This actually happened during Week 1, but I didn't think of it then, and I haven't had a chance to write about it until now.
On the same day I toured the Jjimjilbang, I went with some friends to the shopping district of Chuncheon known as Myong Dong. It covers a few city blocks on the surface, goes up a few stories into the sky, and even decends beneath the street. (For the curious, Seoul also has a Myong Dong, but it takes up an area about the size of downtown St. Louis, depending on where you draw the boundries of that American district. You actually have to tell the taxi drivers which part of the Myong Dong you want to go to in Seoul or else you'd face a good hour's walk.) Myong Dong features several speciality shops and even more general merchandise shops. Zippos are incredibly expensive here, as is American paraphenalia in general, though cheaper Korean-made brands abound. Myong Dong is also home to Chuncheon's Dokgalbi Street, a side alley which features only one menu option: dokgalbi.
Dokgalbi is a fantastic dish that is a Chuncheon speciality. (I actually ate at the best dokgalbi establishment in Chuncheon recently, not on Dokgalbi Street, and thus have eaten the "best dokgalbi in the world".) Essentially, it is chicken marinated with spicy sauce fried up on a griddle that sits in the middle of the table. Other ingredients include cabbage, rice cakes, onions, and, if one desires, lettuce, garlic and extra spicy paste on the side. It is usually eaten in this way. The chicken will cook slowly, and while it cooks, one may pick at the rice cakes and vegetables. Whatever ingredient is being eaten, it should be picked out of the griddle with chopsticks, placed in a cool lettuce or mint leaf and any extra condiments. This is then wrapped and placed in the mouth. The griddle's ingredients are usually quite hot, and despite the cool leaf will burn the fingers a bit. After most of the meat and vegetables are gone, one can order rice which will be fried on the griddle once again until crispy. It is all quite delicious and one order can stuff up to two starving American stomaches, three moderately hungry ones. This is, incidentally, one of the very few native Korean dishes that one should eat with the fingers, and it is the second best meal I've had in Korea since my arrival. To drink, one usually has soju, a watered down version of vodka, though at this particular instance in the Myong Dong I had Coke. (This was a mistake, as I consumed it during the meal. The sweet flavor of the cola and the carbonation did not mix well with the spicy bouquet of the dokgalbi. Alcohol is to be much prefered, or if one cannot consume this, simple water. The spices are powerful and will not be offended by the sweet nothings of corporate beverages.)
Competition between the Dokgalbi Street establishments is fierce. Restaurant owners will come out to the front of their business to usher people in. They will offer free drinks, free rice, free desert, whatever it will take. (This is slightly odd as a single serving of dokgalbi, which is not very expensive, will feed at least two people and Koreans do not take tips. I wonder where they make their money...) If there are no potential customers to badger, the owners will insult each others' dokgalbi as they assert that theirs is the best ever made and no self-respecting native Korean (or even tourist) would dare even set a toe in anyone else's establishment. It makes for good dinner entertainment, at any rate.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Monday, July 16, 2007
Meeting Children at the Jjimjilbang
As I said before, last Saturday I went to the jjimjilbang, a Korean bathhouse. Today, I remembered that a rather strange cultural situation presented itself while I was waiting in the common room for the girls to finish in their bathing area. I was watching some sort of game show on TV (If I'm correct, the contestants were put through a series of intelligence tests by professors, and the particular one I was watching at the moment was they had to say a color though the word they were looking at was in a different color.), when these two elementary school girls sat behind me and off to the side. I noticed they were whispering to each other and staring at me, so I smiled at them briefly and kept watching the TV. Then one of them said, "Hi!" and waved to me. "Oh, good," I thought. "They want to talk!" I was just saying, "Hi" back when the other girl hit the girl who had just been so friendly to the alien in a strange land and said something which sounded very chastising. The first girl stared at her friend blankly for a second, when suddenly a light came on in her head. "Oh!" she said, and then, facing me and bowing slightly, "Hello." (This actually sounded more like "Herroh", but 'r's are hard for Koreans.) I laughed to myself a little at this, but we proceeded to have a friendly conversation, I speaking what little Korean I knew, they speaking their considerably greater amount of English.
I just found it humorous. From what I've heard (and now seen), Korea is a land of deep custom. When you address superiors, you are supposed to speak with in a more formal linguistic mood, and this changes the endings of your nouns, adjectives, and verbs entirely. Since I was considerably older than the girls, I suppose the second girl chastised the first for addressing me in so informal a manner, with a simple "Hi" and a wave of the hand. Apparently, a person of my stature deserves a full "Hello" and at least a slight bow.
