that to her, tired and upset are one and the same. Every time she’s told me I look tired, I’ve been upset over one thing or another. Usually I blow it off with some excuse: “Yeah, didn’t sleep much last night” or “I had some crazy classes this morning that wiped me out.” But today, for the first time, I let my thoughts tumble out of me, one on top of the other. All of my frustrations with school and my supervisors and my schedule came out at once, and June just listened to me. She agreed with what I had to say, that it was pointless for these kids to attend Talk Show, Hair Salon and Police class, among others; that there should be a Korean in the room to help translate; that more should have been done to prepare the teachers for these students.
Knowing the way the Korean hierarchal system works, even though June agrees with me, it’s unlikely any changes will be made to the schedule. Our bosses aren’t the ones teaching these classes and they don’t really care what goes on inside of them so long as the visiting students pay for their day here. Foreign teachers are so low on the totem pole here that I’m not sure we even qualify as being the bottom stump.
This is what I signed up for. There are always going to be days that get me down, situations that infuriate me and decisions involving me that I cannot control. And that’s just life, messy as it may be. But if the past eleven months have taught me anything, I’ve learned that it’s OK to show the world when I’m upset. Nobody’s going to look down on me or think less of me because I’ve shown a side of myself that is less than chipper. Vulnerability is part of what makes us human, and I’ve ignored that for a long time.
Venting to June may not change the situation at hand. But opening up to her lifted some of the weight off my shoulders. I’ll still have to teach these classes, and they’ll be difficult. I’m still frustrated with my school and my boss, but I’ve only got six weeks left. From all of the challenges that have presented themselves this year, I’ve taken something very important. I learned that I don’t have to keep all of my frustrations inside anymore, and that makes this all a little bit easier. Nobody is happy all the time, and we all have our bad days. It’s just a matter of remembering that the day will end and a fresh start will come in the morning.
International news outlets have been buzzing with one of the day’s big stories: North Korea will reopen its border with South Korea for tourism and family reunion purposes.
As far as what recent talks have yielded and what that progress means for Westerners here, who can really say? I have a feeling these talks are, like so many before them, full of empty promises and short-term agreements. But even if I never make it to North Korea, I think Kim Jong-il has provided quite a bit of excitement for me this year.
The one thing that disappoints me about this situation is that I’ll never see the results of the latest round of talks. I fly out just two days before the scheduled reunion between divided families in October.
The Koreas are aiming for families to be reunited during Chuseok, the closest thing the countries have to Thanksgiving. Gives “I’m thankful for my family” a whole new meaning, doesn’t it?
Around 13,000 war captives crossed this, the Freedom Bridge, in the early 1950s. The bridge still stands in Paju, just south of Panmujom on the 38th parallel, a reminder of Korea's past and the sharp divide that exists today between north and south.
One of the coolest things about living in Korea (or really, anywhere but the U.S.) is that you don’t have to tip anyone (cabbies, doormen, waitstaff). If a meal costs ₩10,000, expect to pay that much. Water is filtered and free, and every Korean-style meal comes with, at no extra charge, several side dishes, such as pickled radishes, fish soup and the requisite kimchi. Korean restaurants put the complimentary bread-and-butter platters of the States to shame.
Even better than the free half-dozen side dishes you find at Korean restaurants is “service-uh.” Konglish for “service,” service-uh is anything random and free that you get when you purchase an item. Buy a bottle of wine at E-Mart? Well, enjoy your chocolate, lotion and lipbalm, all service-uh. You had to wait two minutes to be seated at a restaurant? Free soda for everyone at no charge! How on earth can you be expected to eat that box of corn flakes without anything to put it in? But look! There’s a bowl and spoon taped to the side!
My favorite service-uh ever came with a purchase of Land O’Lakes Chedarella cheese. When I got home, I noticed there was something taped to the side of the cheese.
What ever could that be?
Because it totally makes sense to give a tote bag as a service-uh for purchasing a small block of cheese.
But wait! There’s more!
It also makes perfect sense to include a security tag on something that costs about $7 US.
Let’s stick service-uh in the “Stuff Melissa Will Definitely Miss” category. Free + quirky goodies= awesome. Korean service-uh has totally one-upped the Cracker Jack surprise at the bottom of the box.
In yesterday’s post, I mentioned that keeping up with K-pop culture is key to connecting with students. The Wondergirls were a huge hit when I first arrived last September, but as of late have been overshadowed by the newer, fresher Girl’s Generation, or as they’re known in Korea,소녀시대.
