Last night, our hagwon held its annual (I think) Christmas dinner party at a samgyeopsal (galbi, I think) restaurant. It was definitely a really nice place; there was plenty of food, and in good form, the school provided unlimited Chilsung cider, Coca-Cola, maekju, and soju. The departing teachers (one of our Korean English teachers, one of the secretaries, and two bus drivers are leaving) got to give goodbye speeches, and the newbies (three Korean English teachers, one new secretary, a new math teacher, and our school president's younger brother, who is apparently coming on as a bus driver and general administrator) gave "introduction" speeches. Then the president, director, and head teacher gave speeches, as well as anyone else who was so inclined (this did not include me). The drinks flowed, assigned seating was (at least partially) ignored, and fun times were had by...most. It would have been a lot nicer if they hadn't been using the same tongs to handle the raw meat and put the cooked meat on my plate. Or putting the raw and the cooked meat so close together on the table grills that they were touching. Needless to say, I didn't each much of the meat - but there was plenty of (safer) food to be had, so I definitely got my fill. Plus, I don't think any of my coworkers got sick, so I guess it turned out all right in the end.
The foreign head teacher gave a short speech and ended with the exhortation for the Korean English teachers and the foreign teachers to be closer in the coming year. As if on cue, at the end of the night our company president handed my boss an envelope of cash for all of us to go to noraebang (a.k.a. karaoke) together after dinner. At which point five of the Korean teachers produced some excuse to not stick around and promptly split. All nine foreign teachers, the three new Korean teachers, our boss, and two other Korean teachers wound up going to a huge noraebang room and ordering a bunch of alcohol. Husband promptly split (he hates noraebang), and I followed about 45 minutes later. (I waited until my boss, who has a sick two-year-old at home, left.) I think the rest of the group dispersed about an hour after that.
While I understand that the thought is very generous, I am not sure why it doesn't occur to our company president that we might already have plans for a Saturday night, especially the one before Christmas. Then again, I know I should be grateful - most of the other hagwon teachers in town are amazed that we get a Christmas dinner at all.
Still, I wish it came with awareness of food safety and hygiene.
Our school administration works very hard to try to make sure that all of the teachers (foreign and Korean) mingle and mesh well. Some things work better than others, and some people mesh better than others, but we as foreign teachers are often not quite sure what to make of it. Korea (very similar to Japan) has a huge gift-giving culture, so pretty much any holiday is an excuse to give gifts to family, friends, coworkers, and crushes. There are some really interesting "holidays" to illustrate this point. For example, we all know Valentine's Day as a Hallmark holiday back home to give flowers, chocolates, and other goodies.
In Japan and Korea, Valentine's Day is a holiday for women to give men chocolates, but they created a companion holiday on March 14 - "White Day" - for men to return the favor and buy chocolates for women. Korea, however, took it a step further and invented "Black Day" for single people to eat noodles with jjajang (Chinese black sauce).
And then there's Pepero Day, which is celebrated on November 11 by giving everyone you know boxes of Pepero sticks. Pepero (a copy of the Japanese "Pocky" sticks) are long, thin crackers (hence why they are given on the date 11/11) that are dipped in chocolate and sold in boxes of about 20 or so. They are deceptively innocuous - their small size and thin layer of chocolate eliminates any guilt you may feel about eating sweets, until you realize that you've consumed four boxes in one sitting (true story!). The only purpose whatsoever that this "holiday" serves is to give people way more cookies than anyone should ever eat, and to increase sales for Lotte, the Korean mega-corporation that makes them (and probably invented the holiday in the first place).
Teacher, what?
One thing that our school does (and I'm pretty sure we're the only school in the city that does this) is collect money for major life events of staff members. Every time someone gets married or has a death in the family, money is collected from everyone at the school (teachers, secretaries, and bus drivers alike) and presented to that person. They request W30,000 (about $30) from each Korean staff member, and W15,000 from each foreign teacher. I guess they charge us half because we are strangers in a strange land, but they still want to include us in the collection to make us all more cohesive. However, this year we had (I think) four weddings and one funeral, which totaled to about $150 between US. The flip side of this is that we are always welcome to attend and eat at the buffet in the wedding hall for free (and all of us almost always do), but it can still get irritating at times, because we usually would rather be excluded and just hold onto the cash. Not only that, but the Koreans usually find it strange that we would want to attend, and they don't understand that we see it as getting our money's worth.
Another thing that we do, that seems like a good idea on principle, is have a birthday collection. Every other month, we each contribute W10,000 to the birthday fund, which is used to buy a cake once a month and give W20,000 as birthday money for everyone enjoying a birthday that month. Unfortunately, this isn't always put into practice flawlessly. For example, one of my coworkers didn't even get any of her birthday cake, because the cake was brought in right before she had to go to class, and everyone else ate the whole thing before she got back. (Because of this, I now make sure to cut her a slice and put it on her desk before the others devour it all.) Husband got a birthday cake but no birthday money (and June was our first month, so we didn't even know we were supposed to get birthday money until several months later). I brought it up last month to the Korean teacher who is in charge of birthdays, and she assured me that she would give both of us our money on my birthday...and then she forgot to give me my birthday money, too. I had to ask again at the end of the month to get it. On top of that, because the kinder birthday party was held on my birthday, I didn't get a birthday cake - we just ate the kinder cake.
Some of this may seem like splitting hairs, but when we all put in money every month, I feel like it's important that everyone should get what they are (supposedly) entitled to.
And then there was the Chuseok gift. Every year for Chuseok (the Korean Thanksgiving), the school president and director present us all with W100,000 gift certificates to Lotte stores (which includes a series of fast food restaurants, department stores, and grocery stores). In return, it has become tradition for all of the teachers to contribute W25,000 to purchase a really nice gift for them. Again, it seems nice on principle, but most of us just balked at the pointlessness of it - why not just subtract our expected contribution and give us the difference? Better yet, why not scrap it all and call it even?
A lot of this goes back to cultural clash, I think - while those of us from North America take pride in being frugal, Koreans make a show of being generous with gifts and expensive food - anything less, and you are seen as cheap, which is a huge no-no here. Whenever our school provides food for dinners or luncheons for special occasions, we are constantly reminded of how expensive the food is, which feels really weird to us. Obviously, we understand that it is culturally expected here, but to be confronted very matter-of-factly with something considered extremely rude back home makes it feel very awkward, and hollow.
To be fair, though, we all have our own holiday rituals that we perform without even thinking every year: Thanksgiving dinners, Christmas dinners, obligatory Christmas gifts for extended cousins and coworkers, and the annual Christmas letter that hsa to be worded just right and goes out to everyone in your ever-growing address book. The holidays have become a time when we make sure that everyone who gave us a gift gets one in return and that everyone gets a politically-correct "Happy Holidays" card (since "Merry Christmas" is now considered passe and, by some, bigoted).
Oh, the joys. Personally, I am just grateful to be celebrating the season with a group of coworkers that has become my family away from home.
In other news, our contract extension addendum is sitting on our coffee table as I type this. We are scheduled to meet with our school director before class tomorrow to sign it, which will extend our contract to January 29, 2014. In the meantime, we will be making tentative plans for our post-teaching travels. Suggestions are welcome and encouraged.
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Saint Nick/São Nicolau
Some days, teaching children makes me feel like this.
The caption of this photo from Facebook reads:
After becoming Bishop of Bari, St. Nicholas was imprisoned and tortured during the persecution of Emperor Diocletian (303-313). After his release, the aged bishop participated in the Council of Nicea (325), where he is said to have walked across the room to slap the face of Arius, the arch-heretic who denied Jesus' divinity. By all accounts, St. Nicholas held firmly to the orthodox faith, while showing gentleness to his flock, whose souls he perceived as threatened by the poison of Arius' false teaching. In sum, St. Nicholas showed himself to be what my latinist friend calls "episcopus cum testiculi" (for which a colorful alliterative translation suggests itself).
That's a "bishop with balls" for those of you who are less Latin-inclined.
Happy Feast Day of Saint Nicholas!
Monday, December 3, 2012
Birthday Love/Amor no meu aniversário
So my 27th birthday has come and gone. My birthday has never been something I have particularly looked forward to; aside from a few small parties thrown by my family (and once by my college roommates my sophomore year), most of the time people just forget it entirely. My birthday always falls right around Thanksgiving (and every few years, like this one, actually lands on Turkey Day), so all throughout high school my friends would either overlook the day or not be able to do anything because of the school vacation. By the time I got to college, I just quit telling people, because they would inevitably be back home with their families, and celebrating it a week late just seemed pointless. I expected it to be no different this year, so I prepared to enter my late twenties in a slightly depressed emotional state with little to no fanfare, continuing the relentlessly dull march toward thirty, old age, and my eventual grave. (And yes, I am a naturally cheerful person.)
Luckily for me, I was quite mistaken.
The day started off with a "surprise" party in my Korean class (I say surprise because my Korean teacher told my classmates that they would throw me a "surprise party" when I told him about my birthday the Tuesday before). It was very sweet: he bought an entire cake from Paris Baguette (a chain bakery prevalent in Asia), and one of the other students brought his guitar for them to sing to me.
My coworkers are very perceptive people; frankly, even if they weren't, spending seven hours a day in the same building with zero privacy outside of the bathroom makes moods incredibly contagious. They picked up pretty early on that I was feeling melancholy about my upcoming coming-of-age day, so I guess they schemed among themselves about how to cheer my countenance. When I arrived at work on Thursday, this was waiting for me on my desk:
Some close-ups:
My mother-in-law sent these two cards, which (miraculously) arrived precisely on time on Thursday.
To top it all off, the Kinder monthly birthday party was that day, too, so I actually got to eat the Kinder cake on my birthday. Woo!
The festivities didn't end with my coworkers, either. My first class of the day, English World 4 (English World is the first series of books when the kids start the program; these are our youngest kids, around age 7) threw me a little party. When I got to the top of the stairs on the way to class, the girls in the class greeted me and asked me to close my eyes, which I did. They took my basket and my CD player and led me by the hand to the classroom. I was then told to sit down while they arranged my gifts on the table in front of me.
"Open!"
"No, no, no!" (I kept my eyes closed.)
"One, two, three-"
"No, no, no!" (I waited.)
After some more chattering in Korean, they finally agreed to let me open my eyes. I opened them to a collection of candies, notes, and a little gift bag. Here are my spoils from the little ones:
That night, several of my coworkers took me out to dinner (Japanese food!) and then we headed downtown for a few drinks afterward. We met up with one of Joel's friends from another hagwon and spent a few hours just chatting while Joel and some of the others played darts. It was lovely.
And the birthday festivities didn't stop on my birthday, either! The next day, several of my MWF classes brought snacks to celebrate. The most interesting gift by far, however, wasn't even a birthday gift. In my Carnival 5 class, one chapter went over major family events (e.g. family reunion, wedding, funeral, birthday, baby shower), and one of the vocabulary words was "wedding anniversary," so I explained it with the most readily available example - mine. One of the girls apparently was so impressed by this that she actually bought Joel and I an anniversary gift - well before our anniversary.
Friday night ended on a good note when my last middle school class of the night put this together for me:
I now have all of the notes under the glass cover on my desk so that I can be continually reminded of all of the love I got on my birthday.
Honestly, it was probably the best birthday abroad I could have asked for. You guys sure do know how to make a girl feel special.
I thought I would take some time to write and reminisce about my awesome birthday to help make me feel better. Frankly, it has been a less-than-stellar past few days. We are at a point where we have to decide whether or not we are going to extend our contract, and for how long, so we are thinking pretty hard and actively making contingency plans. There is a lot that is up in the air, so any prayers - or just positive energy - that you could send our way would be great. Meanwhile, Joel will continue to relieve stress by killing aliens on Halo, while I continue to do so by cleaning, putting puzzles together...and writing.
Until next time.
Luckily for me, I was quite mistaken.
The day started off with a "surprise" party in my Korean class (I say surprise because my Korean teacher told my classmates that they would throw me a "surprise party" when I told him about my birthday the Tuesday before). It was very sweet: he bought an entire cake from Paris Baguette (a chain bakery prevalent in Asia), and one of the other students brought his guitar for them to sing to me.
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| 고마워요,선생님! |
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| Yes, that is my fabulously organized desk behind all of my goodies. |
 |
| From the Canadian-Minnesotan couple. |
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| From the Texas roommates. |
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| From the Canadian. |
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| From the Texas Tech alum. |
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| From the foreign head teacher. |
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| From the SFASA Alum. |
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| Impeccable timing, Joel's mom! |
The festivities didn't end with my coworkers, either. My first class of the day, English World 4 (English World is the first series of books when the kids start the program; these are our youngest kids, around age 7) threw me a little party. When I got to the top of the stairs on the way to class, the girls in the class greeted me and asked me to close my eyes, which I did. They took my basket and my CD player and led me by the hand to the classroom. I was then told to sit down while they arranged my gifts on the table in front of me.
"Open!"
"No, no, no!" (I kept my eyes closed.)
"One, two, three-"
"No, no, no!" (I waited.)
After some more chattering in Korean, they finally agreed to let me open my eyes. I opened them to a collection of candies, notes, and a little gift bag. Here are my spoils from the little ones:
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| Leah's and Noah's notes. Noah has a minor obsession with Angry Birds. |
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| Bonny's note. She probably got help from her dad. |
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| The green bear and the pen were both from Noah. |
And the birthday festivities didn't stop on my birthday, either! The next day, several of my MWF classes brought snacks to celebrate. The most interesting gift by far, however, wasn't even a birthday gift. In my Carnival 5 class, one chapter went over major family events (e.g. family reunion, wedding, funeral, birthday, baby shower), and one of the vocabulary words was "wedding anniversary," so I explained it with the most readily available example - mine. One of the girls apparently was so impressed by this that she actually bought Joel and I an anniversary gift - well before our anniversary.
