Korea: The Good, The Bad, and the Weird.

**I'm having some formatting issues I don't know how to rectify, so just bear with me! (Insert a picture of a bear.)**

Living away from home for this long and this far often makes me feel as though I’m on a roller coaster of emotions. Sometimes I’m full of nervous expectations at the top of the hill, other times I’m flying down with not many thoughts but ‘oh shit’, other times I just want to get off, and other times I’m taking the smaller hills with ease and enjoying every minute of it. As I am getting closer to my three-month mark I’m starting to realize that I won’t be here forever, and I don’t want to waste my time here thinking how the culture doesn’t always suit my fancy, or how Koreans in Seoul can be rude, or how far away home is. One day I’ll be back in America, probably back in good ‘ol NEPA, looking fondly back on my time and experiences here. Here’s to riding the small hills with joy and excitement.

This past weekend really flipped my thinking switch for me as I got to see a different and magical side of Korea. Last Sunday I went to Yeongdong county in Chungcheongbuk-do with some friends for a music/wine/fall festival. AMAZING. We went with a group called ‘Adventure Korea’, which caters to foreigners but there were some Koreans, too. The bus ride was three-hours out of Seoul, but well worth it. We started out in a Music Village of sorts and visited a museum with traditional Korean instruments; I think I saw some sort of traditional Korean banjo, but as it was behind a case I could only stare longingly. Then we went into a room full of traditional Korean drums and were taught how to play them. Bum, bum, bumbumbum! The drums lay on their side so there are two heads at each end; one side is hit with a mallet and the other with a slim wooden stick. It was FUN. The woman who was teaching the class was amaaaazing at the drum and she showed off a little bit, which was grand.

Then we were bused off to the wine/music/fall festival about 20 minutes away from the first stop. This was a place full of tents turned booths, with wine tasting, FRUIT (grapes of course, apples, a pear/apple mixture of magic fruit, persimmons, peaches, apricots….), food to eat, some games to play (ring toss on bottles of wine), and a wine tasting show of sorts in the middle. I went with three other friends who were also ready for a Korean Adventure. We got some food first, and luckily my friend Nicole has been here a while so she can read some Korean and we knew what to order. It was amazing how much more friendly Koreans were to us foreigners outside of the city. One lady kept coming over to us, oooing and awing over Ada and Nicole’s tattoos, and trying shoving makoli (Korean rice wine) in our face. Then one old man who worked there brought us, free of charge, some sort of Korean kimchee pancake/crepe. It was good, bad, and weird. The table next to us held some adults and two little girls who kept coming up to us and talking, which their dad was pushing them to do this at first, but then they became enamored and hung around longer. Being good Koreans talking to foreigners, they giggled a lot, stared, and told us we were pretty.

Then we met back up with our group and got to take part in the wine tasting. As we were waiting in line to sit at our tables right in the middle of the festival, I tried chatting it up with a local vendor asking about his wine. I guess he took to this waeguk (foreigner) because before I knew it he asked me to write down my name, then proceeded to give me a folded up piece of paper with a drawing that he did on it…..of a short Korean looking cartoon woman in an apron holding a broom and dustpan. It was a good drawing and I had him sign it; it’s now on my fridge. Perhaps it was his way of showing me how good my life could be if I married a Korean wine-maker?

We finally sat down at our table, along with other foreigners on the trip, and each had a bunch of local Korean wine on our tables to sample, along with some snacks. We all felt like high royalty as folks kept coming around to us pouring wine, telling us about the wine, and generally giggling as they talked to all the foreigners. I sampled a few, when in Rome eh?, and they were very, very sweet as are the grapes here – go figure. I didn’t really like any of them, but ended up winning a free bottle in a dance competition. Korea, the good, the bad and the weird.

During the sampling there was a band playing, then a guy up front speaking in Korean. We had no idea what was going on, but were following what the other Koreans in the tented tabled area were doing. There was a Korean wine-making woman next to our table who told us to dance when the guy up front finished talking, so our whole table got up (the only one) and busted a move. I was confused, but I like to dance so I kept going. Then our table got called up front. In front of the other 20 tables, and a crowd of Koreans gathered around the edges of the tent, we were told we were going to have a dance-off of sorts. In instances like this, I’m glad that I’m a Kearney and also a teacher and therefore don’t mind being the center of attention sometimes. We all danced together first, then each got a number and danced one by one. All of the sudden I found myself charged with the task of dancing my heart out in front of 100s of people I didn’t know and whose language I could not understand. So I danced. Hard. We all did, but the winner was David, a tall, gangly, white boy from Maine who danced just like you would imagine a tall, white, gangly, white boy to dance. The Koreans were cracking up and declared him the winner.

