Lydia came to watch the TKD testing and was equally confused about my going with the last group. She did come over to translate for a little bit though, but I fear that I was in a mood at that point and may have made her feel unwanted. Also, the sabeonim was giving instructions at that point, not about what she was translating, so I may have been perturbed a bit at her interrupting. At any rate, she told me that the children were reciting a letter to their mothers as part of the test, something I may want to memorize as well since some sort of spoken assessment is part of TKD testing usually. She also told me that the kwanjangnim thinks I’m doing well, but that I need to loosen up and relax my muscles when moving. This is something I’ve had problems with since Chuncheon even, and in general I have trouble relaxing my muscles even when trying to sleep. In fact, since starting TKD, with its emphasis on relaxing the muscles until the point of contact, I’ve noticed that when I close my eyes to go to sleep, I actually squeeze them a bit instead of letting them close naturally. Maybe this is why I’ve had trouble sleeping for… well, gosh, ages! It’s a hard habit to break, at any rate, and if I can’t get my eyes to relax without making a conscious effort, I somehow doubt that getting my legs to relaxing while kicking a target is going to be any easier.
We walked around the hamlet a bit after we mailed Dana’s black belt to Seoul, and she asked what was wrong. I was still in a mood for several reasons. One, the green belt test hadn’t gone well, which was frustrating. Two, I was still tired from last night’s drinking and hadn’t had a shower yet from last night’s TKD practicing, so I generally felt “icky”. Three, Lydia had told me that the family thought Jacob and Dana had picked up Korean faster than me, so they were able to talk to the family about more things. (My co-teachers have since assured me that this is not necessarily true.) This brought me low because one of the main reasons I came to Korea was to learn Korean, and I was having trouble getting actual instruction in the language due to the remoteness of my location. Talking out these frustrations with Lydia helped me, and I think what I have missed most living here is having someone from my own cultural background to talk to who knows how to console me using things from that culture. Even the teacher’s in the lounge kept commenting on how I looked so happy to have a friend in town on Friday. A little silly, I know, but the only other foreigners here aren’t even American, which, as I said in an earlier letter, means that even things like the 60s being the rebellious decade aren’t given cultural commonalities. I have no shared history with anyone within a 50-kilometer radius, and it is taxing.
We met Ryan at the bus terminal to await Rebecca’s arrival. Another happy meeting there with an old friend, and we were off on our tour of the hamlet. We drove to the other end of town and then took a walk out to the rock park out beyond the rice paddies on the East end. The rock park is essentially what it sounds like. A park with a bunch of rocks arranged in different ways, but they are nice to look at. (I mentioned in an earlier post that my host father does something similar on a smaller scale in the house as a hobby. I’ve since learned that this is called suseokhwei.)
By now, though, we were all ready to eat. (I was still in need of a shower, but food took precedence at this point.)
Now, on our way to the park, Ryan had asked about where I went to church in town, and I told him that, while I didn’t know the name, it was near a fairly well-known restaurant in the area called Serenade. He said he didn’t know it.
It was much to my surprise therefore when he suggested that we go to “Saeraenadae” (Serenade, Koreanized). Again, the reason why I was teaching the syllable lesson.
At any rate, Serenade offers what Lydia describes as a Korean-Western blend of menu choices, which she correctly defines as meaning, “They offer both Korean food and Western food.” Against everyone’s better judgment, including mine I ordered the spaghetti. (I wanted to order the sandwich on the menu, but they were out of the vegetables, bread, and lunchmeat…) When the spaghetti arrived, it was snack sized as far as Italian food goes, far too sweet to realistically have had any herbs or garlic in it, and it was topped with cheese. Not parmesian cheese, oh no! But Kraft American cheese, the kind you buy in singles packets from the grocery store to make cheap grilled cheese sandwiches. Fortunately, this less than satisfying entree was supplemented by my friends’ plates, which apparently had too much food on them.
We then played the traditional game of, “Let me pay the bill,” which in this case involved a physical race to the cash register as we attempted to prevent Ryan from paying. This continued throughout the rest of the day. I swear that he would’ve dropped $200 on us if we would have let him.
At this point, we haggled about what to do next (not even I mention the possibility of a shower, however, this going on 29 hours and two sessions of TKD without one) and eventually decide to head out to Bongpyeong to see Lee Hyo Seok’s house (my second visit) and Herbenara, or Herbland, a magical place filled with herbs (my first visit). We told Ryan that we’d help pay for gas, but he wouldn’t allow, following the Korean custom of loathing dutchpay.
Despite its cheesy name, Herbenara actually turned out to be a pleasant garden park. Admission was 5000 won. Classical tunes played with music box simplicity over the loud speakers as we strolled along the scented paths. There were areas to honor kitchen herbs, herbs mentioned in Shakespeare, herbs from the Bible, and other items. Since Rebecca and Lydia knew I had acted, they asked me to recite some of the Shakespeare lines posted on the signs in the Bard’s area. I think Andy White, my director from Romeo & Juliet would have been proud of my aspiration and sense of rhythm. Or embarrassed. We stopped in a greenhouse at some point and drank some hot herbal tea, which was a comfort as it unfortunately had been raining all day. This also caused the herbs to lose some of their scent I’m sure, and I hope to return on a warmer, sunny day when I can absorb their full force through my nasal passages. I have such a poor sense of smell as it is that something needs to be right under my nose to smell it most of the time.
After our adventures in Bongpyeong, we drove back to the hamlet under cover of darkness and ate dinner and shared light drinks at the restaurant I had met Ryan and Lydia at the night before. At some point during the conversation, it came out that Ryan thought that Lydia and Rebecca, who are both Asian (the former being Korean and the latter Chinese-German), were far more American than me. In terms of my attitude towards life, apparently, I’m pretty Korean. Lydia and Rebecca are loud and boisterous and crazy, yet guarded about their opinions, but I’m more of a stoic and relay my sincere feelings so that Ryan felt he could understand me better.
I find this interesting, though I don’t know if I’d agree. I do try to remain stoic about things, with the exception of happiness. (My guffaw offends the ears of those around me if I find something even slightly humorous.) I would also say that I try to be sincere.
At the same time, though, I don’t feel very Korean. There are still a lot of things here that I will never understand and may never even feel fully comfortable with. The physical attention couples show each other, for instance, where a boyfriend will grab his girlfriend’s neck in a choking gesture in order to show affection or the fact that if a girl crosses the threshold of a motel with a guy it means that she has consented to sex. Resistance just becomes part of the game at that point. Public drunkenness and displays of violence as well as people just watch idly by I’m not fully comfortable with either. But these are cultural things, and maybe it’s the fact that I just feel sincerely about them that makes me less American than some other expatriates here. This is not the case with Rebecca and Lydia, but with a lot of Americans in Korea, they’re just here for the money that can be had from “teaching” English. They will not bother to learn the Korean language, nor are they interested in the culture that surrounds them. They just want their money and a good time. A lack of sincere feelings indeed.
I’ll get off the soapbox now…
Ryan paid for the meal about halfway through the meal so that we couldn’t even fight him for the bill. Afterwards, we went to noraebang (karaoke), and we insisted that we pay, although he ended up buying drinks and snacks during the singing anyway. The man just didn’t know when to quit.
This was my first time actually singing at a noraebang, and it was about as enjoyable as I expected. Ah, well. Social activity in community does not always require full enjoyment, just full participation. I did call the night short, however, as I felt it would be inconsiderate to come back to the house much after midnight. Indeed, I felt it would probably be inconsiderate to come back after 11:00, but I wasn’t going to press the point. Lydia and Ryan thought we should stay out, but I reminded them that I have to live with my hostfamily in polite company for the remainder of my grant term. They didn’t have to live with the consequences of possibly offending them or, even I didn’t offend them, of seeming like an inconsiderate, rude American. Cultural ambassadorship and all that.
We said our goodbyes to Ryan (I got his phone number in case he ever returned to the hamlet), and we returned back to the house and composed ourselves for sleep as quietly as possible.
Oh, and I finally got my shower in… 40 hours and two sweat sessions since my last one. Yes!
Saturday, September 22, 2007
TKD Testing--Green Belt
Today was my Tae Kwon Do Green Belt test, which was largely a disaster.
I arrived about one and a half hours early to warm up and to practice my form. Yellow Belts must demonstrate the third form (http://youtube.com/watch?v=q7i9z4ddg7I) before they are allowed to advance to Green Belt. The children also have to memorize something in Korean, but I was luckily spared this. (Here are youtube.com links to the other forms I “know”: First Form-http://youtube.com/watch?v=PZbVi4prqME; Second Form- http://youtube.com/watch?v=Gn6RqtpjzjE.) The problem is, I was taught this form Friday night in a bit of a rush, so I wasn’t quite sure how to do it and thus could not really practice it on Saturday morning. Then, the sabeonim led group warm-ups with the entire dojang. This proved a bit dangerous as the space is not that large. I worried that I might end up kicking one of the little kids in the head, thus rendering them unconscious (or maybe I’m overestimating the force of my kicks; or perhaps the durability of their skulls). It was also the fiercest warm-up I’d ever done for TKD with this dojang, though still not as difficult as the warm-ups in Chuncheon.
Finally, the kwanjangnim arrived. We practiced our bowing and polite language briefly. He told us to move to the back of the dojang so we could sit cross-legged and wait our turn. (Lydia H. also showed up to see me around this time too.)
There’s a slight problem with me sitting cross-legged. I tend to lose what little flexibility I have rather quickly. Still, that shouldn’t have been a problem on this day because we had warmed up a lot and, since I was a yellow belt, I should be going near the beginning of the testing. The kwanjangnim called us up by name. First the white belts, who did a splendid job performing the first form. Then the yellow belts. (Waiting for my name.)
Then the green belts. (Wait? What about me? Losing flexibility.)
Then some green belts and yellow belts. (Oh, I see. He’s mixing levels a bit. Well, that’s fine then. Still waiting. Still losing flexibility.)
Then the blue belts. (Oh, no…)
Then the brown. (It hurts, it hurts.)