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| Those are real flowers in the box, too. |
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| A close-up of the snow globe. |
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| The whole shebang. |
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| A tower of Choco Pies and lollipops. The cake on the right is from Paris Baguette. |
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| The note. |
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| The white board, decorated with my partner-teacher's markers. |
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| They put glass plates over all of the tables and desks here. It's a little weird, but it also provides great decorating opportunities. |
I thought I would take some time to write and reminisce about my awesome birthday to help make me feel better. Frankly, it has been a less-than-stellar past few days. We are at a point where we have to decide whether or not we are going to extend our contract, and for how long, so we are thinking pretty hard and actively making contingency plans. There is a lot that is up in the air, so any prayers - or just positive energy - that you could send our way would be great. Meanwhile, Joel will continue to relieve stress by killing aliens on Halo, while I continue to do so by cleaning, putting puzzles together...and writing.
Until next time.
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
A Series of Unfortunate Events, Upcoming: My 27th Birthday/Uma série de eventos infelizes, futuro: Meu vigésimo sétimo aniversário
We were all devastated to learn that Bbyeodae Haejangguk (which, literally translated, means "hangover soup") recently closed its doors, seemingly for good. This is an unparalleled tragedy for the foreign teachers at our school. The restaurant was open 24 hours a day and served steaming-hot pork spine soup and spicy ribs with a delicious array of side dishes (and some of my favorite kimchi). My coworker tried to take his friend who was visiting to eat there and saw them carrying tables out of the restaurant. None of us are quite sure how to handle the news, or more importantly, where we will go to eat after partying all night downtown.
In other less fortunate news, my 27th birthday is tomorrow. While birthdays are normally a cause for celebration (or at least a party with friends to drown your sorrows), for whatever reason this birthday is particularly acute for me. I will be entering my late 20s (with 30 right around the corner) with no children, no concrete family or career plans, and a crappy economy (which means no jobs). Meanwhile, we just found out that my freshman-year roommate is pregnant with her second child (congratulations, guys!) and one of our groomsmen is expecting his first with his wife. He has been married for 11 months and will have a baby next summer; we, on the other hand, will have been married for four years this December, and the only children in our lives are the ones we teach (mostly just yell at, really) at school every day. Yay.
It is strange to feel pressured, especially since neither Joel nor I really want a baby right this instant (or anytime soon, really). Maybe seeing all of our peers from college having kids (many of them having second kids) just puts a weird kind of pressure on me - a nagging reminder that I am getting older and being left behind, or something. It doesn't help that no matter how many times I tell my students that I am married with no children, they always react with shock and dismay to the fact that Teacher Is No Baby.
"Teacher, you married?!"
"Yes."
"You have baby?"
"No."
"Oh whyyyyyyyyyyyy?!!"
"Joel Teacher your husband?"
"Yes."
"Teacher married?"
"Yes."
"Baby?"
"No."
"Why no baby?!"
"Teacher baby?"
"No."
"Teacher baby inside?"
"No."
"Teacher whyyyyyyy?!"
Perhaps the best conversation was one I had with one of my older elementary school students. We are getting into more advanced content, and they are learning vocabulary for big family and life events (e.g. wedding, funeral, baby shower, family reunion, etc.). I was explaining the concept of a wedding anniversary and using myself as an example, and I told the class that Joel and I would be celebrating our four-year anniversary in December. As usual, my students (whom I have told three times now that I am married) were shocked. One of the more talkative girls, whose English name is Wendy, began indignantly asking questions.
Wendy: Teacher, you married?
me: Yes, Wendy. I have told you this before.
Wendy: You have baby?
me: No.
Wendy: Teacher! Why you married four years and no baby?
me: Because babies are expensive. And we have been traveling a lot since we got married. Traveling is difficult with a baby.
Wendy: Ah, yes.
me: Why do you guys always ask me that? Why do people always have to have babies when they get married?
Wendy: But Korean always have baby. Almost all Korean get married, and baby very fast.
She made a face, and then pondered for a second.
Wendy: But I think it is good, you no baby. Korean have baby very fast. You married four years and no baby is...good.
She gave me a thumbs up.
Wisdom from the mouths of babes. I think I will take this as moral support. Happy birthday to me.
In other less fortunate news, my 27th birthday is tomorrow. While birthdays are normally a cause for celebration (or at least a party with friends to drown your sorrows), for whatever reason this birthday is particularly acute for me. I will be entering my late 20s (with 30 right around the corner) with no children, no concrete family or career plans, and a crappy economy (which means no jobs). Meanwhile, we just found out that my freshman-year roommate is pregnant with her second child (congratulations, guys!) and one of our groomsmen is expecting his first with his wife. He has been married for 11 months and will have a baby next summer; we, on the other hand, will have been married for four years this December, and the only children in our lives are the ones we teach (mostly just yell at, really) at school every day. Yay.
It is strange to feel pressured, especially since neither Joel nor I really want a baby right this instant (or anytime soon, really). Maybe seeing all of our peers from college having kids (many of them having second kids) just puts a weird kind of pressure on me - a nagging reminder that I am getting older and being left behind, or something. It doesn't help that no matter how many times I tell my students that I am married with no children, they always react with shock and dismay to the fact that Teacher Is No Baby.
"Teacher, you married?!"
"Yes."
"You have baby?"
"No."
"Oh whyyyyyyyyyyyy?!!"
"Joel Teacher your husband?"
"Yes."
"Teacher married?"
"Yes."
"Baby?"
"No."
"Why no baby?!"
"Teacher baby?"
"No."
"Teacher baby inside?"
"No."
"Teacher whyyyyyyy?!"
Perhaps the best conversation was one I had with one of my older elementary school students. We are getting into more advanced content, and they are learning vocabulary for big family and life events (e.g. wedding, funeral, baby shower, family reunion, etc.). I was explaining the concept of a wedding anniversary and using myself as an example, and I told the class that Joel and I would be celebrating our four-year anniversary in December. As usual, my students (whom I have told three times now that I am married) were shocked. One of the more talkative girls, whose English name is Wendy, began indignantly asking questions.
Wendy: Teacher, you married?
me: Yes, Wendy. I have told you this before.
Wendy: You have baby?
me: No.
Wendy: Teacher! Why you married four years and no baby?
me: Because babies are expensive. And we have been traveling a lot since we got married. Traveling is difficult with a baby.
Wendy: Ah, yes.
me: Why do you guys always ask me that? Why do people always have to have babies when they get married?
Wendy: But Korean always have baby. Almost all Korean get married, and baby very fast.
She made a face, and then pondered for a second.
Wendy: But I think it is good, you no baby. Korean have baby very fast. You married four years and no baby is...good.
She gave me a thumbs up.
Wisdom from the mouths of babes. I think I will take this as moral support. Happy birthday to me.
A Series of Unfortunate Events, Part 2/Uma série de eventos infelizes, Segunda parte
Last weekend, all nine of us, plus my coworker's friend who was visiting and Joel's friend from college all met up in Seoul on Friday night to stay for the weekend. The kinder program teachers got to head out of town around 7:30 p.m., but the afternoon teachers weren't off until 10, so we didn't hit the road until late. Our bus made good time, but we still did not make it to the bus terminal in Seoul until about 2:30 a.m. From there, we had to catch a taxi to our hostel in Hongdae. Unfortunately, our taxi driver either didn't know the location of the landmark we requested, or he was too lazy to actually drop us off there, so we were left on a random street corner with no sense of direction and the hostel nowhere in sight. We walked into a nearby convenience store and, luckily, ran into a British woman who gave us directions. Otherwise, we would have been screwed.
Since we were all exhausted, we did not get started until close to noon the next day. My coworker (who did a fabulous job organizing the trip and finding accommodations, might I add) was hell-bent on trying the food at an African restaurant that she had seen before, so (for lack of any better ideas) we all headed to a little hole-in-the-wall place in Itaewon called "Mama Africa House" that served a variety of Nigerian dishes (most of them had a side of fufu). It definitely wasn't my favorite - I wouldn't choose to go back there - but it was palatable IMHO and I mostly finished mine. Unfortunately, most of the rest of our group were more than a little disgusted at the food, so a lot of us were hungry and in a foul mood by the time lunch was over. We made a plan to rendezvous at one of the subway stations at 6 and headed out.
After lunch, Joel and I split off from the main group and headed to Kyeongbokgung, the old imperial palace. Joel had some work to do, so he camped out in the museum cafe (with wifi) while I took an hour or so to walk around the palace grounds. To be perfectly honest, it wasn't terribly impressive: the architecture is neat at first, but it gets a little repetitive, and the grounds are almost entirely gravel. However, there was a small grove of maple trees that were really lovely. I would love to go back for a weekend and take some time to tour the museums in the palace complex and see some of the other palaces in the city (there are five total, I think).
After the palace closed, we headed into downtown to check out the Lantern Festival, which was the original reason we all decided to make the trip. While it was kind of a neat concept, it wasn't terribly interesting, and the fact that it was absolutely jam-packed with people killed a lot of the fun that might have been had for us. After we got tired of being stuck on a human conveyer belt, we headed back to the hostel to shower and change, and then we went to a restaurant called VIPS for steak. Joel had been hankering for a steak dinner for a while and took the trip as an opportunity to satisfy the craving. Unfortunately, dinner was where the "group" outing began to unravel; we all were still at dinner when we were supposed to meet up, and only two of us (Joel and his friend in the Army) had cell phones that were able to text each other without the aid of wifi. We were in touch with them periodically, but it never worked out to meet up. After the others finished with the lantern viewing, a few of the guys headed back to the hotel, and the others wandered around for about two hours in search of a hookah bar that they had read about. We tried to meet up with them, but Joel's friend's phone was low on battery and we couldn't figure out where they were.
At that point, we decided to head back to Itaewon to meet up with some different friends from Gwangju who were also in town. We hopped the subway and met them at a bar called the Bulldog. The night started off pretty well, but by the third bar there were more than a few couples making out (which gets boring to watch after a while), and the smoke was making me feel sick, so we called it a night at about 4:30 a.m. We grabbed soem fried chicken, took a taxi back to the hostel, and collapsed into sleep.
After another late start on Sunday, Joel went home early and one of the couples split off, while the rest of us headed to a diner (yet again in Itaewon). After we finished lunch, we decided we were pretty deflated, so four of us ladies headed to the bus terminal and went home. Seoul weekend finishee.
Since we were all exhausted, we did not get started until close to noon the next day. My coworker (who did a fabulous job organizing the trip and finding accommodations, might I add) was hell-bent on trying the food at an African restaurant that she had seen before, so (for lack of any better ideas) we all headed to a little hole-in-the-wall place in Itaewon called "Mama Africa House" that served a variety of Nigerian dishes (most of them had a side of fufu). It definitely wasn't my favorite - I wouldn't choose to go back there - but it was palatable IMHO and I mostly finished mine. Unfortunately, most of the rest of our group were more than a little disgusted at the food, so a lot of us were hungry and in a foul mood by the time lunch was over. We made a plan to rendezvous at one of the subway stations at 6 and headed out.
After lunch, Joel and I split off from the main group and headed to Kyeongbokgung, the old imperial palace. Joel had some work to do, so he camped out in the museum cafe (with wifi) while I took an hour or so to walk around the palace grounds. To be perfectly honest, it wasn't terribly impressive: the architecture is neat at first, but it gets a little repetitive, and the grounds are almost entirely gravel. However, there was a small grove of maple trees that were really lovely. I would love to go back for a weekend and take some time to tour the museums in the palace complex and see some of the other palaces in the city (there are five total, I think).
After the palace closed, we headed into downtown to check out the Lantern Festival, which was the original reason we all decided to make the trip. While it was kind of a neat concept, it wasn't terribly interesting, and the fact that it was absolutely jam-packed with people killed a lot of the fun that might have been had for us. After we got tired of being stuck on a human conveyer belt, we headed back to the hostel to shower and change, and then we went to a restaurant called VIPS for steak. Joel had been hankering for a steak dinner for a while and took the trip as an opportunity to satisfy the craving. Unfortunately, dinner was where the "group" outing began to unravel; we all were still at dinner when we were supposed to meet up, and only two of us (Joel and his friend in the Army) had cell phones that were able to text each other without the aid of wifi. We were in touch with them periodically, but it never worked out to meet up. After the others finished with the lantern viewing, a few of the guys headed back to the hotel, and the others wandered around for about two hours in search of a hookah bar that they had read about. We tried to meet up with them, but Joel's friend's phone was low on battery and we couldn't figure out where they were.
At that point, we decided to head back to Itaewon to meet up with some different friends from Gwangju who were also in town. We hopped the subway and met them at a bar called the Bulldog. The night started off pretty well, but by the third bar there were more than a few couples making out (which gets boring to watch after a while), and the smoke was making me feel sick, so we called it a night at about 4:30 a.m. We grabbed soem fried chicken, took a taxi back to the hostel, and collapsed into sleep.
After another late start on Sunday, Joel went home early and one of the couples split off, while the rest of us headed to a diner (yet again in Itaewon). After we finished lunch, we decided we were pretty deflated, so four of us ladies headed to the bus terminal and went home. Seoul weekend finishee.
Monday, November 19, 2012
A Series of Unfortunate Events, Part 1/Uma série de eventos infelizes, Primeira parte
So the last few weekends have been mildly frustrating, to say the least. It hasn't been anybody's fault, really; some things are out of control and some things are inevitable when you try to arrange travel with large groups of people, like the foreign staff at our hagwon. We got the idea of organizing a few group trips in conjunction with a visit from one of my co-worker's friends, first to Jirisan (a well-known national park which has received rave reviews from one of our Korean friends) and then to Seoul for the Lantern Festival. While the trips themselves were executive successfully (everyone who wanted to go got to go, and no one got sick or was injured), they didn't go quite as smoothly as we'd hoped and have just left me kind of...deflated. Or something.
I guess it really all started when Joel bought a copy of Halo 4 at Kumho World (the local electronics store) two weeks ago. He was super excited about the release and went out to buy a copy one afternoon after our Korean class. He came back from the shop, popped the disc into the Xbox to install it and see what it was all about right before class...and then discovered that all of the cut scenes were dubbed in Korean. They are subtitled in English, and all of the menus are in English, but the actual dialogue is all in Korean with no way to change it. I looked into it, and apparently Microsoft did this for all country-specific releases - and people are universally unhappy with the dubs. Joel can play just fine, but still...part of the fun of Halo is the story, especially Chief's relationship with Cortana, and so much of that is lost with a dub.