But! Lo and behold, enter one of the little girls we met while we were eating lunch, and her very pushy father who insisted she had a dance off with David. Words were said, then the dance off began – David vs. 7 year-old Korean girl. Both had great moves, and the father kept showing his daughter the ‘right’ way to do things, and at the end picked her up and put her in David’s arms. I’m not sure if I have ever witnessed a more awkward scene in my life, and it was purely amazing. We all ended up winning a bottle of wine (David got two, the little girl got something, not sure what) for being such good sports.

Once the shock of that experience was over, we got to explore the rest of the festival. We started walking towards another part and watched some traditional dancing for a hot second before we were scooped up by an adjuma who just said, “Hello! Follow me!” How could you say no? So she took us to this HUGE drum and we had to hit it three times with a big drumstick – I believe it was meant to ensure a good harvest. So the four of us hit that drum with all our might and while we did that, about 23,442 Koreans took pictures of us. I can honestly say I have never had so many people I did not know take pictures of me. Korea: The Good, The Bad, and The Weird.

Next our adjuma guide took us to another drumming thing, with drums like we had played earlier in the day. I felt a little bit like a rock star since I already knew how to do it, and while I was playing there were again 23,442 Koreans snapping pictures of us. It was disconcerting, but entertaining and it made me giggle. Once we rocked the drums once more, our adjuma took us to a traditional green tea drinking ceremony. We took off our shoes, sat down on pink pillows in front of another adjuma dressed in a hanbok (traditional Korean dress for women) and had a down-right tea ceremony. There was a proper way to hold the cup (one hand underneath the mug, one on the side) and we had to smell it, take it away from our face, and then sip it – three times. Afterwards we enjoyed a sang pyoeong, which is a sweet rice cake. We got to do the tea-drinking twice, and even met the mayor of the town whilst doing so. I have to say, politicians look very similar despite their cultural heritage. He was kind though and was excited to meet us foreign ladies. Again during this whole process, lots of pictures snapped by those unknown to us.

The adjuma bid us farewell at this point, so we decided to check out some more of the traditional Korean instruments. I really enjoyed one that I had seen in the King Sejong museum as it was an instrument created by him. Almost like a lap dulcimer, it had strings that were actually made of string and boy howdy did I really enjoyed it. The lady who was running that musical tent showed me some things and was impressed when Ada told her I played banjo so she showed me some more strumming techniques, after she wowed me with playing “Ob-La-Di” by the Beatles on her instrument. I have to say it was GD thrilling to be able to play another stringed instrument sort of okay because I play the banj. I have wanted to be able to play instruments my whole life - here’s to doing things that you want to do.

We shopped around a bit (I bought a present for my big bro-ski that he just has to wait and see about) and then headed back to the main wine festival part to make some wine cookies. I tried to make a volcano, but the woman made me push it into a crater and I’m not too sure why. When we were leaving I ran into the wine guy who gave me the picture he drew and he really wanted a picture with me, so he gave his camera to Nicole, grabbed my hand, and we had a nice little photo shoot. I grabbed a frozen persimmon on the way out and the owner of the stand took a picture of me and Nicole eating our frozen fruit, then shoved his daughters next to us and took another picture, then gave the camera to his wife and he got into the picture, too.

It was probably one of the best Korean adventures I have had thus far.

To bring it back home, on Monday I celebrated my first Canadian Thanksgiving…in Korea. Half of our staff is Canadian and my friend Ada in particular was really bummin’ to be missing this big holiday at home. So we banded together, bought a cheesecake, some roasted chickens from the chicken man, made some potatoes and veggies, and had us a feast. These gals here are feeling more like my family away from home, and I love the opportunities we all have together to bond. I have done things with them that I have never done, or probably never will do again, with anybody else.

I can get overwhelmed here sometimes, but it’s all a journey. I am here now because I am supposed to be, and I am enjoying my moments more and more. Thanks for reading. Happy weekend.

