The Common Octopus

I've been here for a long time. Just three months shy of two full years. So long that nothing seems weird any more. Or if it does, it's the normal, everyday kind of weird that I've come to expect, and I don't give it a second thought. There is one exception, though: The Common Octopus.

Now I have no idea whether what I'm seeing is actually the species of octopus called the common octopus - in fact, I suspect it's several different species that ooze around the tanks and giant buckets along the streets of Gwangju - but they are nothing if not commonly found in this country. Octopus is about as ubiquitous in the Korean diet as chicken is on Western dinner tables. It's certainly more appealing than some of the less identifiable seafood alternatives (멍게 or 개불, for example), but it still doesn't quite sit right with me.


Let me clarify. It's not the eating of octopus that doesn't sit right. I was initiated into the Club of Grilled Octopus Lovers when I was in Greece. It's the casual way they're housed and flung around. If they could all predict the outcome of important soccer matches like Paul the Octopus, I'd understand wanting to have one nearby at all times. As it is, they just kind of freak me out.

They're creepy. The way their bodies transform from slippery solid to oozy liquid when an ajusshi grabs them by the head and yanks them from the water. The way their suckers stick to the plate as if to save their lives, even after they've been chopped up and dressed with sesame oil in a handsome 산낙지. The way I just know their scheming, super-smart, squishy little brains are planning to take over the whole of Jeollanam-do if they could just get far enough down the street before the ajumma catches them and shoves them back in her bucket. And don't even get me started on that octopi vs. octopuses debate.

But living in Korea, neither live nor cooked (or prepared, I should say, for they are commonly eaten raw) octopus can be easily avoided. They reside in street-side tanks outside the seafood restaurants on every block. They show up regularly in my school lunches. An experienced Korean market-goer knows to keep an eye out to avoid stepping on one that's attempting a grand escape. There are even octopus trucks - like ice cream trucks back home, but a whole lot ickier.


So, for all the normalcy that has settled into my bizarrely run-of-the-mill life here, I can thank the common octopus for keeping it real(ly weird) for me. Please remember I said that, octopuses, when you're building your World Domination Headquarters.

Jeju Redux

I've been back in Korea for almost four weeks now, and I'm amazed at how strangely normal everything here seems. The trip home was fabulous, but I was actually pretty happy to get back to my apartment, my friends, and yes, even my job here. I may not miss Korea itself very much when I leave, but I sure will miss my people.

Anyhow, I can now highly recommend that potential Englishee teachers start with the February intake, as second semester is soooo much easier than first. Doing what I did - beginning with the easy semester and then being like, "Wait, what happened to all of those holidays and school events?" the next semester - is a little bit tough. Happily, I'm now doing a repeat of the easy road. And our first holiday was only a few weeks into the semester.

Apparently our first time in Jeju wasn't enough - not enough warm weather, not enough tromping around in nature, and not enough sleep (stupid roe deer). So Paul and I decided to go back again, with a few extra days in hand thanks to the Chuseok holiday. This time we rented a car instead of a scooter (protection from the rain and more time for nature tromping) and stayed in love motels instead of camping (more sleep - sort of).

Our main goal for this visit was to climb to the top of Hallasan - the tallest mountain South Korea. Having not yet even vanquished my local foe of Mudeung mountain, I was quite nervous, and rightfully so - hiking in Korea is brutal. Koreans don't believe in switchbacks, seem to love climbing over big rocks rather than smoother trail materials, and - because you couldn't possibly have gotten enough exercise just climbing to the top of a mountain - there are usually workout equipment stations along the way. I comforted myself with the guide books that say the trail we planned to take is much less steep than most hiking trails in Korea, and by the impressively large number of hikers who climb that very trail every day. Never mind that the estimated time to get up the mountain (just one way) is 4 hours, and that if you don't reach the half-way point by half past noon, you're not allowed to climb to the summit. Oh, and the other fact that I was (am) so very out of shape. Poor decision? I think so. Too stubborn to let the mountain get the best of me? Definitely.

On our second day on the island, goaded on by the pictures of that damn deer on the "Protect our local fauna!" billboards (we were not going to let that island or its fauna get the best of us again!), we ignored the forecast for a second day of rain and drove to the trail head. As soon as we pulled into the parking lot, hideously early in the morning, it started pouring. And I don't mean cats and dogs. It was more like pumas and dingoes. We squinted through the rain-washed windshield at the vague outline of three hikers who were apparently going up the mountain anyway - full hiking gear in place but perhaps a few marbles shy of an ideal collection. A bit of a shower is one thing, but hiking in this deluge would have bordered on masochism. So we sighed, choked down our remaining roasted eggs, and drove back down the mountain to see some of the sights we'd missed the day before.

Ilchulbong from a distance

We climbed up the Seonsang Ilchulbong and took the ferry over to Udo and back. Encouraged by how much we were able to accomplish during the day (since we got up so early), we stashed our hiking provisions in the little love motel refrigerator (soggy kimbap, anyone?) and planned to get up ass early again the next day. Surely the weather would be better - if it rained like that again, the entire mountain might wash away and it'd be a moot point anyhow.

Come Monday morning, the sun was actually shining and the two intrepid hikers dragged themselves out of bed, trying not to think about the fact that our friends were all going to spend the day on the beach. We drove to the trail head - the sun was still shining. We decided to go for it. As did everyone else on the island, apparently. The trail was packed with hikers of all ages and abilities, from grandparents to small children. I'm not sure how those on the extremes of the age spectrum made it to the top and back, as we perfectly healthy young(ish) folks were struggling. Hard. The trail might not have been quite as steep as most others in Korea, but it was still no laughing matter. The beginning seemed easy enough, and we thought we were just going to breeze right up to the top, but maybe 100 kilometers in, things got rocky. Literally and figuratively. I'm not sure whose decision it was to "pave" large portions of the trail with big chunks of volcanic rock, but it was a bad one. Makes climbing very hard on the feet and ankles.