That weekend, we were all supposed to go to Jirisan together. I organized the trip and chose a relatively short route (~7 km to ascend 1500 m) that I thought everyone would be able to handle okay to Nogodan shelter. One person in our group opted out from the start, and then Joel's friend from college, who was recently stationed just outside of Seoul with the Army, scheduled his trip to come visit that weekend, so Joel was out as well. The remaining seven of us were all set to go up until the night before the trip - then my co-worker's friend who was flying in didn't actually get to Gwangju until 2 a.m. So my co-worker, his roommate, and his friend decided it would be unwise to attempt a major hike the next day. Fair enough - there were still five of us left.
We caught a bus to Jirisan at 8:20 a.m. on Saturday morning with backpacks full of food, water, blankets (and even a few yoga mats for extra padding). We hit the trail head at ten. The hike up was lovely for about the first half - the trees were all different colors, and the maples in particular were shockingly bright shades of red and orange and were absolutely spectacular. Then, about halfway up the mountain, the climb started to get really steep. Most of the hiking trails in Korea are very manicured and well-maintained, and a very common way from them to keep the trails from eroding is to "pave" them with large jagged rocks. You always know where you are going, but it turns a mountain into one long, steep staircase and can make picking your footing a hazard sometimes. I don't mind it so much, but one of my more vocal co-workers was less than pleased.
"This isn't my favorite hike, I'm not gonna lie."
We kept pushing up. "These rocks are really starting to piss me off!"
The trail wound on as I struggled to keep pace with my more athletic co-hikers. "I fucking hate this mountain!"
Aside from how strenuous the climb was, I was actually enjoying myself, particularly because there were so few other hikers with us (by comparison, Mudeungsan - the mountain just outside of Gwangju - is solidly packed with hikers all weekend). Finally, we exited the forest onto a gravel road, and suddenly I understood why.
The road was crawling with people and cars. We all looked at each other and laughed uncomfortably, realizing all the work we'd done when we probably could have taken a bus or even hitchhiked up the mountain. "That shelter better have a ton of food," one of us joked. We walked up the road and took a last little shortcut through some trees to reach the shelter. As we rounded the final bend and the building came into view, one of the guys started laughing.
"What the...are you fucking kidding me?"
When we read that Nogodan was a hiking "shelter," I think we had all envisioned rather spartan accommodations - i.e. a one-room wooden building with floor space for 108 hikers. What we found was a three-story lodge with beds, a convenience store, and a side-room for people to cook their food. There were hundreds of stylishly-dressed Korean "hikers" milling around with their children and their designer bags. We saw a sign on the other side of the road: "Nogodan Peak - 1.05 km; Parking lot - 2 k.m." The five of us stood with our mouths gaping open for a few minutes, then we sat down and reflected in disbelief.
"This is obscene."
"Not at all what I pictured."
"My friend John is a hard core outdoor enthusiast. He would be so angry right now."
"I can't fucking believe this."
"I really shouldn't be surprised, because this is Korea, but damn. I feel cheated."
I asked the man in the convenience store if we could check in, but he said we couldn't until 5 o'clock. It was 2:30, so we put our stuff down and sat in the cooking area.
"What are we doing to do for two and a half hours?"
"I don't know, but this is ridiculous."
"We could go home," I said, half joking. "The last bus doesn't leave until 6:55."
One of the couples perked up. "That's true...we could."
We looked around at one another. "Do we want to go back?"
"Well, I am pretty much ambivalent," I said. "But if we made it up in five hours, we could make it back down in time if we left now and booked it. What do you guys think?"
After discussing for a bit, we decided to turn around and head back home. We grabbed our things and high-tailed it down the mountain in record time - just over two hours. We made our way to the local bus terminal, bought our tickets, and headed back to Gwangju sore and slightly disillusioned.
The others decided to shower and regroup to get their grooves on, but I thought I would take some time to myself to unwind. I headed home to change and pack a few things for the jimjilbang, since nothing sounded better than a good scrub and some time in a sauna and a hot tub. Then, as I was getting ready to leave, a Kimbap Nara delivery driver knocked on the door. I opened the door for him and tried to explain that I hadn't ordered food - apparently there has been a mix-up since I ordered food for my co-workers one time, and now the restaurant has our apartment associated with their phone number. Either the driver didn't understand my limited Korean, or he was dissatisfied with it, so I ended up arguing with him for about ten minutes until I called the coworkers who had ordered the food and got them to come over and get it.
I tried to shrug it off as I headed toward the bus stop to catch the bus to head to the jimjilbang. Right as I got to the bus stop, the bus I needed to catch was driving away, so I had to sit and wait in the rain for the next one - then, when I got off, I headed the wrong way down the street and walked around for about twenty minutes before I found it. After asking for directions from a cashier at Cafe Lemon Table, I finally found the place, soaked my sore muscles, and ate a giant bowl of dumpling soup.
I was feeling refreshed and relaxed until I left, when I realized that I had stayed past midnight and that the buses had stopped running. I tried to walk home and got turned around at the five-way intersection, which meant that I wandered into an unfamiliar neighborhood and got lost with no cash for a cab. I had to go to a PC bang to ask where the nearest ATM was, so that I could pull cash and then flag a taxi.
Needless to say, I did not join the party that night.
I guess it really all started when Joel bought a copy of Halo 4 at Kumho World (the local electronics store) two weeks ago. He was super excited about the release and went out to buy a copy one afternoon after our Korean class. He came back from the shop, popped the disc into the Xbox to install it and see what it was all about right before class...and then discovered that all of the cut scenes were dubbed in Korean. They are subtitled in English, and all of the menus are in English, but the actual dialogue is all in Korean with no way to change it. I looked into it, and apparently Microsoft did this for all country-specific releases - and people are universally unhappy with the dubs. Joel can play just fine, but still...part of the fun of Halo is the story, especially Chief's relationship with Cortana, and so much of that is lost with a dub.
That weekend, we were all supposed to go to Jirisan together. I organized the trip and chose a relatively short route (~7 km to ascend 1500 m) that I thought everyone would be able to handle okay to Nogodan shelter. One person in our group opted out from the start, and then Joel's friend from college, who was recently stationed just outside of Seoul with the Army, scheduled his trip to come visit that weekend, so Joel was out as well. The remaining seven of us were all set to go up until the night before the trip - then my co-worker's friend who was flying in didn't actually get to Gwangju until 2 a.m. So my co-worker, his roommate, and his friend decided it would be unwise to attempt a major hike the next day. Fair enough - there were still five of us left.
We caught a bus to Jirisan at 8:20 a.m. on Saturday morning with backpacks full of food, water, blankets (and even a few yoga mats for extra padding). We hit the trail head at ten. The hike up was lovely for about the first half - the trees were all different colors, and the maples in particular were shockingly bright shades of red and orange and were absolutely spectacular. Then, about halfway up the mountain, the climb started to get really steep. Most of the hiking trails in Korea are very manicured and well-maintained, and a very common way from them to keep the trails from eroding is to "pave" them with large jagged rocks. You always know where you are going, but it turns a mountain into one long, steep staircase and can make picking your footing a hazard sometimes. I don't mind it so much, but one of my more vocal co-workers was less than pleased.
"This isn't my favorite hike, I'm not gonna lie."
We kept pushing up. "These rocks are really starting to piss me off!"
The trail wound on as I struggled to keep pace with my more athletic co-hikers. "I fucking hate this mountain!"
Aside from how strenuous the climb was, I was actually enjoying myself, particularly because there were so few other hikers with us (by comparison, Mudeungsan - the mountain just outside of Gwangju - is solidly packed with hikers all weekend). Finally, we exited the forest onto a gravel road, and suddenly I understood why.
The road was crawling with people and cars. We all looked at each other and laughed uncomfortably, realizing all the work we'd done when we probably could have taken a bus or even hitchhiked up the mountain. "That shelter better have a ton of food," one of us joked. We walked up the road and took a last little shortcut through some trees to reach the shelter. As we rounded the final bend and the building came into view, one of the guys started laughing.
"What the...are you fucking kidding me?"
When we read that Nogodan was a hiking "shelter," I think we had all envisioned rather spartan accommodations - i.e. a one-room wooden building with floor space for 108 hikers. What we found was a three-story lodge with beds, a convenience store, and a side-room for people to cook their food. There were hundreds of stylishly-dressed Korean "hikers" milling around with their children and their designer bags. We saw a sign on the other side of the road: "Nogodan Peak - 1.05 km; Parking lot - 2 k.m." The five of us stood with our mouths gaping open for a few minutes, then we sat down and reflected in disbelief.
"This is obscene."
"Not at all what I pictured."
"My friend John is a hard core outdoor enthusiast. He would be so angry right now."
"I can't fucking believe this."
"I really shouldn't be surprised, because this is Korea, but damn. I feel cheated."
I asked the man in the convenience store if we could check in, but he said we couldn't until 5 o'clock. It was 2:30, so we put our stuff down and sat in the cooking area.
"What are we doing to do for two and a half hours?"
"I don't know, but this is ridiculous."
"We could go home," I said, half joking. "The last bus doesn't leave until 6:55."
One of the couples perked up. "That's true...we could."
We looked around at one another. "Do we want to go back?"
"Well, I am pretty much ambivalent," I said. "But if we made it up in five hours, we could make it back down in time if we left now and booked it. What do you guys think?"
After discussing for a bit, we decided to turn around and head back home. We grabbed our things and high-tailed it down the mountain in record time - just over two hours. We made our way to the local bus terminal, bought our tickets, and headed back to Gwangju sore and slightly disillusioned.
The others decided to shower and regroup to get their grooves on, but I thought I would take some time to myself to unwind. I headed home to change and pack a few things for the jimjilbang, since nothing sounded better than a good scrub and some time in a sauna and a hot tub. Then, as I was getting ready to leave, a Kimbap Nara delivery driver knocked on the door. I opened the door for him and tried to explain that I hadn't ordered food - apparently there has been a mix-up since I ordered food for my co-workers one time, and now the restaurant has our apartment associated with their phone number. Either the driver didn't understand my limited Korean, or he was dissatisfied with it, so I ended up arguing with him for about ten minutes until I called the coworkers who had ordered the food and got them to come over and get it.
I tried to shrug it off as I headed toward the bus stop to catch the bus to head to the jimjilbang. Right as I got to the bus stop, the bus I needed to catch was driving away, so I had to sit and wait in the rain for the next one - then, when I got off, I headed the wrong way down the street and walked around for about twenty minutes before I found it. After asking for directions from a cashier at Cafe Lemon Table, I finally found the place, soaked my sore muscles, and ate a giant bowl of dumpling soup.
I was feeling refreshed and relaxed until I left, when I realized that I had stayed past midnight and that the buses had stopped running. I tried to walk home and got turned around at the five-way intersection, which meant that I wandered into an unfamiliar neighborhood and got lost with no cash for a cab. I had to go to a PC bang to ask where the nearest ATM was, so that I could pull cash and then flag a taxi.
Needless to say, I did not join the party that night.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Dogs and Math/Cães e matemática
I have been studying Japanese on and off for nearly four years now. Language self-study comes with its own unique challenges, and it requires a special kind of discipline, but I would say that I haven't done too badly for myself - I have a Japanese conversation partner who lives outside of Tokyo that I Skype with about twice a week, and she assures me that my Japanese is pretty good. (Taking into consideration that she is Japanese, and is unfailingly polite, I am not quite sure how much salt I should take it with, but I will still take it.) One of the interesting things that comes with language self-study in this age, however, is the online community of people that are learning the same language. You can find some really awesome resources on the forums of language-learning website, and they are an amazing trove of information about the country and culture, particularly the Japanese language learning community. I am not as plugged into it as I once was, but I used to browse those forums almost every day looking for podcasts and places to practice reading and memorizing things like hiragana and katakana.
Along with actual language resources, there was a lot of commentary on Japanese people, their culture and mannerisms, and what it was like for foreigners (particularly Westerners) to live and work in Japan. One thing that I thought was very interesting to read were accounts of reactions that people got to their ability to speak Japanese. Expats always assured learners that any effort to speak Japanese would be greeted with pleasant surprise and would make things easier, but some people found it annoying after a while. One guy posted a comment that the common Japanese reaction to a foreigner speaking the language was shock and a kind of bizarre fascination, sort of like "Wow, look - that dog can do math!"
Some days, we feel the same way about how some of our Korean co-workers treat us. Obviously we know that none of it is intended to be malicious or rude - they are concerned for our general well-being, and they know that life in a foreign country can be overwhelming at times, so I am sure that it is all meant to be helpful. Nonetheless, some days we really wonder if they think we are completely incompetent and helpless.
For example, one day at work my husband was talking to one of our newer American co-workers in the small office (my desk is in the big office).
Megan: Hey, what's the Korean word for 'no'?
Husband: It's 아니요 [aniyo].
Korean co-worker: [shocked] How do you know that?!
Husband: Well, I've been studying Korean for the past four months.
KC: What?! You are studying Korean?!!
Husband: Yeah. I understand a lot more than most of you think I do.
He relayed an even more interesting conversation with a different co-worker that happened that same week.
KC: So what did you do this weekend, Joel?
Husband: Oh, I went downtown and just hung out with people.
KC: Oh, you mean people from work?
Husband: No, some of my other friends.
KC: [shocked] You have friends?
Husband: Yeah...
KC: Are they other foreigners?
Husband: Some are foreigners, some are Korean.
KC: [incredulous] You have Korean friends?
Husband: Yes...
KC: ...How?
This conversation was pretty shocking to the rest of our Western co-workers when Joel retold it, and he was (understandably) mildly insulted by the suggestion that he would be unable to make friends. But our Korean co-workers are generally very nice people, and I don't believe they mean to suggest that we are helpless. Still, we get this kind of reaction all the time; most of them were blown away that Joel and I explored the city our first weekend here, or that we were able to find our way around to any restaurants at all. We figured that they had visions of us cowering in our apartment and subsisting off of the bread, jam, and choco pies that our employer bought us.
The whole experience has gotten me thinking a lot about how these kinds of attitudes and preconceptions can marginalize people. While we try to be understanding and give people the benefit of the doubt, it is insulting to encounter the constant shock that we, as immigrants, are able to do simple things for ourselves, or that we would try to learn the language (in fact, many Koreans are completely floored that we even know how to read). WeI were talking about it earlier this week, and how frustrating it is for people to assume that we would be the kinds of expats who don't want to learn about the culture we are in and refuse to try to do things on our own. Then I asked him, "Do we do that to people back home?"