Milestones and Moments

OhMyLanta, it’s been a while since I have last written; the once a week goal I had flew out the rip I have in my window screen. Where to begin? Perhaps with some of the reasons why I have not had time to do weekly updates: report cards and parent teacher conferences….dun, dun, duuuuuun. As a first year teacher these are HUGE milestones, and in my mind were beginning to take on the size of Stonehenge. Now that it’s all said and done, these milestones are looking more like the stones one would find in an old, collapsed stone wall, perhaps one in the woods of Dalton, near the farm that’s been on the Kearney side of my family for many years.

I found it hard to write report cards as we don’t actually test a lot of the kids, and therefore there weren’t much to glean information from, save my memory. Luckily in my old age I am starting to get better at planning (thanks for teaching me the 6 P’s, Dad) so I was able to take notes on my kiddos and get a lot of information. I had to do about 25 in all, for the three different classes I teach, and they went home the week before parent/teacher conferences….and Open Class. With milestone one down, the following week I had to teach a class in front of all my Kindergarten parents, my Korean supervisor, my principal, and the owner of the school. Was I nervous? Well, sure, but I just used the tactic of not looking at anyone but the kids and I was fine. I taught them about capacities and used some hands-on tools so they would understand it, so it would take more time, and so the parents thought I was a flippin’ genius. Just kidding on that last one….kind of. I did want to impress them, and I guess I did because I was supposed to have a conference with each parent (or shall I say mom because no fathers came to ANY of my conferences), but they didn’t want to because they had no questions. I was relived and all those thoughts I had had of them saying awful things to me slowly dissipated from my head.

Kindergarten: success. Then on to my afternoon second graders, who are in third grade in their Korean school. Most of those parents were unable to make it, but the ones I met with were pleased and just wanted to know how to help improve their child’s English. At first I felt like I was telling them things I was just pulling out of my you-know-what, but then I realized that I do know this stuff - all this ‘education stuff’, as that’s what I was learning about in college for six years. Suddenly all this education jargon came flooding back into my mind and I got excited and told them a lot of ways to help their kids and then had a sudden yearning to go back to college and learn more, more, more! Perhaps when I make my way back to the good ‘ol U S of A I’ll take more classes, but right now I’m doing my learning in another kind of classroom.

Last weekend I took a glorious hike to Inje, Gangwondo, which is about a three hour ride outside of Seoul. To sum it all up, it was a wonderful, amazing, and beautiful experience. I have hiked around my apartment a few times, but it was nice to be able to do so in a brand new place with brand new people. The group that I went with was mostly foreigners, though there were some Koreans, and I was able to meet some fun new people. It was beautiful terrain, and reminded me a lot of home as we hiked near a river for most of it, and the flora and fauna are very similar to home because we’re almost at the same latitude. I think the best part about it was that we were totally out of the city so we couldn’t hear anything but the rush of the water and the call of the Korean magpies. I brushed up on my stone skipping skills, crossed the river 23 times and got my feet soaked, basked in the sun, and made some new friends. Afterwards we all stopped for dinner at this little Korean restaurant where we sat on the floor and ate bim-bam-bop (seaweed and other vegetables on top of rice.) Outside there was another group of folks, older Koreans, who were drinking and having a big BBQ. When I came outside after dinner, our group and their group mingled together and were dancing around their open fire while other people were singing karaoke. Before I knew it I was holding hands with a drunk, older Korean man dancing away and loving every minute of it. The randomness of this place amazes me.

The following day I was lucky enough to go to a concert with the family that I do the language exchange with (I’ll call them the Yins from now on – Mrs. Yin being the mom, and then grandma and the daughter named Min Won.) Mrs. Yin has been taking cello lessons and her teacher was giving a concert, so she invited me along. It was SO GOOD to hear live music again, especially because it was an orchestra (cellos, violins, flutes, clarinets, piano, occasional organ) with a choir backing it up. It was religious because it was held in a church, but since it was in another language I couldn’t understand much expect for the power of the music. It gave me chills! I could recognize some of the tunes from my church going days and it was nice to have some familiarity.

