Seoul travelling - Forest in my new favorite tea shop. If you look REAL close, you can see a tiny yellow bird behind the red candlestick on the branch. There were maybe a dozen birds flying free all over the shop. Forest's hair is auditioning for a Strokes cover band in Seoul, hahah. 

A picture update this time! I know, it's been awhile. I was in Seoul last weekend, and once I get a little behind on things like blogging or emailing I get belligerent and don't do it at all. ;) Anyway, here's the doggies, I took them out for the season's first snow (Jeju?? Subtropical? Maybe not.) This is the Jeong's (the little one, brown and white) first time seeing snow.... 

My scooter across the street in the streaking snow. I know, I know, I'll put a better pic of it up here soon. :) 

So I'm teaching a lesson this week based on John Lennon's song Imagine. I'm having the kids write two sentences at the end of class: Imagine there's no ______. If there's no ________, then ____________. Most of the kids are writing "Imagine there's no tests. If there's no tests, then I will be happy." But one kid today wrote "Imagine there's no greed. If there is no greed, humans will not improve." I find it hard to express sometimes to these kids the depth of appreciation I have for answers like that. :) Especially when the boy next to him can only say, "Teacher I love you! Okay, thank you!"

On the Korean Education System

So I teach this class in third period on Wednesday called my "English Teacher's Class" - basically I get together with the English teachers at Daesin Middle School and we talk about an article that I pick out. Sometimes we do humor bits from the Onion, or current events and politics, but this time we had a really great discussion about the Korean education system after reading this article. I'll try to get all of this out while it's fresh in my mind, and before lunch. ;)

If you don't feel like reading the whole thing - here's a quick summary: high school students are forced to study insane hours, getting maybe 4 hours of sleep every night, in order to pass one exam to get into university - this school's name on their transcripts will likely determine their job prospects and salaries for the rest of their lives. The kicker is that while talking to my fellow English teachers about it, they KNOW it's a problem - everyone admits it's a problem. The education system has been trying to reform this harsh reality for decades. The issue lies not with the education system itself but with the entire society.

I know many of you are annoyed and offended by blind patriotism and nationalism in America, but believe me - the same exists here. After the Korean War South Korea worked to rebuild its economy on the principle of self-reliance. "Made in Korea" is important when buying any consumer products - those who buy foreign cars for instance are social pariahs. Like Japan, Korea has few natural resources, and the country has invested extensively in education and industry - and it's paid off. But at what price? The suicides and the protests in this article underline the costs of such an obsession. A nation focused on efficiency, progress, and success - with post-war poverty fresh in the minds of many - often ignores that though these things might sometimes lead to happiness, in excess they often do not. Families, the basic building block of Korean Confucian society, put enormous pressure on their children to succeed for the honor of the family. That which should be a support network for children becomes a vehicle for the reinforcement of an over-valuing of success. Thus, a reform in education alone would not change to the underlying problem, the obsession with success over happiness and quality of life that penetrates even to the family level.

As a Fulbrighter and an English teacher here, I'm in the thick of it. I'm a teacher - one of the most respected jobs in Korean society. In America, teachers are looked down upon because of their low wages. Korean society realizes that teachers protect and cultivate a most valuable resource - their children. I remember that being a campaign slogan or something in the American education system, but it didn't really catch on - we don't think that way. Why not? What's the difference? We value success in America, certainly, but we also value something else even more - freedom. I'm realizing as I write this that I'm looking at the whole situation FROM that perspective. I'm reading about these poor children whose freedom is non-existant, going to class and academies and studying after school and coming home to sleep for 4 hours before doing it all again. And remember - these kids have school on Saturday too. But do they look at it that way? Am I imposing my own "freedom value" on these kids, and on this situation? I hate reading or listening to Bush blather on and on about "freedom" - but living in another society makes me realize just how much I DO value it, and just how American I am.

I'm teaching at a middle school. As Fulbright ETA schools go, mine is among those with the LEAST pressure for students. But even so, most kids stay till around 4:30 or 5 at school, and then go to academies till 8. The emphasis on studying, compared to what I remember from my own middle school days, is astronomical. But my friend Sarah teaches at a prestigious boarding school, a school where her kids know their rank in the country, and where they take mock tests and real tests and are completely indoctrinated with the "success value". She often asks questions about their motivation, and often gets the answer, "for the glory of Korea". Does any high school kid in America talk like that? It's more like "damn the man!" ... and then success is one's own. But anyhow, she finds herself in the midst of this high pressure environment, making triple the amount and intensity of lesson planning materials as us middle school teachers (do I feel guilty?? naww.) and grading papers, something I was discouraged from assigning or doing here at Daesin. As such a big part of the system, one has to wonder -- do I agree with it? Snce she seems to take it so seriously and put so much of herself into it, I was ask her sometimes if she's going to extend for another year. The answer's always the same - she says that she disagrees so much with the education system here that although she's a guest for the first year, any subsequent participation is in fact a tacit approval of the whole thing. So, probably not.

So -- what to do about all of this, and what to think about it, right now?

I know a few people who are academy (hagwon) teachers on Jeju Island - basically the native speakers that work with the kids at English hagwons, which Korean parents pay tons of money to send their kids to. Being after-school academies, the working day of a hagwon teacher begins at 2 pm and ends at maybe 8 pm. The pay is great over here and the price of daily life is much lower than in the States or Canada (where many hagwon teachers come from) - plus the application process requires really only a college diploma (from anywhere) and an adventurous spirit. All of these factors attract hagwon teachers with no teaching experience at all who really just want to come over here for the easy money, the attractive partying workhours, and the convenient spot to start some Asian travel after their contracts are up. This certainly doesn't describe everyone, but hagwon teachers sometimes have a bad rep over here. Anyway, just think about it - young Korean kids are watching these teachers, who might have been slacking off all their lives - live the dream of world travel, an easy job and easy money. What's going on here??

