Now I’m on the other side, totally reluctant to go back to Korea. It’s not that I won’t be happy to see my students and friends in the ROK. It’s been unseasonably warm and pleasant here; meanwhile, Korea is buried under snow and ice. I’ll have to leave behind my adorable two and a half year old niece, who just keeps getting cuter and smarter and more amazing as time hurtles forward. (Linguistically, she’s leaps and bounds beyond even my brightest students in English, and at this rate she’ll surpass me by the age of five). She’s been attached to me ever since I arrived, following me around and shouting “hi Auntie karenology!” every time I walk in, and sometimes (during a rare moment involving her sitting still), she’ll just stare at me with the hugest smile on her face. I’ll be leaving my sister and brother-in-law, my parents (both lonely under different circumstances), and my friends, who dropped everything to come see lil’ ole me. I’ll be leaving a country where things more or less make sense to me. I’ll regress mentally, going from a place where I am able to have witty conversations with adults, back to a land where I am on the lower functioning end of the mental totem pole. I’ll go from being surrounded by family in a cozy home, back to life alone in a tiny apartment between a dump and two love motels.

It’s always hard, going home.

The first thing I noticed upon arriving was how much friendlier Americans tend to be towards complete strangers: saying “hi!” just because you happen to be passing in the hallways, smiling for no particular reason, engaging in random chitchat. It’s nice but it’s a little bewildering if you’re not used to having random people wedge themselves into your lives. I was grocery shopping back in Lawrence, looking at potatoes, when a little old lady sidled up next to me. She told me all about her potato diet, how she’d lost a ton of weight, and how she went to this seminar about the potato diet but didn’t shell out $65 for the book, she’d just stuffed all that information from Dr. So and So into that little potato in her head…and so forth. I kept nodding and smiling and thinking that if I were back in Korea, this little old lady would be shoving me out of the way with her cart to get to the discount potato bag. Koreans tend to be a lot more clannish and unwilling to engage strangers. It’s not that Koreans aren’t nice people – I’ve certainly been the recipient of unprovoked kindness, and definitely some over-sharing also. They’re just not quite as open, on average, as Americans.

Other than that, minor differences abound: yeah, in the States, you don’t have to bow to people older than you, or do that thing where you touch your hand to your arm when you’re giving something to someone (which makes it kind of awkward when you’re trying to juggle holding your groceries and paying for them at the same time). Particularly in Kansas, the environs is different: the skyline is vast and unobstructed by buildings. There are plenty of churches, but none with red neon steeples. Oh, and there are actually trash cans readily available, so people don’t generally toss their garbage on the street…

Exciting stuff, eh? That’s the problem I have been running into when trying to describe my life in Korea. My experience thus far has been interesting to me, but I can’t seem to boil it down into compelling sound bite format. Here’s how my reunion exchanges have transpired:

“So, how’s Korea?”

“It’s all right.”

I think the frustrating thing for teachers coming back home is that they want to talk about their Korea experience, sometimes desperately, but it’s hard to know where to start. It’s also difficult to find an audience that will really care to listen, because “I had to use toilet paper as napkins, and take my shoes off when going indoors” is just not as sexy of an anecdote as “I had to rebuild the roof of my mud hut every week during rainy season.” That is not to say that I think my experience, or that of any other expat in a fancy developed country, is somehow less valid than that of someone slumming it in some hovel in the third world. I just think it’s somehow harder to convey the sum effect of the differences between societies, when the similarities are so similar.

To wit: living in Korea is just like living America, except totally different in every way.

My mom is holding up, despite the tragic restrooms here, and the grueling tour activities which involve a lot of climbing (go Mom, she’s a trooper!). In Sapa, and even more so in Hue, she got really excited about all the cheap fruit and trinkets and other things. We had to buy another suitcase to carry all the snacks my mom bought for mere pennies at the candy store.

I’ve talked a bit about my mom’s reaction to being here, not so much my own. Of course I enjoy being here with my mom, even though she still thinks of me as five years old (comforting when I was sick; annoying when she yells across the restaurant for me to go to the bathroom).

It’s been complicated for me, too. Growing up, I always got flak from older Vietnamese people for not speaking the language. I thought I’d gotten over that, and it hasn’t been a problem until the Da Nang / Hue leg of the trip. The first thing the bus driver said to my mom, after introductions, was “how can she come here if she can’t speak Viet?” We’re on a big bus full of people for this part of the tour, and some of the tourists are locals who make bitchy comments about it (well, actually they make bitchy comments about everything).