At the summit! And still standing!

Four and a half hours after we started, we had huffed, puffed, snacked, gasped, tripped (me), and hauled our way to the top. The top of Hallasan sits in what seems to be a perma-cloud, and a chilly rain was falling during the final portion of our ascent. It stopped when we reached the summit, though, and the cloud even cleared away long enough for us to get a few pictures of the volcanic crater-like hole in the top of the mountain (which does not, by the way, look anywhere near as cool as it does in photos that they use to advertise trips to Jeju). The glassy lake that I was expecting was more like a muddy puddle, and the summit was so crammed with other hikers, they were nearly all you could see besides the cloud that we were in. Oh yeah, and the crows lurking around, hoping I'd drop some of my lunch. Fat chance, birds. Even if I had dropped part of it, at that point I'd probably have fought them to get it back. We stayed there for about half an hour, then began our descent.

I did not expect that the way back down would be even more difficult than the climb up. Our legs were already fatigued, and the rain had made all of those rocks very slippery. It's a real miracle that I got down the mountain without breaking something critical, like my arm or face. But we did finally make it to the bottom, stumbled our way to the car, drove to Jeju City, and found a nicer-than-usual love motel with decent pillows to rest our exhausted, aching bodies.

It may have been painful, but as we flew home the following morning, I was quite happy to have finally climbed The Highest Mountain in Somewhere. Good thing, too, as that "happy feeling" stuck with me all week, making even the set of stairs to my classroom seem like an almost insurmountable obstacle. It's probably not something I'll do again, but at least I can tick it off the bucket list. Hike the highest mountain in Korea: Check!

Learning: It's what schools are for

Disclaimer: These are really just my own ideas from personal observation during 11 months of teaching in Korea and having completed K-12 in the American public school system. (Back in the 80s-90s, admittedly. It’s entirely possible that U.S. schools have already adopted some of these suggestions, but I doubt it.) The list is far from exhaustive, the ideas are not studied or polled, and they are far from scientifically proven. In addition, it should be noted that I, myself, am about as far form being an expert in this area as I can be. I am also an extremely talented bullshitter. Take that as you will.

What American schools can learn form Korean schools:

• Metal lunch trays. Yes, they conduct heat and you sometimes burn your hand, but kids learn pretty quickly. And they are the most durable things EVER. Buy them once and you’re set until doomsday. Plus no questionable plastic-y chemical content!
• Give students an hour break for lunch. Encourage them to play soccer or badminton (or something a bit more American) when they finish eating. It’s like recess for middle and high school students, and it’ll keep them from being so fat.
• At the end of each day, have students clean the classrooms themselves. It teaches them responsibility and helps them feel some ownership of their environment. Theoretically (key word there), this means they will take better care of the school.
• Turns out uniforms aren’t such a bad idea. I would’ve hated them as a student, but they really do level the playing field a bit.
• Require more formal respect for teachers and authority in general. Small acts of formalized respect provide a far less serious line for rebellious students to cross when they feel like testing their limits.
• Require every student to study a foreign language, beginning in early elementary school when they have a better chance of becoming fluent. The fact that we are lucky enough to have been born speaking the international lingua franca is no excuse for willful ignorance of other languages and cultures. Also, studying a foreign language helps students better understand their own language and culture.
• OMG, we had some seriously crappy and generally unhealthy school lunches compared to Korean schools. Work on it.

What Korean schools can learn from American schools:

• Have professional cleaners come in at least a couple of times per semester. Honestly, the kids just don’t cut it in the long run.
• Never require uniforms that consist of plaid pants and striped shirts/jackets. It’s just not right.
• Encourage your students to question authority, find their own answers and problem-solve. (This can be done in a respectful and productive manner. We just have to teach them how.) Creative, free-thinking adults are much more beneficial to society than memorization robots.
• 14 hours of school per day, plus occasional Saturdays, is just too much. Give them time to be children (and pre-teens, and teenagers). That way they’ll be ready to actually be adults when the time comes.
• I’m pretty sure it actually takes less energy to heat/cool a room and then keep it at that temperature than it does to constantly turn the heat/air conditioning on and off all day. It also helps to keep the temperature in the hallways regulated as well, so there’s not a blast of cold/hot air to fight every time a student opens the classroom door (which is very often). Even if all that’s not true, it most certainly does not help to have the windows open while you’re running said heat/air conditioning.
• Students who are not sweating or freezing tend to pay attention better during their lessons. And teachers teach better. And we all think better.

So this is what death tastes like....

Because my last post on food garnered such interest, I am here to entertain you with yet another food-related adventure. Ladies and gentlemen, I tried 홍어 (hongeo) last night.

To be fair, I was unknowingly tricked into trying it. I had heard of this food-horror before, and had planned to do my very best to avoid it at all costs. However, Koreans are sneakier than I had imagined.

