Joel and I said goodbye to Gwangju on Monday, and then to Korea yesterday. We had a big collective night out on Saturday night, starting with a large group dinner and a pub crawl that ended with a club (and several of our guy friends dancing on its poles). Sunday followed with its own adventure, and another night out on Monday (and let me tell you, going to a dance club on a Monday night is a weird experience), after which we (somehow) made it to Seoul on Tuesday on an 8 a.m. bus. Several of our friends met up with us in Seoul on Thursday (most everyone had Thursday and Friday off, because of the Lunar New Year), where we went clubbing yet again.
I may never want to see the inside of a dance club again.
Finally, Joel and I did some sightseeing on Friday, met up with a friend for dinner at the airport, and then watched Korea shrink out of sight from an airplane window at about 9:30 p.m. We spent the night in Kansai airport last night, then caught the train here to Kyoto first thing this morning. I am writing this from our boarding house in Kyoto. The place is old and simply furnished, but pretty sweet. There is an Irish guy and a French couple staying here as well, and they seem pretty friendly and down-to-earth.
I was kind of surprised that I never cried over leaving Gwangju, particularly when saying goodbye to some of our good friends. Unfortunately, it's difficult (if not impossible) to give each goodbye the proper attention it deserves, so perhaps it was better to cry for none than for only some, when others may have been more deserving of tears. But I suppose in the end, I knew it was time to go - not because of any one thing, but because (almost) two years is long enough to get to know a place and be ready to move on to the next one.
Also, I really, really miss my mom.
Joel says I complain about every single job I have. I know he is right, but I still maintain that every job had something worth complaining about, as well as things gained. This job taught me that I love children but do not have the patience or optimism for teaching. Joel truly enjoyed our time there and would like to leave the door open to go back if nothing pans out back home; I see the value in that but would frankly just rather not. I know I am qualified to teach at university, and would probably appreciate the extra pay and extensive vacation, but I truly miss my career; I thoroughly enjoy public health, particularly global health, and am eager to get back to it. I also felt my first moment of panic yesterday when I realized that the clock is now actively ticking down until we run out of money and I need to find another one. I am not worried at my ability to do so per se, but we are not sure where we will end up, whether (or where) Joel will be accepted into grad school, and whether I hate my next job, too. But that is life, I suppose.
They say that living abroad grows you in a way that nothing else will, but I don't think I fully understood why until we finally got ready to leave. When you live away from home and everything that is familiar - particularly in a place with a relatively small community of Westerners, like Gwangju - you make connections and spend time with people who would never have crossed your path back home, and I'm not just talking about people from other countries. We met people who had never left their home countries until now and a guy who has lived on five different continents. We met people who had taken only one lover their entire life and people who took pride in living la vie Bohème. I lost track of how many sexcapade stories I heard (and how many times I got laughed at for how sheltered I was). We met Catholics, Episcopalians, Evangelicals, and spent more time (and in conversation) with atheists than I ever imagined I would. We watched people build relationships and families while others set their own lives aflame. We made friends and lost friends, welcomed new faces and said goodbye to old ones, gave our hearts away and received them back full to the point of bursting.
So thank you, Gwangju. Thank you for the kids I taught - both the nice and the nasty - and the chance to see everything that kids can be. Thank you for the lessons in friendship and love. Thank you for the food and the temples and the mountains. Thank you for the chance to study the Korean language and the Korean people, and the constant reminders that I never came close to fully understanding either one. Thank you for the trials we overcame and the temptations we resisted. Thank you for the lessons learned and the forgiveness that came from admitting to mistakes. Thank you for the growth through isolation and the warmth of unexpected friendships. Thank you for the chance to defend my faith and model it through love to those who needed to see it done properly, and for the chance to better understand those who made radically different choices from me as people. And most of all, thank you for the chance to weather the storm with the man I love, to strengthen my marriage through shared trials and triumphs and joys and suffering.
Thank you all for the laughter, the tears, the fights, the drinks, the hugs, the kisses, the dances, the noraebang nights, the cook-offs, the house parties, and the hangovers. I will seriously be on the wagon for the whole of next month.
Here's lookin' at you, Gwangju.
NOW hollow fires burn out to black,
And lights are guttering low:
Square your shoulders, lift your pack,
And leave your friends and go.
Oh never fear, man, nought’s to dread,
Look not left nor right:
In all the endless road you tread
There’s nothing but the night.