There are four other young people on the bus, and one other girl who doesn’t speak Vietnamese. She’s Polish (here with her boyfriend, also probably part Viet, I’m not sure). The other girl could be Miss Little Saigon of Orange County – she’s pretty, dainty, fluent in Vietnamese and English, and probably in med school. She’s been nothing but pleasant to me. I kind of hate her a little bit. The tour guide told my mom he likes this girl, because she’s retained her Viet heritage while still living in America. (The implication is that he doesn’t care for me or my ilk, the kids who didn’t go to Vietnamese school).

I am accustomed to disappointing random old Vietnamese people with my poor language skills, but I never realized before how much shit my mom gets for it too. Apparently it’s her fault for not properly schooling me. I feel a little bad about it now, but it’s not like I’m the only kid ever born of Vietnamese parents, who doesn’t speak Tieng Viet. Honestly, sometimes I’ve felt less welcome here than a straight-up foreigner with no family connections to the land. They’d rather welcome some (white) foreigner here to learn about the culture and see the country. I don’t hear the bus people grumbling about the Polish girl, for instance. I feel like I’m not Viet enough and not foreign enough to be here.

This isn’t true of everyone I’ve met, of course – the people on our first tour group understood and pretty much didn’t care, as they have children of their own like me. One woman on this bus suggested to my mom that I apply to teach English here in Vietnam, and learn Vietnamese through a language exchange. I do want to learn Vietnamese and have a stronger connection to the home of my parents. The land is gorgeous and the food is the best. Also, Vietnam is rapidly developing and rebuilding after several wars. It would be nice to contribute to this process.

Right now, though? I feel more comfortable in Korea, since I have a clearer idea of where I stand. I’m definitely a foreigner, and know how to declare myself such: “waegook saram-iyeyo!” And I have a Korean-looking face, so when I’m not out with Eli I don’t get the stares. But I don’t belong in Korea, same as Vietnam; I’m even less familiar with the culture since I’ve only known it for a year.

This year, by the way, has taught me a new respect for expats. Like my friends scattered all over the globe like seeds, thriving in foreign soil. Like my mom. There will always be some quintessential part of me that is American, that won’t blend easily with other cultures. I’ve been thinking about how scary it must have been for my mother, coming to America for the first time, not knowing any English and having a young child to care for. How frightening it was for my aunt, who came over on a crowded boat that was attacked by pirates (yeah, really) near Thailand. I guess if my aunt could deal with friggin’ pirates, I could survive a few muttered insults from some Vietbillies.

Next issue: how we got ourselves kicked out of a Hanoi taxi! Stay tuned…

Update: wow, sorry for the “woe is me” post. I’m really having a good vacation, digital-pinky swear! Just a long bus ride yesterday, and the day before that, with a certain few jerks on the bus just got me temporarily down.

My mom reports that they are indeed mean to the Polish girl, calling her “fat” and stuff, quite literally behind her back. The main culprit is a woman who basically lets her toddler run amok and spit at people on the bus. Basically, who cares what this dumb cow says. My mom and I are off to ride bikes in Pho Co.

The Hmong live a kind of gypsy/Roma existence. Many walk around the streets of Catcat, the “capital” of Sapa, selling trinkets and various bangles to tourists. “Will you buy from me?” is the lilting refrain, which, in comparison to the downright hostile attitude of some vendors in Hanoi and other big cities, is actually refreshing. The older women – it’s the women who sell and provide for the family – will chat with you for awhile, asking you where you come from, how many sisters and brothers you have, before trying to unload their wares. Sometimes they have infants strapped to their backs while they work. Children old enough to walk and count run after you and tug at your sleeves, gently touch you on the arm, always chanting “will you buy from meeee?” My mom and I found ourselves surrounded by the children, maybe seven to nine of them, all chasing after us, pleading with us in English and in Vietnamese, even trying to sneak bracelets and toys into the folds of my scarf. It turned into a game, me trying to throw the bracelets back into their baskets while dodging the wares of the wily children.

Many are beggars, who hold their hats out in front of them for alms. They don’t just survive on the goodness of tourists; they help each other out, when they can. We saw some black Hmong saleswomen giving money to an elderly blind man playing the Jew harp. Without community, subsistence is tough here, especially during the colder months in which temperatures sometimes plummet to below freezing.

