Korean wisdom

I really need to start posting here more often than I do on Facebook, because this is a much better venue for telling stories. Some of you may already know this story, but I want to post it here for the memories:

I've mentioned in a previous post that Koreans are schemers at heart, especially when it comes to school politics, and yesterday I experienced another fabulous display of that. Next week is Chuseok, or Korean Thanksgiving, so we have a holiday on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Friday is my school's birthday, so Kerk and I decided to go to Japan for the entire week if I could only worm my way out of going to school on Monday.

Originally, I had planned on lying American style by calling in sick on Monday. But my co-teacher informed me it would be "very impolite" to do such a thing. I was surprised, since I've seen them lie their way out of so many situations, but apparently lying about sickness is very rude, because why would you make people falsely worry about your health?

So she devised another plan. She told my Vice-Principal and Principal that I have been having severe pain in my hands since I arrived here (which is true) and that I haven't been able to find a doctor who can cure me yet (sort of true. I had a blood test taken and the doc said that I have inflammation, but has no explanation for it). So she told a white lie that I found an English-speaking doctor who can only see me on Monday!

My VP nodded and told me to "take care." My Principal nodded and told me to "take a Korean man for my boyfriend and get married." I replied, "Huh? Did she translate correctly?" I laughed and said thank you and he signed my permission slip to leave on Monday.

I went back to the teachers lounge and asked my co-teacher to explain. Why do I need a husband? How will that help the pain in my hands? She replied, "Women need to marry if they are sick. Because of the hormones... you know what I mean? The sexual hormones."

This of course made me double over laughing. If my Principal were a doctor, basically he'd say to me that pent-up sexual frustration was residing in my hands, causing me pain. As soon as I marry, the pain will go away.

Just another amusing day in Korea!

Englishee is Dippicult, part 2

I have this recurring problem with my cell phone here, where it will spontaneously turn off, usually at the worst possible timing - mid text message, mid phone call, or the worst, middle of the night. I say the worst, because in our technically-groovy day and age, no one uses an actual alarm clark anymore! (do they?) I use my cell phone as my alarm, so it stands that I have been late to work a total of 4 days since I arrived in Korea, and I'm beginning to worry that the excuse "my alarm didn't go off" is becoming a bit hackneyed... and probably suspicious. Especially since it didn't dawn on me until now that 'my alarm did NOT GO OFF' is a STUPID ENGLISH PHRASE. How could I have missed this one? When every day I am so careful to use simple English words and speak at a rate 3 times slower than usual, how could I not realize that in most languages, 'not go off' equals 'stay on'???

I feel like an idiot. All this time I've been saying "I'm sorry, my alarm didn't go off" and they've been thinking, "Yeah, so why does that explain why you're late?"

Is this why the majority of my students have given up trying to learn English?

The Hawaii of Korea

Ever since we came to Korea Kerk and I have been in the habit of calling each other "Bookend," because live in the same building and thus have the privilege to bookend our days together. For summer vacation, Kerk's parents became our temporary Bookend Parents as we romped around Busan and then flew off to Jeju Island, "The Hawaii of Korea."


Mama Kerk took this picture of Mount Halla from the plane

When we got to the airport in Busan, everything was going smoothly until we went through security. Apparently, I had accidentally left a pair of small scissors in my cosmetic bag that I always have in my purse. After padding me down and murmuring some disapproval in Korean, they had me sign a paper. I have no clue what it said, but my name is now on a list with a bunch of other offenders! Oops!

On our plane ride to Jeju, the Stewardesses invited all the passengers to play a game of 'Kawi, Bawi, Bo' (Rock, Paper, Scissors) in order to win some prizes. We're not sure if this is a common phenomenon on all Korean domestic flights or if they felt unnecessarily guilty for our 10-minute delay in boarding (even though we ended up arriving in Jeju 5 minutes early), but either way, it was very amusing to play this child's game with 150 strangers!




When we landed 45 minutes later, our taxi driver was waiting for us. Bless his soul, he tried to write our welcome sign in English, and it read "Any Mansfield." It's very common that Koreans try to spell my name with a "Y" at the end, but we still couldn't help but crack some jokes about any person with the last name Mansfield being tempted to take our chauffer up on his offer.

My co-teacher, Sangmi, had arranged for him to take us on a scenic tour of the island before dropping us off at our hostel in Seogwipo, on the southern side of Jeju. The landscape was unlike any we had ever seen. Jeju was formed entirely from a volcanic explosion one million years ago, and the odd formations that resulted from it were astounding.