I've had to learn the difference also and am constantly bowing to teachers who live with us in the dorm. I just didn't imagine (though I should have) that small children, who are quite sincere in learning a new language, would also take along all of their cultural norms with them in using that language with a native speaker, even to the point of modifying a language of significant equality, at least equal in comparison with their own. It didn't occur to me until after I was done talking with them, but someday I hope they learn that in America, the way you show respect is by treating the person you address as an equal. Formality in the U.S., I feel, is for occassion and situation (i.e. ceremonies and at school, or when in the presence of someone particularly important), not everyday usage.
I will not begrudge them the kindness they showed though. They did share their sugared ice with me after all, and they did keep a stranger company while he waited in a place without friends.
I just found it humorous. From what I've heard (and now seen), Korea is a land of deep custom. When you address superiors, you are supposed to speak with in a more formal linguistic mood, and this changes the endings of your nouns, adjectives, and verbs entirely. Since I was considerably older than the girls, I suppose the second girl chastised the first for addressing me in so informal a manner, with a simple "Hi" and a wave of the hand. Apparently, a person of my stature deserves a full "Hello" and at least a slight bow.
I've had to learn the difference also and am constantly bowing to teachers who live with us in the dorm. I just didn't imagine (though I should have) that small children, who are quite sincere in learning a new language, would also take along all of their cultural norms with them in using that language with a native speaker, even to the point of modifying a language of significant equality, at least equal in comparison with their own. It didn't occur to me until after I was done talking with them, but someday I hope they learn that in America, the way you show respect is by treating the person you address as an equal. Formality in the U.S., I feel, is for occassion and situation (i.e. ceremonies and at school, or when in the presence of someone particularly important), not everyday usage.
I will not begrudge them the kindness they showed though. They did share their sugared ice with me after all, and they did keep a stranger company while he waited in a place without friends.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Week 1: Adventures in Language, Cooking and Bathing
It's been an exciting Week 1 here in South Korea. Again, most of my days are spent learning Korean in the morning and taking various workshops in the afternoon, but I've been able to participate in some Korean cultural things, as well as some things that were just plain interesting. I have to keep this short (relatively speaking), as we have our first quiz tomorrow over everything we learned during the last week, but I'll try to hit the main highlights.
Cooking The most thrilling event was probably the fact that I took my first Korean cooking class. There were two dishes available to make. The first was called jabchae (잡채). This was the one I helped make. It's a hot noodle dish that is absolutely fabulous. It is made with various vegetables and meat items, and the noodle used is those translucent chinese noodles you can sometimes find at restaurants (called dangmyeon 당면 here). As the cooking instructor explained, this dish is essentially what you make out of anything you find in your refrigerator that you can chop up "prettily". (And EVERYTHING had to be chopped prettily.) The second option was a dish called pajeon (파전). This was essentially a pancake, but made with scallions as the foundation of the dish (the flour and water basically held it all together). As toppings, one adds various meats again, though I think these are usually seafood. It compares fairly well with that favorite Thanksgiving caserole, French Fried onion rings on greenbeans with cream of mushroom soup. Mmmhmm, good. The only real issue this night was that most of us ate before we came, so it was hard to finish all the food we made. The instructor scolded us soundly for this, and we will surely starve ourselves the next time to appease her wish that we might be made full off our labours.
Bathing The second most thrilling event (though some of you may disagree given what I'm about to talk about) was going to the jjimjilbang (찜질방) this Saturday. This was very relaxing and very welcome after a full week of trying to speak Korean with a Western language oriented mind. A jjimjilbang is essentially a bathhouse, and for about 6000 won you can enjoy hot baths, cold baths, herbal baths, various temperatures of saunas, showering areas where exfoliation is encouraged (and sometimes the natives will help you with this portion of your bathing experience). Everyone is nude. Everyone is bathing (or sweating). Everyone is having a grand old time in the aquatic arena, though it's important to note that you should shower before you jump into any of the pools. (If you were wondering, it is gender segregated, so no free shows.) If you're willing to pay a little extra, you can even have a full body massage with deep exfoliation so that you're essentially walking around in a new set of skin. (I opted out of this as the person doing the massaging was a fully nude 50 year old.) You can even sleep overnight in these places (for the same price), and it is the recommended option if you're just bumming around Korea a la European hitchhiking. I haven't been taking pictures of anything really, but don't expect to see any of this experience anytime soon anyway. I'd feel a little awkward about it, and I'm sure the old men would too. One piece of advice to note: When in the sauna, especially the hottest one, which I could barely stand for 5 minutes, it is a good idea to breathe out your mouth, rather than your nose. This is because rather sensitive areas can get, shall we say, uncomfortable from the intense heat coming out of your body. Beyond this is a non-segregated area (p.j.'s required) where one can watch movies, play video or computer games, get refreshments, read, or even just fall asleep.
Church I finally made it out to a local church on Sunday for worship, a large Methodist congregation. It was encouraging that there were several other ETAs who wanted to go and who are also interested in doing Bible study during the week. They seem quite sincere about their faith, and I feel that they will be a blessing to me (as I hope I am to them) in the coming weeks and year. We first went to the Korean service in the morning. This was incomprehensible, but very nice. Those of us who have just had a week sounding out hanguel stumbled through the words projected on the wall behind the altar, though we did not know what we were singing. Some of the hymns were familiar, as they used Western tunes, but for all I know they were using entirely different texts from the English equivilants associated with those hymns. I did understand one word in the sermon (besides Jesus and Christ), and that was πιστις, which is actually Greek, not Korean, meaning faith, but it was still exciting for me. πιστις, πιστις the pastor kept saying. 네, 네, 아멘 (Yes, yes, Amen!) was my happy, silent response. The pastor welcomed us after the service into his office and extended his offers of help and hospitality. He gave us a delightfully tasty Vitamin C drink, and told us that if we ever needed help during our stays in Korea (or a meal, and given the cafeteria food, I may take him up on this), we should call the church immediately. This afternoon we attended the English service, which was actually more geared towards those learning English (everything was translated and the congregants were asked to parrot what the pastor, a different one, said as in our Korean classes). I found it both fulfilling and frustratingly poor homiletically speaking. I'm not sure that the pastor had necessarily prepared well, but it could be that I felt he focused too much on glory and not enough on the cross. But that could be just the Lutheran in me talking.
안녕히 가세요!
Cooking The most thrilling event was probably the fact that I took my first Korean cooking class. There were two dishes available to make. The first was called jabchae (잡채). This was the one I helped make. It's a hot noodle dish that is absolutely fabulous. It is made with various vegetables and meat items, and the noodle used is those translucent chinese noodles you can sometimes find at restaurants (called dangmyeon 당면 here). As the cooking instructor explained, this dish is essentially what you make out of anything you find in your refrigerator that you can chop up "prettily". (And EVERYTHING had to be chopped prettily.) The second option was a dish called pajeon (파전). This was essentially a pancake, but made with scallions as the foundation of the dish (the flour and water basically held it all together). As toppings, one adds various meats again, though I think these are usually seafood. It compares fairly well with that favorite Thanksgiving caserole, French Fried onion rings on greenbeans with cream of mushroom soup. Mmmhmm, good. The only real issue this night was that most of us ate before we came, so it was hard to finish all the food we made. The instructor scolded us soundly for this, and we will surely starve ourselves the next time to appease her wish that we might be made full off our labours.
Bathing The second most thrilling event (though some of you may disagree given what I'm about to talk about) was going to the jjimjilbang (찜질방) this Saturday. This was very relaxing and very welcome after a full week of trying to speak Korean with a Western language oriented mind. A jjimjilbang is essentially a bathhouse, and for about 6000 won you can enjoy hot baths, cold baths, herbal baths, various temperatures of saunas, showering areas where exfoliation is encouraged (and sometimes the natives will help you with this portion of your bathing experience). Everyone is nude. Everyone is bathing (or sweating). Everyone is having a grand old time in the aquatic arena, though it's important to note that you should shower before you jump into any of the pools. (If you were wondering, it is gender segregated, so no free shows.) If you're willing to pay a little extra, you can even have a full body massage with deep exfoliation so that you're essentially walking around in a new set of skin. (I opted out of this as the person doing the massaging was a fully nude 50 year old.) You can even sleep overnight in these places (for the same price), and it is the recommended option if you're just bumming around Korea a la European hitchhiking. I haven't been taking pictures of anything really, but don't expect to see any of this experience anytime soon anyway. I'd feel a little awkward about it, and I'm sure the old men would too. One piece of advice to note: When in the sauna, especially the hottest one, which I could barely stand for 5 minutes, it is a good idea to breathe out your mouth, rather than your nose. This is because rather sensitive areas can get, shall we say, uncomfortable from the intense heat coming out of your body. Beyond this is a non-segregated area (p.j.'s required) where one can watch movies, play video or computer games, get refreshments, read, or even just fall asleep.
Church I finally made it out to a local church on Sunday for worship, a large Methodist congregation. It was encouraging that there were several other ETAs who wanted to go and who are also interested in doing Bible study during the week. They seem quite sincere about their faith, and I feel that they will be a blessing to me (as I hope I am to them) in the coming weeks and year. We first went to the Korean service in the morning. This was incomprehensible, but very nice. Those of us who have just had a week sounding out hanguel stumbled through the words projected on the wall behind the altar, though we did not know what we were singing. Some of the hymns were familiar, as they used Western tunes, but for all I know they were using entirely different texts from the English equivilants associated with those hymns. I did understand one word in the sermon (besides Jesus and Christ), and that was πιστις, which is actually Greek, not Korean, meaning faith, but it was still exciting for me. πιστις, πιστις the pastor kept saying. 네, 네, 아멘 (Yes, yes, Amen!) was my happy, silent response. The pastor welcomed us after the service into his office and extended his offers of help and hospitality. He gave us a delightfully tasty Vitamin C drink, and told us that if we ever needed help during our stays in Korea (or a meal, and given the cafeteria food, I may take him up on this), we should call the church immediately. This afternoon we attended the English service, which was actually more geared towards those learning English (everything was translated and the congregants were asked to parrot what the pastor, a different one, said as in our Korean classes). I found it both fulfilling and frustratingly poor homiletically speaking. I'm not sure that the pastor had necessarily prepared well, but it could be that I felt he focused too much on glory and not enough on the cross. But that could be just the Lutheran in me talking.
안녕히 가세요!
Monday, July 9, 2007
First Day of Class - The Insa and other Korean Culturalnormative items of note
Yesterday was the first day of class, and it was immersive. We walked in, insa-ed the teacher as we had been taught (i.e. by stopping in the doorway, performing a full 90-degree bow, and saying, *an-nyeong-ha-se-yo*), and she began to speak to us in Korean. Since she is our written language teacher, occassionally she would speak a word of English here or there, but for the most part, she just spoke Korean at us and used hand gestures to get across meaning. This was sometimes frustrating, especially for some of the Fulbrighters who didn't realize that this IS an imersion program, but we managed, mostly because we were just reviewing the alphabet (hanguel) yesterday.
For those who don't know, Hanguel is a phonetic written language system consisting of 24 characters (10 vowels, or mo-eum, and 14 consonants, ja-eum). These are arranged in ideographic boxes that are read left to right, top to bottom. For instance, my name in Hanguel is 제레미 (Jeremy), and ㅈis a consonant and ㅔ acts as a vowel (it is actually a double vowel) in the first character box. This gets more complicated in a word like 안녕하세요 (an-nyeong-ha-se-yo), where ideographs can have 3 characters in them, and I have already seen up to four characters in a single box, though I think that's the max. Not that I really expect you to learn Hanguel from this paragraph, but I just wanted you to know how different it was.
So that was two hours of class. Repetition of the vowel and consonant sounds, trying our best to distinguish between the very similar "o" sounds in the language, etc. (My Greek has actually helped a tremendous amount in distinguishing between these, because often the sounds are very similar to the difference between the omicron and the omega. Thank you, Professor K.!) For homework? More repetition (very Kierkegaardian of us) in the form of a workbook in which we were to rewrite all the vowels and consonants several times. The workbook, incidentally, was a gift from the teacher. It is a gift giving culture, but I guess that doesn't mean that the gifts can't come with some responsibility.
Our second two hours were spent on learning basic Korean conversation. Yesterday's lesson specifically dealt with a full insa, which I suppose can include all of the introductory conversation one might have (i.e. Hello, my name is _____. I am an American from St. Louis. Pleasure to meet you.). This teacher *never* spoke English, and we were expected to parrot back whatever she said to us. Perhaps it is because I have an undiscerning ear for the language at this point, but I swear the careful pronunciation we had practiced in the previous class went out the window in the second class! Ah, well. I suppose there will be exceptions to the rule. Homework for this class (as I understand it, she was speaking Korean after all) is to be able to introduce ourselves in Korean to the class today. I will butcher the Korean, but I'm sure I'll survive.
(As I write, a pack of wild dogs has started a cacophany outside my window. My guidebook Fulbright supplied me with says, "KOREA - Where Old Meets New". I certainly sounds like it right now.)
After lunch, it was more class, this time a cultural primer. We learned many of the customs and etiquette we will need to know to not make the situation awkward for our host country (e.g. how to work withing the social hierarchy politely--still very Confucian here, when to pay, when to "fake" refuse, when to really refuse, when to give gifts, how to give gifts), and I imagine I'll hit on the specific of these when those events come up during my homestay. We also learned a bit about Korean history (though it would only amount to an unsatisfying paragraph, at most a page, in a history textbook) and how that effects current culture. For instance, within living memory, people were starving to death in Korea, so a common way to say, "Hello," in Korea is to say, "Have you eaten?" Everything in Korea revolves around eating now, and we are to insist that we are full half way through the meal so that when we are actually full, they will let us go from the table. If we insist too late, i.e. when we are already full, then we will have to eat twice our capacity.
A more interesting cultural facet, however, was the idea of *nunchi* (눈치) and *kibun* (기분). Nunchi is the knack one has (or conceivably doesn't have, probably in my case) for understanding the implicit undertones of a situation and following them. For example, if everyone in the house takes off their shoes before they enter, then the American guest with good nunchi will observe this and follow suit. This creates good kibun, or the atmosphere of good feeling that is shared by the group. Group mentality in Korea is VERY important to understand. Even if one doesn't follow it, they have to know how to not interfere with it. For instance, it's ok for me not to bow in some situations, to wave instead, but I have to know when it won't interfere with the kibun. If I interfere with this, I stand the chance of making everyone uncomfortable.
That's it for today. 안녕히 계세요.
Culinary note: I had a delightful dish called dakgalbi (닥갈비). This was a chicken dish served with cabbage and spicy paste (as most Korean food is), the spiciest I'd had. It also had ddok (떡) in it or rice cakes, which do not look like rice cake at all, really. They were small and cylindrical and had a smooth texture, as if the rice had been ground into paste before cooking. All of this was thrown into a large skillet that sat on the table, and the cook would occassionally come by and stir it until done, at which point we all ate from the skillet with metal chopsticks. (One of my friends in the states commented upon his discovering this that this must be the most uncomfortable experience in the world. I can assure him, it is not. The chopsticks never got hot.) The chicken and vegetables can be wrapped in a lettuce or spearmint leaf, and this is the only time when it is appropriate to eat with one's hands. Chuncheon, where I am living, is famous for its dakgalbi apparently, and I can tell why. The chicken was tender, the vegetables crunchy, and flavor had sufficient kick to get a slight exclamation from me. Dakgalbi is often referred to as Korean BBQ, and it's more common form is made with beef, called simply galbi (갈비). The meal was accompanied by a couple of bottles of soju, full stomachs and good conversation.
For those who don't know, Hanguel is a phonetic written language system consisting of 24 characters (10 vowels, or mo-eum, and 14 consonants, ja-eum). These are arranged in ideographic boxes that are read left to right, top to bottom. For instance, my name in Hanguel is 제레미 (Jeremy), and ㅈis a consonant and ㅔ acts as a vowel (it is actually a double vowel) in the first character box. This gets more complicated in a word like 안녕하세요 (an-nyeong-ha-se-yo), where ideographs can have 3 characters in them, and I have already seen up to four characters in a single box, though I think that's the max. Not that I really expect you to learn Hanguel from this paragraph, but I just wanted you to know how different it was.
So that was two hours of class. Repetition of the vowel and consonant sounds, trying our best to distinguish between the very similar "o" sounds in the language, etc. (My Greek has actually helped a tremendous amount in distinguishing between these, because often the sounds are very similar to the difference between the omicron and the omega. Thank you, Professor K.!) For homework? More repetition (very Kierkegaardian of us) in the form of a workbook in which we were to rewrite all the vowels and consonants several times. The workbook, incidentally, was a gift from the teacher. It is a gift giving culture, but I guess that doesn't mean that the gifts can't come with some responsibility.
Our second two hours were spent on learning basic Korean conversation. Yesterday's lesson specifically dealt with a full insa, which I suppose can include all of the introductory conversation one might have (i.e. Hello, my name is _____. I am an American from St. Louis. Pleasure to meet you.). This teacher *never* spoke English, and we were expected to parrot back whatever she said to us. Perhaps it is because I have an undiscerning ear for the language at this point, but I swear the careful pronunciation we had practiced in the previous class went out the window in the second class! Ah, well. I suppose there will be exceptions to the rule. Homework for this class (as I understand it, she was speaking Korean after all) is to be able to introduce ourselves in Korean to the class today. I will butcher the Korean, but I'm sure I'll survive.
(As I write, a pack of wild dogs has started a cacophany outside my window. My guidebook Fulbright supplied me with says, "KOREA - Where Old Meets New". I certainly sounds like it right now.)
After lunch, it was more class, this time a cultural primer. We learned many of the customs and etiquette we will need to know to not make the situation awkward for our host country (e.g. how to work withing the social hierarchy politely--still very Confucian here, when to pay, when to "fake" refuse, when to really refuse, when to give gifts, how to give gifts), and I imagine I'll hit on the specific of these when those events come up during my homestay. We also learned a bit about Korean history (though it would only amount to an unsatisfying paragraph, at most a page, in a history textbook) and how that effects current culture. For instance, within living memory, people were starving to death in Korea, so a common way to say, "Hello," in Korea is to say, "Have you eaten?" Everything in Korea revolves around eating now, and we are to insist that we are full half way through the meal so that when we are actually full, they will let us go from the table. If we insist too late, i.e. when we are already full, then we will have to eat twice our capacity.
