Singing and Growing

One of my fellow teachers told me that during her first month here she felt like she was ‘drowning’ (or maybe just kicking her arms and legs wildly), but after that she got into her groove. That statement rings pretty true for me too, especially now that I have been here a whole month! This country mouse is starting to feel like an independent city mouse. Well maybe more like a country mouse becoming a city mouse in a city of hamsters; we’re all pretty much the same here, but look a little different and communicate differently. Assuming hamsters and mice don’t speak the same rodent language.

Anyway, enough of that analogy.

After writing last Saturday I explored some of the outdoors, which is RIGHT NEXT TO my apartment! I live next to a flippin’ mountain. I threw on some hiking clothes, grabbed my backpack, and I was on my way. Let me tell you, it was thrilling. When I lived in Vermont I would have hiked a whole lot more if I was able to walk to the place to hike, not drive, which my old roomie Molly G. and I talked about many a times. The hike was beautiful and my soul was so happy to be out in the wilderness once again. The views that I saw brought tears to my eyes and helped me to be in the present moment, which is oh so important, yet hard to always accomplish. I was the only non-Asian person I saw hiking, which is becoming a familiar thing to me. The only people who made eye contact with me on the trail were the men. The women, most of whom had hats on with wide visors, looked down so far that I couldn’t even see their eyes. Some Korean men not only made eye contact but tried to converse, which often entails a lot of giggling. One man saw me and said “Ohhhh! Hello!! Where you from?” When I told him Pennsylvania, he got a big smile on his face and giggled, and told me he spent time at Penn State. When I told him I had been there before, he was beside himself with giggling joy. It put quite the spring in my step. I've included some pictures from the hike; the stone steps are the entrance (right across from a 5-lane busy street), then the path up the moutain, and to the right is my favorite view with a little Korean flag in the corner.

Sunday night I had my first norebang (Korean karaoke) experience, which was AMAZING. This is no American karaoke where you have to contend with a multitude of other people waiting in line for the same machine. Here you get your own room. With your own machine. And your own two microphones. And a HUGE list of songs to choose from. I was pretty much bouncing off the walls with excitement. I went with two co-workers/friends and two Korean guys we’re friends with, who really want to show us the best of Seoul. Holla. There is a picture included of some singing and what the room looks like. There’s a table in back, and they bring a bunch of food that is included in the price of the room. Eat, sing, and be merry. It was the most unusual mix of songs I have ever been privy to in a karaoke session; lots of Korean pop and rap songs, Brittany Spear’s hits, Hey Ya, Bohemian Rhapsody (of course), Bon Jovi….and the best was you didn’t have to listen to strangers eek their way through songs, or sing a cheesy love song and then propose to their special lady. Although, now that I think about it, that’s pretty amazing too…In a nutshell, I cannot wait to go back.

Ada + huge song lists to choose from + two tambos = a SUPERB time.

One other thing to note this week was I had my first experience of being at the receiving end of a racist person’s negative remarks. Afterwards I felt like I had reached a large milestone in my life as my white privilege prevents me from having many of these experiences, but I also felt downright pissed off and a bit scared. Here’s how it occurred: I went to the Post Office with my friend and co-worker Susan; she was showing me the ropes of mailing something here (under $2.00 to send a large envelope to Toronto, Canada by the way.) She and I were chatting while waiting in line and a very angry 60-something Korean man shot daggers at us and said “Will you be quiet?!” I was thrown for a loop on that as I just had gotten yelled at by a Korean stranger in perfect English. So I kind of smiled and said, “Uh, sure.” We did chat a few more times - I mean I wasn’t going to let some ego-driven man tell me what to do, and each time he looked at us with hatred pouring out of his every being. As he was leaving he walked past Susan muttering something and STARED at us still very angrily, and Susan began to laugh because, well, he was being quite ridiculous. Then he stood in the doorway and looked back at us with a sneer, and I was so pissed off and incredulous, I stared right back at him. This prompted him to ask “What are you staring at?? If you don’t like it here, go back home!” And off he went. I was dumbfounded, angry, embarrassed, scared, and confused. It blows my freakin’ mind that some people have to put up with that shit every day.