Then the red. (At this point, the kids got in trouble for talking, which meant everyone had to do stretching. This was actually a blessing for me… Lydia told me later on that the kwanjangnim scolded the children because I had to stretch even though I wasn’t doing anything. I wish I could have told him, a la Oliver, “Please, sir, I want some more.”)
Then the red-black. (Dang… flexibility’s gone again.) And that should have been the end. I was distraught. Absolutely devastated. Why on earth would they not test me? Maybe they thought that since I had learned it the night before, that I was not worthy of the test yet. It haunted me.
And then, finally, “Jeremy-shi.” Apparently, since two children and I were from different dojang to get our earlier belts, we all had to test together last to prove we were worthy of this dojang. Well, having consumed alcohol the night before (though not too much, see below), having just sat cross-legged on the floor for an hour and fifteen minutes, having just learned the form the night before, having become emotionally distraught over my lack of testing, I did, in a word, horrendously. It was pretty embarrassing, actually, and I doubted whether I achieved the green belt level or not (I found out later that I had).
It was certainly not the way I wanted my first belt test to go at my new dojang.
As an added incentive, though perhaps it was more discouraging than inspiring, I was given the previous ATE’s black belt to mail to him in America. Since shipping would have been horrendous, I ended up sending it to the Power that Be’s office in Seoul instead, with their permission of course. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to accomplish his feat of a blackbelt in a year or not. Perhaps it’s possible. Then again, he is a trim and flexible triathlete. I am a guy who sat in the library for four years eating poorly and developing an addiction to coffee. This guy only exercised twice a month if he was lucky. I’m beginning to doubt my abilities in this area of athleticism, though I’m certainly going to keep taking classes. As my friends who are addicted to World of Warcraft would say, “I’m paid through for the month, after all.”
I arrived about one and a half hours early to warm up and to practice my form. Yellow Belts must demonstrate the third form (http://youtube.com/watch?v=q7i9z4ddg7I) before they are allowed to advance to Green Belt. The children also have to memorize something in Korean, but I was luckily spared this. (Here are youtube.com links to the other forms I “know”: First Form-http://youtube.com/watch?v=PZbVi4prqME; Second Form- http://youtube.com/watch?v=Gn6RqtpjzjE.) The problem is, I was taught this form Friday night in a bit of a rush, so I wasn’t quite sure how to do it and thus could not really practice it on Saturday morning. Then, the sabeonim led group warm-ups with the entire dojang. This proved a bit dangerous as the space is not that large. I worried that I might end up kicking one of the little kids in the head, thus rendering them unconscious (or maybe I’m overestimating the force of my kicks; or perhaps the durability of their skulls). It was also the fiercest warm-up I’d ever done for TKD with this dojang, though still not as difficult as the warm-ups in Chuncheon.
Finally, the kwanjangnim arrived. We practiced our bowing and polite language briefly. He told us to move to the back of the dojang so we could sit cross-legged and wait our turn. (Lydia H. also showed up to see me around this time too.)
There’s a slight problem with me sitting cross-legged. I tend to lose what little flexibility I have rather quickly. Still, that shouldn’t have been a problem on this day because we had warmed up a lot and, since I was a yellow belt, I should be going near the beginning of the testing. The kwanjangnim called us up by name. First the white belts, who did a splendid job performing the first form. Then the yellow belts. (Waiting for my name.)
Then the green belts. (Wait? What about me? Losing flexibility.)
Then some green belts and yellow belts. (Oh, I see. He’s mixing levels a bit. Well, that’s fine then. Still waiting. Still losing flexibility.)
Then the blue belts. (Oh, no…)
Then the brown. (It hurts, it hurts.)
Then the red. (At this point, the kids got in trouble for talking, which meant everyone had to do stretching. This was actually a blessing for me… Lydia told me later on that the kwanjangnim scolded the children because I had to stretch even though I wasn’t doing anything. I wish I could have told him, a la Oliver, “Please, sir, I want some more.”)
Then the red-black. (Dang… flexibility’s gone again.) And that should have been the end. I was distraught. Absolutely devastated. Why on earth would they not test me? Maybe they thought that since I had learned it the night before, that I was not worthy of the test yet. It haunted me.
And then, finally, “Jeremy-shi.” Apparently, since two children and I were from different dojang to get our earlier belts, we all had to test together last to prove we were worthy of this dojang. Well, having consumed alcohol the night before (though not too much, see below), having just sat cross-legged on the floor for an hour and fifteen minutes, having just learned the form the night before, having become emotionally distraught over my lack of testing, I did, in a word, horrendously. It was pretty embarrassing, actually, and I doubted whether I achieved the green belt level or not (I found out later that I had).
It was certainly not the way I wanted my first belt test to go at my new dojang.
As an added incentive, though perhaps it was more discouraging than inspiring, I was given the previous ATE’s black belt to mail to him in America. Since shipping would have been horrendous, I ended up sending it to the Power that Be’s office in Seoul instead, with their permission of course. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to accomplish his feat of a blackbelt in a year or not. Perhaps it’s possible. Then again, he is a trim and flexible triathlete. I am a guy who sat in the library for four years eating poorly and developing an addiction to coffee. This guy only exercised twice a month if he was lucky. I’m beginning to doubt my abilities in this area of athleticism, though I’m certainly going to keep taking classes. As my friends who are addicted to World of Warcraft would say, “I’m paid through for the month, after all.”
Friday, September 21, 2007
Friends Visit – Friday: Teaching and a New Friend Made over Drinks
Lydia came to school with me the next day, having actually slept in my bed the night before, with me on the yo. She graciously agreed to hold my beginning adult class at bay whilst I tested them with individual interviews. This was for two hours, so I’ll have to buy her an iPod or something for keuriseumaseu. (If you’ve forgotten what this means, say it really, really fast and you’ll get Christmas). She sat in on my other two classes and gave me advice on pedagogy and we debated whether some methods would be effective or not. I was also able to give her suggestions for what to do with her more advanced students, things like role-playing or just giving them a discussion topic and asking their opinion about it. More specifically, I recommended a role-play I did for 7th Grade Social Studies called D.C. 3000, for which the class was required to figure out how to survive on an alien planet. It was a team role-play with the class divided by occupations—psychologists, engineers, biologists, and soldiers. Team games seem to be helpful for EFL classes because the students can help each other think of solutions to the problems (and how to speak the English to relay those solutions). As for topics, news articles work fairly well. Have them read a short article about the Six-Party Talks (which are called the Five-Party Talks here, as Korea is one party in the Korean mind, not two). This gives them some accessible vocabulary to use in their discussion since they can usually comprehend what they’re reading. I’m hoping to do something similar to these things with a 3rd grade club class I may get to lead eventually when the 3rd grade is done with their University entrance exams. That or watch Heroes, Season 1 with them.
Lydia came to lunch with my co-teacher and me. We had makgugsu at this delightful open air restaurant. Unfortunately, Lydia is afraid of bugs. Deathly afraid. When she was sleeping in my room, I told her there were ants in the room, but that I had laid out ant traps. That was a mistake in itself. At any rate, while we were eating, a butterfly fluttered into our room. Now, butterflys are usually exempt from the bug-phobia as far as I know, but not for Lydia. She immediately tensed up so that she couldn’t eat and kept watching the butterfly. We explained to my co-teacher her fear and talked about the irrationality of fearing something that is always associated with flowers and generally pretty things.
At any rate, the butterfly fluttered around the room a good 10 feet from us, so Lydia relaxed a bit and stopped keeping track of its every move. It was at that point that the butterfly decided to make its assault and flew right next to Lydia’s head. She freaked out, jumping up from her cross-legged sitting position on the floor, batting at her hair to scare the butterfly away, and then insisting that I chase the butterfly away! Now, there were other people in the room when this happened, and it was rather embarrassing for me to be walking around the room trying to shoo a friendly creature of the pollen. In my shooing, the butterfly made its way back to her, and she ran to one of the other tables where patrons were either awkwardly laughing or frowning. An old man spoke to her in Korean, “The butterfly is attracted to the beautiful flower. Why do you run away?” Marvelous.
The whole scene was rather ridiculous, and I will never let her live it down if I can manage to remember it. Let us hope that I cannot.
That night, I “learned” my third form at the dojang, and during the two hours of my TKD practice, Lydia hung out (hanged out?) with a friend she just met on the bus ride from Seoul to the hamlet. After TKD, they invited me to join them at a nearby restaurant for drinks and dinner (in that order).
Her friend, Lee Kang Hyeon or Ryan, was a friendly guy and spoke fairly good English even. He is a business student in Seoul but was in town for the Chuseok holiday. We spoke about many things, including first impressions. His of me was apparently that seem to be a sincere person, something that he usually doesn’t feel from Americans. I can’t really blame him, but then again, I make a conscious effort to at least seem sincere. Acting comes in handy sometimes, though I usually am sincere. His younger sister is in one of my classes, and says that I am energetic and handsome. Given all the complements, my ego was sufficiently stroked for the evening, and I felt pretty good about myself. Though that could have been the soju and beer talking… Neither of which helped with my TKD test the next day…
Lydia came to lunch with my co-teacher and me. We had makgugsu at this delightful open air restaurant. Unfortunately, Lydia is afraid of bugs. Deathly afraid. When she was sleeping in my room, I told her there were ants in the room, but that I had laid out ant traps. That was a mistake in itself. At any rate, while we were eating, a butterfly fluttered into our room. Now, butterflys are usually exempt from the bug-phobia as far as I know, but not for Lydia. She immediately tensed up so that she couldn’t eat and kept watching the butterfly. We explained to my co-teacher her fear and talked about the irrationality of fearing something that is always associated with flowers and generally pretty things.
At any rate, the butterfly fluttered around the room a good 10 feet from us, so Lydia relaxed a bit and stopped keeping track of its every move. It was at that point that the butterfly decided to make its assault and flew right next to Lydia’s head. She freaked out, jumping up from her cross-legged sitting position on the floor, batting at her hair to scare the butterfly away, and then insisting that I chase the butterfly away! Now, there were other people in the room when this happened, and it was rather embarrassing for me to be walking around the room trying to shoo a friendly creature of the pollen. In my shooing, the butterfly made its way back to her, and she ran to one of the other tables where patrons were either awkwardly laughing or frowning. An old man spoke to her in Korean, “The butterfly is attracted to the beautiful flower. Why do you run away?” Marvelous.