My head co-teacher and her husband decided that Paul and I needed to be exposed to the most traditional Korean meal possible before we leave their beloved country, and the other English teachers were brought along. We hopped in the car and rode to what is unquestionably the most beautiful restaurant I have yet seen in Korea. We had a traditionally decorated room to ourselves, floor-chairs with backs to them (hooray!), and our own hanbok-clad hostess who took very good care of us waygooks the entire night. In the midst of this beautifully presented, tasty meal of more traditional Korean dishes than I could count, there appeared a three-part dish of steamed pork, kimchi and what looked to be a variety of fairly standard raw fish. The hostess put a slice of the fish on top of a slice of pork with a piece of kimchi in between and placed the protein sandwich on my little dish. I was worried about fitting the whole thing into my mouth, but that should have been the last thing on my mind. As I chewed, I discovered that this fish, whatever variety it was, was riddled with a strange kind of cartilage-bone that, while not quite as gag-inducing as other bony fish, was nevertheless quite unpleasant. And then it hit me. The overpowering, throat-searing, nostril-tingling, eye-watering sensation that someone had slipped one of those pink urinal cakes into my food, only without the chemical-flowery smell that normally goes with it. It was like chewing on a bony bottle of old-school desk cleaner. The ammonia taste and smell was overpowering. I have never swallowed such an enormous lump of food in such a hurry. It’s a wonder it didn’t get stuck and scorch a hole in my esophagus. Probably the only thing that saved me was the large quantity of makgoelli that I immediately poured down my throat.

I do not pee. I am a freak.

홍 어, as it turns out, is fermented skate meat. Skates (along with rays and sharks) apparently don’t pee. No kidneys, no bladder. They just excrete their waste through their skin. That means that when you ferment skate (or ray, or shark) meat, you end up with the equivalent of fish soaked in concentrated urine (ammonia). Now, who in their right mind decides to willingly eat that a second time, let alone feed it to unsuspecting Westerners?

Other than that little side show, the meal was quite lovely. The food was enjoyable, the company was good, and the conversation flowed as best it could between parties who don’t share a native language (rice wine is a very nice conversational lubricant). I guess it had to come with some little unpleasant shock, or I might risk being lulled into a false sense of security.

I have another English teachers’ dinner on Thursday with my visiting school. I’m rather hoping for a proper raw fish dinner. I will gladly eat multiple plates full of wiggling live octopus before I ever touch 홍어 again.

A cuisine without cheese

Happy Tuesday! Also know as Lesson Planning Fail Day #2. Seriously, if anyone has seen my motivation frolicking past their window, please net it and return it to me ASAP. This is getting bad.

So today, rather than getting a jump on next semester, I’ve been compiling my thoughts on food in Korea (among other activities that might fall into the procrastination category). The first question to tackle was where to start. I can’t possibly cover it all, so you’ll just get a dose of what I’ve eaten (or just observed) over my time here so far.

First, we’ll start with some basic facts about Korean food and eating customs.

• Koreans eat for health rather than taste. Well, maybe they would say they also eat for taste, but Koreans’ taste has been developed over thousands of years to favor things that are at least believed to be good for you. Foods are recommended based on how they will benefit your health rather than how delicious they are. So when I’m eating too much of that fried vegetable pancake, I’m told that “Caity, there are more nutritious things on the table.” That’s why they’re all so thin.
• Kimchi and rice with every meal. Kimchi is one of the numerous little vegetable side dishes that come with every Korean meal. But, unlike the other banchan, kimchi possesses miraculous superpowers that may not just be limited to the health arena. Not long after my arrival in Korea, there was a cabbage shortage that was considered a national crisis. That’s how seriously they take their kimchi here. And no meal is complete without rice. If you haven’t eaten rice yet, your meal is not finished. There will be at least one more course, so save room. There’s also usually soup with every meal, which helps with the no-water thing.
• Eating is a communal activity. Always. It is very rare to see Koreans do anything alone, most of all eating. If you have a snack, you share it. Relationships are built over food (and drink), and the quickest way for a native English teacher to ruin his or her relationship with a co-teacher is to not partake in lunch or snack time with everyone else. Everything is always served family style, so everyone eats the same thing. The question is not “Where shall we go for lunch?” but “What shall we eat for lunch?” This dictates where you shall go, as the majority of restaurants (with the exception of the Kimbap Nara and its counterparts) only serve one thing. This fact is also the main reason that waygooks frequently find themselves in tough spots – you’re expected to eat what everyone else is eating, or risk insulting every Korean in the entire restaurant.
• Manners. Rice goes on the left. Rice that is set to the right is reserved for the dead. Naturally I was eating somebody’s ancestor’s rice for at least a month at lunch before someone clued me in to this one. Never finish the side dishes unless you intend to eat more, as this means that you weren’t given enough to eat, and your dish will keep getting refilled. No Clean Plate Club here. Never pour your own drink, and always hold your glass with both hands as someone pours for you. When drinking with elders (that’s anyone who’s at all older than you), turn your head away as you drink. Offer to refill your elder’s drink when their glass is empty, and do so with both hands.
• Creativity. Even after six months, I continue to be surprised by things that are set on the table in front of me. Koreans eat things it would never even occur to Westerners to eat. Some of this may have been born of necessity in years past, but I have no idea why some of these foods persist in the modern Korean diet. Examples: leaves that belong on trees rather than in my salad, bugs in various stages of their life cycles, fish that are so tiny they must be eaten whole and in piles (how do they even make nets small enough to catch those things??)