Here is one of the many random islands that you see everywhere, all of which claim to be "the top that blew off Mount Halla during the volcanic eruption" in the description of their legend.

Here are some "Dolharubang," or grandfather stone statues. You seem them everywhere, because there are several mountain sides with formations that look like an old man's face, so dolharubang are the protectors of the island.

Here are my favorite volcanic formations, the columnar joints, which arise from the contraction of molten lava during cooling, which splits the rock into polygonal columns.

When we arrived in Seogwipo, we were very pleased with the view of both the ocean and Mount Halla from our hostel rooftop.

We ate breakfast up here both mornings, and we stargazed and met new friends up here at night.

After getting settled in our room, we went for an evening walk across an interesting bridge. At night it lights up as a bunch of different colors, but we failed to take a picture of that


Then we crossed the bridge to a Jurassic Park-esque island:


After that, we followed a beautiful path


... to our first waterfall sighting! This is Cheonjiyeon Waterfall:
Here, soft sedimentary rocks formed 1 million years ago met a more resistant cap rock of volcanic lava flow (formed 400,000 years ago). Below this resistant shelf, the splashback into the softer rock stratum formed two plunge pools, one in front of the waterfall and one behind.

The following day, our taxi driver took us on an all-day scenic tour of the island. First we stopped at Jeongbang Waterfall:
The legend here is that a man named Seobul came to Jeju 2,000 years ago in search of an elixir of eternal life for Chin, the powerful emperor of China. After he failed to find it, he carved his name in the cliff and left.

We didn't find an elixir of life either, but I think that finding a rainbow in a 75-foot waterfall that meets the sea is pretty magical:


The next waterfall was called Cheonjeyeon (and yes, it took us awhile to realize that this was different from CheonJIyeon Waterfall, the one we saw the night before):
"Cheonjeyeon" translates to "God's Pool," and the legend is that the waiting maids of heavenly God stepped down a gorgeous viaduct to this pool, playing jade flutes and mandolins at midnight, safeguarded by stars for bathing.

After a morning filled with waterfalls, we went to the northwestern part of the island to Sanbangsan which literally means "mountain-room mountain." It is famous for the naturally-formed grotto in the side of the mountain which has been turned into a Buddhist shrine:


Our driver also took us to a beautiful temple on the sea, which may or may not have had the effect of making a certain Indiana girl want to give up Apple computers and shave her head in order to be able to stay here:






That afternoon, we swam at the beach and then retreated to our hostel, completely and wonderfully exhausted.

The next morning, we woke up fully refreshed, ready to climb part of Mount Halla. It takes 9 hours to climb the whole thing, so we insisted that lack of proper climbing gear was the only reason we didn't go that far ;-)
Here we are getting ready:

The trail:


Folding Screen rock


That afternoon, we visited Manjangeul, the lava tube cave. Like most caves, photos are forbidden, but I stole this picture from a website:

When you walk through it feels like you're inside a giant tube. It was formed when a rush of lave found a soft spot and went underground, much like a snake would. Here's a picture taken from inside the entrance:


It began raining immediately after leaving the caves, so we went to the Haenyeo Museum and learned about what has become my favorite story in Korean heritage.

The Haenyeo are women divers who have chosen their life's work to be diving into the sea to provide for their family and community. Because the volcanic island was infertile a long time ago, the Jeju inhabitants had to survive off the sea.



When a young girl decides to become Haenyeo, she joins the other Haenyeo in her community to learn from them. There are three levels of Haenyeo - first, second, and third class - depending on how deep you can dive and how far you can venture from the coast. Each Haenyeo has a sort of buoy that holds her findings - whether it be seaweed, abalone, or shells - which is attached to a rope that stretches down to the ocean floor so that she can keep her bearings. When she comes to the surface, she breathes out so forcefully that it sounds like a train whistle. Breathing out all the air allows her to intake a fuller breath as she prepares to dive back down. Some women can hold their breath up to three or four minutes!



After the women find what they need, they bring it to shore where the other women in their group have been burning fires to either boil water to sanitize their catch or to keep themselves warm in the colder seasons. During this time they sing and share stories about their ancestors, and the young girls learn about womanhood.

During the Japanese invasion, several Haenyeo combined forces to educate the Jeju inhabitants on how to fight and resist the invaders.

This tradition of free-diving (diving without special equipment, such as air tanks) has been carried on for over a thousand years, but is now sadly dying out due to advances in agriculture and fishing. The youngest Haenyeo is 30 years old.