A more interesting cultural facet, however, was the idea of *nunchi* (눈치) and *kibun* (기분). Nunchi is the knack one has (or conceivably doesn't have, probably in my case) for understanding the implicit undertones of a situation and following them. For example, if everyone in the house takes off their shoes before they enter, then the American guest with good nunchi will observe this and follow suit. This creates good kibun, or the atmosphere of good feeling that is shared by the group. Group mentality in Korea is VERY important to understand. Even if one doesn't follow it, they have to know how to not interfere with it. For instance, it's ok for me not to bow in some situations, to wave instead, but I have to know when it won't interfere with the kibun. If I interfere with this, I stand the chance of making everyone uncomfortable.
That's it for today. 안녕히 계세요.
Culinary note: I had a delightful dish called dakgalbi (닥갈비). This was a chicken dish served with cabbage and spicy paste (as most Korean food is), the spiciest I'd had. It also had ddok (떡) in it or rice cakes, which do not look like rice cake at all, really. They were small and cylindrical and had a smooth texture, as if the rice had been ground into paste before cooking. All of this was thrown into a large skillet that sat on the table, and the cook would occassionally come by and stir it until done, at which point we all ate from the skillet with metal chopsticks. (One of my friends in the states commented upon his discovering this that this must be the most uncomfortable experience in the world. I can assure him, it is not. The chopsticks never got hot.) The chicken and vegetables can be wrapped in a lettuce or spearmint leaf, and this is the only time when it is appropriate to eat with one's hands. Chuncheon, where I am living, is famous for its dakgalbi apparently, and I can tell why. The chicken was tender, the vegetables crunchy, and flavor had sufficient kick to get a slight exclamation from me. Dakgalbi is often referred to as Korean BBQ, and it's more common form is made with beef, called simply galbi (갈비). The meal was accompanied by a couple of bottles of soju, full stomachs and good conversation.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Concerning the real day one, or The Longest Thursday of My Life
In the previous post, I talked about the day before the day I discussed as if that were the real day one. This day was Saturday.
It's hard to call this an actual day, as it involved me landing in Inchon at that wee hours of the morning having already lost a day from crossing the international dateline. We then drove the two and a half hours to Chuncheon, passing through Seoul and some marvelous country side. The whole day was a blur for the most part as I had only slept for a few hours on the plane (which means only about 3-4 hours of sleep over a period of two days by the time I was finished on Saturday. Really, it felt like it was a part of Thursday, the day I left St. Louis on a delayed flight to LAX. It was all very surreal. So, this post will concern the longest Thursday of my life.
As I said, we arrived in the wee hours of the morning (around 4:30 am) and it took us a couple of hours to get our bags, get through customs, and make sure everyone had arrived. We were given a little time to mill around the airport and get some breakfast if we wanted (our first meal would be lunch in about 6 hours, and our last meal had been 3 hours before on the plane) and exchange some currency. I skipped the breakfast, opting for the snack they promised on the ride over, which turned out to include some Nutrigrain bars and those Salty Penut bars from Nature's Valley. American food to ease our transition? Probably not, as we had also had shrimp flavored chips.
Upon arriving, we got our room assignments, packets of information with insurance cards, nametags, our weekly spending allowance (35,000 won. I'm rolling in the dough!) and our very own number for the sake of ease in taking attendance. (We shout our numbers in order whereever we assemble, as campers sometimes do at camp, though I usually avoided this as a counselor if possible because, as is happening here, no one pays close enough attention to make it a smooth process.) As I said in a previous entry, I have a roommate, Ray, who wants to find a church in the area as well and knows how to survive in Korea using actual Korean instead of speaking English with a plethora of hand gestures as I do, which by all accounts may be offensive. (I really have no idea, though I'm trying to avoid pointing with my finger. Apparently this is always offensive.)
We were then given instruction on what Fulbright would be like, which was basically a three hour lecture on schedules and extracurricular activities, etc. so we could get through Sunday easily enough. One of the more interesting points on the lecture, though, was that we can't flush toilet paper here. The toilets don't have enough pressure apparently, or wide enough pipes, and can easily be clogged. Instead, we are to place our used t.p. in a little bucket beside the toilet. This is cleaned out eventually, though I'm not sure exactly on what kind of regular basis. As one of the presenters yesterday said, it messes up your rhythm, and I've already had to pull a piece out of the bowl for rhythm's sake. We were also instructed on how to do the most formal bows (insa, in Korean) so we could perform these for our language instructers. We were also told that it would be appropriate for us to do this in the halls as well as a sign of respect (they live in the dorms with us), though we are to refrain from performing full insa in the bathrooms as they would feel obliged to return the curtosy (though not bowing as deep as we are), and it could be awkward if they are brushing their teeth (it requires both hands at the side), or, I imagine, during other bathroom occassions, though these were not mentioned by the orientation team leaders.