This past weekend was very different in each of its days. Saturday my friend Ada and I went exploring in a new part of town and checked out the Dandeamun wholesale market. I wasn’t completely sure what they meant by wholesale, but now the definition is cemented in my head. It was an indoor market, floor upon floor upon floor, of STUFF. There were small hallways with small booths on each side, and each booth had a theme: buttons, large fabric, feathery fabric, small bits of fabric, jewelry charms, zippers, foam….let your imagination run wild here. Then we kept meandering and made it into another market, this one kind of like an open air one with wider hallways (though food venders took up the extra space) and bigger stalls on each side selling things: hanboks (traditional Korean outfit), rice cakes, lots and lots of seafood, fruits, veggies, fish, fish, fish, grains, rice, etc. Then we kept going and made it outside into an alley where there were more indoor stores selling even more stuff: hiking gear, rope, pots, pans, burners, unidentifiable items….it amazes me how many people here sell stuff. When we had had enough of the whole ‘buy, buy, buy!’ culture, we found a nice stream in the middle of that particular part of the city and walked by it for a while. Under a bridge we stumbled upon a Korean band performing, then kept walking down, enjoying the nice day and running water. Two Korean men with very nice cameras walked past us, smiled, backtracked and asked us if they could take our picture. Uh, sure? They had us pose on a rock by the river, side by side, and smile for the cameras. They were both snapping away while Ada and I sat there smiling unsure of why they were taking our pictures. We surmised that they may put it in a tourist thing saying ‘Hey! Look at all these happy foreigners!’, but I suppose we’ll never know.

In a completely different area of ATK (All Things Korean) I went to Everland yesterday with some friends from work. It’s described as ‘Korea’s Disney Land’, and they weren’t joking. It was a huge amusement park and was, in a word, magical. The lines ended up being LONG; for example we wanted to ride the ‘T’ and ended up waiting in line for THREE HOURS. The line outside was an hour and a half, as it was inside, which we didn’t realize until we had already put in an hour and a half of our time. However, the roller coaster was AMAZING and I really thought I was going to die, or was going straight into the pits of hell, so I chalk it up as being worth the wait. It was dark by the time we got off, just in time to go into ‘Horror Town’ (there was a big Halloween theme) and see some monsters/creatures/dead people/spooky stuff. I will admit I was scared by a mummy…twice. I screamed out loud. Twice. I think he was the least scary looking, but the sneakiest. The other costumes were quite wonderful and the actors got really into it. Everland, I’ll see you next weekend.

I was talking to my mom on the phone yesterday and she asked me, ‘Do you just love Korea?’ My response was ‘No, but I do like it.’ I realize it’s a different culture that I’m not totally used to, but it’s not one that I LOVE. I am enjoying my time here both exploring and teaching, but I won’t be in this country for more than a year. It’s easy to romanticize a place before you get there, and then continue to do so once you get there for the sake of either yourself (your sanity) or to convince other people back at home that you’re having the best time ever and don’t they wish they could do something like this. While I have no regrets about doing this adventure, and think that most people would benefit getting out of their comfort zone, I’m not going to pretend that every day is amazing and wonderful and life changing. Some days are, and some days get to be a part of the routine. I wonder a lot what the future holds for me, and it takes a lot of remembering to stay in the present moment. Writing this helps me to appreciate the moments I have had, and keep in mind that this experience isn’t forever so I should appreciate all the time that I have here.

Thanks for reading, I really do appreciate it. Much love to all back home.

Holidays, Culture, and Tradition

I have delved even deeper into ATK (All Things Korean) in the past week and a half since I last wrote as Korea just celebrated its largest holiday called Chuseuk. I was able to celebrate the holiday at school with the kiddos and then had a nice break, some of which I spent learning more about Korea and its culture. Koreans LOVE to teach foreigners about their history and culture.

Thursday was the day we celebrated Chuseuk at school so all the children wore hanboks, traditional Korean clothing; it’s very colorful and silky and makes little kids look one hundred times cuter. It was interesting observing modern day children wear traditional clothing – they were proud to wear it and show off their heritage, but they couldn’t help but complain that it was hot and too heavy to wear. In the morning we made ‘sang pyok’, which is a rice cake filled with some sweet powdery substance. You flatten out the rice (it’s in a big mass like puddy), fill it with the powder, then close it up. It was a fun activity, and my students showed me how to make some, made some for me, fed them to me….I ate a lot of sang pyok that day. We also made toys out of tissue paper and a metal washer (coin as they called it.) You folded the ‘coin’ into the tissue paper, then poked a hole and pulled the tissue paper through to create a sort of hacky sack toy. The kids loved playing with them, but they girls had a hard time kicking them due to their very long dresses. In the afternoon we went to the gym (which is finally back in use after the flood that hit the school right before I got here) and we played traditional Korean games. One was playing with the ‘hacky sacks’, another was kind of like jacks but with small cubes, and the last was one that involved throwing sticks to find out how far you would move on a board. It was loud, chaotic, and fun.