-A. E. Housman
Friday, January 31, 2014
Monday, December 23, 2013
The Desolation of Memory/O desolação de lembrança
I started re-reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy after seeing the second Hobbit movie a few weeks ago. Now, I acknowledge that the opinions of my friends are fiercely divided over the movie. A lot of Tolkien devotees were truly upset at what he has done with the movies; some enjoyed it as a cinematic experience; some thought it was just okay; and some (one) thought it was "an improvement" on the book. I will not name said individual, primarily to save him from being tarred and feathered, as he is undoubtedly the only person on God's green earth who thinks that way, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I suppose. I personally enjoyed the movie, as far as movies go, but I still maintain that Peter Jackson could have made one or two perfectly enjoyable movies by just sticking to the source material (even if he had to pull from the Unfinished Tales) and not inventing an orc-chase and a love triangle with a she-elf played by Evangeline Lilly. (Then again, I never complain about seeing Evangeline Lilly onscreen.) I did think the movie was a bit too long, but it was worth sitting through just to see the scene with Bilbo and Smaug...just like the last one was worth sitting through to see Gollum.
Second only to the dragon, my favorite part of the movie was this song, which played as the credits rolled:
I really loved the Lord of the Rings trilogy movies, but I could barely remember the books by the time I saw them. After seeing the most recent Hobbit movie, I realized that it had been almost twenty years since I had read the book, so I decided to go back to Tolkien's masterpieces and reacquaint myself with them. The Hobbit is a relatively short book, and it is light and easy (since it was originally devised as a children's tale), so I devoured it in about four hours two Sundays ago. The Lord of the Rings is much denser, and so takes longer to read, but I have greatly enjoyed it. I have finished The Fellowship of the Ring over the last three or four days, and I am about a third of the way through The Two Towers. I had intended to wait until we finished our contracts and read them during our long vacation, but soon enough I ran out of patience. (I seem to be in short supply of it these days, anyway.) Moving through the epic trilogy, I was impressed with how faithful Peter Jackson was to the books in the first three movies, both in content and in tone. The Hobbit movies are much different - much more drawn out, and darker, than the book by far. Whether that is better, worse, or immaterial is, I suppose, for the beholder to decide.
What surprised me even more - and unexpectedly - is how nostalgic the experience of reading the books has been. I first picked up The Hobbit when I was nine years old and an avid bookworm. I tended to move through books very quickly and was looking for more of a challenge, so I started it at my father's suggestion. It was relatively slow-going for my nine-year-old self, but I was in awe of Bilbo's courage and resourcefulness, Gandalf's wisdom, Thorin's dogged determination, and the rich imagery of Tolkien's Middle-Earth. Seeing my delight, Papa eagerly recommended the subsequent trilogy. Being even richer than its simple prequel, I moved through it slowly, relishing the detailed descriptions of the Shire and Lothlurien and Rohan and Minas Tirith, and falling in love with the characters as they fought and found love for each other. I would sometimes mark my place and leave the books unfinished for weeks at a time, opening them again to escape a difficult school life or when I missed my father. Books like that stay with you, but I never realized how much until I set out on the journey once more.
Mentally re-tracing my childhood steps down the road to the Lonely Mountain, and then to Mordor, has taken me through landscapes of nostalgia I was not quite prepared for. The books themselves are woven with it, both in the imagery and the characters and the things they yearn for. Suddenly I was nine years old again, discovering a new depth of literature, hungrily devouring the books I knew my father loved. It brought me back to the days of my parents' divorce as I struggled to understand them both as separate entities, undoubtedly while they rediscovered themselves.
Over the years I have found that I relate more easily to my mother. Perhaps because I spent more time with her growing up, or because I am more like her in my emotional volatility, I have found it more natural to look at the world through her eyes. Still, there are parts of me that come from my father: my introverted nature, my love of books, my obsession with making sure all decisions are carefully considered and well-planned, and my deep desire to be professionally and intellectually respected. Emotionally, I am much like my mother, but intellectually I think I am more my father's reflection.
Coming to Korea, and being a stranger here, has really allowed me to relate to both of my parents - my father when he lived in Brasil with the Peace Corps, and my mother when she moved back to the states with him. I am so grateful for the chance to get to know them better as people through shared experience, to see them smile in acknowledgment as I share my stories on Skype and to gain new perspectives on the old stories they have told me. I am almost sure that my father's road was more difficult, and surely a lonelier one, as a Vietnam vet living in the poor Brazilian countryside, surrounded by people who could not speak his language, did not grasp his culture, and could never hope to wrap their minds around where he came from or what he'd been through.