So, in that context, here are some things about Korean cuisine that stand out in my mind:

• Seafood. Koreans eat a TON of seafood, and it’s incredibly cheap compared to Western prices. This is a peninsular nation, and they will eat anything with which Poseidon doth bless their nets (or whoever the traditional Korean sea-god is). The thing is, lover of seafood that I am, it is still my opinion that there are things in the sea that just aren’t meant to be eaten. Sometimes it seems that someone just scraped the bottom of the sea with a giant plastic bucket and dumped it all into my soup. Koreans are also loathe to remove the bones from their fish, a fact that causes me more trouble than anything else about eating in this country (*gag*).
• Love affair with seaweed. Seafood is not limited to creatures. I have seen more varieties of seaweed sold on the street than I even knew existed before I got here. Recently I was introduced to seaweed-flavored jellies. No sugar - they're not like candy – just an extra-firm, rectangular jelly with seaweed flavor in it. I rather resent them for their deceptively candy-like packaging. This came right after the seaweed soup we had for lunch that contained a variety of seaweed which strongly resembled the stringy algae one finds floating on a small, stagnant pond. Lukewarm pond water with little rice balls floating in it. It didn't taste too bad, so I just tried not to look at it. I’ve actually become a pretty big fan of other varieties of seaweed soup, as well as kim.
• Obsession with fresh food. Koreans like everything to be as fresh as it can possibly be. Frozen and prepackaged foods are looked down upon as extremely unhealthy. Yes, this is reminiscent of Western attitudes, but Koreans actually follow through on these views. Fish are bought from squirming buckets-full on the street and vegetables with dirt still clinging to them. Many dishes are brought to the table uncooked, and you get to do the grilling/boiling yourself, just so you know it’s really, really fresh. The most infamous of the super-fresh foods is raw octopus. No, not just raw, but still squirming on the plate. You might think that after a while, when the tentacle pieces have stopped moving, it might be safe to eat. But as soon as you touch that slimy mass with your chopsticks, it starts writhing all over again. And detaching the suckers from the plate is a challenge all to itself. This is usually served as part of a larger raw seafood meal including everything from white fish to as-yet-unidentified shellfish.
• Regular meat is as expensive as seafood is cheap. This makes sense, given that Korea has little, um, ranchable land (add that to your dictionaries). However, some of the ways they work around this – well, one way in particular – is disturbing and puzzling to the average American: Spam. Now, I’m sure this lovely Spam eating trend probably started around the time of the Korean War (see #5 here for a similar story), but unlike Guam, Korea most definitely has a native cuisine to embrace. They also, at least these days, have plenty of money to spend on things other than meat product. So why, in Korea, does Spam come in gift sets and cost at least twice what it does in the U.S.? Perhaps some insight can be gained from #1 in the previously mentioned article, but I’m not completely convinced.
• The almighty sweet potato. Forget yams, there are more kinds of sweet potato than I could have ever imagined, and they are all eaten with gusto here in Korea. They also turn up in rather unexpected places, like on pizza, in cakes and in milkshakes and lattes.

Given all of these, um, challenging foods, the majority of which I have eaten at some point, it’s a miracle that I’ve only had a couple of meals that I’ve really had to choke down (both of which involved fish bones). This is in stark contrast to the experiences of many of my friends here, so perhaps I’ve just been lucky. And yes, there are many foods here that I genuinely enjoy, but they'd make for a rather boring blog post, now wouldn't they? All things considered, when I get back to the States, I doubt I’ll be rabidly tracking down Korean food. Some bean fish, cinnamon pancakes or kimchi might be nice once in a while for nostalgia’s sake, but you won’t see me hanging out in the Korean groceries of McLean or Centerville sniffing out the best dried squid to go with my beer and peanuts. You might find me at Spa World, though – a Korean institution I am quite glad I won’t have to leave behind.

A month of catching up

First, we’re all still alive down here in Gwangju, and aside from the few who were killed in Yeonpyeong, so is pretty much everyone else in Korea. Kim Jong Crazy still has his thumb above the button, not on it, and despite the tough talk, everyone seems to be exercising some measure of restraint. My students got over it a few days later, and there’s been little talk of it since, except on the news. Pray it stays that way.

So, a rundown of what I’ve been up to recently (and not-so-recently, you know, because I’m behind):

Nov. 6  Went hiking up Mudeung Mountain. I would like to say that I hung back with the kids who were getting over a cold because I was being nice and wanted to make sure they were ok. In reality, I just couldn’t hack that hike. I will be back to conquer you later, mountain.

Nov. 7  Visited the Biennale on the final day before it closed until the next one in 2012. Apparently the one here in Gwangju was Asia’s first contemporary art biennale. Interesting and surprisingly edgy stuff. One exhibit included front pages from newspapers published around the world on Sept. 12, 2001. Fascinating to see the varying international coverage.

Nov. 11  Veterans’ Day, also know in Korea as Pepero Day. Americans commemorate the end of World War I (Tom Nelson, if you’re reading this, I still remember that trench you made us dig) and thank the veterans who have fought to protect us. Koreans swap boxes of stick-shaped cookies dipped in chocolate because, um, 11/11 looks like four sticks of the stuff. And we complain about Valentine’s Day being created by the card companies! Also, my president was in Seoul for the G-20 summit. I watched him on TV.

Nov. 23  Giant box of Christmas goodness, including the necessary ingredients for pumpkin pie, arrived at my desk. And there was much rejoicing.

Nov. 25  Thanksgiving Day. Went to school; taught my students about Thanksgiving, complete with the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving Special. Went to Korean class; struggled. Yep, that’s pretty much it. They don’t do turkeys in Korea. Unless you’re really dedicated and have an oven and other such bourgeois contraptions. I am not and do not.

Nov. 26  Accepted that I was coming down with a cold. Also, decorated the apartment for Christmas.

Nov. 30  Box of cheese arrived from home. I now have sharp cheddar, haloumi, havarti with dill, and edam. My refrigerator is complete.