The whole scene was rather ridiculous, and I will never let her live it down if I can manage to remember it. Let us hope that I cannot.
That night, I “learned” my third form at the dojang, and during the two hours of my TKD practice, Lydia hung out (hanged out?) with a friend she just met on the bus ride from Seoul to the hamlet. After TKD, they invited me to join them at a nearby restaurant for drinks and dinner (in that order).
Her friend, Lee Kang Hyeon or Ryan, was a friendly guy and spoke fairly good English even. He is a business student in Seoul but was in town for the Chuseok holiday. We spoke about many things, including first impressions. His of me was apparently that seem to be a sincere person, something that he usually doesn’t feel from Americans. I can’t really blame him, but then again, I make a conscious effort to at least seem sincere. Acting comes in handy sometimes, though I usually am sincere. His younger sister is in one of my classes, and says that I am energetic and handsome. Given all the complements, my ego was sufficiently stroked for the evening, and I felt pretty good about myself. Though that could have been the soju and beer talking… Neither of which helped with my TKD test the next day…
Thirsting for Knowledge: Dictionaries and Rosetta Stone
Tutoring lessons are working out well for me. But they go pretty slow since I can only meet with my tutor once on the weekends. One chapter a week for acquiring language is decent, but I want to learn faster.
One way I’ve done this is to purchase a Korean-English/English-Korean dictionary program for my PDA. Most language dictionaries worth their salt in Korea only go one way, which requires you to buy two dictionaries. This gets pretty heavy to carry around, so I decided to spend the $40 and get one that’s more portable. I would usually just use the internet, but as I don’t have internet access at home, this can prove impractical for when I’m studying at home.
Another way I’m trying to do this is to acquire a copy of Rosetta Stone-Korean, preferably for Mac OS X so I can use it with my laptop. Rosetta Stone is a superb computer language learning program that is used by international businesses and even has the endorsement of the U.S. State Department and Militaries as being an effective way to acquire language relatively quickly.
The problem is, Koreans don’t sell Korean language learning programs on a regular basis. (Yet, it’s relatively easy to find English language programs in the U.S…. Hm…) I’d probably have to go to Seoul to get one. I could just order it on the internet of course, but U.S. sites can’t ship into Korea and to order on Korean sites I need a Korean identification number. (That’s right. Only Koreans can buy online in Korea.)
When I contacted Rosetta Stone customer support from the U.S. site about them shipping it to Korea, they weren’t too helpful. They told me to order it online in Korea (which they apparently don’t know I can’t do as a foreigner) or use the internet version (which is real helpful since I have no internet at home, where I do most of my language studying).
All that’s to say, if you happen to have about $300 to blow on the program and another $30 to blow on shipping, send it on over to me, will you? Just kidding. Don’t. Or if you do, tell me. I don’t want 80 copies of Rosetta Stone. (Then again, I could probably sell them over here…)
One way I’ve done this is to purchase a Korean-English/English-Korean dictionary program for my PDA. Most language dictionaries worth their salt in Korea only go one way, which requires you to buy two dictionaries. This gets pretty heavy to carry around, so I decided to spend the $40 and get one that’s more portable. I would usually just use the internet, but as I don’t have internet access at home, this can prove impractical for when I’m studying at home.
Another way I’m trying to do this is to acquire a copy of Rosetta Stone-Korean, preferably for Mac OS X so I can use it with my laptop. Rosetta Stone is a superb computer language learning program that is used by international businesses and even has the endorsement of the U.S. State Department and Militaries as being an effective way to acquire language relatively quickly.
The problem is, Koreans don’t sell Korean language learning programs on a regular basis. (Yet, it’s relatively easy to find English language programs in the U.S…. Hm…) I’d probably have to go to Seoul to get one. I could just order it on the internet of course, but U.S. sites can’t ship into Korea and to order on Korean sites I need a Korean identification number. (That’s right. Only Koreans can buy online in Korea.)
When I contacted Rosetta Stone customer support from the U.S. site about them shipping it to Korea, they weren’t too helpful. They told me to order it online in Korea (which they apparently don’t know I can’t do as a foreigner) or use the internet version (which is real helpful since I have no internet at home, where I do most of my language studying).
All that’s to say, if you happen to have about $300 to blow on the program and another $30 to blow on shipping, send it on over to me, will you? Just kidding. Don’t. Or if you do, tell me. I don’t want 80 copies of Rosetta Stone. (Then again, I could probably sell them over here…)
Hanja: Finally to words again
I’ve been studying Hanja (Chinese characters) alongside my Tae Kwon Do class. Essentially, I write out a character about 18 times before I join everyone else for practice. It’s not something I’m required to do, but something that I have chosen to do because 1) the kids have to do it and 2) I might have to pick up Chinese eventually and I know I want to learn Japanese. As both languages use the characters extensively, I figure it’d be good to get a head start on them.
Up until now, though, I’ve just been studying numbers, starting with four as one through three are essentially hash marks. So, I know how to write one through ten, hundred, thousand, ten-thousand (East Asian languages base their big numbers on the ten-thousand instead of the thousand, million, billion system we have). Finally, though, I’m learning actual words again. I’m up to sun and moon (or day and night, not sure…). Future attractions are going to be fire, water, plant, tree.
I will finally be able to understand cryptic Asian writing on American t-shirts! I can’t wait!
Up until now, though, I’ve just been studying numbers, starting with four as one through three are essentially hash marks. So, I know how to write one through ten, hundred, thousand, ten-thousand (East Asian languages base their big numbers on the ten-thousand instead of the thousand, million, billion system we have). Finally, though, I’m learning actual words again. I’m up to sun and moon (or day and night, not sure…). Future attractions are going to be fire, water, plant, tree.
I will finally be able to understand cryptic Asian writing on American t-shirts! I can’t wait!
Teaching: Week Five
Teaching this week was an overall enjoyable experience. I picked a relatively simple lesson for my high school students (syllables), but ran into some difficulties with my adult students that I’ve had to brainstorm solutions for. This is an ongoing process. Despite my failings as an instructor, though, the students both young and old still like me (or so I’m told).
For the high school students I decided to teach syllables, as I said. There are two reasons for this, the first being that syllable usage for English in Korea is atrocious. For instance, in Korean, a bisyllabic loan word like Christmas becomes a pentasyllabic Keuriseumaseu (크리스마스). This is the actual word in the Korean language, and they think that it is English and that they know some English if they use this word. And they are right to a certain extent. A native English speaker will understand exactly what a Korean person means because we are used to brutalizing the sounds of our own language to near irrecognizability. But the reverse—that a Korean person may understand when an English speaker says, “Christmas”—is not always the case. Often, if I say a loan word to a Korean person, they won’t have a clue what I’m saying. For instance, if I say the word “love” to one of my students, I may get a blank stare, but if I say “reobeu (러브)”, there is instant comprehension. (See my situation below with the word “Serenade” in the post on my friends visiting.)
(Cultural Note: If I were to speculate on this, I would guess that it has something to do with the way written Korean works. Each ideographic box used to be a Chinese character. Thus, to change one sound in that box or to completely drop boxes from a word is to change the entire meaning of that word. Misspelling or mispronunciation can lead to huge problems in using Korean. I had a friend once (John F.) who accidentally told his cab driver that he enjoyed to eat “penis” on occasion instead of “rice porridge”. (His telling of this story still brings tears of laughter to my eyes.) To be fair, we have the same problem in English at times. My dad once accidentally prayed for “shit” instead of a “ship”. This was from the altar, mind you. Still, the incomprehensibility in Korean language is far more severe.)
The second reason (I almost forgot to include this) is that I’m trying to work my students up to writing haiku, which is a relatively simple poetry structure in any language. Last week we did emotions; this week, syllables; and in the near future, we’ll do seasons.
The lesson itself was inspired by many people in Fulbright, but I mainly used Rebecca H.’s lesson plan and adapted it to my student’s needs. The basic instruction was the same, as were the examples, but instead of having my students sing the song “Lollipop”, I played a game with them. The rules were simple. I’d write an English word on the board. They all had 30 seconds to give me the number of syllables (1 point) and the meaning of that word (1 point). For less advanced classes, they could write the meaning of the word in Korean, but if they could also write the meaning in English, they’d receive an extra point, bringing the possible total to three. To make it more comfortable for them (and honestly more convenient for record keeping), I broke them up into teams. The game went well, as did the class.
As for my adult students, I ran into trouble with both my advanced and beginning classes. As for the advanced, it seems that I may have been overzealous in my appraisal of what I can teach them. I do not mean that their English language skill is lacking in any serious way; my assessment of that is dead on. What I mean is that, though they may be able to talk about philosophy, they do not necessarily want to talk about it.
You see, on Tuesday morning, we reviewed “The Pursuit of Happyness” for the first hour, both conceptually (Is Chris Gardener a good man? Is he responsible? Is he really happy? What makes him so? Etc.) and linguistically (Why is his joke about wearing nice pants funny?). Then, for the second hour, I put one question on the board: Are humans good or evil? A can of worms indeed, but they talked about it. Then, for homework, I assigned Mencius and Hsun Tzu, two Confucian philosophers with differing points of view on the question.
Things were going grandly, or so I thought. The next morning, the first thing I hear from one of my students after the obligatory “Hello, how are you?” is “We don’t want to talk about this.” Oh. Okay…
So we talked about that for a good 20 minutes—the fact that they didn’t want to talk philosophy, and if so, what would they like to talk about. It seems that the pastor loves that I have them reading selections from Confucian classics in English. The housewives want to talk about current events, fashion, or entertainment. It’s not that the readings were hard, rather that talking about them didn’t interest them.
I told them that I brought in the more thought provoking readings because their English is at a level where I can’t just teach them grammar or basic dialogues anymore. So, I bring in a topic to talk about and we talk until they can’t find a way to express something and then we can talk about how to express that in half-way decent English. I also informed them that unless they gave me something specific to talk about, I had to go with what I was interested in talking about. It wouldn’t always be philosophy of course. After all, the first two lessons were on art and music. So, hopefully, they’ll start giving me some kind of prompt for classes. Otherwise, it’s just guesswork on my end, though I’m open to any suggestions on how to talk about the fashion industry.