Those who are isolated from the community are at even more of a disadvantage. While climbing the mountain trail to Ham Rong garden, we saw a young and beautiful woman standing around, bearing the usual jingly trinkets and bangles, with three children accompanying her. One was a hefty baby sitting on the grass; when I passed by, I noticed that the baby had blond fuzzy hair and blue, Asian eyes.

“Consequence of the love market,” said the tour guide. Yes, the tourist trade has brought along with it that means of providing income. Such women who bear mixed offspring are shunned and judged by the rest of the community, so they’re often on their own. Kind of like what my mom had told me earlier about the Vietnamese women who had mixed babies during and after the war.

My mom, by the way, finally started to enjoy the trip once we reached Sapa. Returning to Vietnam has proved a bit of a culture shock to her, what with the reckless driving and the appalling state of toilets here. The train to Sapa was the worst; she called this “the nightmare train.” On the way to Sapa, we took economy – or perhaps sub-economy – class, and the teeny cabins stank of cigarette smoke. There were two toilets: one a hole in the ground, and the other a perpetually urine-spattered ring. Both toilets simply emptied directly onto the tracks. The train workers barred passengers from using the toilets 30 minutes after embarking and before arrival, so as not to totally soil the train station platforms. When one of the people on my tour found out about this tidbit, he made a face of complete bewilderment and disgust: “but…but the train went through cities.” He was utterly bemused by the fact that he left his “mark” along our route. Word to the wise: should you be suicidal enough to ride a motorcycle in a Vietnamese city, take extra care when going underneath a passing train!

The train we took back from Sapa was much nicer (maybe because we’d complained so much). The cabins didn’t reek of cigarette smoke, the bedding looked like it had been washed this century, and some care had been taken to decorate the interior. There were TVs mounted on the walls, which got our cabinmate all excited, until it was discovered that they were there purely for decorative purposes. (They even had fake outlets into which the TVs were plugged. Why?)

We’re now back in Hanoi for a night before heading off to Da Nang. Mom is already unhappy with the sanitation situation here, and swears that if Saigon streets are as dirty as these, she wants to go straight away on another tour once we’re done. Welcome home, mom!

Yesterday, my co-teacher walked into the chaos that was my classroom after school: students sweeping the class, dancing to K-pop and admiring the new uniforms they had been issued. “Would you like to appear on a cooking show to try French food?” Zuh? I wasn’t sure I’d heard her correctly, since two students were trying to talk to me at the same time (oh middle schoolers!). Turned out that she had been contacted by a public TV station looking for foreigners to appear in an early morning segment on a Korean chef who specializes in French food. “Are you interested in going?” Um, YES? Free French food and TV sounded a lot better than waiting in line for hours in Seoul to pay 40k won for moldy Guinness, as had been my original weekend plans. She told me to expect a call from the TV station sometime in the afternoon on Saturday.

I worried that I wouldn’t get the call (probably because they’d found out I don’t look foreign enough for television, or whatever), or that they’d call me five minutes before filming (“where are you?”). But eventually they did, and I dragged Eli along with me – I say “dragged” because he was worried the food would involve tomatoes or olives, the big baby.

First we had to film a segment outside in “nature.” Eli and I posed like “a couple,” which was surprisingly hard to do in a natural manner. We just kind of held each other around the waist for fifteen minutes while gazing wistfully over a lake. I hope that is “couple” enough for the Korean public, lol. Then the cameraman, whose English wasn’t that great, directed us to converse directly with him – the cameraman himself was a character, apparently – and say the following dialogue:

Cameraman: “Hi”
Us: “Hi”
Cameraman: “Nice to meet you.”
Us: “Nice to meet you too. How are you?”
Cameraman: “I’m fine, thank you and you?”
Us: “We’re fine.”

Given that I just spent this entire week trying to teach my kids to say something other than “Hello how are you I’m fine thank you and you,” which has been imprinted on every Korean schoolkid’s head for the past fifteen years, I found this particularly hilarious. Then the rest of the segment had us talking to the chef, complimenting him on his English, and then turning to the camera guy and insulting him in a backhanded sort of way: “oh, uhh…your English is good too!” Good morning, Korea – here are some asshole foreigners to start your day!