Dec. 1  Following much urging from all of the Koreans around me, I finally gave in and went to the doctor. He gave me a shot in the ass and mystery miracle pills. I felt worlds better. This is why Koreans don’t take sick days – why would you stay home and be miserable when you could go to the doctor and get a string of medication for less than 5 USD that makes you feel as healthy as a strung-out horse?

Yay for kebabs!

Dec. 3-5  A large crew from Gwangju piled on a bus and headed to Seoul for a fantabulous Western-style Christmas dinner. I had resolved not to eat a bite of Korean food the entire weekend, and I succeeded. Beginning with dinner on Friday, I ate Chinese food, greasy bar food, a total of three kebabs (the Turkish version of gyros), waffles, a full and proper Christmas dinner (TURKEY!!!), Italian food, and a roasted veggie sandwich. We also finished up our Christmas shopping and did some drinking and dancing. We love Seoul; we will be back.

On a more informative note, it’s hard to believe that such a vibrant, modern metropolitan city is just 30 miles from the flailing economy, starving population, extremely restrictive censorship and general backwardness of North Korea. It’s also surprising just how different Seoul is from Busan, the second largest city, let alone from Gwangju and other cities I’ve visited in the south of the country. It just has an entirely different feel to it. If you’re at all interested, this is a fantastic article on Seoul’s rising.

Dec. 6  Pictures from Seoul were posted on Facebook. I resolved to buy a scale and eat more Korean (read: healthy and super low-cal) food. Just because I know where to find Western food now doesn’t mean I should be eating it all the time. Maybe start exercising? Nah…..

Dec. 7  Today I finally figured out what it is that I’ve been drinking LOADS of in school every day since the weather turned cold: Solomon’s Seal tea. Apparently it’s good for sports injuries, broken bones, gastrointestinal issues, menopause, PMS, blood pressure, coughing and mental clarity. Just call me Super Woman.

Settling in

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been teaching in Gwangju for over a month, and been in Korea for over 6 weeks. I think I’m settling in quite nicely, especially since our ARCs (Alien Registration Cards) finally made a long-delayed and much-anticipated debut. Without them, none of the new batch of EPIK teachers could secure cell phones or regular internet service. We burned ridiculous amounts of time waiting for each other every time we met, hoping that last person who said they’d show up hadn’t gotten so severely lost we’d never see him/her again. Sometimes people would finally find their way after we’d left the meeting spot, and, well, sucked for them. Now we can finally function like normal people and just call someone when we’re late and/or lost. Yay for emergence from the dark ages of communication!

My phone, complete with requisite dangly bits (bus pass and screen poker thing). Next: internet.

On the same day we got the news about our ARCs, I also received a ginormous care package in the mail from Mom & Dad. [Insert Happy Dance here.] In it was a collection of winter clothing, much needed as the weather has suddenly turned cool; six boxes of Jiffy corn muffin mix (now I just need a muffin pan and an oven); a couple dozen Lara bars; Darn Good Chili mix and requisite tomato paste; tea cookies; some decent coffee; a few styling products so I can continue to fight the good fight against my hair; and other useful goodies (mainly aimed at the Woman Who Never Learned to Breathe Properly). Now that my winter boots and poofy coat are at the ready and my pantry is properly stocked, I feel that I can take on whatever Korean life has to throw at me this winter. There’s also a care package of Korean items going to the family pretty soon. Its contents won’t be nearly as useful, but they will be infinitely more interesting!

There are other signs that I am settling in well. I’m developing a taste for things I would go out of my way to avoid in the States. For example, K-pop, the ubiquitous Korean pop music that I hear on the streets and that my students sing at me every day. Here’s one of their favorites:

I am far more tolerant of sparkly things, shiny things, brightly colored things and things decorated with cutesy patterns and pictures. Hell, I’ve even voluntarily bought some of these things. I have also come to the realization that I actually crave kimchi when I go a day without it. And sometimes even between meals that do include kimchi. Is kimchi becoming my new yogurt? Is it even possible to be as obsessive about kimchi as I was/am about yogurt?? I’ll be curious to see whether these new tastes & habits will stick when I go back home, or if I will gradually readjust to my previous preferences.

Brie and the tastiest crackers/cookies ever

My preference for.…er….love affair with cheese has not changed, though. I’ve just had to scale back my intake. I can find it – within just 5 minutes of my apartment! – but it’s ridiculously expensive. The Home Plus charges 10,000 won for a rather small amount of mediocre brie, but I bought it anyway. Mmmmm, cheese.

[For more amusing musings about things we Westerners must adjust to in Korea, check out my friend's post.]

DC in Korea

Well, the English teachers’ meeting that I was so worried about turned out to be more of a welcome dinner. We talked a bit about school, my teaching and the kids, but mostly it was light, fun conversation over seemingly endless plates of very tasty foods. There were two entire plates with nothing but different kinds of mushrooms! The Korean love for mushrooms is an affection after my own heart. All in all, it was a lovely time. And it made me appreciate even more what fantastic co-teachers I have. I knew as much – certainly in comparison with some of the stories of frustration and difficulty that some of my fellow teachers have had right off the bat – but I genuinely enjoy them as people, and we seem to get along fairly comfortably. I’m sure we’ll have our share of miscommunication and some frustrating situations down the road, but I’m equally sure we’ll get through it without too much difficulty. And I have a shopping date with the two younger women after pay day – yay! What better way to solidify a relationship than over a clothes wrack? Except perhaps over a bowl of some unknown fermented fruit-type Korean alcohol….but why not both??