This is the outfit they used to wear before modern wetsuits were invented:


That evening we arrived at our minbak (an inexpensive room with a kitchen), which was listed in the Lonely Planet guide as being "near Sunrise Peak mountain." What the guide failed to mention was that it was right smack dab up against the mountain itself. We had an amazing view of this crater mountain:


Here's a different view:


We were told that the best time to hike up Seongsan Ilchulbong was early in the morning to catch the sunrise:


It was a cloudy morning, so we couldn't see the sun very well, but we were proud of oursevles for waking up at 4:30am to be the first to get to the top! And the views of the crater and surrounding area were totally worth it.

Here's the crater with what looks like a patch of mowed grass in it. We passed the time waiting for the sun to rise by making jokes about the man who climbs up here with the lawn mower each week to mow this area so that his family has a nice place to picnic.




The rest of the time we were in Seongsan, our activities were a bit hampered by the typhoon, but we braved the weather a few times in order to catch a quick glimpse of the surrounding areas before finally admitting defeat and retreating to our minbak to watch movies and play cards.



We didn't, however, miss out on one of the island's famous dishes, abalone porridge:


But we did purposefully forego trying the other island specialty, black pig pork, after we found out why they're special: they're fed with human feces. This fact is apparently appealing to Koreans? I can't understand it, but it must be true because I found an entire street devoted to it in Jeju City:


All in all, we had a good experience with the culture of the island. Other mentionable foods were the infamous Jeju tangerines, which you could pretty much find on any street corner. Omija tea was also a big souvenir stand item. Aside from food, the most famous item to buy was a piece of clothing (or a purse or hat) that had been dyed with unripened persimmons. The islanders wear them when farming, but lately they've become stylish for visitors to the island. Mama Kerk bought a hat:


Here are some shirts being hung to dry after the dyeing process:


Now they are being made into more fashionable styles:


Our last day we had a nice walk around Jeju City, and then Mama and Papa Kerk got on a plane back home. It was definitely one of the best vacations I've ever had, and I hope I get the chance to return to Jeju one more time while I'm here. Who knows, maybe I'll even brave eating the black pork!

Until then, I'll cherish the memories of the beautiful places I saw and the beautiful people I saw them with. Thanks, Kerkians

Cluster-phobia

"Our friends, neighbors, colleagues, family - if all the people in our inner circle resemble us, it means we are surrounded with our mirror image. It's not healthy for a human being to spend too much time staring at his own reflection. Communities of the like-minded is one of the greatest dangers of today's globalized world. We form clusters based on similarity and then we form stereotypes about other clusters."

http://www.ted.com/talks/elif_shafak_the_politics_of_fiction.html

I need to post this TED talk here so that every time I look back over this blog, I might watch it again. This woman has just rocked my world, because until now I have thought that I'm a broad-minded individual who appreciates diversity. But after listening to her speak I've realized that most of my friends are like me: we have the same views on religion, politics, and other spheres that tend to group people into divisive clusters. My friendships here in Korea haven't been quite as clusterrific as the ones in Chicago or Bloomington, but that's because they were initially formed on survivalist instincts.

I am now more grateful for my friends and family who are unlike me, and I encourage those who are reading this to ponder what I am calling "clusterphobia." Many people have claustrophobia, and can you blame them? Shouldn't we be afraid of enclosed spaces that make us feel suffocated?

It doesn't appear that "cluster" and the Latin root "claustrum" have the same etymology (although that kind of linguistic consonance would have been sweet!), but enclosing ourselves in a community of like-minded individuals can be just as scary and inhibiting, especially when we are oblivious to how it's preventing us from thinking and imagining freely. I think we should all be afraid of the damaging effects of our clusters and instead challenge ourselves to look for the aspects of our humanity that connect us. Yeah, we may disagree on what happens to us after death, but can we at least acknowledge that we all are united in searching for that answer? And we disagree on how to govern ourselves, but don't we also idolize many historical figures who had different viewpoints from our own?

These our just my thoughts, and I in no way expect you to agree with them. But please do share your own, because I now have a severe case of clusterphobia.

Desk Fairies

When I was a kid, I used to love it when I'd come home from school with a plastic baggy containing a tooth I had yanked out earlier that day. I loved the anticipation of going to sleep that night, because I knew that my worthless tooth would turn into a useful treat: usually a piece of chocolate or a shiny silver dollar.

Since I arrived in Korea, I have been able to re-live that experience over and over again. The only difference is, I don't need to go through the process of getting all bloody as I yank something out of my body before it's ready to come out just so I can get my dollar and go to the candy store to buy something that will make all of my teeth fall out someday. Now, all I need to do is leave my desk to go teach a class.