I had dinner and turned in around 7:00. This was not necessarily good jet lag wise, but I couldn't stay up any longer. It was, after all, the longest Thursday of my life.
It's hard to call this an actual day, as it involved me landing in Inchon at that wee hours of the morning having already lost a day from crossing the international dateline. We then drove the two and a half hours to Chuncheon, passing through Seoul and some marvelous country side. The whole day was a blur for the most part as I had only slept for a few hours on the plane (which means only about 3-4 hours of sleep over a period of two days by the time I was finished on Saturday. Really, it felt like it was a part of Thursday, the day I left St. Louis on a delayed flight to LAX. It was all very surreal. So, this post will concern the longest Thursday of my life.
As I said, we arrived in the wee hours of the morning (around 4:30 am) and it took us a couple of hours to get our bags, get through customs, and make sure everyone had arrived. We were given a little time to mill around the airport and get some breakfast if we wanted (our first meal would be lunch in about 6 hours, and our last meal had been 3 hours before on the plane) and exchange some currency. I skipped the breakfast, opting for the snack they promised on the ride over, which turned out to include some Nutrigrain bars and those Salty Penut bars from Nature's Valley. American food to ease our transition? Probably not, as we had also had shrimp flavored chips.
Upon arriving, we got our room assignments, packets of information with insurance cards, nametags, our weekly spending allowance (35,000 won. I'm rolling in the dough!) and our very own number for the sake of ease in taking attendance. (We shout our numbers in order whereever we assemble, as campers sometimes do at camp, though I usually avoided this as a counselor if possible because, as is happening here, no one pays close enough attention to make it a smooth process.) As I said in a previous entry, I have a roommate, Ray, who wants to find a church in the area as well and knows how to survive in Korea using actual Korean instead of speaking English with a plethora of hand gestures as I do, which by all accounts may be offensive. (I really have no idea, though I'm trying to avoid pointing with my finger. Apparently this is always offensive.)
We were then given instruction on what Fulbright would be like, which was basically a three hour lecture on schedules and extracurricular activities, etc. so we could get through Sunday easily enough. One of the more interesting points on the lecture, though, was that we can't flush toilet paper here. The toilets don't have enough pressure apparently, or wide enough pipes, and can easily be clogged. Instead, we are to place our used t.p. in a little bucket beside the toilet. This is cleaned out eventually, though I'm not sure exactly on what kind of regular basis. As one of the presenters yesterday said, it messes up your rhythm, and I've already had to pull a piece out of the bowl for rhythm's sake. We were also instructed on how to do the most formal bows (insa, in Korean) so we could perform these for our language instructers. We were also told that it would be appropriate for us to do this in the halls as well as a sign of respect (they live in the dorms with us), though we are to refrain from performing full insa in the bathrooms as they would feel obliged to return the curtosy (though not bowing as deep as we are), and it could be awkward if they are brushing their teeth (it requires both hands at the side), or, I imagine, during other bathroom occassions, though these were not mentioned by the orientation team leaders.
I had dinner and turned in around 7:00. This was not necessarily good jet lag wise, but I couldn't stay up any longer. It was, after all, the longest Thursday of my life.
A letter to Mom
The first full day was good. The Koreans really do have kimchi and rice with every meal, but I'm surviving. I went to play soccer with my roommate, Ray, in the morning, but we couldn't find anyone to play with. He said that there are usually Korean students playing in the early morning to avoid the heat, but we figured no one was out because of the summer session.
They kept us busy schedule wise, so I didn't get to go to Church, although Ray is apparently a pretty devoted Christian, so we're looking into going to a church next weekend when we'll have some free time. I did a devotion this weekend instead and translated some Romans.
We had our language placement exam yesterday. I placed into the beginning level (obviously). We also got our textbooks, which are almost completely in Hanguel (which doubles to mean both the Korean alphabet and Korean itself). It will certainly be an intense immersion course. During the exam we also signed up for extracurricular activities. I signed up for Taekwondo, which will apparently be taught by one of the best masters in Korea (he really likes Fulbright, so he's buying all of our outfits for us), and cooking class.
We also went out to lunch instead of eating in the cafeteria (which serves rather bland food). Ray took us to a place that is fairly common in Korea and safe and cheap, so if we were ever starving in a different city, we would have a familiar place to go. I ordered the bibimbop, which is a rice dish served with meat and vegetables and spicey paste. It all comes out separate, so the customer has to mix it him or herself to their own particular taste. It also comes out on a very hot dish, so if you don't mix fast, your rice burns. It was a fantastic meal (including a side of soup and kimchi) for only 3,500 won (about $3.80).