Then we waited around while they set up the cooking location, which I think was some sort of community center / old folks’ home in the tiny nearby village of Bunwon. The camera guy told me that I would be approached by a “halmoni” (“grandmother” in Korean), and she would say something in Korean, and I’d have to respond in English: “sorry I don’t know Korean!” I guess to address any possible confusion from the audience about whether or not I’m really a foreigner. Gotta love being a Cylon here!

Then followed a surreal and slightly bizarre sequence of events. The cameraman instructed one of the hammier halmonis to chat with us, which was mostly one-sided as the conversation was waaaay beyond my paltry grasp of Korean. She said something about “norae,” which I recognized means “to sing,” and I nodded. Eli chimed in with the one Korean word he knows: “noraebang!”*

At this, the grandmother clapped and hooted, pointing towards a music machine that just so happened to be in the corner of the room. The cameraman’s face lit up, and right then I really wanted to smack either my forehead or Eli’s face for his brilliant contribution. We were dragged over to the music machine and forced to sing “Dancing Queen” and dance like Carlton from “Fresh Prince of Bel Air.” And yes, this will all be on television. I already told several of my friends which station and what time the program will appear, so there goes any chance for damage control. Ai-goo…

Then Hammy Halmoni pulled out a green cloth and plopped herself on the floor. She gestured for me to come sit by her, and I had no idea what she wanted – maybe to tell my fortune or something? – so I plopped myself on the green cloth, and she and the other ladies laughed and ordered me off – “Ani! Yogi anja!” She pulled out this little deck of cards, and suddenly Eli and I found ourselves in the middle of this card game without having any idea of the rules or how to play. The old ladies kept throwing cards down in a dramatic fashion, quickly scooping up some and throwing them into their own pile. It appeared to be some sort of matching game, so I kept throwing down cards which I thought looked matches, only to be swatted away in disgust. It looked like an interesting game – if only I knew how to play! I felt a little bit like Alice in Wonderland. This was also being filmed, of course, and I’m sure when the segment appears they’ll edit in some weird sweat drop or question marks over our heads. Or maybe a boi-oi-oing or whomp-whomp sound effect?

Finally, dinner was served. I chatted a bit with the chef between shots, when he wasn’t busy cooking. All I’d heard beforehand was that he was a Korean chef cooking French food, so I learned more about what he was doing. The program follows him around as he goes to different regions in Korea, highlighting a local ingredient that he then uses in a French dish. “My goal is to use local Korean ingredients to make my French food,” he said. The ingredient featured in this program was carp from the lake near my town.

As it turns out, this guy worked in the States for several years, and at one point worked for friggin’ Thomas Keller at Per Se in NYC – ! The best chef in America and possibly the world. And his underling was cooking for just us and a bunch of grannies in some BFE village?

The dish itself featured carp lightly poached in a sort of stew comprised of a very thick, creamy bechamel sauce. I liked it, but since my expectations shot up pretty high upon hearing his pedigree, it wasn’t quite as exciting as I’d anticipated. The carp seemed a bit buried under the thick sauce, and I couldn’t taste any of the herbs or other seasonings used in the sauce. The carp itself was fatty and delicious, but I thought the dish could use something to cut the richness of both sauce and fish. There also was absolutely nothing Korean about the dish at all, which left me wondering if there is some kind of intersection between Korean and Western food that could be exploited. Maybe a bouillabaisse or something. I guess he is definitely wanting to do French cuisine and not some bastardized “Frenchean” or “Korench” fushion thing (possibly a good thing, judging by the way those names combine. eww). That said, I still definitely want to try his restaurant, and plan to stop by Culinaria the next time I’m in the Apgujeong area in Seoul.

Overall, it was a wonderfully bizarre and funny little excursion. On our way home, I reflected on how exactly I’d gotten to this point in my life where I am singing and dancing badly with a bunch of random old ladies on Korean daytime television. I certainly wouldn’t have predicted this would have come to pass a year ago. If I’d taken the law school route, I’d be cooped up in a beautiful library in Virginia, tearing my hair out over a Contracts case study or something.

I go back and forth on what I’m going to do after I’m done here. Though I still feel nagging impulses to get started with my career and be a successful and adjusted grownup, unlocking various life achievements and all that – I really think I’m at my happiest just bumming around, collecting random and hilarious experiences.