However, in order to plan any sort of shopping outing, I need to get a reasonable budget lined up, and that includes cutting back on spending on things like coffee (*wince*). God help me, I just spent the approximate equivalent of $18 on a tub of Folgers. There is better coffee to be had, but it comes in tiny packets that only last about a week, and I’m sure the cost would add up to waaaay more than what I just paid for that Folgers. I’m so glad I found that coffee shop up the street: Kenya Coffee, Enjoy our espresso coffee, Sweet-Smelling like devils temptation and hot like hell fire. I’m serious – that’s what’s on their napkins. But that adds up, too. Hopefully the Folgers will last.

On the same grocery run that landed me the Folgers, I also bought pine tree flavored toothpaste. It makes my mouth taste like Christmas – even after I’ve rinsed with Listerine. An odd sensation, but kind of fun.

This morning I watched coverage of the DC mayoral race – including the speculation of whether Schools Chancelor Michelle Rhee will stay or go – on the news. Yes, the Korean news. It appears that DC’s local news is not only national news, it’s international news. Now if only I could find it in English without having to track down an internet connection!

In another odd DC tie-in, I got my first electric bill today. The electric company here is called KEPCO. Here’s hoping it’s a far cry from PEPCO when it comes to actual operating practices.

I love Tuesdays

Tuesdays are the best day of the week. I only have to teach two classes and they're both small and with my favorite co-teacher. That means I have the rest of the day for lesson planning!  Or productive procrastination (a.k.a. blogging), as the case would be today. Lucky you.

This particular Tuesday is made even better by the fact that last night I bought a bus ticket to Busan for Chuseok. Things to do while I’m there: spend time on the beach, find a decent pedicure (maybe try out those little fishies they have here?), see some of the awesome people I met at orientation who live in places other than Gwangju.

Chuseok rice cakes

What is Chuseok? You'd probably do better to click on the link in the previous paragraph, but I'll give you a quick rundown here. It's basically Korean Thanksgiving - a first harvest festival during which everyone gets together with their families and eats a specially prepared meal. It's tied to the lunar calendar, and is apparently happening quite early this year. The good news for me: I get almost an entire week off of school and get fed yummy little sesame & honey-filled rice cakes every time I turn around.

This week's lesson plan for grade 3 is about praise, condolences and encouragement. The most amusing part of these lessons, to me, is the fact that my students pronounce “cheer up” and “shut up” in almost exactly the same way. It's tough to imagine unless you've become intimately familiar with Konglish (Englishee, pinishee, Home Plus-uh), but trust me, it's all I can do to keep a straight face. I tried addressing this after I noticed it in my first class, but it doesn't seem to make much difference. They think it's funny that I allow them to say "shut up" in a classroom context, and can repeat the words properly after me. But as soon as we go back to the lesson, it's back to,
"My goldfish died yesterday."
"Shut up!"
Caity Teacher's lack of skills might be showing here.

Toilet buttons

And now for your occasional dose of TMI, re: Korean bathrooms. Korean bathrooms can be anywhere from completely primitive to super fancy. In one of the expat bars, there is but one restroom for everyone, and it’s so small that when you’re washing your hands, you’ve practically got your elbow in the back of the guy taking a leak at the urinal. Awkward. On the other hand, Koreans like to technologize everything (shut up, it’s a word now), including their restrooms. For instance, you can frequently find toilet seats with more buttons than I can imagine functions that a toilet seat should have. Along with the buttons are little illustrative pictures involving naked behinds, but I’m still not brave enough to try any of them. At school (and other places), when you walk into the bathroom, music automatically begins to play – perhaps to ease your restroom-related anxieties? Today’s selection was the morning-calm-after-the-storm section of the William Tell Overture. I often wonder if it will turn off if I sit still in there long enough, or if it senses when I leave and then shuts off. When you sit down, the toilet makes a little tinkling sound. I found this highly confusing at first, as I was quite sure I hadn’t used the restroom yet, but what was that sound? It still freaks me out a bit, but I’m sure it serves some useful purpose for anxious Koreans. All of this fancy, and there’s still rarely any toilet paper to be found and most of the stalls have squatties instead of seats. Go figure.

My most recent struggle with Korean culture has been with my co-teachers planning meetings in which I am a major component (if not the actual reason for the meeting) without consulting me or my schedule. They just come to me and say, “Caity, we have English teachers’ meeting on Wednesday after classes.” No, I didn’t have any plans, thank you (actually I did). Good thing I was told in advance to expect this or I would be HOT. I know they’re just trying to arrange things and make everything easy for me, and it’s my job to show up at these meetings, but it’s a little difficult for me not to look at this hijacking of my schedule as slightly rude. Yet another example of why it’s important to keep a proper perspective while I’m here. Caitlin might not have been ok with this sort of thing, but dammit, Caity Teacher can handle it!

Small victories

I begin this post with much good news and rejoicing:

1. I have hot water! Woohoo! After more than a week of bracing myself for a cold shower every morning, I no longer face the somewhat ineffectual task of shaving my legs while I have goose bumps. I'm told the gas company didn't want to turn on the gas because they think my landlord is a troublemaker (at least that's how my co-teacher put it to me). I have no idea what changed their minds, but I'm not arguing.
2. On Saturday, I successfully rode not only the bus, but also the subway, to my destination with no problems whatsoever. Score one for me! This may not sound like a big deal, but considering the fact that (a) I am directionally challenged, (b) I have not been able to get my hands on a bus or subway map, in English or Korean, (c) bus signs in English are few and far between, and (d) if I get lost, I may or may not spend hours trying to find someone who can help me get back home....it's a big effing deal. I'm so proud.