"To a certain extent, yes."
"But to whom? To immigrants? I never felt like I acted that way toward foreigners."
"You do that to just about anybody who is different from you. Maybe we don't do it so much with immigrants, but to minorities. Think of how frustrating it would be for an educated Black person to talk to someone who was shocked that they had a degree. Like, 'You graduated from college? You wentto college?' No one does it on purpose, but it's a natural reaction to someone who is different from you."
I found the prospect highly disturbing. How many stereotypes do we carry around with us subconsciously, especially if we are from a racial or ethnic majority, that affect the way we talk to and treat people? What does it do to a person's self-esteem if they have to take those kinds of comments their entire life? And how would those kinds of attitudes affect my work in public health?
My husband let me bounce my thoughts off of him for the next hour or so, and then he smiled (with only a hint of mirth) and touched my arm. "Well, this is how you become a better person." Then he got a little more serious. "It's good that you are thinking about this so much. Sometimes I can be too cavalier about it."
Along with actual language resources, there was a lot of commentary on Japanese people, their culture and mannerisms, and what it was like for foreigners (particularly Westerners) to live and work in Japan. One thing that I thought was very interesting to read were accounts of reactions that people got to their ability to speak Japanese. Expats always assured learners that any effort to speak Japanese would be greeted with pleasant surprise and would make things easier, but some people found it annoying after a while. One guy posted a comment that the common Japanese reaction to a foreigner speaking the language was shock and a kind of bizarre fascination, sort of like "Wow, look - that dog can do math!"
Some days, we feel the same way about how some of our Korean co-workers treat us. Obviously we know that none of it is intended to be malicious or rude - they are concerned for our general well-being, and they know that life in a foreign country can be overwhelming at times, so I am sure that it is all meant to be helpful. Nonetheless, some days we really wonder if they think we are completely incompetent and helpless.
For example, one day at work my husband was talking to one of our newer American co-workers in the small office (my desk is in the big office).
Megan: Hey, what's the Korean word for 'no'?
Husband: It's 아니요 [aniyo].
Korean co-worker: [shocked] How do you know that?!
Husband: Well, I've been studying Korean for the past four months.
KC: What?! You are studying Korean?!!
Husband: Yeah. I understand a lot more than most of you think I do.
He relayed an even more interesting conversation with a different co-worker that happened that same week.
KC: So what did you do this weekend, Joel?
Husband: Oh, I went downtown and just hung out with people.
KC: Oh, you mean people from work?
Husband: No, some of my other friends.
KC: [shocked] You have friends?
Husband: Yeah...
KC: Are they other foreigners?
Husband: Some are foreigners, some are Korean.
KC: [incredulous] You have Korean friends?
Husband: Yes...
KC: ...How?
This conversation was pretty shocking to the rest of our Western co-workers when Joel retold it, and he was (understandably) mildly insulted by the suggestion that he would be unable to make friends. But our Korean co-workers are generally very nice people, and I don't believe they mean to suggest that we are helpless. Still, we get this kind of reaction all the time; most of them were blown away that Joel and I explored the city our first weekend here, or that we were able to find our way around to any restaurants at all. We figured that they had visions of us cowering in our apartment and subsisting off of the bread, jam, and choco pies that our employer bought us.
The whole experience has gotten me thinking a lot about how these kinds of attitudes and preconceptions can marginalize people. While we try to be understanding and give people the benefit of the doubt, it is insulting to encounter the constant shock that we, as immigrants, are able to do simple things for ourselves, or that we would try to learn the language (in fact, many Koreans are completely floored that we even know how to read). WeI were talking about it earlier this week, and how frustrating it is for people to assume that we would be the kinds of expats who don't want to learn about the culture we are in and refuse to try to do things on our own. Then I asked him, "Do we do that to people back home?"
"To a certain extent, yes."
"But to whom? To immigrants? I never felt like I acted that way toward foreigners."
"You do that to just about anybody who is different from you. Maybe we don't do it so much with immigrants, but to minorities. Think of how frustrating it would be for an educated Black person to talk to someone who was shocked that they had a degree. Like, 'You graduated from college? You wentto college?' No one does it on purpose, but it's a natural reaction to someone who is different from you."
I found the prospect highly disturbing. How many stereotypes do we carry around with us subconsciously, especially if we are from a racial or ethnic majority, that affect the way we talk to and treat people? What does it do to a person's self-esteem if they have to take those kinds of comments their entire life? And how would those kinds of attitudes affect my work in public health?
My husband let me bounce my thoughts off of him for the next hour or so, and then he smiled (with only a hint of mirth) and touched my arm. "Well, this is how you become a better person." Then he got a little more serious. "It's good that you are thinking about this so much. Sometimes I can be too cavalier about it."
Mountains and Contemplation/Montanhas e contemplação
Mudeung Mountain (or Mudeungsan, as it is lovingly known here), has been one of my favorite leisure activities since moving here. The mountain is a 40-minute bus ride away, and the bus stop is a five-minute walk from our apartment, so I have gone hiking up the mountain four or five times since we arrived in June. It is especially lovely now that the leaves are turning for the fall. I have seen both Jeungsim and Yaksam temples, and about two weeks ago, I finally made it to the top with my co-worker. We made it up in record time (2 hours and 6 minutes), and made it down even faster. She is now my new hero - I thought I was in decent shape from the yoga and walking that I do during the week, but I was struggling to keep up with her!
The weather has been getting cold very quickly lately. I remember all the complaining we did during the summer months, when it was so humid that I had to take two showers a day and poor Joel's hair was wet with sweat. After it cooled down a bit, we had a few weeks of very pleasant weather, but now it drops down to about 40F at night. On top of that, we have had gray skies and light rain on and off for the last few days. We have all been fairly unmotivated to do much these last few days.
On a more positive note, we are starting to get to know the younger priest at our local parish here. I found him on KakaoTalk (a free message service that is pretty much universal here) after going to daily Mass last week, and he took us out to dinner on Friday night. He is a very genuine guy, though a little embarrassed about his English - as most Korean adults tend to be here. Still, it has been nice to actually be able to talk to our parish priest; the ones back home were always too busy to really get to know us. Someone in my family was recently referred to an oncologist, as he may have leukemia; all I had to do was send a message to Fr. Thomas, and he offered to not only pray for him, but to say a Mass for him on Monday.
Life continues as usual here. We just finished another round of exams, along with a Halloween party for the elementary school students. Several of my coworkers and I are planning a hiking trip to Jirisan, a mountain range that is a big national park here in our province, next weekend, and one of my high school friends who is teaching in Seoul may come into town the weekend of my birthday. We are thinking about negotiating an extension of our contract to stay at our school for at least another six months and also planning when we will buy a comforter, an electric blanket, and/or a space heater for the coming winter. Life continues as usual.
What I have found myself doing more than anything else in the months that I have been here has been thinking - thinking about life, my career, family and our family plans, marriage and relationships, and what it means to be a stranger in a strange land. I think I will be a very different person when I finally go home.
The weather has been getting cold very quickly lately. I remember all the complaining we did during the summer months, when it was so humid that I had to take two showers a day and poor Joel's hair was wet with sweat. After it cooled down a bit, we had a few weeks of very pleasant weather, but now it drops down to about 40F at night. On top of that, we have had gray skies and light rain on and off for the last few days. We have all been fairly unmotivated to do much these last few days.
On a more positive note, we are starting to get to know the younger priest at our local parish here. I found him on KakaoTalk (a free message service that is pretty much universal here) after going to daily Mass last week, and he took us out to dinner on Friday night. He is a very genuine guy, though a little embarrassed about his English - as most Korean adults tend to be here. Still, it has been nice to actually be able to talk to our parish priest; the ones back home were always too busy to really get to know us. Someone in my family was recently referred to an oncologist, as he may have leukemia; all I had to do was send a message to Fr. Thomas, and he offered to not only pray for him, but to say a Mass for him on Monday.
Life continues as usual here. We just finished another round of exams, along with a Halloween party for the elementary school students. Several of my coworkers and I are planning a hiking trip to Jirisan, a mountain range that is a big national park here in our province, next weekend, and one of my high school friends who is teaching in Seoul may come into town the weekend of my birthday. We are thinking about negotiating an extension of our contract to stay at our school for at least another six months and also planning when we will buy a comforter, an electric blanket, and/or a space heater for the coming winter. Life continues as usual.
What I have found myself doing more than anything else in the months that I have been here has been thinking - thinking about life, my career, family and our family plans, marriage and relationships, and what it means to be a stranger in a strange land. I think I will be a very different person when I finally go home.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
People Skills/Boa Educação
For most of my life, I have never been the kind of person who makes friends easily. Wherever I went, I usually had a small collection of close friends that I would spend time with individually, but I never really had a social circle per se because I never fit in anywhere. There are some people (like Joel, or my friend who lives in Beijing, or our friend Austin back home) who are naturally gifted at making friends and getting people to like them. I have always been envious of that kind of gift - I'll be the first to admit that I have an overwhelming tendency to come across as abrasive and straightforward. On top of that, a lingering social awkwardness from being made fun of my rich kids during my childhood years makes it impossible for me to strike up conversations with strangers.
Throughout my high school and college years, I put on a façade of being proud of my abrasiveness. This is who I am, I figured, and anyone who doesn't like it doesn't deserve to be my friend and can go f*** themselves. It was a useful defense mechanism until I grew out of it...unfortunately, by then my old habits were so ingrained that I couldn't shake them. I eventually got better and meeting new people, but there were some old friends from college that I was just bitchy to all the time. Even when I wanted to stop, I found myself falling back into familiar patterns of aggressive banter.
As intimidating as it was to be thrust in with a group of complete strangers here in Korea, I was grateful for the opportunity to remake myself. Here was a chance to prove that I could be polite, caring, cheerful, supportive. Helpful. My co-teachers were a clean slate, the chance to prove to the world - or maybe just myself - that I could more than the girl who always finds something to give you a hard time about. Not to be fake, but just to be a more positive version of myself. Or something. By and large it has worked out well so far (I think) - if my co-workers don't like me, they do a damn good job of pretending they do.
Alas, you cannot please everybody all the time unless you are a puppy or a kitten that never throws up on the rug. Some days we are just off...and some days I am still a social idiot.
I upset one of my friends during a conversation at work today. It wasn't anything serious - I jumped into a conversation too quickly because I was trying to be helpful and probably just came across as a know-it-all. People get over that sort of thing. But it spoiled our plans for the evening and left me with a bad taste in my mouth, particularly after spending a whole hour this morning trying (unsuccessfully) to order an effing Halloween costume from G-market. (Different story for a different entry.)
It seems that what I have done more than anything since I have come here has been to think - to think about people and how they tick, how they fit together and get along with each other, how they cope as immigrants or students or teachers or when they are in desperate situations. So tonight, after Joel cooked dinner and took off to play darts, I cleaned the apartment and set off on a nighttime hike to think.
Side note: Cheseok-san (the ridge that runs behind our neighborhood) is quiet and well-lit at night. It was a lovely walk.
I thought about why I had jumped into the conversation in the first place, why it had bothered my friend, and why the fact that I had butted heads with my friend in such a small way affected me so much. Before we came here, while it still would have bothered me, I would have more or less shrugged it off after appropriate apologies were made, but that was then - when I still thought of myself as a lone wolf of sorts. I realized that since coming here, one of the things I have wanted most is for people to like me.
Turns out that when you actually care what people think, sticking your foot in your mouth stings a lot more.
The point of this isn't to fish for compliments, or solicit support, or anything like that. I apologized, and things are fine - relationship speedbumps are a fact of life. It is simply one of many reflections that I have had since coming here.
Throughout my high school and college years, I put on a façade of being proud of my abrasiveness. This is who I am, I figured, and anyone who doesn't like it doesn't deserve to be my friend and can go f*** themselves. It was a useful defense mechanism until I grew out of it...unfortunately, by then my old habits were so ingrained that I couldn't shake them. I eventually got better and meeting new people, but there were some old friends from college that I was just bitchy to all the time. Even when I wanted to stop, I found myself falling back into familiar patterns of aggressive banter.
As intimidating as it was to be thrust in with a group of complete strangers here in Korea, I was grateful for the opportunity to remake myself. Here was a chance to prove that I could be polite, caring, cheerful, supportive. Helpful. My co-teachers were a clean slate, the chance to prove to the world - or maybe just myself - that I could more than the girl who always finds something to give you a hard time about. Not to be fake, but just to be a more positive version of myself. Or something. By and large it has worked out well so far (I think) - if my co-workers don't like me, they do a damn good job of pretending they do.
Alas, you cannot please everybody all the time unless you are a puppy or a kitten that never throws up on the rug. Some days we are just off...and some days I am still a social idiot.
I upset one of my friends during a conversation at work today. It wasn't anything serious - I jumped into a conversation too quickly because I was trying to be helpful and probably just came across as a know-it-all. People get over that sort of thing. But it spoiled our plans for the evening and left me with a bad taste in my mouth, particularly after spending a whole hour this morning trying (unsuccessfully) to order an effing Halloween costume from G-market. (Different story for a different entry.)
It seems that what I have done more than anything since I have come here has been to think - to think about people and how they tick, how they fit together and get along with each other, how they cope as immigrants or students or teachers or when they are in desperate situations. So tonight, after Joel cooked dinner and took off to play darts, I cleaned the apartment and set off on a nighttime hike to think.
Side note: Cheseok-san (the ridge that runs behind our neighborhood) is quiet and well-lit at night. It was a lovely walk.
I thought about why I had jumped into the conversation in the first place, why it had bothered my friend, and why the fact that I had butted heads with my friend in such a small way affected me so much. Before we came here, while it still would have bothered me, I would have more or less shrugged it off after appropriate apologies were made, but that was then - when I still thought of myself as a lone wolf of sorts. I realized that since coming here, one of the things I have wanted most is for people to like me.
Turns out that when you actually care what people think, sticking your foot in your mouth stings a lot more.