I never realized before how intensely priviledged I am to be born in America. I mean, I KNEW that I was lucky, everyone does, but at the very impersonal level we get when nagged by our parents or lectured by our social studies teachers about conditions around the world. As English speakers, we might have the world at our fingertips, but only because the REST of the world wants to speak English because America has such world control, especially in the business world. For Koreans, English is the ticket out of the overpopulated, highly competitive, Korean peninsula. But even if they do master English, they're at a further disadvantage. The Korean university system is known worldwide as being subpar, mainly because though the entrance exams to GET IN to Korean universities are really difficult, when one actually gets to university, the pressure's off. My fellow English teachers told me that professors are not motivated to do any good research, and all the momentum gained from studying like mad in high school is lost. Whatever above-average advantage Korean students had in high school, compared to students worldwide, is normalized.

The whole thing seemed to me to be one big nightmare.

As Fulbrighters, we're essentially guests in this country. We're not here to start a revolution. We're cultural ambassadors. We're here to teach, we're here to learn about Korean culture and expose our kids, our families, our fellow teachers, and our friends here to a little bit of American culture, simply by being ourselves. Do we have values and convictions? Most certainly. Do we have a right to voice them in this country? I'm not really sure.

Tangerine Farm!

So ... I've done nothing but pass tangerine farms all day every day when I go driving on the roads on this island. I've always wanted to work at one, and I found out today that one of my host family's family friends owns one! So we went over to have lunch with them. They have two uni-aged daughters who were off, but also one 3rd grade elementary school girl who is quite possibly the cutest kid I've ever seen. Played with bubbles with her for maybe an hour. :) The farm is far from their house, but they have a sort of makeshift outside patio and kitchen area right next to tangerines. We sat around and talked as suddenly I heard an aborted "cocka-doodle doo!" and in came two six-seconds dead chickens. Watched as my host mother and her friend de-feathered and de-organed our lunch, as me and my host brother prepared the outdoor fireplace (which smelled amazing...) and then we stuck the chickens in a huge pot with juju-bees, garlic, and some traditional Korean herbs and just boiled it all over the fire. The whole day just felt so ... visceral. I crept with the kids around the tangerine trees stalking the other chickens, climbing around the trucks, and eating tangerines right from the trees. After lunch I helped pick three huge bushels of tangerines with the grownups. Hopefully I'll be going back there soon to help out. :) And the whole day I could look up into the cloudless sky and sea the browned top of Halla-san. I heart Jeju.

An Island Tour

Ahhh, Korean hospitality. Honestly, there's nothing quite like it.
Yesterday Ben-si, me, and L^3 (Lindsay Laura Lauren) went out for the afternoon and evening with one of Lindsay's fellow English teachers, who had a whole day of Jeju sightseein' and Korean-culture-experiencin' planned for us. A few highlights:

-Seeing the ubiquitous rice cakes actually being made (with a bang!)
-Watching Ben consume unhealthy amounts of kyool (clementine-like mini oranges)
-Rolling bottles of makkoli down (up?) the "mysterious road" where the road's tilt is supposed to create an illusion - I didn't get it. I suspect its like those damn Magic Eye posters I could never get, some people just don't see the mystery. ;)
-Eating various sea creatures, tofu, and tasty fruit throughout the evening.
-An amazing tea shop experience! We had 3 types of tea - including "meh-meel-cha" (wheat tea), a really thick "tea" that was apparently 35% vegetable matter, and yellow nok-cha. Also found out that Lindsay's fellow teacher plays Paduk (Go) ... asked him to "throw down" with me sometime. My slang-spreading crusade continues ... (I had my coteacher saying "manpurse" the other day)
-LOVELAND. Basically a sex sculpture park. God, I don't even know where to begin. Check my flickr site for pics soon. ;)
-Being serenaded by three guitar-weilding Korean men playing Elvis's "Love Me Tender" as we looked over Jeju City sipping Blue Margaritas and Long Island Iced Teas to top off the evening. Uh-HUH! :)

So in Korea I have this thing. Almost every week I come up with a new favorite phrase, and I repeat it over and over again to the amusement (annoyance) of my homestay family, coworkers, and students unlucky enough to hang around me too much. Last week it was "hajjima ajjima!" (literally meaning: "stop it, you middle-aged woman!"). This week it's "yo-gee mo-gee" (lit. "there is a mosquito here.") Yeah, I thought it was cute. And it was cute, until the mo-gees caught on that I was talking about them and decided to swarm my room last night. I must have killed 6 or 7 over the course of the night, and if those were the only ones in my room then they all took an average of like ... 5 bites of me each. I was COVERED in itchy itchy mo-gee bites. Stayed awake till 5:00 tossing and scratching and battling the buggers, got two hours of sleep, and then moaned and groaned my way up the hill in the rain to school, where I was set to introduce a new lesson, always a daunting challenge in its own right.