From the very first day at school, I noticed this strange phenomenon where I'd come back to my desk and find that someone had left a treat for me. Usually it's a rice cake or a vitamin drink or a cookie. Sometimes, it's something bigger, like a sandwich or coffee or pens with the school name on them. At first I assumed that the gifts were from one of my new friends, but I soon discovered that they come from all over.

Maybe one of the teachers had an excess of free make-up samples from the store and decided to pass them out. Or maybe the moms of the eleventh grade students wanted to show their appreciation by giving all of the teachers rice cakes at the end of a quarter. Or there simply might be bread rolls left over from the Baking Club's previous experiment. Whatever the source, I like to imagine that there's some little Korean monk with a large Santa Clause-esque sack walking up and down the rows of desks, placing the treats on the desks with tender care and a mischievous smile on his face. I always come back to my desk and say a silent thank you to the little monk man and then open my treat to enjoy it.

Today, however, I would rather not imagine that the fairy is a man. Because when I came back to my desk I found a brown paper bag... filled with PANTY LINERS. (For you men who might be unaware, these are what women use when their menstrual cycle is light)... Is a company advertising their new line of product? Is someone trying to tell me that I'm dirty because I use tampons? Or did a female teacher simply stock up on them when they were on sale and then she unexpectedly got menopause early? I could ask one of my co-teachers, but part of me doesn't want to know.

It's way more fun to just sit here and LOL as I have another blissful "Only in Korea" moment.

1st Semester reflections

The Korean people I've met tend to not be very adventurous. Whether it's eating ethnic food or exploring different areas of the city, they tend to not bother unless someone whom they trust with their life introduces them to it. For example, my co-teachers are always surprised when I talk about what I do on my weekends. "You went where? How did you know it existed?" They don't understand how my friends and I can discover new restaurants/bars/beaches/monuments/sales on our own, without a Korean guide. I try to explain the concept of hopping on a train/bus/subway/scooter/skateboard and then spontaneously deciding to get off to explore a new area, and they're completely baffled. "Annie, you so brave!"

I think this is a result of their collectivist, Confucius-inspired society, where people always stay near their families and always do everything together, whereas Westerners are brought up learning about the history of "Go forth! Explore the frontier! You may lose your oxen forging a river, but it's better than living in the State of Abeyance!" So when I say that Koreans are not adventurous, I don't intend to sound like a snob who is looking down on them. I am simply stating my observations of how they appear to not understand the concept of searching for an unknown location on the internet, or calling several different people until they find the right authority to ask a question about school policy or the class schedule or some other unknown important piece of information. Instead, they think for a second and offer their best guess:

Me: When is summer vacation?
Co-teacher: After the exams?
Me: Immediately after the exams? July 5th?
Co-teacher: Maybe?
Me: I need to plan my vacation.
Co-teacher: Maybe somebody will tell us?
Me: Can we ask someone now?
Co-teacher: (turns to another teacher and asks in Korean) She thinks vacation is July 16th.
Me: Is it free time? I heard that we have to teach English camp?
Co-teacher: Probably a camp.
Me: How many weeks of camp?
Co-teacher: maybe somebody will tell us?

This is a very typical conversation here. Sometimes I want to pull my hair out. Other times, I feel like a mean, pushy person when I say "Let's call the person in charge, someone in the administration's office. Right now. We have some free time, let's figure out the answer to this now by calling the authorities." But that will usually bite me in the butt because the admin person might give us an answer that is simply a guess, because they didn't know how to look up the real answer.

Two other amusing Korean characteristics are that A)they always break the rules if no one is looking, and B) they don't know how to be blunt when they have a problem with someone. One example that perfectly ties these two cultural phenomena together is the weekly tradition of leaving school to eat lunch when we don't want the cafeteria food.

It started out the third week I was here when my co-teacher mentioned that we were going to a restaurant for lunch. I of course brought my purse (which is more like a large overnight bag) with me, and all of the teachers asked, "Annie why do you bring your bag?" I noticed that several of them had their billfolds, so I was confused as to why they were surprised that I would bring a purse. Maybe they were just astonished by how big my bag was? I replied, "This is my purse, I always bring it when I go out." They nodded their heads as if they didn't understand. But they didn't say anything more, so I just kept my distance in case they were afraid that my cheap nylon bag would rub off on their designer clothes.