The point of this isn't to fish for compliments, or solicit support, or anything like that. I apologized, and things are fine - relationship speedbumps are a fact of life. It is simply one of many reflections that I have had since coming here.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Travels, Visitors, and My New Smartphone Addiction/Viagens, Visitantes e Meu Novo Vício
Joel and I concluded our Kyoto trip on October 3. The day after my last blog post, we went to Nanzen-ji and Eikan-do temples, walked the Path of Philosophy (which, curiously, had about as many stray cats as it did tourists), and then finished the day at Ginkaku-ji (the Silver Pavilion), which was absolutely gorgeous and probably my favorite place that we visited. We spent our last day in Arashiyama (the western part of the city) and visited Tenryu-ji (Temple of the Sky Dragon), the Okouchi-sansou villa, and Gio-ji temple. We also walked through the bamboo grove and Sagano, which is a really pretty district with cobblestone streets and a lot of souvenir shops and tea shops. Eventually I will harass Joel to post all of the pictures on Facebook, so look for them there.
We came back from vacation and stumbled through Thursday and Friday at work. We will definitely have to take advantage of our weekends now, since we will not have any more long vacations until the calendar new year. As much as I have enjoyed traveling, I think it will be nice to settle down a little bit and try to save a little more money.
Meanwhile, Joel's parents are in town to visit us for about a week. They arrived last week on Friday night, so we have been showing them around town and taking them to our favorite restaurants. It has been a nice even mix of things: yesterday, we took them hiking on the trail behind our neighborhood (which I'm pretty sure is on a mountain called Jeseoksan, if I'm reading the signs right), and today Joel took them to the Kimchi Festival, which is happening in Gwangju right now. I was pretty bummed that I could go, too, but I had the world's worst headache. Literally. Anyway, tomorrow Joel is planning to take them to the 5.18 Memorial Park, and then we will go hiking on Mudeung mountain on Wednesday morning before they head out on Thursday.
The major event this week was my serendipitous receipt of a second-hand smartphone and subsequent addiction. Allow me to explain.
Joel and I have been attending a Catholic church just down the street from our apartment complex (on the way to the outdoor market) since we first arrived, but for whatever reason, the priests did not notice me until I went to Mass last Sunday. After the service, they visited with me briefly on my way out and introduced themselves as Fr. Bernard and Fr. Thomas. When I went back for daily Mass on Wednesday, however, the younger of the two priests (Fr. Thomas) flagged me down on my way out and gave me a booklet with the Order of the Mass in ten different languages.
Fr. Thomas: Jessica! I think you need this! *as he hands me the booklet*
me: Oh, thank you very much! This is wonderful.
Fr. T: Are you busy?
me: Not especially.
Fr. T: Do you like...espresso?
me: Yes.
Fr. T: Ah, please come.
So we go into his office, where he has an espresso machine, and he makes us each a cup as we sit down to chat. This guy is pretty interesting: not only does he speak some Japanese and have a hobby of drawing anime cartoons, he is also in a band (and he gave me two of their CDs).
Fr. T: Do you have MP3 player?
me: No, I don't. I had a little iPod, but I didn't bring it with me.
Fr. T: Ah, but maybe you can use phone for music.
me: Actually, I don't have a smartphone. My husband and I share a cell phone, but it is an old little 2G phone. We have never owned smartphones.
Now, it is important to understand that South Koreans are super-connected; you can see everyone from high school students to construction workers glued to their phones as you pass them on the sidewalk. My only explanation for what happened next is that this wonderful priest saw my lack of a smartphone as a very obvious poverty, and that he was determined to remedy it.
Fr. T: Actually, I have extra phone.
me: What?
Fr. T: Yes! *he pulls an older Galaxy phone out of his bottom desk drawer* Someone leave this phone here in church! I find this one and I call him and say, 'I found your phone! Please come and take it,' and he say, 'Okay, I will come,' but he did not come. It is six month ago. So...if you don't mind, you can have this one.
me: I can have it?!
Fr. T: Ah...borrow!
me: ...Really?
Fr. T: Yes!
me: ...Okay.
At first I wasn't quite sure what to do with it, but after some of my students showed me a few tricks, I got the hang of it pretty quickly. Unfortunately, that now means I am completely addicted to my new device. I have installed Laudate (which is the absolute greatest app ever for the practicing Catholic), two different messenger apps (one for everyone here in SK, and one for m friend in China), Facebook, Skype, Google Translate, and Google Reader. I have to resist the temptation to ask if everywhere we are going has Wifi. I am always checking the phone for new messages and new updates. And now I have a new challenge: I have to figure out how to enable USB storage on the thing so I can put music and pictures from the computer onto it.
Ah, first world problems.
We came back from vacation and stumbled through Thursday and Friday at work. We will definitely have to take advantage of our weekends now, since we will not have any more long vacations until the calendar new year. As much as I have enjoyed traveling, I think it will be nice to settle down a little bit and try to save a little more money.
Meanwhile, Joel's parents are in town to visit us for about a week. They arrived last week on Friday night, so we have been showing them around town and taking them to our favorite restaurants. It has been a nice even mix of things: yesterday, we took them hiking on the trail behind our neighborhood (which I'm pretty sure is on a mountain called Jeseoksan, if I'm reading the signs right), and today Joel took them to the Kimchi Festival, which is happening in Gwangju right now. I was pretty bummed that I could go, too, but I had the world's worst headache. Literally. Anyway, tomorrow Joel is planning to take them to the 5.18 Memorial Park, and then we will go hiking on Mudeung mountain on Wednesday morning before they head out on Thursday.
The major event this week was my serendipitous receipt of a second-hand smartphone and subsequent addiction. Allow me to explain.
Joel and I have been attending a Catholic church just down the street from our apartment complex (on the way to the outdoor market) since we first arrived, but for whatever reason, the priests did not notice me until I went to Mass last Sunday. After the service, they visited with me briefly on my way out and introduced themselves as Fr. Bernard and Fr. Thomas. When I went back for daily Mass on Wednesday, however, the younger of the two priests (Fr. Thomas) flagged me down on my way out and gave me a booklet with the Order of the Mass in ten different languages.
Fr. Thomas: Jessica! I think you need this! *as he hands me the booklet*
me: Oh, thank you very much! This is wonderful.
Fr. T: Are you busy?
me: Not especially.
Fr. T: Do you like...espresso?
me: Yes.
Fr. T: Ah, please come.
So we go into his office, where he has an espresso machine, and he makes us each a cup as we sit down to chat. This guy is pretty interesting: not only does he speak some Japanese and have a hobby of drawing anime cartoons, he is also in a band (and he gave me two of their CDs).
Fr. T: Do you have MP3 player?
me: No, I don't. I had a little iPod, but I didn't bring it with me.
Fr. T: Ah, but maybe you can use phone for music.
me: Actually, I don't have a smartphone. My husband and I share a cell phone, but it is an old little 2G phone. We have never owned smartphones.
Now, it is important to understand that South Koreans are super-connected; you can see everyone from high school students to construction workers glued to their phones as you pass them on the sidewalk. My only explanation for what happened next is that this wonderful priest saw my lack of a smartphone as a very obvious poverty, and that he was determined to remedy it.
Fr. T: Actually, I have extra phone.
me: What?
Fr. T: Yes! *he pulls an older Galaxy phone out of his bottom desk drawer* Someone leave this phone here in church! I find this one and I call him and say, 'I found your phone! Please come and take it,' and he say, 'Okay, I will come,' but he did not come. It is six month ago. So...if you don't mind, you can have this one.
me: I can have it?!
Fr. T: Ah...borrow!
me: ...Really?
Fr. T: Yes!
me: ...Okay.
At first I wasn't quite sure what to do with it, but after some of my students showed me a few tricks, I got the hang of it pretty quickly. Unfortunately, that now means I am completely addicted to my new device. I have installed Laudate (which is the absolute greatest app ever for the practicing Catholic), two different messenger apps (one for everyone here in SK, and one for m friend in China), Facebook, Skype, Google Translate, and Google Reader. I have to resist the temptation to ask if everywhere we are going has Wifi. I am always checking the phone for new messages and new updates. And now I have a new challenge: I have to figure out how to enable USB storage on the thing so I can put music and pictures from the computer onto it.
Ah, first world problems.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
京都から今晩は！ (Good evening from Kyoto!/Boa noite de Quioto!)
Because I am actively studying two languages (Japanese and Korean), I have installed two IMEs on my laptop that allow me to type in Japanese and Korean, which I use fairly frequently. While Joel is usually a good sport about it, he occasionally complains that he can never get on this computer and expect to be able to type in English without turning off the IME.
Tee hee.
We decided to travel to Japan during Chuseok, the Korean Thanksgiving, since we have about five days of vacation. After getting off of work on Thursday night, we went downtown with our co-workers for dinner and wound up staying downtown all freaking night. After returning home and getting some soup for breakfast/post-bar-early-morning-snack/I-actually-have-no-idea-what-to-call-that-meal, I showered, packed for my trip in about fifteen minutes, and then we caught an express bus to the Seoul airport. While I remain convinced that staying out all night was a terrible idea, Joel insists that we had a great time and it was totally worth it.
Some days I am convinced that this is the college experience that I missed in college and that I might be regressing slightly from being a responsible adult. One of my co-workers just calls it an "Accidental Thursday." Anyway, we made it to the airport and onto our plane to Nagoya without any trouble, and navigated the regional trains to Kyoto with only minimal confusion. The only real problem with our all-nighter is that it took me all of yesterday to sort out and remember what day of the week it was.
We have been in Kyoto for about two and a half days now, and it has been awesome. It is obviously a very old city, and there are Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines (often both in the same complex) literally around every corner. During our first full day in town yesterday, we went to the Imperial Palace Park (entry to the actual palace is restricted to those who request an appointment for a guided tour) and Nijo Castle, the residence of the Shogunate. I was rather unimpressed with the Imperial Palace Park - it's huge and sprawling, but kind of sterile and not very pretty - but I thought the grounds around Nijo Castle were beautiful. Today has been kind of a drag, since there is currently a typhoon passing over us (making this the fifth once we have experienced since moving to this part of the world) and it has been raining all day, but we still made it to Fushimi-Inari Taisha (the famous shrine with the long path through the bright-orange arches) and Sanjusangen-do (with the 1000 Buddhas). We tried to go to the Kyoto National Museum, but it is closed for about a month (lame). It looks like I have persuaded Joel to accompany me to the Funaoka Onsen tonight after dinner (score!). Tomorrow, if the weather clears up, we can hopefully go on the walking tour of Southern Higashiyama recommended by Lonely Planet and maybe even check out Gion (where the geisha are based).
Tee hee.
We decided to travel to Japan during Chuseok, the Korean Thanksgiving, since we have about five days of vacation. After getting off of work on Thursday night, we went downtown with our co-workers for dinner and wound up staying downtown all freaking night. After returning home and getting some soup for breakfast/post-bar-early-morning-snack/I-actually-have-no-idea-what-to-call-that-meal, I showered, packed for my trip in about fifteen minutes, and then we caught an express bus to the Seoul airport. While I remain convinced that staying out all night was a terrible idea, Joel insists that we had a great time and it was totally worth it.
Some days I am convinced that this is the college experience that I missed in college and that I might be regressing slightly from being a responsible adult. One of my co-workers just calls it an "Accidental Thursday." Anyway, we made it to the airport and onto our plane to Nagoya without any trouble, and navigated the regional trains to Kyoto with only minimal confusion. The only real problem with our all-nighter is that it took me all of yesterday to sort out and remember what day of the week it was.
We have been in Kyoto for about two and a half days now, and it has been awesome. It is obviously a very old city, and there are Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines (often both in the same complex) literally around every corner. During our first full day in town yesterday, we went to the Imperial Palace Park (entry to the actual palace is restricted to those who request an appointment for a guided tour) and Nijo Castle, the residence of the Shogunate. I was rather unimpressed with the Imperial Palace Park - it's huge and sprawling, but kind of sterile and not very pretty - but I thought the grounds around Nijo Castle were beautiful. Today has been kind of a drag, since there is currently a typhoon passing over us (making this the fifth once we have experienced since moving to this part of the world) and it has been raining all day, but we still made it to Fushimi-Inari Taisha (the famous shrine with the long path through the bright-orange arches) and Sanjusangen-do (with the 1000 Buddhas). We tried to go to the Kyoto National Museum, but it is closed for about a month (lame). It looks like I have persuaded Joel to accompany me to the Funaoka Onsen tonight after dinner (score!). Tomorrow, if the weather clears up, we can hopefully go on the walking tour of Southern Higashiyama recommended by Lonely Planet and maybe even check out Gion (where the geisha are based).
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Gwangju: City of Intensives/Gwangju: Cidade de Intensivos
These days, Gwangju seems to be a city of intensives: intense partying with all of the new teachers we've been welcoming (and departing ones that we have been sending off), intense work (and intense stress) because of school summer vacation, intense hiking, and intense weather over the last few weeks.
Intensives
I've been less consistent about blogging in August because Joel (along with two of our afternoon teacher co-workers) was doing summer intensives all month. The students here all have vacation during the months of August and January, so many hagwons offer summer and winter "intensive courses" for students to have extra exposure to English language and (in theory at least) to have the opportunity to study English in greater breadth and/or detail. In practice, what this means is that a few lucky afternoon and evening teachershave to get to teach several classes in the morning, before lunch (and, incidentally, lose the only free time they have to be productive during the day. Naturally, this results in teachers who are overworked, exhausted, stressed, and cranky.
What this meant for us was that Joel was working from 9:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. (MWF) or 8 p.m. (TR) with only a break for lunch. With him at work for virtually ever waking moment of the day, I was left to do all of the housework, including cooking, cleaning, ironing, doing laundry, taking shirts to and picking them up from the cleaners, going to the bank and other miscellaneous life-curveballs. It was pretty bizarre here for a while, with Joel the Workaholic and Jessica the June Cleaver-esque housewife (who, by the way, was also still working full time). Also, it's a wonder we didn't kill each other.
But that's all over now, and the nice wad of overtime-pay cash will surely feel good when it finally comes around.
Intense Weather
In case the news has bypassed you because you are living under a rock, we had not one, but two typhoons come through last week. The first one, Bolaven, came through last Tuesday and was so bad that nearly all of the schools and hagwons (including ECC!) closed for the day. While I didn't get much sleep on Monday night because the windows were banging around so freaking loudly, we had a very nice day off hanging out with our co-workers. Unfortunately, this resulted in pretty much everyone at work running around like chickens without heads for the rest of the week, as the schedule had to be adjusted and the new session pushed back to make up for the lost class day.