The Wondergirls have taken their second-tier status in stride and moved on to the U.S., where they’ve spent the summer opening for the Jonas Brothers. Their hit “Nobody,” which you may recall Heather and I performing at the winter camp talent show, was recently released in English. I’ve even heard the new version playing in Suyu.
Was bored the other day (and mindlessly Googling Boys Before Flowers) and came across a recent interview with the Wondergirls. Most of the interview is pretty dry and uninteresting, but my favorite part comes about two and half minutes in, when the interviewer asks if the Jonas Brothers are popular back in Korea. The response: “Yeah, definitely!” “Of course!” “They’re really popular!”
Lies! Most Koreans couldn’t care less about western pop music. I think the last time I heard a Jonas Brothers song was when I was back in Kingston, listening to K104 on the drive to work. Clearly, the girls couldn’t admit that nobody in Korea knows who the JoBros are (though I did have big Miley Cyrus fan in one my classes a few weeks ago), but I got a laugh from it. There is absolutely nothing in any of their voices that convinces me that the JoBros get airtime in Korea. I do give the girls props on their English, though. From what I’ve read, they’ve been studying English like crazy to prepare for all of the interviews they’re doing on the Jonas Brothers tour.
It’s pretty clear that until my “Korean Kountdown” self-challenge began, I was not a constant blogger. It’s not my fault, you see. I had a schedule that allowed me to sleep until noon, stay out until the early hours of the morning and relax by the pool on the rare day I was up before lunch. I’ve since switched to day shift, but even that hasn’t had much of an impact on my blogging. You must be asking yourself this: What on earth is Melissa doing? What is so important that she is kept from blogging for days at a time?
The answer, friends, is simple. I’ve been caught up in the nastiest of love triangles. I’ve had my heart ripped out, stepped and spat on. The past few weeks have not been good for my tear ducts. For all of my heartbreak and sadness, there is only one thing to blame: Boys Before Flowers.
The best way to relate to kids here is to immerse yourself in the things they like. Music, check. I can’t tell you what songs are big in New York right now, but I can dance along to Superjunior’s “Sorry Sorry” and rap the English portion of the Wondergirls’ “Nobody.” Music, check. Next up, television.
But how do you watch Korean television when the shows are in Korean? Additionally, how do you watch the shows that the kids watch and not want to absolutely die?
The answer is on mysoju.com. The Web site provides links to subtitled Korean movies and TV shows. It is thanks (or no thanks?) to mysoju and my friends at SEV that I’ve been sucked into the sickest of love triangles. I’m become a diehard fan of the popular 꽃보다 남자, or as the waegooks call it, Boys Before Flowers. The 26 episodes, based on the Japanese series Hana Yori Dango, follow the lives of the boys of an elite private school clique known as F4 (Flower Four, how manly) and how their lives change as a result of a working-class girl who is forced to attend their school.
Any free time I have during the day is reserved for BBF–lunchtime, breaks between classes, you name it. I’ve finished 15 of the hour-long episodes, and I don’t know how I can stand to watch any more. I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve been brought to tears by the love triangle between Gu Jun Pyo, heir to Korea’s largest company; Yoon Ji Hoo, a Julliard-trained musician and the love of my life; and Geum Jan Di, the spunky daughter of a dry cleaner who transfers to the elite school. Jan Di, a newcomer at the school, stands up to the mean, bullying Jun Pyo, becoming the first person to do so. Intrigued by her stubbornness and the fact that nobody has ever treated him like that before, Ju Pyo begins to fall for Jan Di. The only catch? Ji Hoo’s love for Jan Di, as well as Jun Pyo’s cruel and meddling mother, who will stop at nothing to keep Jan Di and Jun Pyo apart.
Watching the characters break up and reconcile over and over has turned my world upside-down. This is worse than Addison/Derek/Meredith or Karen/Jim/Pam. I’ve discussed my inner pain with Sarah, who agreed with me when I compared my emotions post-episode watching to going through a serious breakup. My stomach twists and turns, the tears flow, and before I know it, my whole day is ruined. Think I’m overreacting? Watch and see for yourself. Try one or two episodes and tell me it’s not quality television. Go on, I dare you.
Every day off this summer has been a struggle. How do I convince myself to do something other than lounge around the pool and read? On the rare occasion that I do something worthwhile (aside from work on my tan), I usually end up having a pretty decent time. Case in point: two weeks ago. Mimsie and I both had Wednesday off, so we met up at Seoul Grand Park, home to the city’s zoo. Half-expecting a dilapidated building with sad, depressed animals, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the zoo was one of the nicer ones I’ve been to.
Inside the zoo was pretty much everything you’d expect to see. There was an insectarium (grosssssss), a giraffe pit, a hippo lagoon and enough monkeys and jungle cats to entertain Tarzan for a lifetime.