I have begun a language exchange of sorts with a family – I teach English to the daughter (age 6) and the grandma (age 60) and I learn some Korean in turn. I am slowly memorizing the vowels, but as there are about ten that are lines and squiggles to me still, it’s hard work. It’s very bizarre teaching a 60-year-old the basics of the English language and it’s hard not to feel as though I am being condescending towards her. ‘No, cat. Cah-ah-tt.’ The 6 year old has yet to learn English letters or Korean symbols and also has a short attention span, so it’s been….an interesting process. I really like the family though; I get to dine with them whenever we do our language exchange so I have been having some more wondrous Korean meals. I now crave kimchi daily; in fact I wish I had some right now….The mom enjoys teaching me things about Korea and over the Chuseok break invited me over for a family dinner, then out on the town to show me around. We visited a statue of King Sejong, who was an amazing man, especially in the eyes of Koreans.

King Sejong was born in 1397 and was one of the most revered Kings in Korean history. Before he became king Koreans spoke Chinese, which was a very hard language to master especially because so many Koreans at that time who were hard working folks with not a lot of time or energy to learn this confusing language. Therefore, when King Sejong began ruling he created a new alphabet and language, which is the Korean used today. He was a big proponent of education so he sent a lot of scholars around the country to teach this new language to everyone. He was quoted as saying, “Because people form a country’s foundation, a country finds peace only when it has a sturdy foundation.” Pretty rad if you ask me.

He was also known to have a sense of absolute pitch, and created a lot of interesting instruments, two of which are called Pyeonjong and Pyeongyeong. What was a really neat thing and quite serendipitous, was that there was a band playing right outside of the museum, and they were using one of the instruments that King Sejong created. This band was composed of five women, and they kind of reminded me of the Korean version of the Spice Girls, except they actually played instruments. The outfits they wore were stereotypically Korean (short skirts and high heels), and their faces looked like that of dolls; I am assuming some of them got some plastic surgery along the way. I saw them come out during their dress reherseal with all of these traditional Korean instruments and thought they would play a traditional Korean song. But lo and behold, they warmed up with ‘Dancing Queen’ by ABBA. I giggled for a long time.

The museum of King Sejong also had a part in it about another Korean hero, by the name of Admiral Yi Sunshin. Learning about his history made me realize how many times Korea has been taken over by neighboring nations, namely Japan. The woman with whom I went told me that there is still a lot of hatred for the Japanese even today. Admiral Yi’s major accomplishment was a battle where he has 13 Korean ships against 133 Japanese ships, and he won the battle, which we learned about through a 4-D movie. AWESOME. I think I would have majored in history if all the lessons were taught with 4-D movies.

Monday I visited my first palace with my friend Susan. It was quite magnificent, and ended up being the temple that was right behind King Sejong’s statue. Small coincidences still occur in big cities. It was the Gyeongbokgung Palace, which was first built in 1395, burned down (by the Japanese) in 1592, then was reconstructed and expanded in 1865. The palace was alive with color and made me think back to America’s old historic buildings, most of which are white. It was awe-inspiring to be in a palace that was first built in 1395, and learn about a culture that has been around for so long. Afterwards we visited the palace museum, but most of the explanations were in Korean so we just meandered around looking at things and guessing what they meant.

Over the vacation I went to a spa for the first time, and what an experience that was. I won’t go into too much detail because I know that some male relatives read this, but let’s just say I saw a whole new side of Korea. I got a body scrub and massage by an old Korean woman (clad only in a matching black bra and underwear) and the massage would have been very relaxing except she kept hitting me with a cupped hand to promote circulation. It just made me very jumpy and a bit nervous. She also literally walked on my back, and would hold my hands down with her feet. After that I went into a sauna that was about 200 degrees, and they had another one that was even hotter where people not only sit and sweat it out, but the spa cooks eggs in there. Kill two birds with one stone, eh? Another ‘sauna’ was a cold one with ice on the walls and a snowman in the corner. Fun and odd, which is what so much of Korea is to me.

