Hangman and Oragami

Lucy being Lucy

Today was the first round of tests I've ever given in my life, and maybe it's being a recent graduate, but I felt so incredibly bad. 

"Teacher. So long!"
"Teacher. I don't know!"
"Teacher. So many!"
"I know! I'm sorry," I replied to an awkward silence where they looked at eachother and tried to figure out whether I was being sincere or a total jerk.  Most just started the test after that without complaint.


No matter how long they thought the test was, however, every class had extra time to play.  My first class decided to act like ninjas and just be adorable in general.  I specifically brought my iPhone to class to record Tae-Gyu, which may be the most adorable little child on the planet.  First of all, he's the smartest kid in the class by a long-shot.  He "misbehaves" by making perfectly clever and appropriate jokes in his second language, English.  Secondly, he has two phrases: "Easy peezy lemon squeezy Brianna Teacher" and "I'm a smart monkey".   Unfortunately he absolutely refused to be taped, uncharacteristically hiding under the desk as soon as my camera came out.  So until I convince him otherwise know this: he isthe one that has trademarked my nickname as "Banana Teacher."

My second class, after finishing the test, non-chalantly started making flowers for me out of orgami.  It's just something they do. 

"Teacher, Lily or Rose or maybe Sunflower?"
I told them that very few people can just make whatever they want out of paper, let alone take requests.  "But then Brianna Teacher what do they do?" they asked bewildered.

Another one of my classes could play whatever game they wanted in the entire world, but they insisted on playing Hangman which is actually a great game for practicing English and spelling.  They are kids, so naturally they are passionate about everything, from who did something first, (from who should be able to line up first to who raised their hand first) to how many times someone has caused a team loss.  Every action comes with an equal--if not completely unjustified--reaction.  That being said a word of advice: when playing Hangman, do NOT guess the letter "Q".  The chances that letter is included is nearly impossible, and a "Q" guess will ignite the wrath of a couple of 10 year-olds if you cost them an arm or a leg (literally).  So being the amazing jerk that I am, I had them trying to guess "quilt".  No one had the courage to guess the letter, and they prefered to lose instead.  Then Seo-Yoon went.


Her final answer...

Teacher's Day

I'll let Dong Jae explain:

Housewarming

Housewarming party a success! I have been in Seoul for less than three weeks, but my apartment is so big it seems like a waste to not having it filled with people.  So, I invited over pretty much everyone I had met who brought friends who etc. etc. Jamie, a Korean teacher at my school, brought over delicious traditional food, from bolgogi (marinated beef) to a warm noodle dish with tons of vegetables.  I prepared by buying strawberries and oranges, chopping them up as thinly as possible, and infusing the juice with a bunch of soju.  It was delicious!

Part of me is still taken aback by what Korea has shown me so far--it's not the crazy, backwards place I had expected but a comfortable, semi-familiar place with friendly people and maybe some strange food. Another part of me can't help but think that this is the universe's way of letting me act my age before it's too late.  I didn't go to college and have your typical college experience.  I was working more than full-time, usually with more than one or two jobs in order to pay rent.  With all that time working and maybe fitting in schoolwork, I found myself with very few friends, unable to even understand that feeling of freedom (let alone enjoy it), and unable to relate to my peers that lived in dorms, joined a sorority, and worked at the school library. 

On top of all that, until very recently, I took myself way to seriously to really, truly enjoy life, nevermind that rare opportunity to maybe just enjoy college for what it should be--a vast and respectable education, but also an opportunity to find out who you are.

Here, I get to act like a twenty-two year old, but with even more freedom (because of the amazing set-up of this job), I have like-minded, travel-hungry people surrounding me that I like to talk to, I have a job that is rewarding in many ways, and at the same time I get to learn about the entirely new culture that is surrounding me.  I guess I'm just thankful--I already regret the old me, unable to laugh at herself, too worried about the future.  For at least my time in Korea, I have a chance to live in the moment.  After, of course, I clean up my place...

Gon Bae!

Since I've been here, which is three weekends now, I've seen my share of sunrises.  Korea comes alive at night; I have already learned that not only can Koreans drink and party throughout the night and well into the morning, but us foreigners can hold our own as well.  This morning my friends and I left a noribong (singing room--basically, karaoke) and when we came out around 7 a.m. we had missed the sunrise altogether.  Still, at that ungodly hour, the restaurant next to us was packed tightly as people watched a soccer match as an end to their night. It's not only routine to drink with friends/co-workers/strangers on a regular basis, but expected (see Inapproprite BBQ).