What I didn't know at the time was that it wasn't the quality of my bag that bothered them but the size and the glaring burnt-orange color that attracted unwanted attention. They were trying to sneak out of the school without any sign that they were going to their cars instead of going to the cafeteria, and I was blowing their cover.

Why didn't they simply tell me this? Because they were worried about offending me. Koreans don't know how to ask blunt questions or say something directly to someone that could possibly offend them, so they couldn't say to me "Annie, your bag is too conspicuous. Just bring your wallet, because it's small and no one will notice it." If I had had the Korean sense known as "nunchi," the ability to pick up on the intended/hidden meaning of what someone is trying to tell you, then I would have replied, "Oh, you know what? This bag is definitely too heavy. Wait a minute, and I'll go put it down by my desk."

Some people view this behavior as passive-aggressive, like when a Korean person asks "Are you cold?" when they really want to say "Put some damn clothes on, you slut." But I think it's kind of beautiful that everyone tries to be polite in order to avoid making anyone feel uncomfortable or left out.

This was best shown during my first week in Korea when I was at orientation. We were taking Korean language lessons each night from a man who had either never been a teacher before, or who had never taught the Korean language to non-Korean people. After two lessons, we still didn't know the alphabet or how to say hello, so a few of us mentioned this to our team leaders. The next night, our teacher came in with a scarf tied around his neck, complaining of having a cold. He gave each of us a juice and said he was sorry he was too sick to teach us anymore and that we would be getting a substitute teacher for the remainder of the week. We looked around at one another with a silent question of "Is he serious? Is he actually sick? Crap, did we get him fired?" Then we just nodded our heads, and guiltily said "We're so sorry that you're sick." We felt really guilty, but going to our team leaders to tell them so would have only made them feel more uncomfortable about letting him go, so we decided that never mentioning it again was probably the best thing to do.

Another common thing in Korean culture is to bend the rules, or break them altogether, so long as the authorities aren't looking. For example, you'll never see a Korean person wearing a seat belt, because they don't think a police officer would ever find out about it. In fact, when I get into a car and put on my seat belt, someone will usually laugh and point at the person driving, saying something like "Annie thinks you are crazy driver! She doesn't feel safe!"

I couldn't understand why my co-teachers felt the need to sneak out of school for lunch instead of just letting the Vice-Principal know and asking for permission. Why risk getting reprimanded? But after many weeks of doing this, I discovered that they didn't want to ask the Vice-Principal, because he didn't want to pose the question/situation to the Principal, who didn't want to mention it to the head administrator, who didn't want to have to answer to the Pusan Office of Education if someone ever found out about it. Everybody wanted to stay under the pretense that the teachers at Puil High School are dedicated to their jobs, and they would never think of leaving the school during hours in which they are paid, and they would never dress in a way that's unprofessional and they would never let the students watch a movie in order to rest after a hectic exam week, etc. As long as everyone turns their head and doesn't have to officially acknowledge that any of these things happen, the school can continue to boast that only the most professional people work here.

Now that I better understand the system, I keep my phone and money in my pocket when I leave school for lunch, I wear the hosiery that only covers my foot when it's too hot to wear pantyhose which cover my entire leg, and I turn in a lesson plan stating that I will teach the significance of the Declaration of Independence and it's history, complete with powerpoint presentations and group discussions, when I actually plan on showing the movie National Treasure.

For the 1st semester of teaching in Korean school, the score is in:
Annie - 1 : Ridiculous Korean administrative loopholes - 0

You my style, ok?

I was really bummed to miss my brother David's graduation and open house this past week, but because of this rad tech-savvy world we're currently living in, I had the chance to be there in a cool cyber-space way.

After waking up early on Monday morning to talk to David on Skype, I went to school and I was feeling a little down. I was sad to miss out on seeing my relatives and celebrating this important time in my youngest brother's life.

As I was hiking up my mountain to school, a thought occurred to me: "why not skype David from my classroom? I could totally work that into a lesson!"

So after much haggling on the computer in the English Zone, I finally figured out how to do so. We didn't have a webcam, but through screen-sharing my students were able to see David, even though he wasn't able to see them.

Jordan (my second-to-youngest brother) was able to join the conversation, as well as many of my brothers' friends. My lower-level students were really shy, and afraid to speak, even though I tried to explain that my brothers couldn't see them. But the older students during 6th period (my brothers had to stay up until 3am their time to talk to them) were a lot more confident, and they had a great conversation!

The girls were pretty smitten with the boys, as is evidenced by this desk graffiti that I found on my way out of the classroom: