The Korea I Remember: Part I

A blogger whom I follow recently started a series of posts on her favorite photos from Korea (she too was a teacher) and it got me thinking about all the photos I love and all the people I miss, so I decided to post one of my own. Here are a few of my memories.

Taken at the city festival. More photos here.

The Sunrise Festival in Yeongduk where Koreans gather every year to watch the sun rise over the Pacific for the first time that year. Read the blog here.

Just some random photos I took of a hogwan I visited in Jeomchon. I really love the black and white startchiness of the photos and how empty the room is. So artsy!

More photos from the Jiksi Temple in Gimcheon here.

This was a traditional play put on at the Mask Dance Festival. I can't remember the whole story about these characters but they are noted people of Korean folk lore. Read the story of my adventure at the Mask Dance Festival in Andong here.

Again, traditional Korean wrestling (similar to sumo) from the mask dance festival.

Part of the Buddha's Birthday Lantern Festival Parade in Seoul. These ajummas (old married women) came out a bit blurry but I still love it. They make me think of evil ghosts (similar to the truth). Read more about the parade here. (This is also the first time I mention Jeremy by name in my blog!)

 

I once had the pleasure of attending a very intimate family gathering in Jeomchon for the Seollal (Lunar New Year) Festival. Families come home and give thanks to their ancestors at an alter filled with food from the harvest. It was really interesting and such a great opportunity! Read more about it here.



 To give my readers and idea of what my little mountain town was like, I posted a blog where I took everyone on a photographic walking tour. This little girl was just one of the many I saw and smiled at along the way. Read the story and see the sights here.

Munchang Teachers

Kim Dae Gyu is a really cool guy. He's a man of very few words but very kind, considerate and collected. He taught me how to play badminton and never let the boys get out of control in my class. I have very fond memories of teaching with him last year. This year, we only had one class together but it was good.

Kim Hong Gi is another really cool teacher. He was new to Munchang this year and we taught 5 classes together. When we first met, he flirted with me a lot but I was convinced he was married due to the nice watch he always wore (remember, most men get a nice watch instead of a ring when they marry), despite his insistence that he was single. It was really funny for a while and then I think it started to get to him and I gave up the fight. He really was single. lol. Anyway, we had some good times teaching and talking between classes. He always liked me but by the time we met I was committed elsewhere (Jeremy). But that doesn't mean Mr. Kim wasn't a valuable friend! There were a few times when I was having a bad day and would break down in tears at school and he would always be there for me. He would take over the class so I could go dry up and would always be supportive when I returned. We had a fight once about who was more embarrassed in class (I think I won) but through it all he was my friend. I will miss teaching with him.

Jun Mi Ja is by far my favorite of all my co-teachers. She is perhaps the kindest Korean I have ever known. She would always offer to drive me home after work because the school was so far away, would often help me get out of work early so I could catch a bus to Incheon, would always invite me to the school events, never forgot to tell me about the important dates, and was always there to explain the intricate Korean culture and customs. But I think one event stands out more than others as a testiment of Jun's character: I came down with food poisoning one day after eating some street vendor food and had to call in sick. But that night, Jun suprised me by showing up at my house with pizza from my favorite place along with salad and side dishes. She wanted me to get better and though she didn't know what American's ate when they were sick, she thought some western food would at least cheer me up. That is so typical of her. She would always do wonderful little things like that for me. I will miss her dearly. Teaching at Munchang was good, but undoubtedly so because of her.

The promised catch-up

Graduate School

So, I've been accepted to both of the universities I've applied to: The University of Queensland and The University of Technology, Sydney. Oh, what a pain though. UQ offers US federal student loans but UTS doesn't. UTS has a great Master's in Journalism program in a great city for media work and UQ's is just okay--UQ is in Brisbane and too far from the city center... The only way I can go to UTS is if I get a private student loan but alas! No bank lists UTS on their approved school list. The only two banks that do are not currently accepting applications (damn credit crunch!). So, I'm stuck. I just can't go to the school I want to and it really makes me mad. UQ is a good school and obviously affordable, but I just don't want to go there anymore... Since the ball dropped on student loans last week, I've discovered one more school that may fit: The University of Sydney--they give US federal aid and are actually in the same neighborhood as UTS. The only problem: their program is a Master's in Media Practice and not a Master's in Journalism. I'm not sure exactly what the difference is yet but so far it looks like 1/3 less classes... Will a Master's in Media Practice be a reputable degree for what I want to do? I'm not sure... At any rate, I've decided that I'm still moving to Australia. I'm going to get my work holiday visa and just work for a bit until I can figure this school stuff out. Instead of trying to start in February, I might just wait until July. Maybe the credit crisis will be over then and I can get a loan for the school I want to go to... Or maybe in that meantime/worktime I'll check out The University of Sydney and find it's a great school with great opportunities and I'll want to go there... Who knows.