And just so I am not ending this on a WTF note, here’s a little tidbit from my classroom this week. One student, Louis, is quickly becoming my favorite as he is sweet, kind, caring, and smart, but still pushes the envelope a little bit. We had a flea market event this week, where the kids bought stuff with money they earned for good behavior, and he purchased a red Winnie-the-Pooh hat, complete with little ears on top, that’s a bit too small for him. But he LOVES it and shows it off to me every time he wears it. Yesterday I was standing in front of the door trying to corral the kiddos into a straight line and Louis came right up to me with a quizzical look on his face, hit my boob straight on and said, “Miss K, what is that??” It was all I could do to keep from laughing, but told him “It’s a female body part, go home and ask your mom about it.”

Goodbye for now, friends!

Teaching and Learning

Yesterday my third week of teaching came to an end and today I have officially been in Seoul for three weeks. The first week and a half was very full of the excitement that comes along with being in a new place (country/culture/apartment/school) for the first time. I will admit that during the second week and a half I started to feel a bit homesick. In the moment(s) I was mad I was sad (figure that one out), but after some contemplation on the matter, how could I not be homesick? I am in a new country on the other side of the world where no one speaks the same language, in a CITY that is smaller than New York City but more densely populated (i.e. EVERYTHING is crowded), every smell/sight/activity is pretty much new, I’m in a new apartment living alone for the first time…..I think you get the picture. I had a couple of those moments of being irrationally angry at something, my shower for instance, but I had some TIME with myself and my thoughts and now I’m feeling much better. What it mainly comes down to is that I cannot set expectations on the places and people around me because what will happen will…..happen. There is a lot I cannot control but I can control what I do. (Deep thoughts by Katie Kearney.)

Being homesick made me think back to Journey’s End, where I worked as a camp counselor for a long time, and therefore dealt with a lot of homesickness. One little boy I had put the feeling of it into words perfectly, “I feel weird.”

The saving grace during my bouts was definitely teaching little kiddos. Each day I get more used to it, more organized, more comfortable, more in control, more set in my routine, and I just have more GD fun. Here is a picture of my Kindy class doing show & tell; the little girl in front is presenting her favorite Fairy Tale book, which is our monthly theme. She’s pretty much the all-star in my class, as are most of the girls. They are more quiet and reserved (and well-behaved) while the boys are wild and very competitive. As much as I don’t like to gender stereotype, these behaviors seem to directly reflect their gender, especially in a country as patriarchal as this one. The life in this country for the rich little boys in my class is such: go to a private English school, do THE BEST, go to a private high school, do THE BEST, go to college in America or Canada, do THE BEST, get a job that pays A LOT, get married, have kids so you can pay for their expensive education, re-start cycle. The women in this scenario get the ‘easy’ (so they say here) life of taking care of the kids and house. There are a lot of days here when I thank my lucky stars that I am an American, which is kind of a new thing for me.

But I digress. Last week in class we had a birthday party, which I probably got too excited about. Shocker. There is one day a month that every class in the school celebrates the birthdays that happen(ed) that month. I had two boys in my class celebrating, one of whom wore a little bow-tie to class, which he kept fiddling with all day. They each brought in a photo album of themselves from when they were a baby. It was weird seeing them show the pictures and say, this was when I was 1 (as Koreans are a year old when they are born.) But these photo albums were HUGE and FANCY. One boy couldn’t even hold his. They dressed these babies up in about 20 different outfits and took an obscene amount of pictures. My favorite outfit, and boy do I wish I took a picture, was a kitty one – a blue fuzzy kitty head with ears, then blue fuzzy paws on each foot, then a blue fuzzy bottom with a blue fuzzy tail. And the baby was smiling. Amazing. We also had a huge lunch (chicken and kim-bop) and each kid in the class bought each boy a present, which I don’t agree with but still love watching kids open presents. It reminded me of a scene from the video my friend Vanessa has of her 7^th birthday where she is opening presents. Everyone is YELLING, so excited, and in the back at one point I jump up and wiggle, which I assume was to get my extra energies out. Anyway, at the end of the day we had cake that cost over 100,000 won ($100), and was apparently made by the most famous baker in Korea.