Our first stop of the night had been a bar called Yaletown, where two foreigners, a Korean, a Japanese guy and I all decided to cheers our $11,000 won pitcher (around $10) Cass beer.  Three "cheers", a "kom bei" and a "gun bae" broke out simultaneously. From down the table, more Koreans added in a "chong", which is the sound Koreans hear when glasses hit instead of a "clink".  Being that the very action of a cheers holds so much importance in every society, we found ourselves fascinated by the differences and explored all the difference varieties of this basic drinking tradition that we knew off-hand from around the world.  In the process I learned this very telling, very interesting outlook on how different places in the world view drinking: 

Instead of "to your health", the Koreans tell eachother to "drink until you die" or "moko chucha".  Like I said, Koreans take partying very seriously.  I can respect that.

My neighbor

Sometimes through the wall I hear weird singing from my neighbor.  Sometimes I open my door and she's out on the balcony sorting through plants.  Sometimes I grab a chair from my apartment, sit out on the porch with some green tea, and simply look out.  We can't saything except hello and good-bye, basically, but sometimes I make her tea, and we look out together.
 

The Noryangjin Fish Market

It makes you wonder how there is anything still left in the ocean. This weekend I experienced the Noryangjin Fish Market. 

Getting off the subway, I had a hard time believing we were in the right place.  We passed over a highway on a plain looking bridge made of concrete with no signs of fish anywhere--let alone a famous fish market.  All of a sudden the wind picked up, and I knew we were in the right place.  There is no mistaking the smell of fish.  We went through an unassuming door, went down a flight of stairs, and suddenly found ourselves looking down on the madness.

This 66,000 square foot warehouse is filled with dried fish, live fish, sharks, manta-rays, crabs, lobster, and every shellfish known to man.  It has been in business in 1927.  "And," added Rachel, "you can pick a fish yourself, and they'll cook it upstairs in the restaurant."  We spent the next hour or two trying to avoid questionable puddles, peering into different tanks, buckets, or boxes to see what was being sold inside.  Prior to moving to South Korea I did occasionally eat fish, but seeing every other booth skinning fish, or chopping into a crab, or throwing different animals on scales for a price to be bargained for reminded me I'm not in Kansas anymore...or New York, for that matter.  As I watched the vendors digging through piles of flopping fish I wondered if they would even know what I meant were I able to explain why I didn't eat meat or dairy on purpose for so long.  It would be like that moment in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, where the mother yells out at a party: "What do you mean he don't eat no meat?"  There is silence, and in order to accomadate him and at an attempt at friendly hospitality she smiles and says: "Okay. I make lamb."

Lunch

Last night for dinner I had kimchee mandu guk, which is an amazing dumpling soup with fermented cabbage inside.  For lunch today I ordered, by myself, a kimbab chumchee (a tuna sushi roll but with egg in it, sometimes ham, and made with sticky rice) and had a red bean paste donut for dessert. 

Am I Korean yet?

Inappropriate BBQ

It was 4 p.m. until I had to be anywhere, and I had fallen asleep before nine the night before, so at 7 a.m. on a Friday I was left wondering what to do.  Being so delusionally tired the night before I only vaguely remembered a soccer field full of people, bright lights flashing all sorts of things I didn't understand, and loud crowds making their way around outdoor restaurants and make-shift food stands.  When I stepped out of my motel, it was as though the city were abandoned.  The only movement I could see were the many tanks filled with crabs, clams, fish, squid, octupus, and some kind of snake-things that were placed in aquariums outside of every other building. 
All I had been eating were health bars I had packed, and I was craving some real food.  Immediately I realized the problem--even if I could read the menu (which I couldn't), I wouldn't know what anything was (which I didn't).  The only recognizable thing was the fast food and the numerous amounts of french pastry shops.  Begrudgingly, I bought something from Paris Baguette, a popular chain in South Korea. Later I would have McDonald's french fries.

My first day of training went well, and the teachers all assured me yes, I would feel this overwhelmed, lost, and crazy for about a month.  Not only are there a million books for each class, they are all different, with their own set of rules, along with different homework and vocabulary protocol.  Not to mention I have a finite amount of time to memorize student names that don't stick in mind all that easily, figure out how to teach in general, send out report cards (?!), and goodness knows what else.  All I can do is give it time, but for now the children I teach are old enough and smart enough to have conversations with, and they really are very sweet.