Anyway, as long as I'm putting off school for a big, I might as well do a little more travelling before I buckle down with a job and stuff in AU. Here's my current thought: India-Pakistan-India-Sri Lanka-Thailand-Cambodia-Thailand-Malaysia-Singapore-Australia. I guess if I can't go back to school then I better spend my money elsewhere on something equally exciting! :)

Blog Business

I'm thinking about changing things up a bit... I realized the other day that my blog title and blog address are not the same (what was I thinking?) so I hurried up and snatched up the "twentyfirstcenturynomad" blog address and I'm thinking about moving things over there... I can't move everything as in old posts and photos, but I can make some links for past reading... I'm also thinking of switching from Picasa to Flickr as my photo sharing provider. Has anyone else made a similar move? What do you find to be Flickr's benefits and pitfalls? The big hassle and annoying part is that if I want to move my Picasa photos to Flickr, I will have to download each individual photo and re-upload them to Flickr. Bahh! That will take FOREVER!! Should I bother?

English Camp

Oi! Two weeks of 14 hour work days!! I can't believe I did three weeks of this stuff back in January! Camp went well. As always, I made some new friends with some really lovely foreigners though I won't lie and say that every day was happy. There were some cranky teachers that second week who really didn't want to participate! But I understand. We were all tired and just ready to go home. Looking back at my pictures though, I've realized we had some good times. The first week was a little challenging because my team was pretty quiet but they pulled off a first place win in EVERY competition and by the end of the week, I'd like to think they made friends with each other. The second week was MUCH better and the kids worked really well together. We didn't win a thing though. In fact, we were constantly placed last. Oh well. Lucky for me it never broke their spirits and they had fun anyway. I didn't take any photos from the second week because I got too tired to lug around my camera and it was too hot to work so hard, but I do have photos from week 1. Enjoy!!

Summer Classes

Now that camp is over, I get to teach two summer classes for one and a half weeks. The pros: provided curriculum and small classes (one with 10 students and one with 4). The cons: the curriculum isn't amazing and I think the classes are too short (one hour). I really wish I had more time to really teach them something worthwhile and give them an opportunity to apply it. This curriculum is okay (it's not amazing) but it needs something more. There needs to be more activities and students need an opportunity to learn from context via deduction. This just doesn't offer anything more than scripted conversations. I really wish that Korean understood deductive learning. Everything taught here is by memorization. Seriously, what happens when these kids graduate or move to another country and can't speak or learn because there's no script for them? They need to learn on their own. Teachers need to teach kids to learn independently, not co-dependently. This is ultimately why I'm leaving Korea. But until I do, I have 5 more classes to teach. *Sigh*. At least this week is almost over!

Saying Goodbye

Two weeks ago, I left Munchang for good. My last two days there were filled with movie time with my boys and cleaning my desk. Saying goodbye to the teachers was okay but I realized I was definitely going to miss some of them. Jun has shown me true Korean hospitality and I am so grateful for everything she has done. None of my Korean teachers have ever gone out to dinner with me as a friend--no one except her. Saying goodbye was difficult. I also had to say goodbye to Kim Hong Gi--a co-teacher who has had a crush on me for a while. lol. He is a really nice man with golden patience. I can count on one hand the number of times I've broken down at work pre-Korea but once I came here, it happened a lot more often and unfortunately he got more of those breakdowns than anyone else. I am so glad he never judged me for it and was always gracious and attentive when it happened. I'm lucky to have had such good co-teachers.

I also had to say goodbye to Mr. Bak and another Mr. Jeong (I think that's his name!!). It was especially difficult to say goodbye to Mr. Bak. In the year that I've known him, we've hardly exchanged much at all because neither of us speaks the other's language, but we've somehow solidified a silent friendship over one commonality: photography. He is so amazing at it. Way better than me. He's a professional and he uses professional equipment. I'll never forget the first day we met; he was intrigued by my camera and wanted to show me his and his photos. I was immediately humbled. I don't want to sound too conceited, but I'm pretty much accustomed to being the best photographer in the room but when I saw his work, I was almost humiliated by my own. He's that good. Over the next few months, I taught him random Korean words and he would give me the thumbs up or thumbs down on my photos. He would bring in his camera and let me play around with his 300mm lens; I would bring in my fish eye and he would fool around with it. Then we went hiking with his kids back in March and I'll never forget what happened: his son fell off the waterfall, he fell in and both almost drowned with hypothermia. Saving their lives is the single most impactful and incredible thing I've ever done. I still feel a little lost on the subject most days. Knowing that you are responsible for someone else's life is indescribable. Sometimes it feels like a big secret--no one could ever understand or fully know the chain of events that day. No one will ever feel the divine the way we do when we think about what happened. On my last day at Munchang, I learned that he didn't even know how to swim. Mr. Bak said to me at lunch: "That day, I don't know swim. It is miracle." How can I put that into words? My skin crawled in the moment and every hair said a prayer of thanks. It really was a miracle. I also learned that he wanted me to come over to his house for dinner but when he asked his sons they started to cry--they didn't want to remember so the dinner was cancelled. I understand but I hope that one day they will be able to talk about it.