I should have trusted my kids to be awesome. :) Today I taught John Lennon's "Imagine" to a class of kids that was just amazing. To my utter surprise, I found myself being able to explain property rights, country borders, and "us versus them" mentality to middle school Koreans. Maybe it was the leftover Halloween candy that I was throwing at them, but they were bright-eyed and interested. Had them create their own utopia (with if/then statements), and here are some of the things they said,

one girl: "Imagine there's no boys. If there's no boys, I will be very sad."

a quiet boy from the back of the class: "Imagine there's no land. If there is no land, then I will fly all day."

a rowdy boy from the back of the class: "Imagine there's no me. If there is no me, then the world will be happy"
me: "Why would the world be happy without you?"
boy (with a grin): "Because I am DEVIL!"
me: "Hahah, that's worth TWO pieces of candy"

Korea has a habit of dishing out the best days and the worst days all at once. ;)

Of Korean Dinner Parties

So my host mother arrived home at around quarter of 7 tonight as I was cleaning up a little dinner that I had made myself a few minutes earlier. "Pap mogassoyo?" (did you eat?) she asked me. It was obvious that yes, I had. Apparently tonight she was taking me to a dinner party! Luckily, I was hungry again by the time we rolled out. :)

This dinner party was apparently for some of the workers at the Convention Center where my host mom is a baker - they were here for a while and now they're going back to Seoul. We arrived and sat down, immediately to be offered shots of soju. Soju, for those of you who don't know, is an alcohol maybe half the proof of vodka, stomachable without a chaser, but nasty enough to deserve a shot glass instead of a frosty mug. It's also the official drink of Korea and the Korean social scene. It's customary here for men to offer each other glasses of soju, which should be drunk and then passed back empty and refilled for the original person to enjoy (this creates a sort of social bond) and when one's shot glass is emptied it is the obligation of the surrounding friends to refill it. I've been at a dinner party with my host mother's work buddies before, and I've done the soju touring. Tonight was not a night for drinking, so I gave a polite "no thanks" - and after some protest by the guys that was that.

It's never fun to be the one guy at a party pretending to be real interested in the potted plants, but that's how I feel a lot here in Korea. I think it's the same for all the ETAs. I get used to just sort of absorbing the atmosphere, picking out familiar words in the conversations and trying to get what people are saying - who's friends with whom, who's mad, who's jealous, all that. But sometimes I feel this sort of obligation to participate, something self-imposed but a vestige from my days as a painfully shy kid always pushing myself or being pushed by other people to interact just a little outside my degree of comfort. THE way to participate is by drinking, sharing the wordless eyebrow raises and winks and "one-shot!" and other such bottoms-up cheering that transcends the language barrier. I'm not drinking, so I'm out of the loop, as men around me pass glasses and top each other off and clamour to catch up those people who've just arrive. They mill around me, moving around between the tables, in a manner unfamiliar to Westerners confined to chairs, they squeeze in next to each other on the floor, bending over the low tables to grab some galbi (barbequed meat), wrap it with garlic and soybean paste and veggies to stuff it into each others mouths, or to reach for one of the multiplying bottles of soju on the table. The alcoholic becomes a vehicle, a conveyance and a reason to move - men in business stand up from a cross-legged position and get their balance, grinning with a glass of soju in hand and creep around to the opposite table, finding a place on the floor next to their boss and off a deferential drink, or a buddy and offer one of many drinks of the evening, or to a new guy as a gesture of welcome.

But I am not conveyed. I sit, bound by my water to one spot, opposite my host mother. We're the only ones who didn't move all night. I'm sitting here next to a Korean man with whom I have neither age nor language nor occupation in common, plotting and scheming for ways to interject myself into the conversation. A little "ahem ... chonen Henry imnida" (My name is Henry) oughtta do the trick. If I don't just give it a shot, then I'll walk away here knowing I missed an opportunity to interact. And that will be totally my fault. So I turn to the guy and wait for an appropriate pause ... and I stop. And I realize that the Fulbright rhetoric here has beaten our "cultural ambassador" role into our heads so much that it's become a little unnatural. It's like I'm in the classroom, making this effort because if I don't, I'll get graded down. And I realize that in this situation such an interjection isn't appropriate. I'm not being rude just sitting here, in fact it would be quite socially odd if I made such an effort.

This one's a doozy. So why am I sitting here? Introspection gripped my mind in that embarrassing way you never ever want it to in the midst of a gathering such as this. In the States a refusal to drink, though it might be a little bit of a party-pooper move, is a lot more respected given the widespread acceptance of alcoholism as a disease. In Korea there is no AA. Many men might be considered alcoholics by our standards but given the drinking culture here that level of abuse is within acceptable ranges and doesn't translate to abbhorent behavior (which might indicate a need for treatment) though I'm sure it manifests similarly in health problems. I'm filled with need to DO something, to learn something, to come away with something from this experience. With a constant supply of new experiences in a foreign country, you get used to treating every event as a sort of eye-opening experience, a minor revelation that might get you just one step closer to who you are and what you're looking for out of life. The worst thing would be to admit that though you're halfway across the world in the middle of a lively Korean dinner party, you're really just the awkward foreigner that everyone's afraid to talk to because they don't want to reveal just how little English they actually remember from school. I'm waiting for the Korean man next to me who ignored my hello at the beginning of the meal turn to me and say in perfect English, "Sorry man, couldn't get out of that conversation. You remind me of this guy I met in Istanbul a few years ago..." and change my life. It doesn't happen, and I realize that I'm trying to force something like that to happen. I shouldn't be painfully shy, but I shouldn't be unnatural. I sit back and smile into the mirror and let it all wash over me.