After school ended at 9:05 p.m., all the teachers, my manager, the school director, and the head boss of everyone went out to dinner to celebrate Elena, the girl I was replacing's departure and my arrival.  We walked back in the direction of my motel (where the street had inexplicably come back to life), up a flight of stairs, took off our shoes at sat on the floor at a very long, very low table.  We were having Gogigui, Korean BBQ.  Immediately seven bottles of beer, five bottles of Soju (a mild liquor that tastses somewhat like sake) and a bottle of coke was set down at the table.  Different sides of vegtables were already surrounding the pit of hot coals inset into the table.  Tentatively I looked around, and chopsticks were already in hands and picking out different pieces of spicy food.  My director poured my glass, then politely reminded me to next time hold it with both hands.  I asked for one teacher to pass the beer, and he told me he would pour it--you're not allowed to pour your own.  Just when I was cursing myself for forgetting every single piece of cultural research I had done, the server handed me cooking utensils.  The meat was thrown onto the grill.  My seat was ideal for cooking dinner, another important aspect of Korean culture I had forgot about.  I hadn't eaten meat in three years but, well, cheers: here's to a new culture.

The man in charge of the entire school, I noticed, had asked Elena to stand up twice to make a speech.  Already not someone comfortable with the attention of an entire room on her, she was now desperately but politely trying to ward off a third appeal.  I was just thinking how lucky I was when I realized I was being told to stand myself.  He was trying to get me to make a speech but ironically, as a man who runs an English-teaching school, he knows literally no English at all.  I feigned confusion for as long as I could, but suddenly two hands were under my arms pulling me up from the floor.  I was on my feet, and my wasted boss was now massaging my arms saying a lot of words I didn't understand. 
"He says you look Korean," said one of the Korean teachers.
We laughed and I tried to gain some distance, but then he said a lot of other things in Korean, during which he never let go of me, and at one point he even moved my hair off of my shoulder.  I looked into the one person's eyes who could translate, the only one who could help me out of this situation.  Loudly and in perfect English--because she knew he wouldn't understand--she said, "He's not actually saying any words any more.  There is nothing to translate."

Finally, after he was done rambling I was allowed to sit back down.  I imagine my face was as red as the raw meat I was supposed to have been cooking.  Thank god for Soju.

Besides the fact that so many different levels of co-workers were drinking (fairly heavily) together, and despite the fact that what had happened with my new boss would not be okay in any way back home, I was more intruiged by a different aspect of the night--the respect this man had even as a wasted mess.  No one was allowed to send him home.  Everyone laughed when they thought they were supposed to laugh.  No one made a sound during his "speech", of which no one (English or Korean) understood a word.  No one ate when he was talking.  They made leaving sound like his idea, then we all pretended to go home so as not to insult him.  In Korea, the faults that are displayed are either ignored or accepted as human nature, but nothing transends the inherent societal hierarchy that has been embedded--whether it stems from gender, class, work policy, or tradition it is still too soon to tell.  I will say, though, that I noticed I did not put up much of a fight, and even laughed at his Korean jokes when it was my cue.

The flight there.

I did not sleep at all the night before my 6 a.m. flight to Seoul, South Korea.  As I watched the clock move closer and closer to sunrise, I thought about all that led me up to this point.  It all started because I somehow got a degree.  Then, my mom had somehow run into a friend of another woman she used to carpool with whose daughter had been living in Asia for a year.  A few websites, a few interviews, and lots of paperwork later here I was, my entire life packed into a couple of bags, staring at a slowly ticking clock and anticipating the thirteen hour time change. I had slowly said goodbye to everyone over the last week, which was more difficult than all at once.  First, I said goodbye to Brian, but only for a month and a half since he'll be coming to work at an English Village outside the city. I said goodbye to my uncle, two best friends, and brother.  The rest of my family. I said goodbye to a bunch of other friends.  I said goodbye to my sister.  Then I said goodbye to my aunt and grandma.  Then my other brother and sister.  Only my parents were left.  I knew it shouldn't be as difficult as it was.  It's a finite amount of time, and with technology like Facebook and Skype many of my relationships--and face to face time--would honestly probably stay the same. All I want to do is travel, so leaving should be protocol. Being the oldest child, I had always thought of our seven member family as a tight unit, almost like a ball, all packed together in a house.  Then, because of time, age, dreams, ambition...I shot out, and moved to New York City.  Painful, lethargic, yet nessecary, the unit loosened.  Then my sister, then my brother all followed...to the closest major city to home.  We were somewhat less clustered, but still close enough to be "home".  And now, being the first to really move away, the unit is no longer a unit, but a bunch of individuals wanting to stay in touch and involved with eachother's lives--people who must be willing to make an effort.  My mom and dad, the family they made, has changed forms.  It has evolved.  Being the oldest and the first, this move represented that change perfectly. They both insisted they drive me to the airport.

Under fifty pounds, and my two bags would cost $70.  If one was over the weight even by half a pound, there was an extra charge of $200. The woman weighed my bags, which both came in at exactly fifty pounds.  So, I was sent through security: 120-ish pounds of me, and 150 pounds of luggage (with my carry-ons). 