As if that weren't enough, the typhoon that thrashed Taiwan did a little loop in the South China Sea and then decided to make a longer-than-average trip north to bring us yet another storm.
Because of all of the activity from tropical storms in the region, we've had way more rain than is typical for this time of year. It's rained at least once a week throughout August and now into September. It's so unusual that one of the apartment building residents actually spoke to Joel in the elevator: "Rain is crazy!"
Normally I don't mind the rain, but it is starting to get old, especially now that I have been trying to get to know the hiking trails in the area. Which brings me to...
Intense Hiking
I'm happy to report that I have been to Mudeungsan, the mountain just outside of town, three times now. After going for the first time the weekend of Joel's birthday, I went again several weeks ago with one of my co-workers and hiked up to Jeungsimsa, one of the better-known temples on the mountain. I really want to hike up to the top eventually, so when I discovered that our Korean teacher is also a hiking enthusiast (who has been hiking Mudeung pretty much his whole adult life), I asked him to go with me one morning to show me the way to the top. He got all excited and started to make plans that instant to do it one morning because he has evening graduate classes. "Six o'clock, is it okay?"
No, teacher, it is not okay.
We negotiated to hike up to the halfway point, 중머리제 (Jungmeorijae), and settled on 8 a.m. this past Monday morning. True to his word, he hopped off the bus at the base of the mountain at 7:45 and, after buying some water bottles and some kimbap, began the trek up the trail. And by by trek, I mean sprint - this guy practically ran up the mountain. I was pouring sweat when we reached the clearing at 9:15 and was wiped for the rest of the day at school. Still, it was a great experience, and we talked about going a little further up next week.
Hopefully now that intensives are over, we can settle into a routine that will hold more or less steady for the rest of our time here. We are definitely getting excited for our upcoming trip to Kyoto and to some beautiful fall weather and foliage!
Intensives
I've been less consistent about blogging in August because Joel (along with two of our afternoon teacher co-workers) was doing summer intensives all month. The students here all have vacation during the months of August and January, so many hagwons offer summer and winter "intensive courses" for students to have extra exposure to English language and (in theory at least) to have the opportunity to study English in greater breadth and/or detail. In practice, what this means is that a few lucky afternoon and evening teachers
What this meant for us was that Joel was working from 9:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. (MWF) or 8 p.m. (TR) with only a break for lunch. With him at work for virtually ever waking moment of the day, I was left to do all of the housework, including cooking, cleaning, ironing, doing laundry, taking shirts to and picking them up from the cleaners, going to the bank and other miscellaneous life-curveballs. It was pretty bizarre here for a while, with Joel the Workaholic and Jessica the June Cleaver-esque housewife (who, by the way, was also still working full time). Also, it's a wonder we didn't kill each other.
But that's all over now, and the nice wad of overtime-pay cash will surely feel good when it finally comes around.
Intense Weather
In case the news has bypassed you because you are living under a rock, we had not one, but two typhoons come through last week. The first one, Bolaven, came through last Tuesday and was so bad that nearly all of the schools and hagwons (including ECC!) closed for the day. While I didn't get much sleep on Monday night because the windows were banging around so freaking loudly, we had a very nice day off hanging out with our co-workers. Unfortunately, this resulted in pretty much everyone at work running around like chickens without heads for the rest of the week, as the schedule had to be adjusted and the new session pushed back to make up for the lost class day.
 |
| Yay for typhoons! Because we don't already get enough of them in Texas... |
 |
| Because one typhoon just wasn't enough. 어떻게 (WTF) Korea. |
Normally I don't mind the rain, but it is starting to get old, especially now that I have been trying to get to know the hiking trails in the area. Which brings me to...
Intense Hiking
I'm happy to report that I have been to Mudeungsan, the mountain just outside of town, three times now. After going for the first time the weekend of Joel's birthday, I went again several weeks ago with one of my co-workers and hiked up to Jeungsimsa, one of the better-known temples on the mountain. I really want to hike up to the top eventually, so when I discovered that our Korean teacher is also a hiking enthusiast (who has been hiking Mudeung pretty much his whole adult life), I asked him to go with me one morning to show me the way to the top. He got all excited and started to make plans that instant to do it one morning because he has evening graduate classes. "Six o'clock, is it okay?"
No, teacher, it is not okay.
We negotiated to hike up to the halfway point, 중머리제 (Jungmeorijae), and settled on 8 a.m. this past Monday morning. True to his word, he hopped off the bus at the base of the mountain at 7:45 and, after buying some water bottles and some kimbap, began the trek up the trail. And by by trek, I mean sprint - this guy practically ran up the mountain. I was pouring sweat when we reached the clearing at 9:15 and was wiped for the rest of the day at school. Still, it was a great experience, and we talked about going a little further up next week.
Hopefully now that intensives are over, we can settle into a routine that will hold more or less steady for the rest of our time here. We are definitely getting excited for our upcoming trip to Kyoto and to some beautiful fall weather and foliage!
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Information Crusader: Follow-Up/Cruzadora de Informação: Seguimento
I finally got a response from the Gwangju News Magazine editors! It was short, sweet, and, I felt, very attentive.
Dear Jessica,
I'd firstly like to apologise for my late response. I've been away on vacation.
Thank you for brining these issues to our attention. The writers of the articles you mentioned below always provide a list of sources from which they obtained their information. Currently, we don't have anyone checking the credibility of these sources, so in future we will do so.
I would also like to take you up on your offer of fact-checking health-related articles. We now realise how necessary this is.
I hope the offer is still available, and thank you again for sharing your concerns.
Best,
[editor]
Ah, sweet victory.
Dear Jessica,
I'd firstly like to apologise for my late response. I've been away on vacation.
Thank you for brining these issues to our attention. The writers of the articles you mentioned below always provide a list of sources from which they obtained their information. Currently, we don't have anyone checking the credibility of these sources, so in future we will do so.
I would also like to take you up on your offer of fact-checking health-related articles. We now realise how necessary this is.
I hope the offer is still available, and thank you again for sharing your concerns.
Best,
[editor]
Ah, sweet victory.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Living in Pentos/Morando em Pentos
Shae: Let's get on a boat to Pentos and never come back.
Tyrion Lannister: What would we do in Pentos?
Shae: Eat. Drink. Fuck. Live!
-Game of Thrones
It occurred to Joel and I this weekend that tomorrow will mark the beginning of our fourth month here in Korea. Many other teachers have commented as they were leaving that the time really goes by quickly here, and now I realize how right they are. It feels like just yesterday that we stumbled into the bus terminal, and yet we're a quarter of the way through our contract. Time really does fly.
For the most part, we have really enjoyed it so far. Some days the "culture shock" gets really frustrating, particularly my quest to get information about our health insurance policy and my ongoing banking saga (more on that in a minute), but by and large life is really easy, and very enjoyable here. We are excited about the two new teachers coming in next week - they are from Texas, and they sound really positive and fun. The outgoing teachers have done a lot to help us get oriented and learn the ropes of the job, but it will be really nice to have our group for the better part of next year all together.
This weekend was a lot of fun. After our Korean language class on Saturday morning (our second to last one for the session - it's crazy to think we have been studying Korean for seven weeks!), Joel and I picked up a nice flat-screen TV that we bought from an Irish guy who is about to leave the country. It's a great addition to our living room and a huge upgrade from crappy analog that came with the apartment (which would change the channel every time you tried to raise the volume and raise the volume and change the channel when you tried to lower the volume), and we can hook it up to the laptop! After we got that set up, my co-worker and I went hiking up to Jeungsim temple on Mudeung mountain. There are so many trails to explore, and every time you check one out, you find another one that you have to earmark for another day. It's so beautiful, though - I can't wait to see what it will look like in the fall!
I got dinner with some friends who work at a different hagwon, and then several of us went out dancing last night. Today I went to a jimjilbang, or a Korean bathhouse/sauna (more on that in a minute, too), and we hosted a movie night this evening. Not a bad weekend, if I do say so myself.
The Ongoing Bank Saga
So after my initial (negative) experience at the bank, my Korean co-worker went back with me to help sort everything out. After that visit, we got both Joel's and my name on the bank account and two functioning debit cards (one of which also works as a bus card). Last week, when we got paid, I went to the nearby branch to deposit our earnings and wire some of the money home. The actual wire transfer went fine, but when I went to put in my bank password, it turned out that I had memorized the wrong one (here, when you set up a bank account, you have a four-digit bank password number, a four-digit password for your bank card, and a separate six-digit PIN for your card for "international ATMs," whatever those are). The lovely English-speaking teller helped me to reset it and even fixed it so that I could use the same number for both my account and the card.
Unfortunately, I discovered later that day that while I could use my card at the ATM to withdraw cash, I could not use it as a debit card. On the other hand, Joel's card could no longer be used at the ATM, though he could still use it as a debit card.
WTF, Korea.
After yet another emotional breakdown at work, I took both cards back into the bank the next day and explained my predicament. The same lovely English-speaking teller replaced both cards and reset both card passwords (again), so we are okay with the bank (for now, at least).
I talked to my Japanese conversation partner about the whole fiasco, and she said that banking in Japan is similarly complicated. Asia, I understand that you are into secure banking, but when my bank account is so secure that even I can't use it, there is a problem. On the positive side, however, I have identified the teller at the bank who speaks English, and I am determined to make her my new best friend. My next task will be to set up online banking. Woo!
The Jimjilbang
I think I may have found my new favorite thing here in Korea. A jimjilbang is a large, public bathhouse/sauna where people go to relax and hang out. Basically, you pay a flat entry fee to have unlimited access to a common area (that usually sells snacks and drinks and has TVs to watch) and segregated saunas and hot and cold tubs. The one I went to this afternoon is called "Big Spo" and has a two coffee shops in the lobby and a Chinese restaurant next door. I spend all of my time in the hot tubs and saunas and did not venture into the common area, but it was an awesome and relaxing experience. You are supposed to wash and scrub yourself before getting into any of the tubs, and a lot of people will go in pairs or groups and help each other do that. After a few minutes of standing around and trying to figure out what to do, I just scrubbed down and jumped in a hot tub and it was paradise from there. As the only foreigner in the joint, I got quite a few stares (mostly from the kids), but once I got past that it was alright. Now that I have figured out how to get there on the bus, I will have to go back more often.
It's nice to be able to kick back and just live.
Tyrion Lannister: What would we do in Pentos?
Shae: Eat. Drink. Fuck. Live!
-Game of Thrones
It occurred to Joel and I this weekend that tomorrow will mark the beginning of our fourth month here in Korea. Many other teachers have commented as they were leaving that the time really goes by quickly here, and now I realize how right they are. It feels like just yesterday that we stumbled into the bus terminal, and yet we're a quarter of the way through our contract. Time really does fly.
For the most part, we have really enjoyed it so far. Some days the "culture shock" gets really frustrating, particularly my quest to get information about our health insurance policy and my ongoing banking saga (more on that in a minute), but by and large life is really easy, and very enjoyable here. We are excited about the two new teachers coming in next week - they are from Texas, and they sound really positive and fun. The outgoing teachers have done a lot to help us get oriented and learn the ropes of the job, but it will be really nice to have our group for the better part of next year all together.
This weekend was a lot of fun. After our Korean language class on Saturday morning (our second to last one for the session - it's crazy to think we have been studying Korean for seven weeks!), Joel and I picked up a nice flat-screen TV that we bought from an Irish guy who is about to leave the country. It's a great addition to our living room and a huge upgrade from crappy analog that came with the apartment (which would change the channel every time you tried to raise the volume and raise the volume and change the channel when you tried to lower the volume), and we can hook it up to the laptop! After we got that set up, my co-worker and I went hiking up to Jeungsim temple on Mudeung mountain. There are so many trails to explore, and every time you check one out, you find another one that you have to earmark for another day. It's so beautiful, though - I can't wait to see what it will look like in the fall!
I got dinner with some friends who work at a different hagwon, and then several of us went out dancing last night. Today I went to a jimjilbang, or a Korean bathhouse/sauna (more on that in a minute, too), and we hosted a movie night this evening. Not a bad weekend, if I do say so myself.
The Ongoing Bank Saga
So after my initial (negative) experience at the bank, my Korean co-worker went back with me to help sort everything out. After that visit, we got both Joel's and my name on the bank account and two functioning debit cards (one of which also works as a bus card). Last week, when we got paid, I went to the nearby branch to deposit our earnings and wire some of the money home. The actual wire transfer went fine, but when I went to put in my bank password, it turned out that I had memorized the wrong one (here, when you set up a bank account, you have a four-digit bank password number, a four-digit password for your bank card, and a separate six-digit PIN for your card for "international ATMs," whatever those are). The lovely English-speaking teller helped me to reset it and even fixed it so that I could use the same number for both my account and the card.
Unfortunately, I discovered later that day that while I could use my card at the ATM to withdraw cash, I could not use it as a debit card. On the other hand, Joel's card could no longer be used at the ATM, though he could still use it as a debit card.
WTF, Korea.
After yet another emotional breakdown at work, I took both cards back into the bank the next day and explained my predicament. The same lovely English-speaking teller replaced both cards and reset both card passwords (again), so we are okay with the bank (for now, at least).
I talked to my Japanese conversation partner about the whole fiasco, and she said that banking in Japan is similarly complicated. Asia, I understand that you are into secure banking, but when my bank account is so secure that even I can't use it, there is a problem. On the positive side, however, I have identified the teller at the bank who speaks English, and I am determined to make her my new best friend. My next task will be to set up online banking. Woo!
The Jimjilbang
I think I may have found my new favorite thing here in Korea. A jimjilbang is a large, public bathhouse/sauna where people go to relax and hang out. Basically, you pay a flat entry fee to have unlimited access to a common area (that usually sells snacks and drinks and has TVs to watch) and segregated saunas and hot and cold tubs. The one I went to this afternoon is called "Big Spo" and has a two coffee shops in the lobby and a Chinese restaurant next door. I spend all of my time in the hot tubs and saunas and did not venture into the common area, but it was an awesome and relaxing experience. You are supposed to wash and scrub yourself before getting into any of the tubs, and a lot of people will go in pairs or groups and help each other do that. After a few minutes of standing around and trying to figure out what to do, I just scrubbed down and jumped in a hot tub and it was paradise from there. As the only foreigner in the joint, I got quite a few stares (mostly from the kids), but once I got past that it was alright. Now that I have figured out how to get there on the bus, I will have to go back more often.