Incidentally, we did end up talking about Mencius and Hsun Tzu. They had prepared for it after all and didn’t want to talk about something they hadn’t prepared for yet. For homework, I gave them Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and told them to write a page about it, just description. (After all, I had prepared it!) This actually turned out to be a decent assignment for them as I won’t see them again for about a week and a half because of Chuseok. [This absence as since turned into about two and a half weeks because midterms are the week after Chuseok and the school does not like visitors during testing.]
As for my beginning adult class, trouble might be too strong a word. At least, it was an overstatement to say that I had trouble with them this week. The trouble has been in the process of developing before my eyes, and I finally saw fit to nip it in the bud.
The aforementioned trouble is the fact that I’m dealing simultaneously with beginning students, some of whom may as well be working from an actual beginning grammar book, and intermediate students, the highest level of whom I’m tempted to ask to come to my advanced class if they weren’t translating for the beginning students half the time. How to instruct both has been a mystery, which grows more complicated when I consider that, among all of the students, there are gaps in knowledge. For instance, one student may be able to tell me where “Tom” is in a picture while another student can only point, but of these two students, the former cannot tell me what “Tom” is doing while the latter can tell me, “He is running.” Yet another gap is the typical comprehension without being able to speak. They can (mostly) understand what I’m saying, but they speak back to me through one of the intermediate students who translates their responses.
So, I’ve decided to take all of them back to square one using a book that my dad lent me from when he was teaching ESL classes at St. John’s Lutheran in Colton, California—Carlos Reyes Orozco’s English through Teamwork, which the author developed for his high school students in Mexico. That’s right. I’m using an ESL book designed for high school Hispanic students (living in Mexico, not the United States) to teach 40 year old Korean housewives. Cosmopolitanism, thy name is Desperation. The book should still work well because, though the introduction is written entirely in Spanish (which I’m relieved I can still read), the actual text of the book is entirely in English. It’s also brief. At 18 lessons and 109 pages, we should cruise through it fairly quickly since they already comprehend the language.
To keep the more intermediate students entertained, I intend to supplement this with “Survival English” in the second hour of class, meaning I’ll teach them dialogues for finding the bathroom, ordering food, etc, as well as some dialogues on how to explain Korean culture (e.g. Chuseok is like Thanksgiving because Koreans eat a lot of food on it and it happens around harvest time).
On Thursday, we finished watching “The Pursuit of Happyness”, and I assigned them five sentences answering the questions, “Is Chris Gardner happy? Why or why not?” They asked me the question, “Is writing important?” I answered yes and told them about how reading and writing are essential in the U.S. because we don’t have pictures for a lot of our signs and besides which, with text messaging and the internet (which they all use, I think, despite their age), they may be more important than before. At any rate, they turned in their homework Friday. Five sentences, but just generic sentences, not about Chris Gardner’s happiness. (Sigh…) On Friday, I also administered an assessment test since I plan to pair up less advanced students with more advanced students. It was one on one interviews, but luckily, I had a friend visiting, Lydia H., who actually taught them some fairly valuable grammar structures while I was conducting the test. She speaks Korean and was also able to explain to them my game plan for the next couple months.
Here’s hoping it works.
For the high school students I decided to teach syllables, as I said. There are two reasons for this, the first being that syllable usage for English in Korea is atrocious. For instance, in Korean, a bisyllabic loan word like Christmas becomes a pentasyllabic Keuriseumaseu (크리스마스). This is the actual word in the Korean language, and they think that it is English and that they know some English if they use this word. And they are right to a certain extent. A native English speaker will understand exactly what a Korean person means because we are used to brutalizing the sounds of our own language to near irrecognizability. But the reverse—that a Korean person may understand when an English speaker says, “Christmas”—is not always the case. Often, if I say a loan word to a Korean person, they won’t have a clue what I’m saying. For instance, if I say the word “love” to one of my students, I may get a blank stare, but if I say “reobeu (러브)”, there is instant comprehension. (See my situation below with the word “Serenade” in the post on my friends visiting.)
(Cultural Note: If I were to speculate on this, I would guess that it has something to do with the way written Korean works. Each ideographic box used to be a Chinese character. Thus, to change one sound in that box or to completely drop boxes from a word is to change the entire meaning of that word. Misspelling or mispronunciation can lead to huge problems in using Korean. I had a friend once (John F.) who accidentally told his cab driver that he enjoyed to eat “penis” on occasion instead of “rice porridge”. (His telling of this story still brings tears of laughter to my eyes.) To be fair, we have the same problem in English at times. My dad once accidentally prayed for “shit” instead of a “ship”. This was from the altar, mind you. Still, the incomprehensibility in Korean language is far more severe.)
The second reason (I almost forgot to include this) is that I’m trying to work my students up to writing haiku, which is a relatively simple poetry structure in any language. Last week we did emotions; this week, syllables; and in the near future, we’ll do seasons.
The lesson itself was inspired by many people in Fulbright, but I mainly used Rebecca H.’s lesson plan and adapted it to my student’s needs. The basic instruction was the same, as were the examples, but instead of having my students sing the song “Lollipop”, I played a game with them. The rules were simple. I’d write an English word on the board. They all had 30 seconds to give me the number of syllables (1 point) and the meaning of that word (1 point). For less advanced classes, they could write the meaning of the word in Korean, but if they could also write the meaning in English, they’d receive an extra point, bringing the possible total to three. To make it more comfortable for them (and honestly more convenient for record keeping), I broke them up into teams. The game went well, as did the class.
As for my adult students, I ran into trouble with both my advanced and beginning classes. As for the advanced, it seems that I may have been overzealous in my appraisal of what I can teach them. I do not mean that their English language skill is lacking in any serious way; my assessment of that is dead on. What I mean is that, though they may be able to talk about philosophy, they do not necessarily want to talk about it.
You see, on Tuesday morning, we reviewed “The Pursuit of Happyness” for the first hour, both conceptually (Is Chris Gardener a good man? Is he responsible? Is he really happy? What makes him so? Etc.) and linguistically (Why is his joke about wearing nice pants funny?). Then, for the second hour, I put one question on the board: Are humans good or evil? A can of worms indeed, but they talked about it. Then, for homework, I assigned Mencius and Hsun Tzu, two Confucian philosophers with differing points of view on the question.
Things were going grandly, or so I thought. The next morning, the first thing I hear from one of my students after the obligatory “Hello, how are you?” is “We don’t want to talk about this.” Oh. Okay…
So we talked about that for a good 20 minutes—the fact that they didn’t want to talk philosophy, and if so, what would they like to talk about. It seems that the pastor loves that I have them reading selections from Confucian classics in English. The housewives want to talk about current events, fashion, or entertainment. It’s not that the readings were hard, rather that talking about them didn’t interest them.
I told them that I brought in the more thought provoking readings because their English is at a level where I can’t just teach them grammar or basic dialogues anymore. So, I bring in a topic to talk about and we talk until they can’t find a way to express something and then we can talk about how to express that in half-way decent English. I also informed them that unless they gave me something specific to talk about, I had to go with what I was interested in talking about. It wouldn’t always be philosophy of course. After all, the first two lessons were on art and music. So, hopefully, they’ll start giving me some kind of prompt for classes. Otherwise, it’s just guesswork on my end, though I’m open to any suggestions on how to talk about the fashion industry.
Incidentally, we did end up talking about Mencius and Hsun Tzu. They had prepared for it after all and didn’t want to talk about something they hadn’t prepared for yet. For homework, I gave them Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and told them to write a page about it, just description. (After all, I had prepared it!) This actually turned out to be a decent assignment for them as I won’t see them again for about a week and a half because of Chuseok. [This absence as since turned into about two and a half weeks because midterms are the week after Chuseok and the school does not like visitors during testing.]
As for my beginning adult class, trouble might be too strong a word. At least, it was an overstatement to say that I had trouble with them this week. The trouble has been in the process of developing before my eyes, and I finally saw fit to nip it in the bud.
The aforementioned trouble is the fact that I’m dealing simultaneously with beginning students, some of whom may as well be working from an actual beginning grammar book, and intermediate students, the highest level of whom I’m tempted to ask to come to my advanced class if they weren’t translating for the beginning students half the time. How to instruct both has been a mystery, which grows more complicated when I consider that, among all of the students, there are gaps in knowledge. For instance, one student may be able to tell me where “Tom” is in a picture while another student can only point, but of these two students, the former cannot tell me what “Tom” is doing while the latter can tell me, “He is running.” Yet another gap is the typical comprehension without being able to speak. They can (mostly) understand what I’m saying, but they speak back to me through one of the intermediate students who translates their responses.
So, I’ve decided to take all of them back to square one using a book that my dad lent me from when he was teaching ESL classes at St. John’s Lutheran in Colton, California—Carlos Reyes Orozco’s English through Teamwork, which the author developed for his high school students in Mexico. That’s right. I’m using an ESL book designed for high school Hispanic students (living in Mexico, not the United States) to teach 40 year old Korean housewives. Cosmopolitanism, thy name is Desperation. The book should still work well because, though the introduction is written entirely in Spanish (which I’m relieved I can still read), the actual text of the book is entirely in English. It’s also brief. At 18 lessons and 109 pages, we should cruise through it fairly quickly since they already comprehend the language.
To keep the more intermediate students entertained, I intend to supplement this with “Survival English” in the second hour of class, meaning I’ll teach them dialogues for finding the bathroom, ordering food, etc, as well as some dialogues on how to explain Korean culture (e.g. Chuseok is like Thanksgiving because Koreans eat a lot of food on it and it happens around harvest time).
On Thursday, we finished watching “The Pursuit of Happyness”, and I assigned them five sentences answering the questions, “Is Chris Gardner happy? Why or why not?” They asked me the question, “Is writing important?” I answered yes and told them about how reading and writing are essential in the U.S. because we don’t have pictures for a lot of our signs and besides which, with text messaging and the internet (which they all use, I think, despite their age), they may be more important than before. At any rate, they turned in their homework Friday. Five sentences, but just generic sentences, not about Chris Gardner’s happiness. (Sigh…) On Friday, I also administered an assessment test since I plan to pair up less advanced students with more advanced students. It was one on one interviews, but luckily, I had a friend visiting, Lydia H., who actually taught them some fairly valuable grammar structures while I was conducting the test. She speaks Korean and was also able to explain to them my game plan for the next couple months.
Here’s hoping it works.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Friends Visit - Thursday: Lydia Arrives
Of course, the biggest event this last week was receiving a visit from two friends from orientation, Lydia H. and Rebecca H., and making a new friend along the way.
Lydia was first to visit. I knew she was going to be in the hamlet on Friday so she could sit in on some of my classes, but somehow I missed out on the fact that she was going to come into town Thursday night to accomplish this. At any rate, I got a text message from Rebecca saying, “I’m coming on Saturday. Lydia will be on her way in two hours.” But, wait a minute Rebecca, on her way to Seoul or Pyeongchang? “Pyeongchang.” WHA?! says I, and in a flurry of cell phone minutes and kilobytes, I find out that I’m going to have to meet Lydia at the Bus Station around 8:45 pm, a good forty-five minutes after TKD finishes. Oh, well that’s all well and good then.
Her bus arrived early, it turns out, so I hurried over there to meet her. Some of my students noticed that I was hugging a tall, beautiful Korean girl in public and immediately assumed that she was my girlfriend. (She is not, to clarify.) We then introduced her to my hostfamily. She did most of the talking as she can actually speak Korean. This was a theme throughout the weekend, and I feel she probably bonded with my family more in the roughly two days she visited than I have in the two months I’ve lived here. (Jealous much? Yes.) At any rate, after the introductions and meeting some more students in the streets, we were able to finally secure some necessities for her from the local supermarket, my host brother rambunctiously leading the way. He’s lost much of his shyness from when I first visited, though he seemed to regain it as soon as he saw Lydia. He wouldn’t even talk to her in Korean at first! At least now I know it was general shyness, not just because I’m big, mean, and scary with the appearance of a caveman… from his perspective… one would imagine…
Anyway, turns out that Lydia and Rebecca would not need a motel room as we had planned. Instead, my host family graciously offered them room and board at their house. They’d have to sleep on a yo on the floor, but it was far more cost effective than the alternative. It seems that my family has a bit of a strange policy about these things. Since neither girl is my girlfriend, they are allowed to sleep in the house. If either one was, they’d have to sleep in a hotel for the sake of the children. I feel that in America, for most families, either option would be acceptable for staying in the house, though certainly the girlfriend would be allowed to stay, though she might be cloistered somewhere far away in the equivalent of the house’s tallest tower or deepest dungeon, away from the groping claws of her boyfriend which could potentially sully her honor. Again, one would imagine…
Lydia was first to visit. I knew she was going to be in the hamlet on Friday so she could sit in on some of my classes, but somehow I missed out on the fact that she was going to come into town Thursday night to accomplish this. At any rate, I got a text message from Rebecca saying, “I’m coming on Saturday. Lydia will be on her way in two hours.” But, wait a minute Rebecca, on her way to Seoul or Pyeongchang? “Pyeongchang.” WHA?! says I, and in a flurry of cell phone minutes and kilobytes, I find out that I’m going to have to meet Lydia at the Bus Station around 8:45 pm, a good forty-five minutes after TKD finishes. Oh, well that’s all well and good then.
Her bus arrived early, it turns out, so I hurried over there to meet her. Some of my students noticed that I was hugging a tall, beautiful Korean girl in public and immediately assumed that she was my girlfriend. (She is not, to clarify.) We then introduced her to my hostfamily. She did most of the talking as she can actually speak Korean. This was a theme throughout the weekend, and I feel she probably bonded with my family more in the roughly two days she visited than I have in the two months I’ve lived here. (Jealous much? Yes.) At any rate, after the introductions and meeting some more students in the streets, we were able to finally secure some necessities for her from the local supermarket, my host brother rambunctiously leading the way. He’s lost much of his shyness from when I first visited, though he seemed to regain it as soon as he saw Lydia. He wouldn’t even talk to her in Korean at first! At least now I know it was general shyness, not just because I’m big, mean, and scary with the appearance of a caveman… from his perspective… one would imagine…
Anyway, turns out that Lydia and Rebecca would not need a motel room as we had planned. Instead, my host family graciously offered them room and board at their house. They’d have to sleep on a yo on the floor, but it was far more cost effective than the alternative. It seems that my family has a bit of a strange policy about these things. Since neither girl is my girlfriend, they are allowed to sleep in the house. If either one was, they’d have to sleep in a hotel for the sake of the children. I feel that in America, for most families, either option would be acceptable for staying in the house, though certainly the girlfriend would be allowed to stay, though she might be cloistered somewhere far away in the equivalent of the house’s tallest tower or deepest dungeon, away from the groping claws of her boyfriend which could potentially sully her honor. Again, one would imagine…
Monday, September 17, 2007
Weekly Letter Home
Dear Family and Friends,
I was tempted to write just a general “Hello, from Korea! I’m still alive,” letter to you all. Sorely tempted. This was a lazy weekend for me in general. I slept for about half of it, and the half I did not sleep I spent either in front of a history book or in front of the television, often times both simultaneously. (For those of you who think that reading a history book isn’t exactly being lazy, consider this: I’m a history major. I kind of miss it actually, and so if it wasn’t lazy it was certainly at least recreational.) I even broke out my over sized baggy khakis which I have to pin up to make them 5 inches shorter than usual so I don’t trip over them.
If you remember from last week, I am simply tired.
My work at the school is keeping me busy, and this is part of the reason for my exhaustion. The weather this week was dismal. It rained for the most part, and the news tells me a typhoon is on the way for Korea. I only know this because I can read a meteorological map when it has a big, swirly cloud on it and because “typhoon” is a loan word and thus easily recognizable despite the fact that the “f” sound escaped the Korean language somehow. All that is to say that I had to work extra hard to keep the kids interested this week in my lesson on expressing emotions. My energy was given to those fine young men and women of my hamlet’s highest educational institution, and I pray they are the better for it.
TKD is also keeping me busy. The children have been preparing a routine set to music as well as some demonstrations of form and different possible moves. I think this is because the dojang is recruiting for next year’s classes. This should give me a break of sorts, as the sabeonim is entirely preoccupied with preparing the children. As it is, however, the kwanjangnim has been stopping in to check on the children’s progress. When he sees me resting, he promptly puts me to work. This means either stretching my inflexible legs (which have always been inflexible, even when I was a child) or having my inflexible legs kick at a padded target for an hour straight. I will be in prime condition after this year, I assure you, but in the meantime I feel it in my eyes and in my muscles.
Oh, yes. Add in the fact that I still don’t know Korean and that my brain is consistently trying to find patterns between language and actions…
Thus, the laziness this weekend. Thus, the temptation to not write what I usually write to you all—even though this is for my own benefit, also, as I would not have a journal otherwise. As you can see, however, I have not given into temptation. (Now, the question arises, may I be delivered from evil?)
Unfortunately, the email will suffer a little. There were several times this week where I thought to myself, “I should make a reminder to record some thoughts about that.” I failed to do this for the most part, however, and my mental notes, which are usually good enough by Sunday night to satisfy at least my desire for breadth of experience and detail, have been less than perfect this week—another symptom of the fatigue, I fear. (I can only hope that those things will inspire me yet again in the ensuing weeks and in a similar or even better manner.) I have done my best however, and the fruits of those labors follow.
With Love,
Jeremy
P.S. To those who are concerned about my fatigue, I am still tired. Thank you for the concern. I press on.
P.P.S. Having written for nigh on five hours now, I have decided that my memory is working just fine despite the fatigue. It seems that writing has dredged up those things that I had forgotten, or else fatigue has made me carefree about how much I actually write. The fact that I’m trying to recalibrate my MacBook’s battery by draining it, which takes a long time using only a word processor, probably helped as well.
P.P.P.S. I find it intriguing that Microsoft Word recognizes Walmart as a spelling mistake and will ask you to change it to Wal-Mart, but MacBook, which I can plainly read on the machine I am using and have positively spelled correctly, is not recognized by the program.
I was tempted to write just a general “Hello, from Korea! I’m still alive,” letter to you all. Sorely tempted. This was a lazy weekend for me in general. I slept for about half of it, and the half I did not sleep I spent either in front of a history book or in front of the television, often times both simultaneously. (For those of you who think that reading a history book isn’t exactly being lazy, consider this: I’m a history major. I kind of miss it actually, and so if it wasn’t lazy it was certainly at least recreational.) I even broke out my over sized baggy khakis which I have to pin up to make them 5 inches shorter than usual so I don’t trip over them.
If you remember from last week, I am simply tired.
My work at the school is keeping me busy, and this is part of the reason for my exhaustion. The weather this week was dismal. It rained for the most part, and the news tells me a typhoon is on the way for Korea. I only know this because I can read a meteorological map when it has a big, swirly cloud on it and because “typhoon” is a loan word and thus easily recognizable despite the fact that the “f” sound escaped the Korean language somehow. All that is to say that I had to work extra hard to keep the kids interested this week in my lesson on expressing emotions. My energy was given to those fine young men and women of my hamlet’s highest educational institution, and I pray they are the better for it.
TKD is also keeping me busy. The children have been preparing a routine set to music as well as some demonstrations of form and different possible moves. I think this is because the dojang is recruiting for next year’s classes. This should give me a break of sorts, as the sabeonim is entirely preoccupied with preparing the children. As it is, however, the kwanjangnim has been stopping in to check on the children’s progress. When he sees me resting, he promptly puts me to work. This means either stretching my inflexible legs (which have always been inflexible, even when I was a child) or having my inflexible legs kick at a padded target for an hour straight. I will be in prime condition after this year, I assure you, but in the meantime I feel it in my eyes and in my muscles.
Oh, yes. Add in the fact that I still don’t know Korean and that my brain is consistently trying to find patterns between language and actions…
Thus, the laziness this weekend. Thus, the temptation to not write what I usually write to you all—even though this is for my own benefit, also, as I would not have a journal otherwise. As you can see, however, I have not given into temptation. (Now, the question arises, may I be delivered from evil?)
Unfortunately, the email will suffer a little. There were several times this week where I thought to myself, “I should make a reminder to record some thoughts about that.” I failed to do this for the most part, however, and my mental notes, which are usually good enough by Sunday night to satisfy at least my desire for breadth of experience and detail, have been less than perfect this week—another symptom of the fatigue, I fear. (I can only hope that those things will inspire me yet again in the ensuing weeks and in a similar or even better manner.) I have done my best however, and the fruits of those labors follow.
With Love,
Jeremy
P.S. To those who are concerned about my fatigue, I am still tired. Thank you for the concern. I press on.
P.P.S. Having written for nigh on five hours now, I have decided that my memory is working just fine despite the fatigue. It seems that writing has dredged up those things that I had forgotten, or else fatigue has made me carefree about how much I actually write. The fact that I’m trying to recalibrate my MacBook’s battery by draining it, which takes a long time using only a word processor, probably helped as well.
P.P.P.S. I find it intriguing that Microsoft Word recognizes Walmart as a spelling mistake and will ask you to change it to Wal-Mart, but MacBook, which I can plainly read on the machine I am using and have positively spelled correctly, is not recognized by the program.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
The Host Family
Nothing too new to report on the condition of the homestay. As we near Korea’s testing period, I see less and less of my middle school host sister. I believe she is preparing for her high school entrance exam. As I’ve been trying to come directly home from TKD now instead of stopping at their beauty shop, I see less and less of everyone in general. And there is another thing…
From the sparse Korean I know, I’ve been able to gather that someone in the family, a grandmother, I think, is sick in the nearest big city, Wonju. Thus, the family has been making regular trips this week out to the city to see her, and I have had to fend for myself. It has offered me opportunity to be helpful, however. I usually try to wash up the dishes now before omeoni returns. I also try to ask nightly after the grandmother, but all I can manage is a “Heomeoni is in Wonju? Is she alright?” to which I receive a brief “Yes.” I’m sure it is difficult to explain her condition in English, and I am not ignorant of the fact that the family may not want me to be concerned with it. What is even harder for the family, I’m sure, is that Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving Days) is so close. This time is traditionally spent in the houses of the patriarchs of a family, and thus my host family’s grandmother’s generation. I hope for their sake that she will be better soon.
(Sadly, this information about my host family’s grandmother follows news of my own grandmother’s condition, after which I am praying fervently.)
On a lighter note, I have been invited to stay with the family for Chuseok, or rather, I asked what the family was doing for Chuseok. They said they would stay with abeoji’s parents in town. I asked if it was ok if I tagged along. They said, “Yeah, sure!” I hope this will be a time to bond with the family, as I see so little of them as it is, and they are my sure support here. At least, I’d like them to be a sure support. As it stands, they’re just a support. Supports can be strengthened though, and I hope this Thanksgiving holiday will give me the opportunity to do that.
From the sparse Korean I know, I’ve been able to gather that someone in the family, a grandmother, I think, is sick in the nearest big city, Wonju. Thus, the family has been making regular trips this week out to the city to see her, and I have had to fend for myself. It has offered me opportunity to be helpful, however. I usually try to wash up the dishes now before omeoni returns. I also try to ask nightly after the grandmother, but all I can manage is a “Heomeoni is in Wonju? Is she alright?” to which I receive a brief “Yes.” I’m sure it is difficult to explain her condition in English, and I am not ignorant of the fact that the family may not want me to be concerned with it. What is even harder for the family, I’m sure, is that Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving Days) is so close. This time is traditionally spent in the houses of the patriarchs of a family, and thus my host family’s grandmother’s generation. I hope for their sake that she will be better soon.
(Sadly, this information about my host family’s grandmother follows news of my own grandmother’s condition, after which I am praying fervently.)
On a lighter note, I have been invited to stay with the family for Chuseok, or rather, I asked what the family was doing for Chuseok. They said they would stay with abeoji’s parents in town. I asked if it was ok if I tagged along. They said, “Yeah, sure!” I hope this will be a time to bond with the family, as I see so little of them as it is, and they are my sure support here. At least, I’d like them to be a sure support. As it stands, they’re just a support. Supports can be strengthened though, and I hope this Thanksgiving holiday will give me the opportunity to do that.
Sleeping (or the lack thereof) and Dreaming (thus, the lack thereof)
Lately, I have not been sleeping well, something which I am sure is contributing to my fatigue. I believe the lack of sleep is due to various factors—eating late, muscle fatigue, changes in climate which make it hard to get comfortable, and dreaming. But, to reference Paul, the greatest of these (in all probability) is dreaming.
The dreams have been interesting to say the least. Often, they have been brutally violent and thus a little scary. I am not sure what is bringing these on. At times, they include gross images from the day, mostly bugs. This is probably caused by the fact that I actually do have bugs in my room and got stung by a bee for the first time a couple of weeks ago.
The strangest of them, however, have been the bilingual ones. That’s correct. I’ve been dreaming in Korean.
What usually happens is this: I will have a dream in English. The dream will be about school or home life or TKD or some other daily occurrence of no particular significance. I will then wake up, change positions in the bed in such a way that my feet are where my head was and my head is where my feet were, and go back to sleep. During this process, I am completely aware of what is going on, though apparently not fully able to control my ridiculousness. Upon falling back asleep, I dream the exact same dream, but in Korean. I then wake up, perform my strange flipperific routine once more, and dream a new dream in English.
This has happened up to three times in a single night. I’m sure that the Korean is a pseudo-Korean at best (as the English likely is as well) and would be completely useless in the real world. Still, it leads me to one conclusion and one conclusion only. My Korean knowledge must be stored in my feet. Thus, in order to access it, I have to trick my body into thinking my brain is where my feet aught to be.
That, or I’m just going positively mad. Possible. Unlikely, as … … Pardon me.
The dreams have been interesting to say the least. Often, they have been brutally violent and thus a little scary. I am not sure what is bringing these on. At times, they include gross images from the day, mostly bugs. This is probably caused by the fact that I actually do have bugs in my room and got stung by a bee for the first time a couple of weeks ago.
The strangest of them, however, have been the bilingual ones. That’s correct. I’ve been dreaming in Korean.
What usually happens is this: I will have a dream in English. The dream will be about school or home life or TKD or some other daily occurrence of no particular significance. I will then wake up, change positions in the bed in such a way that my feet are where my head was and my head is where my feet were, and go back to sleep. During this process, I am completely aware of what is going on, though apparently not fully able to control my ridiculousness. Upon falling back asleep, I dream the exact same dream, but in Korean. I then wake up, perform my strange flipperific routine once more, and dream a new dream in English.
This has happened up to three times in a single night. I’m sure that the Korean is a pseudo-Korean at best (as the English likely is as well) and would be completely useless in the real world. Still, it leads me to one conclusion and one conclusion only. My Korean knowledge must be stored in my feet. Thus, in order to access it, I have to trick my body into thinking my brain is where my feet aught to be.
That, or I’m just going positively mad. Possible. Unlikely, as …
Walking the Trails
My Sunday morning ritual usually consists of this: wake-up last, grumble through a breakfast, shower (while showering, the host family leaves for choir practice), watch a little tv, hop on my bike if it is not raining, walk if it is, and get myself to the church on time, to reference My Fair Lady. The biking is not so bad. The walking takes an eternity as the bridges across the river are strategically located at each end of the hamlet. The church is just off the bridge at the west end of town, and so I would naturally take the road that direction. Unfortunately, that bridge requires me to follow the mountain road which is rather hilly and meanders far from the river. Thus, either way can take me upwards of 40 minutes to walk to church.
I have known for some time that there are trails all over these hills, trails that would supposedly offer a more direct route from the bridge to my house, but had yet to find them. Still, I knew there was a trailhead at the bridge I needed to cross. Usually, I do not take this because the family offers to drive me home if I walked to church. Today, however, they drove out to Wonju to see their grandmother, so I had to fend for myself. A perfect opportunity to test my theory.
Well, my theory turned out to be true; the trails are a more direct route. Still, trails in Korea are laughable things. They are literally “footpaths” meaning they are not big enough for even two feet. Certainly nothing you would want to take a pack animal on, nor wear shorts for. They also seem to have forgone the concept of switchbacks. If you need to go up in elevation, you just go straight up.
I might be more inclined to take the trails again in less miserable weather. (The rain made it so there were a couple of washouts where I had to run across the mud a la Sonic the Hedgehog for fear of the dirt falling out from under me. For those who aren’t familiar with Sonic the Hedgehog’s anthology, consider Indiana Jones running across a dirt ledge as the ledge falls away behind him.) Then again, in less miserable weather, I’d probably take my bike.
I have known for some time that there are trails all over these hills, trails that would supposedly offer a more direct route from the bridge to my house, but had yet to find them. Still, I knew there was a trailhead at the bridge I needed to cross. Usually, I do not take this because the family offers to drive me home if I walked to church. Today, however, they drove out to Wonju to see their grandmother, so I had to fend for myself. A perfect opportunity to test my theory.
Well, my theory turned out to be true; the trails are a more direct route. Still, trails in Korea are laughable things. They are literally “footpaths” meaning they are not big enough for even two feet. Certainly nothing you would want to take a pack animal on, nor wear shorts for. They also seem to have forgone the concept of switchbacks. If you need to go up in elevation, you just go straight up.
I might be more inclined to take the trails again in less miserable weather. (The rain made it so there were a couple of washouts where I had to run across the mud a la Sonic the Hedgehog for fear of the dirt falling out from under me. For those who aren’t familiar with Sonic the Hedgehog’s anthology, consider Indiana Jones running across a dirt ledge as the ledge falls away behind him.) Then again, in less miserable weather, I’d probably take my bike.
Tutoring: A Korean Teacher at Last
I had my first tutoring lesson with H.W. today. We will work with the textbook I used during orientation. Essentially, we will go through the material in each chapter and make sure I have no questions about it. I will then complete the exercises for that chapter during the week and memorize the vocabulary. At this rate, we should almost complete the book before I have my Winter Break, during which I plan on taking Korean classes at a University or language institute for foreigners. My hope is that I will be able to matriculate into an intermediate level class by that time.