The night before we’d left, Eli sent me a text: “my school is awful i have to pretend i am going to teacher training.” Any time foreign teachers leave the country, our co-teachers have to fill out some form with our rationale for leaving. I thought he was just complaining about the form, and thought nothing of it, until he met up with me and our friends to explain. Apparently, though his co-teacher had assured Eli that taking leave in February was okay, this information somehow bypassed the principal. Once the principal realized Eli was leaving, he was furious and demanded some explanation. We’re not entirely sure what happened, but it seemed that Eli’s co-teacher made up the “teacher training” excuse on the spot. Consequently, while we were on vacation, Eli had to take photos posing in front of random schools, and with random kids in the background, to use for documentation of this fictional conference. For his part, the poor co-teacher has to type up this fake documentation in Korean, since the principal obviously can’t read English. Likely, he’ll never read it anyways – this whole move is really just to appease his ruffled ego.

For anyone reading this blog, who has dealt with the sublime insanity of Korean school politics: have you ever encountered a steaming pile of bullshit this immense? I was seriously gobsmacked at hearing this. Instantly it made me better appreciate my school, even with all its quirks and perpetual budget woes. At least I never get the sense that they are trying to dick me around because some old dude has the emotional maturity of a toddler.

Anyway, there was that, and the fact that I left for this trip with about 20,000 won in my account. My LASEK surgery, combined with the heat bill, did me in. I almost regretted doing the surgery when I did. I was stressed and had to borrow money from Eli to cover my other bills, and for spending money for the trip. We left on payday but so early in the morning that I couldn’t possibly withdraw any cash before our flight, and our ATM cards would not work abroad. I had my US cards, but I want to avoid spending from those accounts as much as possible because I’m reserving those for student loan payments. Consequently, almost the entire time I was there, I budgeted every single day. That may have slightly interfered with the point of the trip, which was to decompress and enjoy life for a little while.

Ultimately, it was good because it made me get into the practice of budgeting, which I need to do every day, not just when I don’t have easy access to cash! Also, with the amount of snorkeling we did, I’m really thankful I got the LASEK surgery when I did. Since I can’t wear contact lenses, snorkeling would have been kind of impossible. And the water was SO clear, and so many dazzling shades of blue and green…

Just supply me with coconuts to bash against the rocks, and I could live happily in this shallow ocean enclave.

Both El Nido and Coron are a little more expensive than other destinations in the Philippines. It did work to our benefit to start out in these places, as by the time we’d begun to run really low on cash, we moved and prices dropped significantly. All said, though, it’s still the Philippines and quite affordable. Stuff on average costs a quarter of what it does in Korea. If I’d had more money and baggage space, it would have made sense to shop for clothes and sundry to bring back home.

Overall, apart from airfare, we spent about the equivalent of 1 million Korean won, just under $1,000 USD, for a thirteen day trip. That’s a little over $75 per day, including hotels. Not bad, considering we ended up doing mostly what we wanted! The one thing I regret is not going on a nighttime firefly watching / kayak tour when we were in Coron; it turns out we probably could have done it, but we didn’t know what our expenses would be like in El Nido. At least that leaves me with another excuse to return someday, when I am fabulously wealthy and can drag my friends and family along with me.

Yep. That's real.

Abrupt return from dreamy paradise islands full of heat and smiles and a spectrum of blues, to a drab and chilly plain. Still, I’m not totally bummed. I did kind of miss my students, hormonal shrieking monsters though they may be, and since it’s the start of the new semester, it’ll be nice to get back to teaching again instead of sitting like a lump at a desk. I was also absurdly happy to be reunited with my cozy, tidy (well, formerly tidy, before I scattered my vacation detritus everywhere) apartment, and its properly functioning shower.

I’m also relieved to not have to obsessively budget any longer. We’d avoided withdrawing more money from our US bank accounts as much as possible, didn’t have a way of using our Korean debit cards, and on top of that, I was dead broke before the trip, and we’d left for vacation on payday – so early in the morning that my paycheck would not be deposited into my account in time for me to withdraw anything. I’ll add some posts shortly about how we did this, but the net result was that we spent just under the equivalent of $1,000 USD in one of the most expensive parts of the Philippines, over the course of 13 days (12 nights). Pat on the back!