After lunch, we had a presentation from two current Fulbrighters about what it means to be an "other" in Korean society. The first presentation was focused on what Koreans think about us, which was funny, but mostly because he said some fairly uncomfortable things about race, so he got nervous laughter out of most of us. Some people found it inappropriate, but given what I know about extremely homogenous nations, it fit the bill. Mostly he talked about how Koreans aren't really racist the way we're racist. They don't see distinctions amongst foreigners, just that there are Koreans and there are foreigners. The other presentation was on how to live in Korea as an "other". This presenter was Pakistani-American and gay, so he came at it from an interesting perspective.
We also had a scavenger hunt yesterday to introduce us to some of the area of Chuncheon we live in. Luckily, we had a girl who speaks some Korean in our group, so she was very helpful with ordering a taxi and the like. One of the objectives on the list was to go to EMart, which is the Korean version of a place like Walmart or Target, but it is MUCH bigger. I wanted to get some hangers, but we couldn't find any except for these small Barbie hangers, so I just picked those up and showed them to one of the women working at the store, saying, "I want this, but bigger," making appropriate hand gestures. After a split second of confusion, "Oh!" she said and indicated that we should follow her to the appropriate section. So, I know that I can get by on hand gestures apparently if I really need to.
Finally, we met the KEY club (I forget what it stands for, but that's the English club at the university), and shared snacks with them and soju, a Korean drink that has about the consistency and taste of Vodka, which just a little more alcohol content than wine. Of course, the way we shared involved drinking games (don't worry, there wasn't enough there for anyone to get drunk), but there was some good conversation as well and we have made some Korean friends here on campus.
So, that was "the first full day", although the day before was probably even more full. Today we start language classes, and I have my first cooking class in the evening. Should be a good time!
They kept us busy schedule wise, so I didn't get to go to Church, although Ray is apparently a pretty devoted Christian, so we're looking into going to a church next weekend when we'll have some free time. I did a devotion this weekend instead and translated some Romans.
We had our language placement exam yesterday. I placed into the beginning level (obviously). We also got our textbooks, which are almost completely in Hanguel (which doubles to mean both the Korean alphabet and Korean itself). It will certainly be an intense immersion course. During the exam we also signed up for extracurricular activities. I signed up for Taekwondo, which will apparently be taught by one of the best masters in Korea (he really likes Fulbright, so he's buying all of our outfits for us), and cooking class.
We also went out to lunch instead of eating in the cafeteria (which serves rather bland food). Ray took us to a place that is fairly common in Korea and safe and cheap, so if we were ever starving in a different city, we would have a familiar place to go. I ordered the bibimbop, which is a rice dish served with meat and vegetables and spicey paste. It all comes out separate, so the customer has to mix it him or herself to their own particular taste. It also comes out on a very hot dish, so if you don't mix fast, your rice burns. It was a fantastic meal (including a side of soup and kimchi) for only 3,500 won (about $3.80).
After lunch, we had a presentation from two current Fulbrighters about what it means to be an "other" in Korean society. The first presentation was focused on what Koreans think about us, which was funny, but mostly because he said some fairly uncomfortable things about race, so he got nervous laughter out of most of us. Some people found it inappropriate, but given what I know about extremely homogenous nations, it fit the bill. Mostly he talked about how Koreans aren't really racist the way we're racist. They don't see distinctions amongst foreigners, just that there are Koreans and there are foreigners. The other presentation was on how to live in Korea as an "other". This presenter was Pakistani-American and gay, so he came at it from an interesting perspective.
We also had a scavenger hunt yesterday to introduce us to some of the area of Chuncheon we live in. Luckily, we had a girl who speaks some Korean in our group, so she was very helpful with ordering a taxi and the like. One of the objectives on the list was to go to EMart, which is the Korean version of a place like Walmart or Target, but it is MUCH bigger. I wanted to get some hangers, but we couldn't find any except for these small Barbie hangers, so I just picked those up and showed them to one of the women working at the store, saying, "I want this, but bigger," making appropriate hand gestures. After a split second of confusion, "Oh!" she said and indicated that we should follow her to the appropriate section. So, I know that I can get by on hand gestures apparently if I really need to.
Finally, we met the KEY club (I forget what it stands for, but that's the English club at the university), and shared snacks with them and soju, a Korean drink that has about the consistency and taste of Vodka, which just a little more alcohol content than wine. Of course, the way we shared involved drinking games (don't worry, there wasn't enough there for anyone to get drunk), but there was some good conversation as well and we have made some Korean friends here on campus.
So, that was "the first full day", although the day before was probably even more full. Today we start language classes, and I have my first cooking class in the evening. Should be a good time!
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