School has been a bit of a stressful environment lately as our awesome principal is quitting. As the school is a ‘hagwon’ (private school), the owner sees it as a business and not really a school. He wants to make money and often makes some dumb decisions. He doesn’t listen to the principal or us, the certified teachers, but makes his own executive decisions. The parents have been coming in to complain, the owner is now there more than ever, and his wife is working the front desk along with the new woman who works the desk (the other one quit because the owner was extremely mean to her one too many times.) There are a lot of changes going on, report cards are due this week, and parent teacher conferences are next week. I am a bit stressed out, especially with the after school activities I have added on, but it’s just another growing/learning experience. Things like this sometimes happen in jobs and if I can get this experience as a 27-year-old, I will be ready to take on any challenge that comes my way later in life. This is the stuff that they don’t teach you about in college. I am thankful to have amazing co-workers to talk about this all with and get support from. I think this will all blow over, as something similar has happened before, but only time will tell. It’s just hard working for someone who is more interested in money than a complete education.

I hear it’s getting quite cold back at home, but here it’s still hot and sunny most days. Right now there are cumulus clouds in great big blue sky, sun shining in through my window on my new plants (one of which just produced some flowers!!), so it’s a promising day to get out and explore. Korea and its sights/smells/noises are becoming more familiar to me and it’s starting to seem more like home. I still think about all of you at home a lot, but every day I am getting more settled into this new life.

Until next time.

To Dine is Divine

I'm getting behind in my writing and overwhelmed in the sheer number of words I want to pass along. Here goes!

It’s finally September in this fine land (and in your fine land, too I’m sure) though the weather is still in full summer swing. The nights are starting to get a little cooler and are actually quite pleasant, which is a nice change. I keep trying to picture Seoul in winter mode, but it’s hard to do when the cicadas are ringing, the sun is shining, and it’s 80 degrees out. I look forward to watching the change of the seasons in a new country.

During the last weekend of August I had a most wonderful time and was fortunate enough to experience All Things Korean (ATK.) Dinners, baseball games, swimming, and art festivals - Oh My! My friend Kari just left town and had made a lot of wonderful friends, and she invited me to a going away party with one group of said friends, though these were not only friends, but a real live Korean family. Actually there were two families: Mom, Dad, Grandma, two little girls and a little boy; then Mom, Dad and a little girl, and another friend of the families was there, too. It was so wonderful and one of those MOMENTS when I just had to stop myself, look around, and think ‘holy shit, this is the kind of experience I came here for.’ There were quite a few old-school Korean values that I took notice of: the Mom and Dad of the household sat at the heads of the table, the women did all the cooking and cleaning up, people never poured their own drinks but waited for their neighbor to do so (drinks were poured with two hands or one hand supporting the other), and the guests were served first (and by this I mean they actually served me.) The meal started out with a noodle ‘appetizer’, which I assumed you chow down first and then move on to the other things. When I finished, the Mom was a bit flustered and asked if I needed more. Then someone explained that I was just Western and in our culture we eat the appetizer first, then the main course, etc. instead of doing it the Korean way where you just eat everything all at once. Living and learning in this ‘ol world, eh? The rest of meal was fantastic; I ate pig’s foot for the first time and as long as I didn’t think of what it really was, I was okay. There was some sort of breaded chicken, which I assumed was some sort of chicken bites but quickly realized they were actually chicken-with-the-bone-in-them-bites, which taught me two things: there is no tactful way to remove bones from your mouth when with company (and you have cloth napkins), and trying to eat boney chicken with chopsticks is a challenge.

Another interesting food served at the dinner was seasoned acorn jelly (dotori muk muchim), which looks like a brown mass of congealed fat, with the taste of a slightly bitter….acorn. I was a little nervous to try it, but the ajuma (an old Korean woman who has already had kids, or the grandma in this case) made it and looked at me very expectantly from across the table, so I really had no choice. I will have to give it a ‘meh’, but I am happy to know now that it’s not huge blocks of fat they’re selling at the market near my apartment. The dinner ended with a history and language lesson, and also some wonderful stories about Korea as the vocal chords were well lubricated at that point. I felt very blessed to be able to be a part of a dinner like this, especially one where so many Koreans were able to speak English so I didn’t feel left out and confused the whole time. It was extremely wonderful to be around a large extended family for a nice dinner because family (blood family, but also close F/friends and family friends) is one of the things I miss most about living away from home.