A little while later, it DOES happen naturally. In walks a fidgety 40-something man with a hint of red in his spiky hair wearing what looks like the unholy child of a leather biker's jacket and a bathrobe. He sits next to me and across from my host mom at the end of the table and nervously taps his phone. I realize he feels just as out of place here as I do. I give him my winning "My name is Henry" line and we strike up as much of a conversation that our language barrier can handle. He smiles, because although I'm halfway around the world in another country, it's perfectly natural.

As the night goes on, I have stunted exchanges with the original group of men, little smiles and nods - I get a big grin from one man whose face I've watched deepen its shade of red throughout the night, and one man who looks 26 but is of course 38 (that must have been a fertile year, almost EVERY Korean I meet is 38) who speaks English about as well as my students invites me to go and do archery with him! I guess I don't have to know Korean to be absolutely abyssmal at that. ;)

By that time some more people had filtered in, including a young man who was - I kid you not - the SPITTING IMAGE of my friend Adam Ortiz from Wheaton. It was ... amazing. This Korean Adam came in with a baseball hat and glasses and Adam's perky perpetual grin ... a tshirt over a collared shirt and a sweater. I almost asked him how his new movie was coming along. Even weirder - as I (probably blatantly) stared at him down the table, he turned to me and gave me this "hey, yeah look at us we're sitting at a Korean restaurant table, how weird is that?" look. It was all in the eyes. As he walked around on his soju tour for some reason all the men would pinch his cheek - Leather Bathrobe especially. I was trying to figure out how to get a picture with him without looking completely crazy - no dice.

My host brother, who also came, had retreated to sleep in the car maybe an hour ago. After my mother and Leather Bathrobe have a special "secret discussion" whispered at one corner of the table, we got up to leave. I was stuffed and satisfied. I had finally given up my expectations, and just let things flow. Flow they did.


As a side note: my mobile phone not only has a small blue picture of a snowman available for insertion in a text message, but also special symbols for both rads per second AND rads per second squared. score.

So ... I just got back from a Korean funeral.

...

I almost feel bad about blogging about this, given the slightly touristy nature of my whole approach in each entry ... buttt ... death is a part of life. And as a religion major, death rituals are often the juiciest parts of life. So here goes.

I actually didn't go to the funeral proper, I went to a "pre-funeral ceremony" for the father of one of the second grade teachers at my school. Apparently this goes on for 3 or 4 days and then they have the actual funeral, at which only family and friends are usually present. The teachers in Korea are always very tight though, and it is expected that all the teachers in the school will attend this "pre-funeral ceremony". So there I was. I knew Mi Sonsengneem only as the smiley, non-English speaking Home Ec teacher who sat near the middle of the kyo-mo-shil (teacher's room), and I had no idea what to expect. Would I be praying in front of a body? Would there be awkward standing-around-talking-to-other-people-quietly time that I so loathed at functions like these, even when I COULD speak the language? I don't own a black shirt over here, good thing I had a black sweater! :)

When I got there, I found that it was actually attached to the hospital. We were breezed past Confucian-looking men in yellow suits and pope-like but solid yellow hats, some with long beards who obviously served some sort of ceremonial function, and some men who just looked like anyone you might see on the street - with a yellow hat on. We were led past columns of white flowers, past rooms on the first floor packed with yellow-hatted people sitting on hard wood floors talking and bowing, up some stairs and into a ... cafeteria. My coteacher motioned me to sit with some of the other teachers I knew just as a woman in what looked like a 19th century peasant outfit came past me. The first thing I did when I caught her face was smile - in that instant I recognized the Mi Sonsengneem. I blurted out "yoo-gum su-rop-simnida", the line I had been muttering under my breathe the whole car ride, which roughly translates "I'm sorry for your loss." I hope she heard me. There were tears in her eyes, but she looked strangely perfect in her yellow robe and little white bonnet. Although all the guests wore black, she was wearing yellow and white.

We sat and listened to the general din of the place as small side dish plates of kimchi, radishes, and beansprouts were brought before us, and then a bowl of noodle soup. About halfway through a silent meal, my coteacher started talking about our plans to go shopping for a new cell phone battery later that week, which seemed a little odd to say the least. Mi Sonsengneem went back and forth, sometimes helping serve and sometimes exchanging a few words with someone. There was a small divider and on the other side was another room of people eating noodles and kimchi and beansprouts, drinking water and beer and soju, and looking vaguely respectful and courteous. And another peasant girl in yellow and white.

After maybe 15 minutes of eating, some of the teachers got up to leave the cafeteria and we followed. We were already outside and heading toward the car when I realized that that was it. My coteacher hadn't even talked to the second-grade teacher at all. A little strange - we arrive, eat a meal, and then leave. But there was a different sort of solemnity to the whole thing, I can't really explain it. When in Rome, ehh?

Last week actually, my great-grandmother on my father's side passed away. She lived in Iowa, and I've met her once or twice, but I didn't really know her. My dad is out there right now ... maybe we were both at funerals today, halfway across the world.

Ya'll might know that I usually hate forwards and memes, but my. god. I love it.

So here's what you do. Go to google and type in "[yourname] needs". Here are the results for "Henry needs"

1. Henry needs a haircut (an animated movie circa 2001, running time 15 min.)
2. The Henry needs volunteers
3. Henry needs a drink
4. Henry needs a new pair of shoes
5. Henry needs partner for offense to sizzle
6. Henry needs surgery
7. Henry needs help in learning social skills
8. Henry needs to be limited to no more than 100 MW
9. Henry needs finishing!

All so, so true. 'Specially number 5. What does that even MEAN?

Mad props to the berninator for that one.