Unfortunately, we can only meet on weekends as she goes to school in Seoul. I wanted to travel on the weekends, but I may have to forgo this pleasure for the sake of my language goals. That, or I will have work independently and only see her every other week or so. The next few weeks will be particularly difficult as I have prior engagements already scheduled, but I should be able to clear appointments for the weekends after these.
Unfortunately, we can only meet on weekends as she goes to school in Seoul. I wanted to travel on the weekends, but I may have to forgo this pleasure for the sake of my language goals. That, or I will have work independently and only see her every other week or so. The next few weeks will be particularly difficult as I have prior engagements already scheduled, but I should be able to clear appointments for the weekends after these.
Culinary Note: Spicy Food--You never can quite tell…
One of the more common questions waeguk saram (foreigners) like myself get asked is, “Can you eat spicy/hot food?” Note, the question is not a matter of the emphatic “Do”, as in “Do you eat (meaning “prefer” spicy food?”, but “Can”, as in, “Is it even within the remotest realm of possibility for you to consume something which may or may not make fire shoot out of every orifice of your body and from there consume you as a field fire set by a farmer consumes the locust?”
Usually, my answer is a ready, “Yes.” For instance, when my friend, H.W., told me that her family would like to have me over for dinner during Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving, which is next week. Mark you calendars and eat some kimchi.) and that the traditional food is usually fairly spicy, I usually would immediately say, “Oh, that’s alright. Americans eat spicy food all the time!” Now, though…
What happened is this—On Saturday, abeoji and I were eating pajeon and watching T.V. together. As per usual, the main course was accompanied by various side dishes. Among these side dishes was the ubiquitous green hot pepper.
Now, I’ve had the ubiquitous green hot pepper, and its heat variance is pretty wide. It can knock your socks off or simply taste crisp and clean like the bell peppers back home. In all of my experience, however, they’ve always been at least tolerable. So, I picked out one of the bigger ones and began moving it towards my mouth, anxiously awaiting my surprise.
But then the abeoji stopped me. “Jeremy, no, no, no…” He literally grabbed the pepper from my hand and told me repeatedly in Korean, “Spicy, spicy.” I’ve gotten a little tired by now of Koreans thinking I can’t do something just because I’m foreign, so I told him in Korean that I would be fine. I like spicy food. He smiled and said, “Ok, eat.” And I did.
Not only did the pepper knock my socks off, it darned the holes in them, threw them in the wash, placed them in the rain to dry, and the heat from the pepper still had enough energy to defeat the pull of gravity on the rain and vaporized it as it came down.
I hiccupped. I swore. I wheezed and gasped. (Abeoji and omeoni just laughed about it, as is their custom.) It took a full 30 minutes for my socks to find their way back to my feet and about four glasses of water (we have no milk) later my mouth was back to tasting other things besides smoldering coals.
Now, when someone mentions spicy food, I have to think long and hard. I told my friend what I usually tell people. I think that I’ll continue to say, “Oh, it’s ok. Americans eat spicy food. Thai, Indian, Mexican, Creole, it’s all got spice.” I’ll just have to make sure I have some milk handy in the future…
Usually, my answer is a ready, “Yes.” For instance, when my friend, H.W., told me that her family would like to have me over for dinner during Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving, which is next week. Mark you calendars and eat some kimchi.) and that the traditional food is usually fairly spicy, I usually would immediately say, “Oh, that’s alright. Americans eat spicy food all the time!” Now, though…
What happened is this—On Saturday, abeoji and I were eating pajeon and watching T.V. together. As per usual, the main course was accompanied by various side dishes. Among these side dishes was the ubiquitous green hot pepper.
Now, I’ve had the ubiquitous green hot pepper, and its heat variance is pretty wide. It can knock your socks off or simply taste crisp and clean like the bell peppers back home. In all of my experience, however, they’ve always been at least tolerable. So, I picked out one of the bigger ones and began moving it towards my mouth, anxiously awaiting my surprise.
But then the abeoji stopped me. “Jeremy, no, no, no…” He literally grabbed the pepper from my hand and told me repeatedly in Korean, “Spicy, spicy.” I’ve gotten a little tired by now of Koreans thinking I can’t do something just because I’m foreign, so I told him in Korean that I would be fine. I like spicy food. He smiled and said, “Ok, eat.” And I did.
Not only did the pepper knock my socks off, it darned the holes in them, threw them in the wash, placed them in the rain to dry, and the heat from the pepper still had enough energy to defeat the pull of gravity on the rain and vaporized it as it came down.
I hiccupped. I swore. I wheezed and gasped. (Abeoji and omeoni just laughed about it, as is their custom.) It took a full 30 minutes for my socks to find their way back to my feet and about four glasses of water (we have no milk) later my mouth was back to tasting other things besides smoldering coals.
Now, when someone mentions spicy food, I have to think long and hard. I told my friend what I usually tell people. I think that I’ll continue to say, “Oh, it’s ok. Americans eat spicy food. Thai, Indian, Mexican, Creole, it’s all got spice.” I’ll just have to make sure I have some milk handy in the future…
“She is your friend?”: On being “friends” in Korea
This week at church I met an interesting character. His name is Jo. He is the uncle of my friend, H.W., and has lived in Chicago for the past 30 years, 25 of which was spent working at a steam factory of some kind. Incidentally, his Chicago accent was so thick and strangely mixed with his Korean that I couldn’t tell where he was from until he told me. I mean, really thick Chicago accent.
One of the first questions he asked me was a question of clarification. Indicating H.W., he asked, “She is your friend?” Now, H.W. is a girl around my age and the pastor’s daughter and knows English and so has been quite helpful to me, so the natural awkwardness of this situation would be an implication that we are dating or at least interested in dating. That is, this would be the natural awkwardness in America.
The natural awkwardness here is the difference in the concepts of “friendship” that Americans and Koreans have. In America, a mere acquaintance can be a “friend”, and thus my answer would be “Yes” according to that idea of friendship. In Korea, it takes a little bit more to be friends. First, the people in question must know each other fairly well and must have known each other for a good amount of time. Second, the two must usually be of the same age, otherwise the person is not called friend but rather by the appropriate familial nomenclature for someone their age. Thus, in Korea, I would probably have to call H.W. nuna (older sister) unless she gave me leave to call her chingu (friend). As it stands, I only have one chingu in Korea, and I’m fortunate that he has said we are chingu as he is quite a bit older than me and we’ve known each other for about two months. (Being a foreigner probably helps us bend the rules a bit.)
The problem was, I didn’t know if Jo was asking me in the American sense or the Korean sense, and as H.W. was right there, I was also concerned about possibly embarrassing her. So, I stuttered a bit, looked at H.W. for confirmation and said, along with her, “Uh… yes. Yes, we’re friends.”
Later on, I explained my hesitation to her. She laughed and said she understood my dilemma. Unfortunately, I forgot to ask her to clarify her position. After all, she had said, “We’re friends” with me. I just have to find out if we’re Korean friends or American friends…
One of the first questions he asked me was a question of clarification. Indicating H.W., he asked, “She is your friend?” Now, H.W. is a girl around my age and the pastor’s daughter and knows English and so has been quite helpful to me, so the natural awkwardness of this situation would be an implication that we are dating or at least interested in dating. That is, this would be the natural awkwardness in America.
The natural awkwardness here is the difference in the concepts of “friendship” that Americans and Koreans have. In America, a mere acquaintance can be a “friend”, and thus my answer would be “Yes” according to that idea of friendship. In Korea, it takes a little bit more to be friends. First, the people in question must know each other fairly well and must have known each other for a good amount of time. Second, the two must usually be of the same age, otherwise the person is not called friend but rather by the appropriate familial nomenclature for someone their age. Thus, in Korea, I would probably have to call H.W. nuna (older sister) unless she gave me leave to call her chingu (friend). As it stands, I only have one chingu in Korea, and I’m fortunate that he has said we are chingu as he is quite a bit older than me and we’ve known each other for about two months. (Being a foreigner probably helps us bend the rules a bit.)
The problem was, I didn’t know if Jo was asking me in the American sense or the Korean sense, and as H.W. was right there, I was also concerned about possibly embarrassing her. So, I stuttered a bit, looked at H.W. for confirmation and said, along with her, “Uh… yes. Yes, we’re friends.”
Later on, I explained my hesitation to her. She laughed and said she understood my dilemma. Unfortunately, I forgot to ask her to clarify her position. After all, she had said, “We’re friends” with me. I just have to find out if we’re Korean friends or American friends…
Meeting the Waeguksaram
I have finally met both of my fellow foreigners in the hamlet. It was just after my haircut. I was walking to the supermarket to buy some milk and cereal as a small snack between school and TKD, when I saw a white, curly brown haired woman. You may not understand this living in America, but when you come to Korea and you live in a town where there are no people who look significantly different from everyone else (I’m talking 0% foreign population), there’s a strange magnetism that one feels upon seeing someone like that. You do not want to follow it because you think to yourself, “This is ridiculous. I come from a liberal (in the historical sense) society where people are people plain and simple and a little different skin tone shouldn’t make a difference.” But you are also powerfully drawn to these people because you think to yourself, “They know English (probably) and are going through some of the same things I am. By all accounts we are commiserates. I want to talk to a commiserate.” For some foreigners, the fact that other foreigners will walk up to them in Korea as if they are long lost friends even though they are positively strangers is an annoyance beyond comparison. I decided to brave it. And made a new friend.
One is an Aussie, the other a Scot, and both teach English at the middle school. We talked of loneliness and what there is to do and how to get around. The Aussie, David, is actually interested in taking TKD with me, and both play tennis, so I might be inclined to join them someday though I can’t return a serve worth the proverbial beans. (Or is it fairy tale-ical?) The Scot’s name is Fiona. They are married. Lucky devils.
We also talked about how well behaved the children are at our schools and compared them to children in our respective countries. Korean children [in this town, I’ve had to edit this as my fellow ATEs have differing experiences with Korean children. Shame on me for generalizing!], if they do not want to learn, usually just go to sleep. Granted, this is a problem, but one I’d much rather deal with than students disrupting class by talking or even fighting. Then the Aussie said something with a knowing smile that positively boggled my mind.