The next day was Sunday and I had the pleasure of hitting up a swimming pool on the last day that it was open! It was right near a place where our school had a field trip, (side note: The field trip was quite lack luster, which was very disappointing as I was more excited to go on it than my students were. I’m just glad I was able to sleep the night before it, which I was not able to do when I myself was in elementary school.) so I had scoped out this pool before and thought how grand it would be to swim there. And then bam! There we were. I again went with two friends/co-workers, and the two Korean guys we're friends with, plus another woman who used to work at our school. The one downfall of this swimming pool, and all outdoor public swimming pools in Korea, is the fact that you have to wear a swim cap. A big 'ol tight, ugly, black swim cap that cost 10,000 won (10 dollars.) When in Rome...so on it I donned it and had a faboo time. Afterwards we all went to a baseball game and had a grand time. It was a bit disconcerting the way all the Koreans there knew the same chants and songs and movements and things. It was almost like they had all gotten together before and practiced; I was half expecting them to get out of their seats and bust a well-choreographed move in the aisles. Each person had those inflatable bat looking things and hit them together at the exact same time and swung them to the right, then the left at the exact same time. For us foreigners, it was both mesmerizing and slightly alarming. (The picture to the left is where the 1988 Olympics were held. Now they have other sporting events and concerts there.)

This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend a Korean Tattoo Convention, called “Tattoo Virus.” Quite an unappealing name, if you ask me, but there are a lot of things about tattoos I don’t understand. As some of you know my older brother Chris has a lot of tattoos, so I have been exposed to some ‘tatted’ people in my day, but it was really a whole other experience at a convention in Korea. The culture here is very against tattoos; Korean culture is very proper (although it is okay for anyone, male or female, to hauk a loogie on the street) so people with tattoos are really looked down upon. It was great to see and meet a lot of people who are doing what they want and not holding themselves to standards other people have set for them. I have included a few pictures, one of which is a woman getting some artwork done on her back; she got pins/feathers/ribbons placed into her back for some decoration. OUCH.

I did some hiking again and this time went more off of the beaten path, which entailed some rock climbing and finally being alone out in the woods here. Last time I went I was alone, but there were still people milling all around me. This time I staked out a spot on a rock far from any path, ate a PB&J, looked at the view, and just sat. It was amazing. I watched a rather large slug for a long time (slug friend to the right), almost got lost, found a garden, and then hiked back down. Next weekend I am taking a longer trip with a woman I work with, and it’s said to be in a part of Korean not many people go. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Lately I have been very aware of some more racism towards white people/Americans here. I have not run into anything as overt as that man in the post office, but I have had a few instances of cabs not picking myself and other white friends up, or the usual of getting stared at, or shushed on the subway, or pushed extra hard getting on or off the subway. But I often wonder; was that push aimed at me because I’m white or because that person is an asshole? Am I becoming more sensitive to things people do because I have, in the past, been a target of racism? Is it racism when you think that people are being mean to you because you’re from a huge conglomerate of a country, but since you feel the same way you think they are justified in what they are doing? I’m happy I am able to be in a situation where these thoughts are coming to my mind a lot, but it doesn’t make it any easier to try and figure out the answers.

Quick happy note – I bought some plants from a guy on the side of the road who told me, in Korean, how to take care of them. I just nodded. But it’s been a week and I think I notice some growth! It makes me so darn happy to have some green life in my room.

I would like to wrap up things with another Louis anecdote. He came up to me in class before leaving for the day, again in his too small red Winnie the Pooh hat, and looked me in the eyes very seriously and asked, “Miss K, why did the tiger smell?” Well, I thought to myself, I have never heard this one, I wonder what the reason could be. “Louis, I don’t know!” “Because it ate dung.” He didn’t even crack a smile, but just kept staring at me in the eyes before walking away.

*More pictures will be added when my internet is not as slow as molasses and it's not time for bed.*