Good morning everyone. :)

Lately I've been feeling very introspective, so I thought I'd share a bit of me with you. It's difficult sometimes to come across the way you want in emails - things tend to be formulaic, there's the asking of how "things are in your world?", the updating of things in one's world, the I miss yous, the take cares, the goodbyes. So I would just like to say, unequivocably and unmechanically, that I miss you all like mad. :)

Anyways. Yesterday was the annual Tangerine Festival here on Jeju Island. For those of you who DON'T know ... Jeju is famous for three things according to legend: rocks, wind, and women. In reality it's famous for none of those things, at least not more than tangerines. They're ubiquitous (I think that's the first time I've ever used that word!) throughout the island, driving anywhere you pass farm after farm of these short trees. Lately the tangerines have been turning from green to a pleasing orange color, and I guess yesterday was the harvest festival. I hear some schools even get days off this week so the kids can help with the pickins'. I was hoping for some sort of pagan festival yesterday, tangerines smeared on the dancing bodies of young men and women as they thanked the gods for a plentiful harvest ... and ... it was more like the produce section of the local E-mart. ;) Not only tangerines, but all sorts of strange exotic fruits and little trees (pics to come soon to flickr). Here were some highlights of my stay at the Tangerine Festival:

-A giant dolharubang (stone grandfather, statues like the Easter island ones traditional to Jeju island) - made out of tangerines!
-More teas than I could hold, literally. We went from booth to booth and my host mother poured me samples as I tried to down the last one, holding onto like 3 cups at once, my camera, brochures, my notebook, and gods know what else. I need a manpurse. The best tea? A dark red zinger made from a raspberry looking plant -- looks like juice, tastes like tea, is like awesome. ;)
-A magical ride on a horse-drawn cart for a total of maybe 30 feet. We went around in a little circle on the pavement. It was worth it though, one little girl sat there the whole time with her mouth wide open in wordless joy. So cute.
-"Sook dum". This one bears some explaining. Apparently there's this traditional herbal remedy which involves the burning of crushed plant leaves, dried and shaped into a cone like incense, on a part of the body for healing / well-being purposes. It looked kind of cool so I volunteered at the booth, and ended up getting to chill out there on a little bed for like 45 minutes with this thing burning on my stomach! Sook smells like ... ummm... a certain "herb of the field". It's definitely really relaxing, and I think I snuck a little nap in there too.
-My host mother bought a few of these giant-lemon-looking fruit, and showed me that if you rub your hands on it, you end up smelling like if Calvin Klein put out a "soft smells of summer" fragrance. She gave me one on a little dish to put in my room. :D It's those little things that I love.

So I went outside to take out the trash tonight and it felt so good to be under the sky - it had been a rainy day today and I'm a little sick, so I'd been cooping myself up with email and books for much of it. I was about to go back into the apartment but I got that urge ... to just go for a walk. I always trust that urge. So I walked our apartment's little foot-massage path for a while, and then I started to follow this strange music I heard coming from the other side of the park. Turns out one of the buildings over there is some sort of function hall, and I peeked in the windows at a dance troupe practicing, and saw through another side door to some sort of music performance, complete with screaming fangirls. So I went to the main entrance and went inside. I've found that faking confidence is ALWAYS the best way to maneuver in a situation so I pretended I knew where I was going, and went into the auditorium to find ... a Korean rap act ! And no empty seats. But at least I know there's some kind of performance hall like 2 min from my apt! So many things I don't know about, right under my nose in Korea.

Even closer to my house is the library, which I've known about for a while but never explored. Tonight was the right night. After wandering around for a bit, found that the 3rd floor was randomly full of people -- all ages from elementary school into college. And all studying! Or at least pretending to be, while they talked to their friends. So tonight I felt like a freshman again at Wheaton, really interested for a while in my own room and my dorm floor, but then a month or so into things really discovering that I have a CAMPUS right at my fingertips. With a library and a concert hall it really does feel like a campus. Can't wait to bring my laptop and some writing over to the library next week ... especially since it's within range of my homestay wireless ! ;)

Went to Cheongju on the mainland this weekend for a little Halloween action. :) Some highlights of the trip:

-Choosing a random bar to chill at in Cheongju only to find 3 or 4 MAGGOTS crawling in and out of the peanuts, corn chips, and dried squid. Yes, maggots. Yes, we probably ate some. Of course it was absolutely necessary to kill said maggots with copious amounts of beer later in the evening.

-Wandering around Cheongju the next day and finding, in Korea's only landlocked province, what looked to be an abandoned boat turned into a restaurant left to decay - windows were smashed, doors were unhinged, and there was a dead rat on the stairs. Good view of the city from the main mast though. :)

-Face painting and general Halloween fun with the kids in Annie's friend's hagwon (after school English academy). Elementary school kids are so cute, I wish I could be teaching them. I'd probably never discipline, just rub their little heads and coo at them, so it's probably good I don't. ;)

-Endless amazing talks with my ETA buddies, till 4 AM every night. You guys rock.