The subway is quite nice. I thought perhaps we Washingtonians rag on Metro too much, but the Gwangju subway sets a shining example to be aspired to. It's fairly new and there's only one line, but it's well-lit, well labeled and freakishly clean. My only complaint is that the automated voice doesn't seem to know her left from her right when instructing people in English on which side the doors will be opening. There are boutique shops, food shops, bank branches and plenty of other shops I'm sure I haven't seen yet. Oooh. Aaaah. I wish I lived closer to the subway.

My bus and subway journey on Saturday began an evening of ups and downs, including:
Up: Arriving at my destination unflapped and on time.
Down: Screwing up the bus thing again this afternoon, despite my earlier success (Yes, that's a jump in the timeline, but this isn't about chronology, it's about ups & downs). 
Up: Seeing a "Mexican" restaurant on the way to our movie night at someone's apartment.
Down: Discovering that "Mexican" just meant some sort of fried chicken. The Americans were crestfallen. The Brits didn't care.
Up: Purchasing and naming 6 Russian hamsters that are now living with my friend (Twinkles, Fat Dave, Hector, Speedy Gonzalez, Haile Selassie and Mr. Kim).
Down: Oh, who am I kidding? There's no down for this one. Hamsters are CUUUUTE.

Another teacher and I were discussing this afternoon that it doesn't quite seem like we're living in the real world. I mentioned before that it feels somewhat like being back in college again, but that doesn't quite capture it. In the land of limbo, where we will never quite fit in, you can purchase Russian hamsters for 3,000 won (a little less than $3) each and the cutest, fuzziest bunnies you've ever seen for just 6,000 won. As foreigners, we get to make our own mix of social rules -- a cocktail of British, American, Irish, Canadian, South African and South Korean -- while taking liberties with the surrounding culture by playing the foreigner card. In addition, logic never really made its debut in Korea, so the rules that we play by in the west don't always apply here. Gravity, yes. Aristotelian logic? I think not. Aristotle didn't make it this far. So it's important never to say, "That doesn't make sense." It will never make sense. Just accept it and move on. This alone will keep you sane. However, I do like that Koreans put much more stock in emotions where Westerners tend to ignore them and then suffer the consequences in the long run. I'm sure there's a place where a perfect balance of both logic and emotion are used in decision-making, but I have yet to find that happy little spot.  Humans probably don't live there, anyway.

It's also odd to be living in what functionally amounts to a community of about 200 people, give or take.  Perhaps more if you add in the hagwon teachers, but that's the approximate number of us EPIKers. I feel like I've already met a huge portion of the group of people who will comprise my entire social life for the next year. DC is small town, but not this small. If I screw up with these people, I am socially screwed. At least until August 2011. It's a sobering and somewhat worrisome thought.

Realization of the weekend: All of my students' praise is having an unfortunate effect on me. Now, when a nice young man tells me that I’m very pretty, my immediate reaction is, “You sound like my students.” Picturing overeager Korean ‘tweens every time I’m paid a compliment is surely is not going to be good for my dating life. At least most of the people who have said/will say that to me (outside of the classroom and in English) probably have their own students and understand.

Tomorrow begins my first day of real lessons. No more fun and easy PowerPoint about me, my family and my city.  Lesson planning takes me forever right now, to say nothing of whether the material I come up with is any good. I surely hope I can knock things out a lot faster in the near future.

Shingwang Middle School

In the mornings, I walk about 5 minutes up to my school in high heels, just like everyone else.  But I now know the reason why Korean women can stand to walk around the streets in their heels all day: they don't wear them at work!  Just inside the front door of my school (as in Korean homes, most restaurants and some offices) is a large cabinet of shoe cubbies.  I pop my heels into the cubby with my name on it and put on a pair of nice, comfy sandals, which they call slippers here.  My first day, I just wore the slippers with bare feet, but I noticed that everyone else was wearing tiny socks or stockings (hence the abundance of cute sockies that I see in stores everywhere).  That night I went to the Home Plus and picked up my own pair.  So now I have Korean feet, if nothing else about me fits in!

Grades are divided by school, rather than in consecutive grade levels as in the US.  Thus, I teach middle school grades 1-3 (elementary school includes grades 1-6 and high school has 1-3).  My students are anywhere from 11 to 14 years old, as Koreans count age differently than we do in the West.  They basically count the time that you are in the womb as one year, so you are one year old when you are born.  Then you add a year to your age not on your birthday, but on each New Year's day.  I would be turning 30 this New Year's in Korean age, so I will be sticking with my western age, thankyouverymuch.

I have a desk and a computer in the grade 2 teachers office, which all of the grade 2 teachers share.  I'm not sure if the male teachers have a different office, or if all of the grade 2 teachers are women, but it's all women right now.  The office also serves as a break room for students between classes, where they can get a drink of water from communal cups, wash their hands, and bother their new English teacher.  They peer at my computer screen to see what I'm working on, not that they can understand any of it. (Though to their credit, they have a far better idea of what's going on with my Korean operating system than I do. Once again, thank God for pictures where they appear.)  Some of them come to me several times a day with new questions, to brag about something ("I've been to the US," "I'm a fighting champion!" or "I am number one in the class!"), or to tell me something (usually uncomplimentary) about one of their friends ("She's a pig!" "He's crazy!").  This is far better than when they try to brag to me as I walk by to check on them in the middle of class, when they're supposed to be doing group work or something of the like.  The compliment of the day today seems to be "pretty eyes!"  Koreans all have brown eyes, and I can just imagine them talking to each other in the hallways, telling each other to go check out the new English teacher with the freaky green eyes.  I haven't had the question yet myself, but other native English teachers are often asked (by elementary students the most) whether they see green or blue because of their eye color.