It's nice to be able to kick back and just live.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
The Immigrant Experience, Part Two/A experiência do imigrante, segunda parte
There are a lot of things you take for granted in your home country. The list is endless, so I won't bother to go into it here, but readers (and especially those that are also English teachers here in the SK) can undoubtedly think of several right off the top of their heads. When my friend who lives in Beijing came to visit me a few weeks ago, we had a long conversation about how difficult it can be to give an answer to people who ask, "So what is life like [insert country you live in]? How is it different from home?" The fact of the matter is that there are so many things that answer this question that you simply cannot explain; you have to experience them. Wrapping your mind around what it is like to learn to navigate a completely different system, even if it is one in a developed country, is a monumental task unless you have done it yourself.
While Joel has cheerfully told people that he has not experienced any culture shock, I seem to be following the typical model cited by our "training videos" that our hagwon had us watch. (We call him "Frozen Man" because in two of the videos, the image of the perky, metro-sexual Korean American man freezes about three minutes in and you are stuck listening to his obnoxious voice for the rest of the 45-minute presentation.) The curve that Frozen Man showed us in the culture shock presentation showed the initial "honeymoon phase" wearing off about two or three months after moving and "culture shock," defined as constant irritation at barriers encountered in everyday life, setting in.
After my Korean co-worker helped me clear up the bank SNAFU the following week, I tried to purchase airline tickets for our September/October vacation through a Korean airline website. After about ten tries combined between Joel and I trying to buy the tickets at home online (Korean websites only work in Internet Explorer, and you have to have pop-ups enabled to install all of the extra security software, and your purchase times out if you cannot complete it in ten minutes), we went into work and requested the help of the same co-worker who books everyone's travel and helped us resolve our issues at the bank. We went through the same website and tried to buy the same tickets on her laptop, to no avail. After inputting my national ID number (why you need that to buy anything is beyond me) and my bank card information, and going through several pop-up windows to install the security software yet again, and doing it as fast as possible to avoid having my purchase time out, I came to a screen (in Korean, of course) that required me to set up some kind of PIN for online purchases. Even after doing that, my purchase was blocked; apparently, if you want to use your bank card to buy things online, you have to set up online banking separately with your bank. I was so overwhelmed by my inability to making a simple effing purchase on the effing internet when I had the money in my account for it that I nearly had a mental breakdown in front of all my coworkers. I stormed out of the office and into the bathroom and, for the second time in a month, just cried.
Side note: I found out later that many Korean websites require you to input your national ID number because they only allow native Koreans to make purchases; if your number identifies you as a foreign national, you cannot make a purchase. Back home, all you need to buy something on Amazon is an address and a credit card. WTF, Korea.
My biggest bout with "culture shock" by far was my epic battle to get information about our health insurance policy. It used to be the law here in Korea that all employers were required to enroll foreign national employees into the National Health Insurance. Legislation was passed in 2007 that allowed them to not do so if it is agreed to under contract; however, most people are not aware of this change and will still tell English teachers that their hagwons are breaking the law if they do not enroll them in the NHI. When we signed our contracts with our school, however, it specifically stated that we would be provided with insurance through a private company, so they are definitely not breaking the law. When we got our first paychecks, I saw that there was no deduction for our policy, so I asked our head teacher about it, and she explained that the school was paying the entire premium. Fine, I said, but can I have some kind of proof of coverage?
And then the struggle began.
A simple request for a health insurance card, or even just a document with a policy number, turned into a mandatory meeting for all foreign teachers where a generic memo with an explanation of the coverage limits of our policy was handed out. They explained to us what was covered (and what was not) and asked if there were any questions. I raised my hand. "Can you give us our policy number?"
The school administrator stared at me. "Why do you need that?"
"Just to have," I responded. "I want to have all of the information."
"I don't have it now, but if you need it, we can give it to you," he said.
"You don't need it," one of my co-workers explained to me. "You just bring in your receipts and they reimburse you."
They went on to explain that if we had a doctor or hospital visit, we would have to pay out of pocket. We would then bring them the receipts, and they would take care of filing the claim for us. I raised my hand again.
"Can we file the claim ourselves if we want to?"
Now I started to get some raised eyebrows. "You can if you want to," the head teacher explained, "but we can do it for you. It is easier for you this way."
I sat quietly through the rest of the meeting and turned the information over in my head. I had heard stories of hagwons lying to English teachers about providing health insurance, or dropping their coverage a few months into their contract, or simply not providing it at all, and while our school is respected and well-established, my instincts to make sure everything was "kosher" were kicking in.
After some more nagging, I finally got our group policy number, and so one morning I tried to call the company and reach someone in customer service who could speak English and verify the policy. After pressing the button indicated on the phone menu for English language service, I waited.
Customer service rep (CSR): Yoboseyo? (Hello?)
me: Ne, yoboseyo! Yeongeo haseyo? (Do you speak English?)
CSR: A little.
me: I need to speak to someone in English who can help me with my policy.
CSR: Wait please. [puts me on hold]
Different CSR: Yoboseyo?
me: Yes, do you speak English?
CSR: Yoboseyo?
me: (louder) I need to speak to someone in English!
CSR: Yoboseyo?
me: Sigh.
I hung up and messaged one of our Korean friends asking him if he would be willing to call for me. When I got his response later that day, he told me that our school was breaking the law and probably committing some kind of tax evasion. Back to square one.
The following week, I tried again.
Customer service rep (CSR): Yoboseyo?
me: Do you speak English?
CSR: Yes.
me: Okay, I need to speak to someone who can verify my policy.
CSR: What kind of policy?
me: Health insurance.
CSR: Okay, hold please. [puts me on hold]
Different CSR: Yoboseyo?
me: Yes, I need to verify my health insurance policy.
CSR: Do you have the policy number?
me: Yes. [I read the policy number to him.]
CSR: Okay, I will transfer you to someone in that department. [puts me on hold again]
Yet another CSR: Yoboseyo?
me: Yes, do you speak English?
CSR: Yoboseyo?
me: (louder) I need to speak to someone in English!
CSR: Yoboseyo?
me: (louder still) Hello?
CSR: [click]
I stared at the Skype window for a few minutes, then got dressed and stormed off to E-mart (about a 2-km walk) to buy chicken and a jar of curry sauce. In the checkout line I realized I didn't have my wallet...because I'd taken it out at home to pull out our health insurance policy number. It was everything I could do to not throw a fit in the store.
Equally frustrating has been trying to explain to people why these encounters make me so upset. I went from being a fully capable and independent adult in my home country to not being able to take care of simple things (like opening the kind of bank account I want) or get a simple piece of information (like details on my health insurance policy) on my own, because I don't speak the language. Some days I feel as though I have been robbed of self-sufficiency and reduced to being a child, or a petulant teenager at best. It is not helped by the Confucian and paternalistic culture here: while my employers are certainly well-meaning in offering to file my health insurance claims form me, it is all I can do to not feel patronized. They simply cannot understand a desire for privacy when it comes to my health, or my insistence on having the policy information (rather than just trusting them that it is provided), or even just wanting to be able to do things on my own.
I ultimately found my answers at the Gwangju International Center (GIC), a non-profit center staffed by volunteers that provides services for expats living in the city. They do everything from culture lectures to day-trip tours in the region to Korean language lessons. They also offer free counseling services to anyone with employment or legal disputes, or anyone who needs Korean language assistance with situations like mine. When I explained my dilemma to the coordinator (a very nice Vietnamese woman), she instantly understood. A Korean volunteer took my written questions and policy number, got on the phone, and in about 15 minutes had all the information I wanted and had been struggling to get for weeks. And yes, we do have a health insurance policy.
Ultimately, this particular story had a happy ending. But the whole thing has pushed me to think deeply about the "immigrant experience" and the debates, particularly on health and rights to privacy with regard to immigrants, that I paid so little attention to back home. I have been thinking seriously about volunteering with the GIC or another organization that serves migrant women, even with as little free time as we already have. I think it would be worth it to help others work through "culture shock" - the experiences of confronting what should be a simple task that actually just makes you go, "WTF, Korea."
While Joel has cheerfully told people that he has not experienced any culture shock, I seem to be following the typical model cited by our "training videos" that our hagwon had us watch. (We call him "Frozen Man" because in two of the videos, the image of the perky, metro-sexual Korean American man freezes about three minutes in and you are stuck listening to his obnoxious voice for the rest of the 45-minute presentation.) The curve that Frozen Man showed us in the culture shock presentation showed the initial "honeymoon phase" wearing off about two or three months after moving and "culture shock," defined as constant irritation at barriers encountered in everyday life, setting in.
After my Korean co-worker helped me clear up the bank SNAFU the following week, I tried to purchase airline tickets for our September/October vacation through a Korean airline website. After about ten tries combined between Joel and I trying to buy the tickets at home online (Korean websites only work in Internet Explorer, and you have to have pop-ups enabled to install all of the extra security software, and your purchase times out if you cannot complete it in ten minutes), we went into work and requested the help of the same co-worker who books everyone's travel and helped us resolve our issues at the bank. We went through the same website and tried to buy the same tickets on her laptop, to no avail. After inputting my national ID number (why you need that to buy anything is beyond me) and my bank card information, and going through several pop-up windows to install the security software yet again, and doing it as fast as possible to avoid having my purchase time out, I came to a screen (in Korean, of course) that required me to set up some kind of PIN for online purchases. Even after doing that, my purchase was blocked; apparently, if you want to use your bank card to buy things online, you have to set up online banking separately with your bank. I was so overwhelmed by my inability to making a simple effing purchase on the effing internet when I had the money in my account for it that I nearly had a mental breakdown in front of all my coworkers. I stormed out of the office and into the bathroom and, for the second time in a month, just cried.
Side note: I found out later that many Korean websites require you to input your national ID number because they only allow native Koreans to make purchases; if your number identifies you as a foreign national, you cannot make a purchase. Back home, all you need to buy something on Amazon is an address and a credit card. WTF, Korea.
My biggest bout with "culture shock" by far was my epic battle to get information about our health insurance policy. It used to be the law here in Korea that all employers were required to enroll foreign national employees into the National Health Insurance. Legislation was passed in 2007 that allowed them to not do so if it is agreed to under contract; however, most people are not aware of this change and will still tell English teachers that their hagwons are breaking the law if they do not enroll them in the NHI. When we signed our contracts with our school, however, it specifically stated that we would be provided with insurance through a private company, so they are definitely not breaking the law. When we got our first paychecks, I saw that there was no deduction for our policy, so I asked our head teacher about it, and she explained that the school was paying the entire premium. Fine, I said, but can I have some kind of proof of coverage?
And then the struggle began.
A simple request for a health insurance card, or even just a document with a policy number, turned into a mandatory meeting for all foreign teachers where a generic memo with an explanation of the coverage limits of our policy was handed out. They explained to us what was covered (and what was not) and asked if there were any questions. I raised my hand. "Can you give us our policy number?"
The school administrator stared at me. "Why do you need that?"
"Just to have," I responded. "I want to have all of the information."
"I don't have it now, but if you need it, we can give it to you," he said.
"You don't need it," one of my co-workers explained to me. "You just bring in your receipts and they reimburse you."
They went on to explain that if we had a doctor or hospital visit, we would have to pay out of pocket. We would then bring them the receipts, and they would take care of filing the claim for us. I raised my hand again.
"Can we file the claim ourselves if we want to?"
Now I started to get some raised eyebrows. "You can if you want to," the head teacher explained, "but we can do it for you. It is easier for you this way."
I sat quietly through the rest of the meeting and turned the information over in my head. I had heard stories of hagwons lying to English teachers about providing health insurance, or dropping their coverage a few months into their contract, or simply not providing it at all, and while our school is respected and well-established, my instincts to make sure everything was "kosher" were kicking in.
After some more nagging, I finally got our group policy number, and so one morning I tried to call the company and reach someone in customer service who could speak English and verify the policy. After pressing the button indicated on the phone menu for English language service, I waited.
Customer service rep (CSR): Yoboseyo? (Hello?)
me: Ne, yoboseyo! Yeongeo haseyo? (Do you speak English?)
CSR: A little.
me: I need to speak to someone in English who can help me with my policy.
CSR: Wait please. [puts me on hold]
Different CSR: Yoboseyo?
me: Yes, do you speak English?
CSR: Yoboseyo?
me: (louder) I need to speak to someone in English!
CSR: Yoboseyo?
me: Sigh.
I hung up and messaged one of our Korean friends asking him if he would be willing to call for me. When I got his response later that day, he told me that our school was breaking the law and probably committing some kind of tax evasion. Back to square one.
 |
| WTF, Korea. |
The following week, I tried again.
Customer service rep (CSR): Yoboseyo?
me: Do you speak English?
CSR: Yes.
me: Okay, I need to speak to someone who can verify my policy.
CSR: What kind of policy?
me: Health insurance.
CSR: Okay, hold please. [puts me on hold]
Different CSR: Yoboseyo?
me: Yes, I need to verify my health insurance policy.
CSR: Do you have the policy number?
me: Yes. [I read the policy number to him.]
CSR: Okay, I will transfer you to someone in that department. [puts me on hold again]
Yet another CSR: Yoboseyo?
me: Yes, do you speak English?
CSR: Yoboseyo?
me: (louder) I need to speak to someone in English!
CSR: Yoboseyo?
me: (louder still) Hello?
CSR: [click]
I stared at the Skype window for a few minutes, then got dressed and stormed off to E-mart (about a 2-km walk) to buy chicken and a jar of curry sauce. In the checkout line I realized I didn't have my wallet...because I'd taken it out at home to pull out our health insurance policy number. It was everything I could do to not throw a fit in the store.