Spent the last couple of days updating my flickr site, I've been like 2 months out of date! Sorry about that. Everything's up there now, organized in sets no less! Check it out, and update your bookmarks. ;)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24563232@N00/sets

Be well all :)

This just in -- I went to a Korean pop concert last night (my host mom got me free tickets!), and apparently I made it onto the televised coverage ! I guess I stand out in a crowd of screaming/rapturously crying Korean schoolgirls with camera phones. ;)

A little bit about my trip with the kiddies today on their picnic day – sat squashed between two first grade boys and listened to some Beatles on the way up until I felt a little sick. Promised my new Beatles friend that I’d make him a CD next week. Made an awesome t-shirt with two tangerines that said :Jeju-lovin’" :) Got some pictures and some smiles from my happy happy kids, stole some kimbap with some of the other teachers from the students – the teachers just go around snatching and grinning from all the kids’ lunches, it’s great (if not slightly unfair heheh). Explored Micheon Cave, which according to my teacher friend from the 1st grade, is "a very small cave" – I was expecting a little hole, but it was about the size of maybe 2 of my middle schools! The most interesting part was definitely the hal-mo-nee (grandmother) figure, which looked exactly like a Buddha figure with slightly different dress. Apparently prospective mothers come here and pray in front of a blue or red candle for a boy or girl, respectively. It’s part of the pre-Buddhist shamanistic religion here – it’s fascinating, and I know I’ve only just struck the surface ...

Yesterday, I ALMOST lost my faith in tea. ;)

Went with my homestay brother and sister to the International Tea Festival at the Convention Center here on Jeju. I'm really starting to appreciate that place, they bring in so much great stuff all the time. We got to the tea festival though ... and I really felt the language barrier. All sorts of tables were set up with beatiful tea sets, but I couldn't ask any questions - my host bro/sis couldn't really tell me any more than ... "over there, Chinese tea. Here, Korean tea." Sat down for a tea ceremony and ... okay, I'm not going to pretend to like it. I've never had a taste for the formality and mindnumbing sloth-litude of the Korean tea ceremony. I counted at least five people in the audience actually who fell asleep. Just as I was about to join them, my host mother came up from having finished her work downstairs in the bakery, and snuck us backstage! I swear, my host family knows everyone there is to know on this island. We got to taste a Taiwanese mountain green tea, grown with flowers, and an Indian black tea with cloves and milk. By the time we finished with those (delicious!), they had prepared teas in the lobby and I tasted Korean winter, spring, summer, and fall teas. I've never had a delicate enough pallette when it comes to distinguishing between different types of tea within the same general group, like green teas ... but after tasting each one, I could finally detect some subtleties! I'm developing that snobbery I so crave! :) (am i kidding??) ;) So anyway, the moral of this story is - host mothers are awesome. It's all about who ya know.

Today I went on a little ride on my scooter, a trip to find the "five days market" I've heard so much about. Every five days, the market apparently stays open all day. I caught the very end of it, and it was amazing!! A lot bigger than I expected. It reminded me of the English Market in Cork (awww Cork, how I miss you...) , and the market we found when touring Barcelona. This one wasn't just produce, though that dominated - there were a lot of clothes, from jeans to ajjima track pants to addoshi flannel shirts to hats and bras and underwear. I even found some parakeets. :) Went home with some tasty banana chips and a smile.

I love my students.

So during lunch I created a little program at my school called "English Lunchtime". At the beginning of the semester students signed up to eat lunch and talk with me. Today I had lunch today with my first group of boy students, I guess my coteacher put all the guy students in the rotation towards the end. I thought middle school girls were fun, but oh no. :) They were doing their best E.T. impressions (for some reason all my students are obsessed with E.T. (the extra-terrestrial), making funny faces, whispering to me confidentially (teacher, buy me ice cream!) and lamenting their lack girlfriends (teacher, girlfriendee no!). One of the boys was a little chubby but definitely the most cheerful of them all, happily telling me that he is having a baby, actually two babies a boy and a girl, twins. He also told me about his ghost girlfriend Dong Su who then started assaulting the boys around the table (they love beating themselves up). :)
Tomorrow I'm going to the PC-bang (internet gaming cafe) with these guys, they're going to trounce me in Starcraft. For those of you who don't know, Starcraft is nearly the official game of Korea, with national leagues, its own TV station dedicated to Starcraft strategy, and expert players whose popularity borders on celebrity. Needless to say, I don't stand a chance. :)

In other news ... I bought a scooter!! I'd been thinking about it for a while and I finally made the plunge. It's only 50cc so I don't need an international license, and the bike only cost me the equivalent of US$350, and I can sell it back for US$200 at the end of the year ... net cost to me - US$150! It was a (wink) steal! Love it to death already, took it for a ride last night down to the beach under the full moon and watched some lonely fishermen on one of Jeju-do's dramatic cliffs. Picutres of scooter soon. Don't worry Mom, I'll be careful. ;)

Buddhism and Expectations

So, I've being interviewed by the Franklin Country Gazette, my hometown newspaper, and the reporter emailed me a bunch of questions which I answered early this morning. One of them was "What were your expectations going into this and have they changed?" I started to write something loftly about trying not to have any expectations, living right here in the moment all the time by the seat of my pants, immersing myself in the experience, that sort of thing, but a couple sentences in I realized it was absolute crap. It bothered me so much that I actually deleted the question entirely from my response (hope she didn't notice!). But it's stuck with me. I visited Yakcheonsa Temple this afternoon and the question was still bouncing around in my head. This post is an attempt, I guess, to answer that question.

The truth is I had a LOT of expectations coming to Korea. We all did, each one of us Fulbright ETAs and also the hagwon (English academy) teachers - everyone who picked up and left their homes and everything familiar to come halfway across and do something most had absolutely no experience doing - teaching English to non-English speakers. It takes a certain type of person to do something like that, but I think it also takes a certain amount of faith that somewhere in Korea you will find what you're looking for, something that wasn't just around the corner (but maybe was all along - that enigmatic "search for the self"). Anyhow, for me it was a little different, I'd been studying Buddhism and Zen from books for years and I thought it was time I experienced it directly, in its cultural context and in all its native glory. I fully admit to being caught up in a romantic image of "The East" - captured in self-help meditation and New Age books, movies like The Matrix, and permeating almost every area of pop culture. I guess I came out here to find out how much of that is true.