Perhaps my experience here has been much more like mother's, simply because I am a woman and also because I came with someone I love. But the gardens of the Shire, the Misty Mountains, the valleys of Rivendell and the woods of Lothlurien are my father's country. Walking the paths of Middle-Earth I hear only his voice, and I remember my delight as a little girl walking with him on that common ground, mutual wonder for a story well-told.
Second only to the dragon, my favorite part of the movie was this song, which played as the credits rolled:
I really loved the Lord of the Rings trilogy movies, but I could barely remember the books by the time I saw them. After seeing the most recent Hobbit movie, I realized that it had been almost twenty years since I had read the book, so I decided to go back to Tolkien's masterpieces and reacquaint myself with them. The Hobbit is a relatively short book, and it is light and easy (since it was originally devised as a children's tale), so I devoured it in about four hours two Sundays ago. The Lord of the Rings is much denser, and so takes longer to read, but I have greatly enjoyed it. I have finished The Fellowship of the Ring over the last three or four days, and I am about a third of the way through The Two Towers. I had intended to wait until we finished our contracts and read them during our long vacation, but soon enough I ran out of patience. (I seem to be in short supply of it these days, anyway.) Moving through the epic trilogy, I was impressed with how faithful Peter Jackson was to the books in the first three movies, both in content and in tone. The Hobbit movies are much different - much more drawn out, and darker, than the book by far. Whether that is better, worse, or immaterial is, I suppose, for the beholder to decide.
What surprised me even more - and unexpectedly - is how nostalgic the experience of reading the books has been. I first picked up The Hobbit when I was nine years old and an avid bookworm. I tended to move through books very quickly and was looking for more of a challenge, so I started it at my father's suggestion. It was relatively slow-going for my nine-year-old self, but I was in awe of Bilbo's courage and resourcefulness, Gandalf's wisdom, Thorin's dogged determination, and the rich imagery of Tolkien's Middle-Earth. Seeing my delight, Papa eagerly recommended the subsequent trilogy. Being even richer than its simple prequel, I moved through it slowly, relishing the detailed descriptions of the Shire and Lothlurien and Rohan and Minas Tirith, and falling in love with the characters as they fought and found love for each other. I would sometimes mark my place and leave the books unfinished for weeks at a time, opening them again to escape a difficult school life or when I missed my father. Books like that stay with you, but I never realized how much until I set out on the journey once more.
Mentally re-tracing my childhood steps down the road to the Lonely Mountain, and then to Mordor, has taken me through landscapes of nostalgia I was not quite prepared for. The books themselves are woven with it, both in the imagery and the characters and the things they yearn for. Suddenly I was nine years old again, discovering a new depth of literature, hungrily devouring the books I knew my father loved. It brought me back to the days of my parents' divorce as I struggled to understand them both as separate entities, undoubtedly while they rediscovered themselves.
Over the years I have found that I relate more easily to my mother. Perhaps because I spent more time with her growing up, or because I am more like her in my emotional volatility, I have found it more natural to look at the world through her eyes. Still, there are parts of me that come from my father: my introverted nature, my love of books, my obsession with making sure all decisions are carefully considered and well-planned, and my deep desire to be professionally and intellectually respected. Emotionally, I am much like my mother, but intellectually I think I am more my father's reflection.
Coming to Korea, and being a stranger here, has really allowed me to relate to both of my parents - my father when he lived in Brasil with the Peace Corps, and my mother when she moved back to the states with him. I am so grateful for the chance to get to know them better as people through shared experience, to see them smile in acknowledgment as I share my stories on Skype and to gain new perspectives on the old stories they have told me. I am almost sure that my father's road was more difficult, and surely a lonelier one, as a Vietnam vet living in the poor Brazilian countryside, surrounded by people who could not speak his language, did not grasp his culture, and could never hope to wrap their minds around where he came from or what he'd been through.
Perhaps my experience here has been much more like mother's, simply because I am a woman and also because I came with someone I love. But the gardens of the Shire, the Misty Mountains, the valleys of Rivendell and the woods of Lothlurien are my father's country. Walking the paths of Middle-Earth I hear only his voice, and I remember my delight as a little girl walking with him on that common ground, mutual wonder for a story well-told.