With the exception of classes that require a special classroom, such as music or P.E., students stay in one room and the teachers rotate around.  I tried this, but since my Mac doesn't hook up to the projectors to allow me to use PowerPoint (I need a special adapter and I'm not even going to try to get that question translated at the electronics store), I have adopted the English Lab as my own classroom.  It's a very nice room, with a retractable screen, a desktop computer, lots of pictures and English quotations, a huge white board, and plenty of English-language books and DVDs.  The back of the class has a huge English map and a couple of couches.  The room is called the "English Only Zone", though that doesn't seem to keep the students from speaking Korean in my classes anyway.

Lunch seems to be free.  At least, there's nowhere to pay for it in the cafeteria and no one has told me about setting up an account or anything yet, but perhaps that's coming.  Lunches always include a healthy mix of fruit & veggies with some sort of meat and rice. I always eat with the other teachers, as communal meals are very important for building relationships.  I need to work on making conversation more, as so far I've been spending most of my lunch listening to incomprehensible conversations going on around me and trying my best not to flip some sort of saucy food into my lap with my chopsticks.  One of my co-teachers has taken to handing me a napkin (or a facial tissue, which is what they use here) as soon as I sit down.  I guess it didn't take me long to make a messy impression.  Everyone brushes their teeth after lunch, which is a nice habit, but it's kind of funny to see the kids walking down the halls with toothbrushes hanging out of their mouths.  They try to say hello to me as I pass anyway, which comes out somewhat garbled with toothpaste.  Most days after eating lunch, I am invited to someone's classroom for (instant and overly sweet) coffee and some halting English conversation.

I wonder if I'll be so popular once the novelty wears off.....

Never underestimate the importance of pictures

I made it!  Safely, soundly and surprisingly uneventfully.  My international flight experiences are never so simple and smooth, so I'm probably in for it on the trip home.  In the mean time, I'm just thankful that both I and my luggage made it through more than 30 straight hours of travel in one piece.  And without going completely stir crazy.

I've already had my first run-in with cultural differences.  When we boarded the buses to take us from Incheon/Seoul airport to Jeonju for orientation, 8 volunteers were requested to help load luggage on the bus.  I hopped up and went to take my place in the luggage-loading assembly line, at which point the Korean coordinator came up to me and told me that I was the first lady ever to volunteer for that job.  I'm not sure whether that was a nice way of saying "Ladies can't carry luggage" or "You're bucking the system" or if he was simply making an observation.  Either way, it seems I've already overstepped the traditional Korean boundaries for women.  That didn't take long.

I am currently at Jeonju University for a week of orientation, where I will presumably learn how to teach Korean kiddies and survive in a country where I am, at least for now, functionally illiterate.  I have never been so grateful for the little pictures that accompany the words on signs before.  Want to claim your bags at the airport?  Follow the little picture of a suitcase.  Want to find the stairwell rather than wait on the elevator?  Follow the sign with a man running up stairs.  If it weren't for these things, I would be unable to complete the most mundane of everyday tasks (or it would take me two to three times as long).  Case in point: the a/c unit in our room.  It can only be controlled with a remote control, which has no pictures.  We just press buttons until it does what we want it to (sort of.  It seems to only run for so long before it shuts itself off, leaving me to wake up gasping in a puddle of sweat.)  It's a strange feeling, not being able to read.  And even if I could read Hangul, I wouldn't know what any of the words meant.  I have a lot of studying ahead of me.

Upon arrival, we were handed gift bags with an EPIK towel and an alarm clock, both wrapped neatly in pretty paper; some snacks and water; and 3 books somehow related to Korean education and getting by in Korea, all of which I'm sure we'll have to read.  This won't be a lazy man's orientation week.

This is our room.  It's much nicer than I had expected.

I'm staying in a dorm with a large chunk of other EPIK teachers.  My roommate is from Canada, and so far I've also met teachers from South Africa, Ireland, England.....my accent-loving cup runneth over.

The Korean bathroom - no shower, just a shower area and drains in the floor.

One of the desk/storage areas

The view from our window (14th floor)

I know the placement's not so nice looking on those photos - I'm still learning the quirks of this bloggy thing.  And speaking of the internets, can anyone tell me how to make my Google searches show up in English???

Both meals we've had so far have been decent.  We're eating in the dorm cafeteria.  Kimchi, rice and some sort of tofu soup alongside canned peaches, strangely-colored scrambled eggs and slightly soggy toast.  I'm not sure if the eggs and toast are standard or if EPIK is just trying to make us feel more at home.  More kimchi, more rice, potatoes, sweet-ish pickles, macaroni salad, bulgogi, more soups and some slightly unusual-tasting yet yummy spaghetti at lunch.  And watermelon and peach tea - for the US southerners?  It seems they put a variety of vegetables in everything, regardless of what the traditional recipe calls for (see spaghetti, scrambled eggs and macaroni salad).  It also seems that no coffee or related drink (tea, coffee "beverages" in a can at convenience stores, etc.) comes with any less sugar than it takes to rot the teeth out of your head on the spot.  I skipped the chopsticks at breakfast but tackled them at lunch.  Koreans use metal chopsticks, which I find more difficult to manipulate than the wooden kind.  But I certainly won't starve, and there are the fork and spoon backups.

I'm off to the opening ceremonies now, map in hand, which is really just a big, complicated picture.