Though it isn’t as much of a horrible shock as I’d expected to be back here – thankfully, the winter has mellowed out some – I miss the lull of the ocean tides and the slow pace of life on the islands. Everyone smiles and says “good morning,” no matter what time of day. The sun’s always coming up.

“Here’s what the last teacher did,” said my co-teacher, as she handed me the materials. I flipped through them, cringing in anticipation of lameness – this is from the same person who quizzed the students over jellyfish anatomy. For the last camp, she apparently had the students learn all about fun stuff like…obtaining citizenship in the U.S. Great! My co-teacher told me that attendance dropped sharply after the first day or so of that camp, and frankly I’m not terribly surprised.

Keeping this in mind, I’ve tried to make my camp a bit more fun and accessible for the kids. Luckily, the helpful EFL teaching website waygook.org has come to my rescue again, with huge thread devoted to activities and games for a Harry Potter themed winter camp. Great timing, too, as the latest movie came out in Korea not too long ago. I’ve been able to adapt or outright use most of the materials from that thread, and so far it’s been successful. We’ve done things like make “potions” in class (glitter, baking soda, vinegar and water – all with appropriately magicky names, naturally), and played a version of freeze tag. Luckily nobody has died or jabbed a wand into someone’s eye…I have two more days of camp with my 1st graders (American 7th grade) and then another week with my 2nd graders, so I’ll wait until finishing to declare victory.

Even though “camp = extra school,” and English camp in particular has had a reputation for being dreadfully dull, I’ve still had a fair number of students sign up and actually show up. Out of the 20 or so who signed up, I’ve got about 15 regulars, which is pretty good, all things considered. Most surprising is that a handful of the students who signed up are not exactly the highest level students, nor are they the most motivated. In fact, I could have sworn at least two of them hated my regular classes. One kid has a perpetual scowl on his face, and stubbornly refuses to participate, keeping his mouth firmly shut whenever I call on him during class, or answering in Korean. Another kid wrote actually wrote “fuck you” (in English!) on a worksheet, but in retrospect I don’t think that was really aimed at me – I’d simply made the classic mistake of telling middle school students “to draw whatever you want!” My co-teacher chewed him out good at the time, and he returned to my class sheepishly and apologized with the appropriate politeness level in Korean. Yes, I’d considered these my bad kids, and was keeping a wary eye on them at first, expecting trouble. Here they are, still acting a little sulky and sullen at times, as only a middle schooler can – but they’re actively participating in class! The Scowler had written on one of his Owl Posts that he really enjoyed my class, and that “Mr. Kim Lee teacher is very kind.” (I’ll maybe need to review gendered titles for my regular classes).

Prepping for camp, even though I’m lucky enough to draw upon both the waygook.org resources and my own Harry Potter nerdery, is a bit more exhausting and intensive than preparing regular lessons. I’m having to “teach,” if it can really be called that, three hours’ worth of different material every day. Still, I’m actually enjoying the effort, and vastly prefer it to deskwarming. Native English teachers in Korean public schools are often required to report to work even when we are not teaching classes, and even though no other teachers may be in the building!

Eli and I were supposed to go together to the Philippines at the end of January, but due to what I will kindly label “communication errors” (Eli’s school went from saying “we can schedule camps around your vacation!” to “your English camp must be the last two weeks of January, no we can’t changee”), we’ve rescheduled this to February. After my camp is done, I’ve got another three weeks before teaching classes again. Not sure what to do with those weeks. I’ve been contemplating getting LASIK surgery while here in Korea, as it’s far cheaper than in the States (about 1.7 million won for both eyes here, vs. around $2,000 per eye back home!). I’ll admit, the idea makes me more than a little nervous. I’ve been reluctant to see the doctor about a throat bug that’s been plaguing me for two weeks, all because of the whole language barrier issue. And that was for just a throat bug, not anything on the order of having lasers shot into my eyes.

I will say that the longer I’m here, the more I appreciate my parents, especially my mother, for having to adapt to life in a country where they didn’t speak the language at first. It’s difficult for me to do even minor things, such as buying chicken from the butcher at the town grocery shop! Every day I have just enough energy to engage in 3 – 5 verbal transactions, using my highly limited Korean and lots of pantomimery, before I am spent. It’s getting both better and worse as I learn more Korean. Better, because I am starting to be able to handle things on my own. Worse…because I now have to handle things on my own!

We’ll see what a whole year of this is like.