“It’s a bit like the Sixties here, isn’t it?”
“Pardon, like what?”
“You know, the Sixties. Conservative values. Everyone wants to go to school and is anxious about learning. No rebellion.”
“The Sixties?”
The Scot confirmed that the Sixties was the decade of “Leave it to Beaver” in her country as well. The Sixties?! The decade of student protests that shook the government? The decade of Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll? The decade of Peace, Drugs, and Hippies? (Notice the common theme of drugs…) That decade.
So, I explained that America usually thinks of the Fifties as the conservative values decade. The sixties and seventies are our wild side. Then I said something about it having something to do with Vietnam. That got awkward really fast…
At any rate, new friends, even if it’ll be awkward now because I pulled out some sort of historical justification for rebellious generations. We’ll have to see how it goes.
One is an Aussie, the other a Scot, and both teach English at the middle school. We talked of loneliness and what there is to do and how to get around. The Aussie, David, is actually interested in taking TKD with me, and both play tennis, so I might be inclined to join them someday though I can’t return a serve worth the proverbial beans. (Or is it fairy tale-ical?) The Scot’s name is Fiona. They are married. Lucky devils.
We also talked about how well behaved the children are at our schools and compared them to children in our respective countries. Korean children [in this town, I’ve had to edit this as my fellow ATEs have differing experiences with Korean children. Shame on me for generalizing!], if they do not want to learn, usually just go to sleep. Granted, this is a problem, but one I’d much rather deal with than students disrupting class by talking or even fighting. Then the Aussie said something with a knowing smile that positively boggled my mind.
“It’s a bit like the Sixties here, isn’t it?”
“Pardon, like what?”
“You know, the Sixties. Conservative values. Everyone wants to go to school and is anxious about learning. No rebellion.”
“The Sixties?”
The Scot confirmed that the Sixties was the decade of “Leave it to Beaver” in her country as well. The Sixties?! The decade of student protests that shook the government? The decade of Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll? The decade of Peace, Drugs, and Hippies? (Notice the common theme of drugs…) That decade.
So, I explained that America usually thinks of the Fifties as the conservative values decade. The sixties and seventies are our wild side. Then I said something about it having something to do with Vietnam. That got awkward really fast…
At any rate, new friends, even if it’ll be awkward now because I pulled out some sort of historical justification for rebellious generations. We’ll have to see how it goes.
A Haircut and a Close Shave Make for a Handsome Miguksaram
At some point during the last week, I had made up my mind that I would get a haircut. The last time I had cut my hair had been July 4th at about 11:00 pm, the day before my flight to Korea, my three-day Thursday, if you will. The last time I had my hair cut by someone would have been around June 2006. I was interviewing for summer jobs, and so had shaved and cut my hair. Immediately after securing a job I started growing both my beard and my hair for Pirates of Penzance, and after that I bought a set of clippers from Wal-Mart, which recuperated their value within 1.5 uses.
Because the last time I had cut my hair I had merely buzzed it with said clippers, it had all been growing out at about the same length. This made me look fuzzy and friendly, but not very much like a teacher. My beard was also becoming troublesome as I had not been able to even it out since orientation when I borrowed a set of clippers, and it was beginning to require daily combing.
So, I gave myself one objective for my lazy Saturday. Go into town, find a barber pole, peek into the shop to make sure that it was in fact a haircutting establishment (some in Korea offer … other services …), and get a haircut.
Well, I walked into town (for the exercise, as it’s about a half hour…) and started barber pole hunting. Lo, and behold! A barber pole! Both the back door and the front door were missing, and there seemed to be no stairwell to darkened upper rooms, so I could also assume that it was just a good old fashioned barber shop. (The picture of Jesus as the good shepherd was also comforting, but no guarantee. My host family members are clearly practicing Christians, and there are clearly some porno films in the back of their video store…) So, the ubiquitous hand motions and poor Korean/English conversation followed. I got across that I wanted a haircut (Why else would I be there?) and he, the lone barber who smelled heavily of nicotine, especially when he coughed, got across that I should sit down in one of the full sized leather chairs.
And he began to cut as I warily watched him in the mirror. He is a barber of the old school. No clippers. Just a comb, a pair of scissors, and a feel for his trade that can only come from years of experience and the daily pack of cigarettes. One thing I actually missed from the American barbers, though, was the conversation. Some people find this annoying. I like it. (This is probably because barbers generally don’t want to talk about themselves. They want to talk about me, a subject I adore. – Titian, thy name is Jeremiah.)
After the hair cut, which turned out fairly decent considering I couldn’t give him exact instructions, but also turned out very Korean, he asked if I’d like a shave. I indicated, No, just a trim and maybe a shave around the edges. We haggled a bit over clipper settings for the trim (Apparently, not that old school…), he trimmed, I watched when I could and blinked the flying beard hair out of my eyes when I couldn’t, and then he prepared the shave.
The shave that would occur with a straight blade razor and shaving cream that he mixed himself. (Apparently, very old school…) He applied the shaving cream not just around my beard and my cheek bones and neck and the back of head which is where a man is usually shaved if he has an obscene amount (glorious amount, according to one Jordan C.) of hair like I do, but also on my forehead. And I thought to myself, “Do I really have hair on my forehead? And if so, is it really the visible kind that would be necessary to shave with a straight blade razor, which is already a rather dangerous implement and making me nervous as this is the first time it has ever been applied to my epidermal layer even as I pray it will not be the first time it is applied to my jugular vein?” I could only assume that he was performing a traditional Korean act of hospitality—the frontal lobotomy.
I survived the shave, during which I noticed that his pinky fingernail was particularly long. I found out what that was for in the ensuing shampoo and rinse. (My scalp has never felt newer, nor has it ever been in as much pain.) I paid my 12,000 won (expensive for a haircut, but not by American standards, and considering the service, I feel worth it), had the obligatory conversation talking about where I was from and my level of Korean (non-existent), and headed out a newer, handsomer looking (oh, I’ve had compliments!) man.
Yet another daily life obstacle conquered. Now, if I can only bring myself to go back to such an establishment again…
(SIDE NOTE: The barber did one thing during the hair cutting process that I thought ingenious. He pinned the cloth in such a way that it would not only shield me from the falling hair, but also collect the hair from falling on the floor! Amazing, I thought! This man is wise beyond his years (though given his years, perhaps not). He will not have to waste time sweeping the floor when we are finished as he can just dump the hair into the trashcan! That is what I thought. That is, until the hair cut was finished, at which point he promptly dumped the hair on the ground and began sweeping. Sigh…)
Because the last time I had cut my hair I had merely buzzed it with said clippers, it had all been growing out at about the same length. This made me look fuzzy and friendly, but not very much like a teacher. My beard was also becoming troublesome as I had not been able to even it out since orientation when I borrowed a set of clippers, and it was beginning to require daily combing.
So, I gave myself one objective for my lazy Saturday. Go into town, find a barber pole, peek into the shop to make sure that it was in fact a haircutting establishment (some in Korea offer … other services …), and get a haircut.
Well, I walked into town (for the exercise, as it’s about a half hour…) and started barber pole hunting. Lo, and behold! A barber pole! Both the back door and the front door were missing, and there seemed to be no stairwell to darkened upper rooms, so I could also assume that it was just a good old fashioned barber shop. (The picture of Jesus as the good shepherd was also comforting, but no guarantee. My host family members are clearly practicing Christians, and there are clearly some porno films in the back of their video store…) So, the ubiquitous hand motions and poor Korean/English conversation followed. I got across that I wanted a haircut (Why else would I be there?) and he, the lone barber who smelled heavily of nicotine, especially when he coughed, got across that I should sit down in one of the full sized leather chairs.
And he began to cut as I warily watched him in the mirror. He is a barber of the old school. No clippers. Just a comb, a pair of scissors, and a feel for his trade that can only come from years of experience and the daily pack of cigarettes. One thing I actually missed from the American barbers, though, was the conversation. Some people find this annoying. I like it. (This is probably because barbers generally don’t want to talk about themselves. They want to talk about me, a subject I adore. – Titian, thy name is Jeremiah.)
After the hair cut, which turned out fairly decent considering I couldn’t give him exact instructions, but also turned out very Korean, he asked if I’d like a shave. I indicated, No, just a trim and maybe a shave around the edges. We haggled a bit over clipper settings for the trim (Apparently, not that old school…), he trimmed, I watched when I could and blinked the flying beard hair out of my eyes when I couldn’t, and then he prepared the shave.
The shave that would occur with a straight blade razor and shaving cream that he mixed himself. (Apparently, very old school…) He applied the shaving cream not just around my beard and my cheek bones and neck and the back of head which is where a man is usually shaved if he has an obscene amount (glorious amount, according to one Jordan C.) of hair like I do, but also on my forehead. And I thought to myself, “Do I really have hair on my forehead? And if so, is it really the visible kind that would be necessary to shave with a straight blade razor, which is already a rather dangerous implement and making me nervous as this is the first time it has ever been applied to my epidermal layer even as I pray it will not be the first time it is applied to my jugular vein?” I could only assume that he was performing a traditional Korean act of hospitality—the frontal lobotomy.
I survived the shave, during which I noticed that his pinky fingernail was particularly long. I found out what that was for in the ensuing shampoo and rinse. (My scalp has never felt newer, nor has it ever been in as much pain.) I paid my 12,000 won (expensive for a haircut, but not by American standards, and considering the service, I feel worth it), had the obligatory conversation talking about where I was from and my level of Korean (non-existent), and headed out a newer, handsomer looking (oh, I’ve had compliments!) man.
Yet another daily life obstacle conquered. Now, if I can only bring myself to go back to such an establishment again…
(SIDE NOTE: The barber did one thing during the hair cutting process that I thought ingenious. He pinned the cloth in such a way that it would not only shield me from the falling hair, but also collect the hair from falling on the floor! Amazing, I thought! This man is wise beyond his years (though given his years, perhaps not). He will not have to waste time sweeping the floor when we are finished as he can just dump the hair into the trashcan! That is what I thought. That is, until the hair cut was finished, at which point he promptly dumped the hair on the ground and began sweeping. Sigh…)
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