Equally frustrating has been trying to explain to people why these encounters make me so upset. I went from being a fully capable and independent adult in my home country to not being able to take care of simple things (like opening the kind of bank account I want) or get a simple piece of information (like details on my health insurance policy) on my own, because I don't speak the language. Some days I feel as though I have been robbed of self-sufficiency and reduced to being a child, or a petulant teenager at best. It is not helped by the Confucian and paternalistic culture here: while my employers are certainly well-meaning in offering to file my health insurance claims form me, it is all I can do to not feel patronized. They simply cannot understand a desire for privacy when it comes to my health, or my insistence on having the policy information (rather than just trusting them that it is provided), or even just wanting to be able to do things on my own.
I ultimately found my answers at the Gwangju International Center (GIC), a non-profit center staffed by volunteers that provides services for expats living in the city. They do everything from culture lectures to day-trip tours in the region to Korean language lessons. They also offer free counseling services to anyone with employment or legal disputes, or anyone who needs Korean language assistance with situations like mine. When I explained my dilemma to the coordinator (a very nice Vietnamese woman), she instantly understood. A Korean volunteer took my written questions and policy number, got on the phone, and in about 15 minutes had all the information I wanted and had been struggling to get for weeks. And yes, we do have a health insurance policy.
Ultimately, this particular story had a happy ending. But the whole thing has pushed me to think deeply about the "immigrant experience" and the debates, particularly on health and rights to privacy with regard to immigrants, that I paid so little attention to back home. I have been thinking seriously about volunteering with the GIC or another organization that serves migrant women, even with as little free time as we already have. I think it would be worth it to help others work through "culture shock" - the experiences of confronting what should be a simple task that actually just makes you go, "WTF, Korea."
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Information Crusader/Cruzadora de Informação
For whatever reason, I always find myself writing extensively researched responses to inaccurate statements or articles. For example, when a doctor I saw in college told me that NFP (that's family planning based on a woman's natural fertility signs) had a "failure rate," I spent hours researching and writing an e-mail to him comparing the efficacy and long-term health effects of hormonal birth control (which also has has a "failure rate") to natural methods. Maybe it's a tick, but whenever I see something that is wrong or misleading, I get annoyed.
This time it was two articles in Gwangju News, a monthly magazine put out by the Gwangju International Center, a non-profit organization that serves the expat community here. The magazine has great coverage of local artists and events, and for the most part is a pretty good read. However, it is reliant on volunteer contributions and compiled and edited by volunteers, so I guess some questionable stuff occasionally makes it through. The articles, on the "dangers" of water fluoridation ("Don't Drink the Water!" in the April issue) and "radioactive seafood" ("Fukushima: A Tsunami of Radioactive Seafood?" in the August issue) really raised my public health hackles, so I wrote an e-mail to the editorial team expressing my concerns. I have posted it below for your amusement.
Dear Gwangju News Editorial Team,
My husband and I recently moved to Gwangju and joined the GIC, and we have been reading the Gwangju News with great interest. For the most part, we like the magazine: it has great coverage of the arts and culture scene here, and we really appreciate most of the features. However, we (and I in particular, as a public health professional by training) have been concerned at some of the misinformation and fearmongering in a few of your recent articles, specifically the ones on water fluoridation and radiation in seafood.
Let me begin by providing my credentials: I have a B.S. in Biomedical Science and a Master of Public Health (MPH), which a focus on Environmental Health. After I received my MPH in December of 2008, I worked for one year as a fellow with the CDC's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and more recently, for two years as a consultant to the Texas Department of State Health Services on a project with the Agency for Toxic Substances and Diseases Registry, a sister agency of the CDC. I have also been an active member of the American Public Health Association's International Health Section for the last two and a half years, serving as the Communications Committee chair since the Annual Meeting in 2010, and have written public health content for blogs with the International Health Section, Medscape, and End the Neglect (which focuses on neglected tropical diseases). As someone who has worked in public health communications, I can particularly appreciate the value of accurate portrayal of public health issues and the harms that can be caused by misinformation, even from well-meaning individuals.
The Fluoride Article
The first article that I feel was misrepresentative of a public health issue, and the one that bothered me the most, was the article on fluoride ("Don't Drink the Water!") in the April 2012 issue. First off, there were several blatantly incorrect statements:
1. "adding fluoride to water constitutes forced drugging" - Frankly, this is ridiculous. Fluoride cannot be called a drug in any way, as it does not alter the body's function or affect behavior. It is a naturally-occurring mineral and cannot be called a drug any more than magnesium, iron, or calcium can. Therefore it is not in any way "illegal" to add it to the water supply.
2. "The US Centers for Disease Control has labeled fluoride as a level four hazardous substance" - This is also false. ATSDR has classified fluorine, hydrogen fluorine, and hydrofluoric acid (all industrial compounds) as highly toxic and hazardous substances (because they are), but fluoride is a different compound entirely. To put it in perspective, pure sodium metal is highly corrosive, but we eat it all the time as sodium chloride (table salt). For more information, see ATSDR's overview here: http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/substances/toxsubstance.asp?toxid=38
There were also several misleading statements, including references to Nazi concentration camps, mind control, and recent legislation passed in the US. To clarify, the idea that the Nazis put fluoride in camp water to control prisoners is an urban myth that has no basis in historical fact (more information on this: http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2011/oct/06/critics-water-fluoridation/truth-about-fluoride-doesnt-include-nazi-myth/). Besides, even if the Nazis fluoridated the drinking water in the camps, they also provided medical care to sick or injured prisoners. Should we then say that treating people for tuberculosis, or setting broken bones, or providing universal health care, is unethical because it was done in a concentration camp? (For an in-depth account of life in a concentration camp, I recommend Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi.)
The truth is that the CDC has hailed public water fluoridation as one of the ten greatest public health achievements of the 20th century, and multiple respected public health and professional associations have come out in support of it, basing their statements on multiple reputable scientific studies and meta-analyses. In summary, the article on fluoridated drinking was poorly researched, based on misinformation, and completely fallacious.
More information from the CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/fluoridation/
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_controversy
The Radioactive Seafood Article
This article was not nearly as disturbing, and I can appreciate its timeliness as the international community continues to debate the pros and cons of nuclear power in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster. However, I still felt that the information what somewhat misrepresented and misleading.
1. "imagine fish that swam through irradiated waters for 6,000 miles being...served to thousands of people" - This is a grossly inaccurate statement. First of all, "irradiated" means that something has been exposed to radiation, usually intentionally. While some radiation from the Fukushima plant was released into the ocean, this statement implies that the entire Pacific Ocean was exposed to colossal radiation waves.
2. "Thailand, the Philippines, and Malaysia...have been proactive in banning Japanese food imports for fear of radioactive contamination" - This fails to take into account ulterior motives or politics. Japan is an industrialized nation with a highly efficient agricultural production system, so naturally they export a lot of produce and food products. It is easy for other Southeast Asian countries to use the Fukushima disaster as an excuse to ban food imports in order to protect their own rice farmers, for example, without drawing international condemnation for unfair international trade policies or foreign policy consequences.
3. The article makes repeated references to finding "trace amounts" of radioactive contaminants in seafood and citing this as a reason for concern. The term "trace amount" is indicates that the compound is present in the sample being tested, but at a level that is barely above the detection limit. What this means is that some machine could pick up some tiny amount of the compound in some of the samples.
The Japanese government destroyed all of the harvested produce that had radioactive materials above its own legal limits, which are even lower that international standards set by the World Health Organization. Furthermore, to expect no radiation in any of your food is ludicrous; radiation occurs naturally throughout nature and can be found in bananas and granite countertops (for additional perspective, refer to this chart: http://xkcd.com/radiation/). As the article itself mentioned, we are exposed to radiation at much higher levels during medical procedures and airline flights that has been detected in any tuna samples. To generate public fear about it is unproductive and potentially harmful to farmers and fishers, as avoidance of these foods will affect their livelihoods.
I understand that the magazine relies on contributions from volunteers and that people should be able to express, and write about, their opinions freely. However, these articles in particular were poorly researched and the ignorance of the authors painfully obvious to anyone with a scientific background. Neither of them listed any education or training in public health, environmental science, or (in the case of the radiation article), nuclear science. As editors, I know you understand the importance of making sure your contributions are factually accurate and well-researched. If you receive any contributions in the future about health-related articles, I would be more than happy to review them for any misinformation or inaccuracies.
This time it was two articles in Gwangju News, a monthly magazine put out by the Gwangju International Center, a non-profit organization that serves the expat community here. The magazine has great coverage of local artists and events, and for the most part is a pretty good read. However, it is reliant on volunteer contributions and compiled and edited by volunteers, so I guess some questionable stuff occasionally makes it through. The articles, on the "dangers" of water fluoridation ("Don't Drink the Water!" in the April issue) and "radioactive seafood" ("Fukushima: A Tsunami of Radioactive Seafood?" in the August issue) really raised my public health hackles, so I wrote an e-mail to the editorial team expressing my concerns. I have posted it below for your amusement.
Dear Gwangju News Editorial Team,
My husband and I recently moved to Gwangju and joined the GIC, and we have been reading the Gwangju News with great interest. For the most part, we like the magazine: it has great coverage of the arts and culture scene here, and we really appreciate most of the features. However, we (and I in particular, as a public health professional by training) have been concerned at some of the misinformation and fearmongering in a few of your recent articles, specifically the ones on water fluoridation and radiation in seafood.
Let me begin by providing my credentials: I have a B.S. in Biomedical Science and a Master of Public Health (MPH), which a focus on Environmental Health. After I received my MPH in December of 2008, I worked for one year as a fellow with the CDC's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and more recently, for two years as a consultant to the Texas Department of State Health Services on a project with the Agency for Toxic Substances and Diseases Registry, a sister agency of the CDC. I have also been an active member of the American Public Health Association's International Health Section for the last two and a half years, serving as the Communications Committee chair since the Annual Meeting in 2010, and have written public health content for blogs with the International Health Section, Medscape, and End the Neglect (which focuses on neglected tropical diseases). As someone who has worked in public health communications, I can particularly appreciate the value of accurate portrayal of public health issues and the harms that can be caused by misinformation, even from well-meaning individuals.
The Fluoride Article
The first article that I feel was misrepresentative of a public health issue, and the one that bothered me the most, was the article on fluoride ("Don't Drink the Water!") in the April 2012 issue. First off, there were several blatantly incorrect statements:
1. "adding fluoride to water constitutes forced drugging" - Frankly, this is ridiculous. Fluoride cannot be called a drug in any way, as it does not alter the body's function or affect behavior. It is a naturally-occurring mineral and cannot be called a drug any more than magnesium, iron, or calcium can. Therefore it is not in any way "illegal" to add it to the water supply.
2. "The US Centers for Disease Control has labeled fluoride as a level four hazardous substance" - This is also false. ATSDR has classified fluorine, hydrogen fluorine, and hydrofluoric acid (all industrial compounds) as highly toxic and hazardous substances (because they are), but fluoride is a different compound entirely. To put it in perspective, pure sodium metal is highly corrosive, but we eat it all the time as sodium chloride (table salt). For more information, see ATSDR's overview here: http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/substances/toxsubstance.asp?toxid=38
There were also several misleading statements, including references to Nazi concentration camps, mind control, and recent legislation passed in the US. To clarify, the idea that the Nazis put fluoride in camp water to control prisoners is an urban myth that has no basis in historical fact (more information on this: http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2011/oct/06/critics-water-fluoridation/truth-about-fluoride-doesnt-include-nazi-myth/). Besides, even if the Nazis fluoridated the drinking water in the camps, they also provided medical care to sick or injured prisoners. Should we then say that treating people for tuberculosis, or setting broken bones, or providing universal health care, is unethical because it was done in a concentration camp? (For an in-depth account of life in a concentration camp, I recommend Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi.)
The truth is that the CDC has hailed public water fluoridation as one of the ten greatest public health achievements of the 20th century, and multiple respected public health and professional associations have come out in support of it, basing their statements on multiple reputable scientific studies and meta-analyses. In summary, the article on fluoridated drinking was poorly researched, based on misinformation, and completely fallacious.
More information from the CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/fluoridation/
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_controversy
The Radioactive Seafood Article
This article was not nearly as disturbing, and I can appreciate its timeliness as the international community continues to debate the pros and cons of nuclear power in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster. However, I still felt that the information what somewhat misrepresented and misleading.
1. "imagine fish that swam through irradiated waters for 6,000 miles being...served to thousands of people" - This is a grossly inaccurate statement. First of all, "irradiated" means that something has been exposed to radiation, usually intentionally. While some radiation from the Fukushima plant was released into the ocean, this statement implies that the entire Pacific Ocean was exposed to colossal radiation waves.
2. "Thailand, the Philippines, and Malaysia...have been proactive in banning Japanese food imports for fear of radioactive contamination" - This fails to take into account ulterior motives or politics. Japan is an industrialized nation with a highly efficient agricultural production system, so naturally they export a lot of produce and food products. It is easy for other Southeast Asian countries to use the Fukushima disaster as an excuse to ban food imports in order to protect their own rice farmers, for example, without drawing international condemnation for unfair international trade policies or foreign policy consequences.
3. The article makes repeated references to finding "trace amounts" of radioactive contaminants in seafood and citing this as a reason for concern. The term "trace amount" is indicates that the compound is present in the sample being tested, but at a level that is barely above the detection limit. What this means is that some machine could pick up some tiny amount of the compound in some of the samples.
The Japanese government destroyed all of the harvested produce that had radioactive materials above its own legal limits, which are even lower that international standards set by the World Health Organization. Furthermore, to expect no radiation in any of your food is ludicrous; radiation occurs naturally throughout nature and can be found in bananas and granite countertops (for additional perspective, refer to this chart: http://xkcd.com/radiation/). As the article itself mentioned, we are exposed to radiation at much higher levels during medical procedures and airline flights that has been detected in any tuna samples. To generate public fear about it is unproductive and potentially harmful to farmers and fishers, as avoidance of these foods will affect their livelihoods.
I understand that the magazine relies on contributions from volunteers and that people should be able to express, and write about, their opinions freely. However, these articles in particular were poorly researched and the ignorance of the authors painfully obvious to anyone with a scientific background. Neither of them listed any education or training in public health, environmental science, or (in the case of the radiation article), nuclear science. As editors, I know you understand the importance of making sure your contributions are factually accurate and well-researched. If you receive any contributions in the future about health-related articles, I would be more than happy to review them for any misinformation or inaccuracies.
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