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Korean Cosmetics: Fear of Aging and Residual Culture Shock/Cosméticos coreanos: medo de envelhecer e choque cultural
I am quickly running out of patience for this country and everyone in it. Joel and I got into a spat on Monday over the issue, actually. Lately, I have taken to snapping at people who shove past me, cut me in line, or generally lack courtesy or respect for social order. These types of things are very common here; Koreans don't give a second thought to be being shoved past or cut in front of, since the shortages after the Korean war have left a very strong "take everything you can" philosophy in the national psyche. I thought I had grown accustomed to it, but apparently I have reached the end of my fuse. Anyway, Joel brought up the fact that I have been short with strangers and generally very agitated, so we got into an argument which ended in me dissolving into tears and wailing about how I just wanted to finish our contracts so we could go home.
Culture shock is a funny thing. When we first arrived, we watched a video on it as part of our "training," in which the presenter explained that some models show people having recurring episodes of it, rather than just going through it once at the beginning. After my first major bout, I have mostly done fine (and my Korean proficiency has definitely helped), but everyone once in a while I will still be foiled and come home extremely frustrated. Case in point: on Monday morning I tried (and failed) to get packing boxes from the post office, after the attendant talked my ear off in Konglish about different shipping rates for about ten minutes. I eventually chose two boxes and tried to buy them - only to be foiled because I tried to pay with my debit card, and they would only accept cash.
I never realized how much I would come to miss home, especially my mother. I have never had trouble with that in the past, but I have never been away from home for this long - by the time I finally land in Houston, it will have been two years since I have seen her. When I called her on Skype for her birthday, she and I talked at length about how much she missed me; she jokingly told me that she was glad that Joel would be arriving two weeks after me, so she wouldn't have to kick him out of my bed. Living here has actually given me a lot of perspective on what she went through when moving from Brazil to America, and the fact that she always intended her move to be permanent.
On the flip side, I am so not looking forward to the re-entry shock. Perhaps it is better for Joel to be away from me during that time.
I suppose, though, that I will experience culture shock in one form or another until I readjust to life back home. Case in point number two: today, a Korean woman at my yoga studio with practically no English ability tried to chat me up - while we were in the shower.
Nice Naked Lady: Where are you from? Koreans unfailingly begin these types of conversations by just plunging in - there is rarely any kind of greeting.
Naked Me: Texas. America.
NNL: You, ah, you, m-m-marry?
Me: Yes. At this point, I switch to Korean and show her my wedding ring. I have been married for five years.
NNL: Oh?! You...no baby?
Me: No.
NNL: Me too marry. Nampyeon (husband) is doctor.
Me: Ah. At this point I am scrubbing myself frantically, trying to finish as quickly as possible.
NNL: English teacher?
Me: Yes.
NNL: Ah - sorry. I am...no English.
Me: It's okay. Shower finished! I grab my stuff, bow slightly, and high-tail it outta there.
I have mastered the art of being comfortable while naked around other people - heck, I can go to the jjimjilbang with no issue - but it gets a little weird for me when strangers try to talk to you while you are both naked.
On the way back from the studio, I stopped into a cosmetics shop to pick up a replacement for my facial moisturizer. I have been trying to navigate the labrynthine market of skincare products for post-university-age women, and I am still not convinced that any product that claims to firm skin, rejuvenate skin tone, or "reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles" actually does what it says it does. However, since I have noticed the aforementioned beginning to appear on my face (and yes, Babushka, they are in fact on my face), I have begun to wade hesitantly into the fray.
When we came here, I brought two or three bottles of Oil of Olay, but that ran out before we finished our first year. I managed to get another bottle from a friend who is stationed in Osan, and then another very generous high school friend from back home sent me another bottle, but eventually all my stores ran out. Korea is well-known regionally for excellent-quality skin care products, though, so I figured that I couldn't go wrong picking up something Korean. So, after my awkward naked Konglish conversation, I walked into Aritaum and told the sales rep that I was looking for a frangrance-free face cream. "Anti-age?" she asked, and I nodded as I began to wonder if my age was somehow showing. She brought me over to the Iope section and let me sample a delightful gold bottle that read Super Vital Cream Bio Intensive (Bioscience Formula). It was nice and light, with only a slight fragrance, so I reached into my backpack for my wallet and asked for the price. "Sip-man won," she cheerfully informed me. W100,000 - or just under $100.