The kids at my school vary from “friendly and sweet” to “super unmotivated and rude.” Doesn’t help much that I’m teaching from a textbook that has pretty lame subject matter. The title of the chapter from which I am teaching the 3rd graders is – no joke – “Who Cares?” All the exercises relate to morality, empathy, and how people should behave towards others, a topic that is just oodles of fun to kids that age! I meet with each class two times a week; one of those has to be spent covering the textbook, unfortunately. Argh.

One day I saw all these banners around school with the no-smoking symbol displayed prominently. I asked my friend Lisa what was up, and she said that the school was doing a seminar to help students quit smoking. That’s right, students. I remember some of the kids in my middle school smoked, but I certainly don’t recall the problem being quite this bad. One issue is that cigarettes are definitely cheaper here than in the States. There’s not much to do in this village besides hang out in front of the gas station, where said cheap cigarettes are sold. Maybe if the kids couldn’t afford the cigarettes, they wouldn’t have as much of a chance to get addicted? Some of my favorite little monsters in the 1st (7th) grade named their quiz team “AFTER SCHOOL FIGHT SMOKING,” which was kind of funny.

Overall, I’m pretty busy with lesson planning, or more appropriately, finding tricks to keep these monsters occupied for 45 minutes, during which some English might be spoken (if I’m lucky). I did have a breakthrough with my supposed lowest level class, 204 (8th graders), who apparently are trouble for a lot of the teachers. They’re currently doing a chapter on “Directions” (imo, a MUCH easier topic to plan lessons around than morals). I had these guys do a game where they pair up and are given a maze. One partner closes their eyes and tries to solve the maze, while the other partner gives directions in English. Aside from two hooligans who never pay attention to anything fun, ever (grr), the whole class was really into the game. My co-teacher even mentioned that they talked about it in one of her classes with them. Score!

I’ve found that these kids can be ultra, ULTRA competitive. During one class in which they were playing “The Price is Right,” one kid kept jumping up from his desk and bowing towards…I’m not sure. The clock, maybe? Anyway, he got up and bowed towards something whenever his team got a question right. Sadly, his team did not win, so they left in a huff after finding out the bad news. Mwa ha ha ha!

For now, even though teaching has its challenges, everything is okay. The school sees that I’m working pretty hard, and they are treating me well. My friend Lisa came over the other day and noticed the shelves the school recently bought for me, and said that was a sign that the school must really like me (they are nice shelves). It sounds like the experience with the previous teacher was just so horrible, that they are happy to have a native teacher* that isn’t anything like her.

One extremely unfortunate thing is that the previous horrible teacher happened to be African-American. Many of the kids have never seen anyone black before, and of course THIS person had to be their first exposure to someone of color. I had wondered if maybe she had started out being pleasant, and just became less so because she encountered existing racism here. Obviously I don’t have her side of the story, but from what I hear from other teachers, and the other foreigner in town, she clashed with people immediately upon arrival, making demands and generally being not a fun person to be around. I have come across some foreigners here in Korea who act inappropriately, in my opinion, and tarnish the reputations of all of us waygookin. Especially serving in the capacity of a foreign teacher, I do feel like I am a sort of informal ambassador, and it’s important to act and behave in a way that showcases some of the more positive traits of Americans: warmth, friendliness and openness. The previous teacher would actually lock students OUT of her classroom, and either ignore or yell at them whenever they tried to chat with her on the street. She constantly yelled at the students, gave them worksheets printed from the internet that were absurdly beyond their level (e.g., articles and quizzes over jellyfish anatomy. ???), and would bang a giant stick on the table.

I never met her, nor did I ever witness her teaching in action, so maybe I could give her the benefit of the doubt and say that the students were actually quiet in her class. I don’t think they learned any English, but I do think they may have learned that “hey, this big black lady is really mean.” One thing I am concerned about is cleaning up the mess she left behind, and reversing any unfortunate conceptions of foreigners, particularly foreigners of color, that may linger in these students’ memories. I’m not quite sure how to tackle that issue, but that’s on the agenda.

Also on the agenda, once I get my first paycheck:
1) buy a bicycle
2) buy a guitar
3) buy a hedgehog at E-Mart

*”native teacher” is the term used for us foreign English teachers here. Kind of tripped me up a bit at first, because of course I am not native to Korea! But English is my native language, so I guess that makes sense.