The truth is, I've found more inspiration in a little book I read my senior year while I wrote my thesis than I've found in all the Buddhist temples I've visited here. This is not necessarily a bad thing - I guess I'm just recognizing what my expectations were, and reconciling myself with the fact that I'm a little surprised with what I found. Temple tourism here is similar to cathedral tourism in Europe. I suppose if I were a devout Catholic I might be a little upset by the camera flashes while I tried to pray in the pews of an ancient seat of my religion. Every temple I've gone to here, with the exception of Dea Heung Sa in Mokpo (I'll be posting a little bit about that one later this weekend), has been little more than a tourist zoo. What did I expect? A set of misty stone steps that I might ascend barefoot, to be greeted by a shining-eyed old monk who would hand me a bowl of rice and then teach me how to be the next Batman? Deep down, I think I hoped for something like that. At the very least, I hoped to find the same sort of energy and passion that I read about in books by the Dalai Lama, Thich Nat Hanh, and some of the short works we read in my Engaged Buddhism class back at Wheaton. Whenever I've approached monks (even with a translator) or Buddhist laity here, they can give me no answers about Buddhist ethics. As the pictures below show, there are some beautiful gardens in front of Yakcheonsa, but my repeated efforts to indicate I'd like to help out with the temple community and lend my labor have been met with puzzled stares.

I've always known that there are different types of Buddhism in the world, and I think I'm seeing that more clearly now. The Engaged Buddhism I read about is prevalent in Southeast Asia, and things are much different here, in a highly Christianized and mostly Confucian society. Buddhism is just one small part of the social picture. I'm currently in contact with a professor from Maryland and his research grantees that volunteered at a Engaged Buddhist sustainable community this past summer - I'm 90% I'll end up there for a few weeks this winter. :) But I'm not in Thailand right now, I'm in Korea.

At the same time, I feel like I'm getting half the picture here. As I sat and inwardly grimaced at the tourists, I watched young mothers and their children, older women in visors and baggy Jeju pants, and men in full business suits silently take off their shoes and do bow after bow in front of the Buddhas. I watched a little boy not more than 4 make a very formal bow in front of the temple and then run grinning back to his mom. It's times like this that I feel the language barrier the most strongly (although I did hear the mother say "Cha-de-sa-yo" - good job! to the beaming kid). There's something here I'm missing, there's a Buddhist culture here that I don't understand. And I think with the right attitude, that mystery, that challenge, is more than enough get me excited again about Korean Buddhism. :)

Fields of a beautiful white flower, possibly an Herb or Vegetable, growing in front of the temple. This is the kind of informative narrative you can expect when I venture into non-English speaking areas alone. ;) 

Gardens in front of Yakcheonsa temple, I guess they do have some Buddhist farming on this island! 

Medicinal holy water, from the fish's mouth at Yakcheonsa. 

The view of the sea from Yakcheonsa. If you look REAALLY close, you can see Indonesia out there. ;) 

The river and the sea 

The river, spilling into the sea. 

I found a secret cache of haenya (women diver) nets and equipment next to the river and the sea ... I totally felt like I was in a video game and I just found an Important Item! 

I realized that although I've been here a few months, I've never once wrote extensively about Korean, food, although it is one of the most enjoyable parts of living on this side of the world. Sooooo ... here ya go. :) As you probably know, rice is the main dish at every meal, in fact the phrase "pap mogassoyo?" or "did you eat?" literally means "did you eat rice?" Koreans like to wrap meat in leaves, that's what the traditional "Korean barbeque" restaurants in the States usually focus on, and it certainly is delicious. They cook it right at the table for you, and you wrap it with lettuce, sesame leaves, or cabbage (very healthy!) But here in Jeju we get a lot of raw fish, which we dip in go-to-jawn (spicy red pepper sauce). Kimchi is the most important vegetable dish, it's pickled cabbage in go-to-jawn paste - and its freakin' fantastic. There's lots of different kinds of kimchi, cabbage is the basic one but radishes, spring onions, and a lot of Chinese vegetables that don't really have English translations get kimchi'ed. One of my favorite things that my host mother makes is a kimchi'ed cuttlefish ... I guess strands. Strands of cuttlefish. It tastes a lot better than it sounds. Koreans also don't have their own plates of food (except for bowls of rice) ... they put all the side dishes, meat dishes, even soup sometimes in the center, and you take what you want. It is then customary to save the rest for the next meal (no food waste). What a beautiful system. :) Yes, as you see, I've fallen in love.

Did anyone know you could eat sweet potatoes, raw? My host mother gave me a few for breakfast this morning, and they've got to be the most delicious thing I've ever tasted. So soft, so natural.