As the plane filled up, I found myself still wide awake, with my heart pulsing.  I was excited, nervous, sad, estatic...all of the above.  I had a window seat.  Thankfully, for the six hour flight to San Fransisco, the seat directly next to me stayed empty, and the girl on the aisle could not contain her excitement to have the extra space.  She was coming from India headed to San Fransisco with a layover at Newark International Airport, which was almost the exact opposite of me.  She was on the last six hours of her 24 hour trip, and I was on my first.  It was nice to talk to someone who was almost done with a trip I was dreading--she had survived, and I would too!
"Any advice?" I asked.
"Stay wherever you're going for at least two months...less than that and this is NOT worth it."
She sounded bitter.  Still, I said smiled and said okay.  No problems there.

My flight out of San Fransisco was delayed an hour, so I spent the extra time wandering around the duty free shop, wondering if the extra weight was worth a bottle of Jack Daniels or wine.  My bags were already so heavy I decided against it, and instead finally fell asleep near my departure gate.  I woke up in what I thought was the 1950's, the airline stewardesses looked so perfect and pristine.  A woman was calling my name.  I headed to the front desk, towards the trim, beautiful woman in perfectly tailored, Asiana Airlines attire.  She said I had lucked out: "It's in the back of the plane, but you've been upgraded to an aisle."  Short of getting first class, this is the traveller's equivalent to winning the lottery.  Twelve hours in the middle of two strangers was going to be awful.  The aisle, in comparison, might as well have been first class to me.  The food certainly was.  Bimimbap, tiramasu, open bar (what what), red snapper and decently seasoned vegetables...I was full the entire flight. I slept decently, listened to some music, and read "Iron and Silk" by Mark Salzman.  Even though the author is a bit of a conceited man who is loved, according to his narrative, by literally everyone in China, it was a perfect read.  Compared to what I am doing, teaching English in 1980 communist China in a small town with sketchy electricity and no clean drinking water was infinitely more difficult.  On top of that, China was at the time extremely anti-western, and his influence was monitored, limited, and closely watched. Needless to say, almost no one spoke English, let alone there being any recognizable food.  I was reading this during a flight to a major airport in Seoul, that was both English and Korean, with Starbucks and McDonald's and an Outback Steakhouse waiting for me if I so choose. 

Because of the flight delay I landed an hour late, which worried me since I had no cell phone, no access to the internet, and was entirely dependent on finding a sign with my name on it.  The first time I looked around, I didn't see anyone.  I took a deep breath, put my luggage in one spot, and walked furthur along.  When I finally saw it, I couldn't believe I missed him.  There was a man in bright orange pants, with a silver and gold jacket holding a sign with my name printed on it.  I walked up and said that's me.  He probably didn't understand what I said, but understood that the American girl with 150 pounds of luggage was probably the girl he was supposed to take.  Without a word he grabbed a suitcase and started walking.  I stood there at first, trying to figure out what was going on, then quickly struggled to catch up, grabbing my other suitcase.  He put my things in the back of a car, pointed to the passengers seat, and we were off.  We couldn't speak, and I was so tired I was struggling to stay awake when he turned on the TV.  Yes,  As he was driving, he pressed a button on the GPS and it turned into....a TV program.  As he swerved around cars and through lanes he was watching some soap opera about a whorish woman being yelled at by an old lady.  Just as her one true lover (or maybe one of her customers) burst through the door, the driver pulled up onto a sidewalk, beeping his horn at some pedestrians as if they didn't belong there.  I assumed this was my cue to get out.

By the time I got to the trunk my luggage was out on the sidewalk, and my new job's director was there.  We shook hands, and he told me to follow him.  We grabbed my luggage and I went into the school I would be working at for the next year.  He asked me to sit in my office and asked if I would like any coffee.  I had no idea where I was staying, but it was 8 p.m. and all I wanted to do was go to sleep.  I assumed he offered because he was going to have me there for a while, so I said yes.  Holding the coffee I struggled to pay attention to what he was saying, but it was all I could do just to keep my eyes open.  It was now 8:15. 
"We go to hotel at 8:30, okay? You leave luggage here."
That gave me fifteen minutes to repack a bag  for the five days I would be staying at the hotel.  At 8:30 he said it was time to go.
I followed him through some winding paths, noticing only peripherally the crowds and the lights.  We turned into an unlit door, into a small elevator, to room 506 at what was called the Seoul Motel. 
"You should be at the school at 4 p.m. tomorrow.  Do you know how to get back?"
"Yes," I said, just to avoid furthur conversation, "I will see you tomorrow.  Thank you for your help."
He bowed, turned and left.  I closed the door, ran the shower for a few moments to wash away the past twenty-four hours of travelling, and fell asleep.