The highlight of the day came mid-afternoon in the kangaroo habitat. Why, you ask? Well, have you ever pet and fed an kangaroo? That’s what I thought. Every day the zoo allows visitors into the kangaroo zone to play with the animals. I made friends with one kangaroo in particular–he wasn’t too big or too tiny, and he always wanted to play with me (or at least eat the food in my hand).
He also liked my camera.
After we befriended the kangaroos, we made the acquaintance of a little girl with impressive English. I heard her talking excitedly to her parents, so I said to her, “Chinjcha!? (Really!?)” and she looked over, gasped and said, “You speak Korean???” After that, she wouldn’t leave us alone. I’m not sure if she wanted us to speak to her in English or Korean, but she delighted when we said anything in either language. As we were leaving, she asked us something in Korean that neither Mimsie nor I understood. After we said we didn’t know, she put her hands on her hips and said, “You don’t know your own name!?” Laughing, we introduced ourselves and said goodbye.
Aside from the kangaroo feeding, the zoo was pretty much on par with every zoo I’ve been to in the States. I didn’t feel ripped off, the animals weren’t living in squalid conditions and the zoo offered a wide variety of things to see, as well as interactive activities for kids and adults (and whatever category I fall into)
Pig-headed turtle!!! Now that's a turtle I'd actually fear.
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King of the jungle!
Rabbit habitat? Oh no. This was the fox home.
Hello, miniature Lion King set
Cute kid
Cute Melissa? Note the giant tiger in the background
Forty-eight more days, people. Forty-eight days.
Some clarification: At some point during your day in America, a blog post will be put up. And seeing as how it’s still Wednesday in America, I’m in the clear. Glad we got that covered.
If there’s one thing that has always astounded me, it’s the way our female students treat some of the male teachers. Case in point, my friend Eric, who was here for winter camp and came back to work the summer. During winter camp, we started telling students that we were engaged. We made up a really elaborate, inconceivable story that, for some reason, these kids believe. We took it a step further this summer and cope and pasted our faces onto a picture of a Korean couple in traditional hanbok attire, which is now used during the graduation slideshow.
Back to my original point. The girls who come to SEV absolutely love Eric. They are always searching for him during class breaks and asking teachers, “Where’s Eric teacher? Have you seen Eric teacher!?” During winter camp, one girl literally wrote his name more than 100 times all over her pencil case. That same day, a group of girls tackled me to the floor after hearing about my “engagement.” After I told a girl yesterday about the fakegagement, she started crying and Mimsie spent ten minutes rubbing her back and consoling her. Some of these girls seriously think they have a chance with guys who are two or three times their age. How do you deal with kids like that?
Eric’s not the only one with that problem. There are a few guys who are, for lack of a better comparison, the Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr of SEV. A few girls performed at the talent show last night (more on the talent show in another post) and told Mimsie that they were changing the lyrics of a Korean pop song to “I love my Paul.” In my ESL class this week, I asked the kids to write an essay about their time at SEV and to include what they thought about the teachers, among other things. In an effort to get some bonus points, the kids all obviously listed me. But aside from that, they named three male teachers, none of whom had taught them more than a couple times all camp.
Some of us were discussing this last night. While most of the kids we get are in elementary school and their obsessions are funny and cute, some of the girls are around 14 years old. That’s got to be awkward for these guys. The girls don’t look 14 (we easily confuse them with the Korean staff–a lot) and they’re throwing themselves at these guys who are, in some cases, old enough to be their father. If this wasn’t a school and the a girl didn’t say how old she was, so many awkward situations might ensue.
It’s also important to note that our male students would never act this way. There are no female teachers with harems of men, no poems written, no names scribbled in a notebook. The closest I’ve come was the other day, when one of my older students, C (not to be confused with his friends Q, J and B), ran up to me, grabbed my umbrella and held it above me as we walked to class. That’s as close to Prince Charming as I’m going to get here, I suppose.
This whole situation has got me thinking: Have we ever been this bad? My middle school diary is a testament my adolescent craziness, but I couldn’t imagine ever acting like the girls at our school. Mimsie made an interesting point yesterday: Maybe we are just as bad, but we don’t vocalize our crushes and throw ourselves at guys the way these girls do. I don’t know how they can shamelessly throw themselves at the teachers. I’m also not sure whether to be impressed with their ballsiness or embarrassed for them. Tough call, no?
As funny and entertaining as these girls are, let’s add them to the “Something I won’t miss about Korea” category. It’s all fun and games until someone gets taken down in a basement bathroom, people.