Did a little researching and I might be visiting my first Buddhist organic farm on my day off this Wednesday! It's about an hour away by bus. There's a fairly big WWOOF community here in Korea, and I want to be a part of it. You know, on top of a new teaching job, in a new country. ;) I'll let you know how it goes ...

went to see a parade that went from the center of Seogwipo City to Cheonjiyeon Waterfall ... it was a celebration of Jeju culture and was pretty amazing :) Here is Kim Soo-Hee, my coteacher and partner in crime, striking the pose. 

these are haenya, or "women divers". they go underwater and catch fish, squid, clams, etc. - it's a traditional practice that's slowly dying out 

i loved this guy. peasant farmers and their wise sage. 

traditional drumming at the parade 

confetti falling from the sky at a parade in Seogwipo City! :) i actually had a big part in this parade, a man dressed up as a Confucian scholar, complete with fake beard and 'stache, put his big hat on me and led me into a circle of dancing old grannies in traditional costume, who cackled and grabbed at my hands. i was then interviewed for on KBS (korean broadcasting) and i think some sort of local NBC channel. my kids were telling me all about how they saw me on tv the next day ... ahhh, to be the funny foreigner celebrity :) 

Mo Cheong Ju and Kim Sun Mi catch a little fish, I think this one's called cha-ree 

we took a smaller boat out from chuja island to a big group of rocks offshore, about the size of a football field. we stayed until the sun set, so gorgeous ... 

Two weekends ago (I know, I know, it's been forever since an update), I went on a retreat with my teachers to Chuja Island. This is me and my principal (I'm the goofy guy on the left). ;) NOTE: soju bottles on the ground, my principal's got an iron liver. he's a machine! 

my kids are so cute ...

STUDENT (walking into my office and sitting with her head down on the conference table): Teacher, I am tired.
ME: Ohh, you should go to sleep.
STUDENT: Oh no.
ME: Why not?
STUDENT: In class ... sleeping ... no.
ME: Well that's not nice.
STUDENT: I know. Korean school ... very bad. When I get older, I change it.
ME: Oh, good for you. What do you want to be when you are older?
STUDENT: A diplomat!
ME: I think you'd make a great diplomat.
STUDENT: Oh teacher, you tell a white lie. (they learned that word today in my coteacher's class, hahah)

(after lunch, walking back to the classroom)
(different) STUDENT: Oh teacher, face ... very red!
ME: Oh ... thank you, I guess!
STUDENT: Teacher, you ... drinking?
ME: Haha, no. The cafeteria is very hot. No air conditioning. And the kimchi is very hot too.
STUDENT: [gives me a look like she doesn't believe me, and then runs off]

Today the copy machine sounded like a dying dragon. I half expected a curl of grey smoke to come out of the paper load tray.

Had an Office Space moment -- "PC load letter?? What the fuck does that mean?!" Of course for me it's the mysterious Korean words that light up in red, stopping my precious copies for some unknown reason. But I got it sorted out, and now the kids can fill in the blanks in the lyrics of MJ's "Beat It" and Weird Al's "Eat It". ;) Who says teaching English can't be fun ! :D

A flower from the flower festival whose name sounds like "song-sa-hwa" (I'm butchering it, I know. The inner petals curve up when the longer and thinner ones emerge, and the name evokes something in Korean meaning "never meeting", in a kind of lost lovers sort of way. 

The entrance to a "flower festival" in Mokpo with Becky's host family ... I think this picture pretty much my time here -- goofy antics with middle schoolers (Ka-ram and U-ram are the two kids on the steps, Becky's host brothers) ... amidst the beauty of ancient temples and Asian architecture. I think I forget that although they might seem exotic, to them it's just home. My trip to the mainland last weekend (had Friday off as well) took me to a Buddhist tea temple in the mountains ... I'll be writing a much longer entry about that one in the next few days. Just to whet your appetite -- I drank out of tea cups that were over ... three hundred years old! :D 

Becky-si came to visit! chillin on the beach. 

my runs take me past some beautiful views ... 

tangerine trees, right along the streets 

my little fuzzy buddy (AKA the floor pee-er and that annoying lil buddy you'll one minute be stealin your bread and the next be curled up in your lap) -- Jeong 

clouds and sunset during a minor typhoon on Jeju Island 

Had the hot version of Omija (the native Jeju mountain tea), and it tasted a lot different than the iced, I think mainly because the iced was 50% sugar. ;) Still sweeter than most teas that I've had, it was ... very distinctive, with a strange red color that separated out as it sat, like the stuff in miso soup. Not the best tea, and I didn't finish it. The tea-shop though, was Heaven. That was it's name! And it had all sorts of bits and bobs and arty things all over, a great ocean view, and plush couches for seats. Think I'll bring my laptop and do some writing there sometime.

My fellow teachers have been amazing the past few days. On Tuesday I went out for dinner and drinks with all of Daesin Middle School, and then a few teachers and I went ... BOWLING! They couldn't really speak much English, so we communicated with smiles and high fives. And man, are they good. Last night some of the English teachers in other middle schools in Seogwipo City took me out to dinner and tea. :D Every Thursday we have a discussion group where they practice English and talk about whatever subjects are of interest. We were talking philosophy, teaching theory, and even relationships! My coteacher doesn't have a boyfriend so we were trying to set her up with someone at my school, the other guy in the group is getting married in January and still has that starry love-struck look in his eye, and one woman who looks about 25 revealed that she's 38 and has been "learning to tolerate" her husband! Korean culture is so surprising sometimes, they have a word, "hwan-tae-ki", which means the ten year marriage anniversary during which time you usually can't stand your spouse's idiosyncrisies. They have an expression, "I couldn't bear to see even the back of his head." Yikes ! Heheh, so much fun to learn about the way other cultures see the same problems we have. They seem a little more honest than we are sometimes.

Teaching has been going real well, I'm getting a better handle on things as time goes on. The kids are cute as hell, and class is something I look forward to each day. Next week's going to be fun, working in a lesson on the Simpsons and after school activities! Okay well gotta jet for school, hope everyone has a great weekend :) Love, Henry.