I am feeling more and more bonded to these little kiddos, and they to me. They are starting to crowd around my desk in the morning to see what’s a happening, ooo and awe over my newly painted nails, yell excitedly when they see me in the halls after school (or they shy ones have a big smile they try to hide.) I am so flippin’ thankful to have this year of teaching to do because I am learning so much about myself and how I teach. I have been taught how to teach public school in the traditional sense (sit down, be quiet, follow my rules, do worksheets), but also have a lot of experience as a camp counselor allowing kids to be wild and learn on their own terms. It has been a challenge to meld those two experiences together, so these little Korean kids are breaking me in. Many thanks to Max, James, Barbie, Selina, Lu, Tae ha, Sean, Alice, Louis, and Michelle. Maybe I’ll give them all a sticker on Monday.

Thanks again for reading.

Exploration

The last thing I posted regarded finding the Quaker Meeting in town. Well, let me tell you a little something about directions in South Korea; they are practically non-existent and all in Korean. I went to Google Maps, typed in the address, and got directions to take the subway to a certain stop. From there, there was literally an arrow pointing from the subway stop to the location – through buildings and streets and alleys. No street names, no ‘take a left here’, no hint of detail. Though on Sunday I still attempted to take the subway to the correct stop to see if I could maybe, juuuuust maybe, find my way there. I had the Lord on my side after all. However, trying to find your way to an undisclosed location in a country where no one speaks your language and all the signs are in foreign characters is, in a word, difficult. I ended up wandering through some alleys where I am pretty sure no white people ever go because I got STARED at. One group of people actually smiled at me, though I think it was due in part to being so surprised. I tried to get some food in one alley, in this tiny hole in the wall place where an old, wrinkled Korean woman was stirring soup in big cast-iron pots. We gestured to each other for a little while before she pretty much told me whatever she was making would be too spicy for me and kept saying ‘kim-bop!!’ (Korean sushi) and pointing wildly around the corner. Needless to say, I did not find Quaker Meeting. Yet.

While I was eating my kim-bop around the corner from the old Korean woman and her spicy soup, I was reading a book called Seoul Survivor, which was written by an early thirty-something Canadian who had lived in Korea for many years. It’s been giving me some good insight into the Korean culture, and I felt like I was really getting into it – eating kim-bop, hearing Korean spoken all around me, and reading about the culture. Then I got to a part that said ‘Koreans find it odd when people eat at restaurants alone.’ Erhmm. Well! I was done with the kim-bop anyway so I best be on my way!

This brings me to a conundrum I have been having. As I was sitting eating alone in that restaurant I was feeling good about myself for being adventurous and exploring alone (in a very SAFE country, parental units!) I was all jazzed up about being an independent woman and then felt de-jazzed (unjazzed?) after reading that people in Korean generally do not dine alone, so I got up and went on my way. So, how much do I want to be myself and how much do I want to fit into Korean culture? My whole life I have been taught to be yourself! Do what you think is right! Be independent! Then I come to a country where that is not the case; how much do I change about myself and my habits to conform to a different society?

This is an especially tricky question when I spend most of my time here in an international school where we are teaching students with an American curriculum. The school sometimes feels like living in a weird American bubble in the midst of all things Korean. It is quite bizarre to teach Korean students with this curriculum because they just don’t get much of the references. I was teaching explanatory writing the other day, and the example the book used was ‘How to Make a Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich.’ None of the kids knew what that was. (It took me ½ an hour to find jelly in the store on Wednesday and all they had was strawberry. Koreans don’t eat much jelly.) Sometimes I find it hard to relate to the students because of that big gap in our cultural backgrounds.