Near the end of my last day, I went to say goodbye to Mr. Bak in the music room and he greeted me with all of his new camera equipment. His English had improved so much from being my friend that he was able to tell me that he was sorry I had an Olympus camera and he had a Cannon; he wanted to let me borrow his equipment but everything was incompatible. Then he played me a song on his saxophone. I cried and everyone laughed. Oh well. Then he took me outside and took some photos. I probably looked like crap because I was still a little shaken but oh well. Then him and Mr. Jeong rushed me to the bus station because I was about to miss my ride to Incheon. We made it just in time and while I waited for the bus to pull away, they sat outside the whole time, waving to me. And just before it left, they disappeared momentarily and then reappeared on the bus with an ice cream of me. I was so moved. I balled the whole way to Incheon. Saying goodbye is a lot easier when people don't do nice things for you! But I'm happy they did. I will always have sweet memories of the teacher's at Munchang. They were a hard bunch to leave.

Moving on now...

I'm so tired of packing and cleaning. Today I scrubbed down my bedroom pretty good but it pretty much exhausted me and I still have two more rooms to do--the bathroom and kitchen. The bathroom isn't too bad--just a little pink mold--but the kitchen is another story. I'm honestly shocked. So, before I left for camp two weeks ago, I really cleaned my kitchen good. However, upon my return home Monday, I found TONS of mold on the walls, on the counter, on the floor, and I even found a ton of weevils crawling around on my counter! I don't know how they got there! I haven't left out any bread or wheat products. In fact, I didn't leave out anything! I'm really confused... To top it off, my sink faucet is leaking and dripping all over the counter and my sink, adding to the mold problem and ruining my sponges. Sometimes it's really hard to believe that this place was brand new when I moved in... To give you an idea of how bad the mold problem is here, I once found mold growing in a bottle of BLEACH water!! Can you believe that?! I'm pretty sure that the sooner I move out, the longer I'll live. Something unnatural is happening in that place...

Mung Yeoung Yo Go Hakkio Part 1

Mung Yeoung Yo Go Hakkio literally means "Yo-girls," "Go-high," "Hakkio-school."

These are my co-teachers at the girls school:

This is Ms Bae. She is just a couple years older than me and just started teaching here this year/semester. We sit next to each other in the teacher's office. We have lots of fun together. I think you can probably guess from her picture that she's really funny. Unfortunately for Bae, she has no place to live. She literally lives at the school. She sleeps in the female teacher's lounge. She eats every meal in the cafeteria. She uses the teacher's office for all of her personal computer needs. I often tease her that she's homeless... My hope is that when I leave, she can have my apartment and all it's furnishings. I'm going to miss her.

This is Mrs. Shin, whom I've recently started to complain about. We've had some rough times this semester. She used to be really nice to me but now I'm pretty sure her cool demeanor has a lot to do with jealousy. She is trapped in a marriage of convenience. She tries hard to make her husband happy but he's basically an ass and hardly ever wants to see her or his kids. So she stays in Jeomchon and sees her husband occasionally on the weekend. Her two sons are little monsters and they exhaust her to no end. She never has any time for herself because when she's not caring for her boys or catering to her husband, she's taking care of his parents who live in the same apartment building. But in Korea, it's not okay to be visibly unhappy. So she hides behind her husband's money (because he throws generous amounts at her to keep her happy) and her fancy clothes. But no one is convinced. Everyone knows she's unhappy and her pride in material possessions only makes her look vain and conceited. I once heard her insist that another teacher--to her face even!--wasn't happy in her marriage. This was all a ruse to make herself look good or to make her own marriage look just as good as everyone else's. Yesterday she confessed to me that all she really wants is some time for herself, to see her friends, to escape her life. I pity her and so does everyone else.

This is Mr. Nam. You should all know him by now. He's the most incompetent teacher on planet Earth. He hardly speaks a word of English and all of his students know it. Sometimes, if I say something simple like "How was your weekend?" he just answers, "Yes." And then he repeats it over and over and over. The other day, while planning my going away dinner, he asked what I wanted to eat. I said galbi (kind of a stirfry). But he didn't get it. He just kept repeating "Steak?" over and over. He truly is the one word man. The sad part is that someone else came up and tried to explain in Korean what I was trying to communicate and he still didn't get it! Yesterday, while in the car with him and Mrs. Shin, Shin and I were talking about police officers and in the middle of the conversation, Mr. Nam pipes up, "Policeman." That was it. Nothing more. I was so confused but later that day I realized that Mr. Nam is like a two year old learning to talk. He listens to other people talk and then randomly picks up single words, only to use them later completely out of context.

So now you know my girls school co-workers!