Yet, this is what I am here to do – learn about a new culture/way of life that does not dominate the flippin’ world, like the American culture does. Most of the time I think it’s really quite wonderful and exciting; such as when I see straight men wearing pink shirts and sequined pants, or when men wear their partner’s purses on their shoulders, or when I sit down to eat a truly Korean meal, or when I wander through an outdoor market, or when I stop and think ‘I’m in SOUTH KOREA.’ There are other times though that I throw my hands up and think ‘God damnit, Korea!’; like the fact that the government requires everyone to buy special garbage bags in a scheme to make them money, or when I’m on the crowded bus for an hour round-trip commute each day, or when I stop to think how old-fashioned and patriarchal the society is, or when I have compostable food scraps I have to throw it away.

But you know what? Here’s to getting out of my comfort zone and growing.

Happy weekend!

To Market! To Market!

I don’t think I have ever been more thankful for, or feel as though I have earned a weekend more. Great big HOLLA to that. During the latter part of this past week I began to feel as though I was getting on top of my game because I was able to implement more fearning (fun learning) activities into the day. I’ve started some new strategies to modify student behavior, which are working well, though one student told me he liked the other teacher better. That may seem like a shot to the heart, but I was actually happy to hear it because it means I am LAYING down the law. Ain’t no foolin’ in my room unless I say so….or unless I am the instigator.

The behavioral incentive that I am using rewards good behavior with a game at the end of the day. I thought back to my days at Lackawanna Trail Elementary Center and Journey’s End Farm Camp to get some ideas, and I am thankful for those two jackpots. One of my classes LOVES silent ball, which cracks me up. They don’t realize it’s a ploy to keep them, well, silent. Another class loves Heads Up Seven Up, which is quite an amazing game that not enough people past age 10 play.

Like my students, I am taking a class of sorts; after school the Principal, Mrs. Yi (or Lee, we’re not quite sure) teaches myself and another new teacher Korean. Before going into this I knew that it would be a hard language to master, and boy howdy was my assumption correct. Not only is there a whole different alphabet, but they stack letters to create new sounds, and have some silent characters that just hold the place. Mrs. Yi is teaching us to read the characters, and another Korean supervisor is helping us learn how to speak it. This little phrase made me feel like a champion when I ordered lunch yesterday: “Cham chee kim bop ju say oh. Kam sa ham ni da.” (I would like tuna sushi. Thank you.) The -k in the word kam is actually a k/g sound (not just k), which is why I was getting giggled at when I said ‘kam sa ham ni da,’ instead of k/gam sa ham ni da. Another funny thing I learned yesterday about this amazing language is that if the word for tuna (cham chee) is pronounced a little differently it becomes the word for female genitalia. Jin jah? (Really?) Jin jah. (Really.)

Today I met up wth my friend Kari, a fellow former Burlingtonian, and her boyfriend Charles. I met them at Namdaemun, an outdoor market that sells everything from shoes to toys to dried fruit to freshly picked vegetables. It covers over 10 acres and has over 1,000 shops/stalls/retailers/street vendors. We got an amazingly large Korean lunch for $7/person. I bought some dried fruit and even tried some dried tomatoes for the first time, which are really quite sweet. There were some cooked bugs for sale to eat, but they smelled like pee so I refrained from trying them. This time. I hope to work up the courage before leaving this fair city.

Bugs!

I am starting to recognize places and am better able to find my way around, which is quite thrilling. The subway is not too hard to navigate and I don’t mind being all touristy pulling out the map because one look at me tells the Koreans I am not from here. Tomorrow my goal is to find the Quaker Meeting in town. Jin ja.

Until next time.