I balked, and then began to wonder if I was being reasonable. Sure, I can pick up a bottle of Oil of Olay for about $20 or $30 back home, but is it enough? Is there perhaps something to all of the women who spend hundreds of dollars on Lancôme or Estée Lauder or Clinique to battle age, that constant specter that haunts women? I reasoned that although it was overpriced, I wasn't going to keep putting hand lotion on my face, so I decided to use my birthday money from my mother-in-law and just go for it. I was pleasantly surprised to see the sales rep include a sampler set of five products from the same line and ten samples of other products with my 50 ml bottle of Super Vital Cream Bio Intensive. I walked back to the apartment feeling (more) like I got my money's worth. And then I got home and opened the boxes.
Joel sat with me and the laptop as I sorted through everything. What is the difference between cream and eye cream? Why do I need a softener, and does it come before or after the serum? Emulsion was a term I had only heard in chemistry class. I suppressed my rising panic as I picked up each item and tried to make sense of the Korean on the small packages. Joel's approach seemed more simple. "I think it goes on your face."
"Yes, but in what order?"
"Does it matter? Just put it on your face!"
"But the order might be important! Look it up."
Together we Googled the product line. "It says here the softener goes first, then the emulsion, then the serum, then the cream," he read. "So basically just follow the order they are in the box."
"What about the eye cream?"
"That probably goes on your eyes." I sighed as I fingered the miniature bags. "It's simple. Just put it on your face!"
We laughed as we got ready for work, but since then I have become more contemplative. As my birthday approached last week, one of my coworkers and I were joking that as we have gotten into our later twenties, we have noticed (painfully) that things catch up with us a lot faster physically. I can't stuff my face with cake without consequences anymore; in a few days it will be noticeably present on my waistline. If I lapse in working out regularly, I notice the difference. I tire more easily and can no longer function well on very little sleep. Illness is a lot harsher and takes longer to kick. Yes, I am aware that I am only 28, but my hyper-perceptive self-image has seized on these things as time creeps forward. I am now at the point where I seriously asking myself such ridiculous questions as whether or not I need to drop $100 on a skincare regimen to stay beautiful.
At least we finally got some real snow tonight.
Culture shock is a funny thing. When we first arrived, we watched a video on it as part of our "training," in which the presenter explained that some models show people having recurring episodes of it, rather than just going through it once at the beginning. After my first major bout, I have mostly done fine (and my Korean proficiency has definitely helped), but everyone once in a while I will still be foiled and come home extremely frustrated. Case in point: on Monday morning I tried (and failed) to get packing boxes from the post office, after the attendant talked my ear off in Konglish about different shipping rates for about ten minutes. I eventually chose two boxes and tried to buy them - only to be foiled because I tried to pay with my debit card, and they would only accept cash.
I never realized how much I would come to miss home, especially my mother. I have never had trouble with that in the past, but I have never been away from home for this long - by the time I finally land in Houston, it will have been two years since I have seen her. When I called her on Skype for her birthday, she and I talked at length about how much she missed me; she jokingly told me that she was glad that Joel would be arriving two weeks after me, so she wouldn't have to kick him out of my bed. Living here has actually given me a lot of perspective on what she went through when moving from Brazil to America, and the fact that she always intended her move to be permanent.
On the flip side, I am so not looking forward to the re-entry shock. Perhaps it is better for Joel to be away from me during that time.
I suppose, though, that I will experience culture shock in one form or another until I readjust to life back home. Case in point number two: today, a Korean woman at my yoga studio with practically no English ability tried to chat me up - while we were in the shower.
Nice Naked Lady: Where are you from? Koreans unfailingly begin these types of conversations by just plunging in - there is rarely any kind of greeting.
Naked Me: Texas. America.
NNL: You, ah, you, m-m-marry?
Me: Yes. At this point, I switch to Korean and show her my wedding ring. I have been married for five years.
NNL: Oh?! You...no baby?
Me: No.
NNL: Me too marry. Nampyeon (husband) is doctor.
Me: Ah. At this point I am scrubbing myself frantically, trying to finish as quickly as possible.
NNL: English teacher?
Me: Yes.
NNL: Ah - sorry. I am...no English.
Me: It's okay. Shower finished! I grab my stuff, bow slightly, and high-tail it outta there.
I have mastered the art of being comfortable while naked around other people - heck, I can go to the jjimjilbang with no issue - but it gets a little weird for me when strangers try to talk to you while you are both naked.
On the way back from the studio, I stopped into a cosmetics shop to pick up a replacement for my facial moisturizer. I have been trying to navigate the labrynthine market of skincare products for post-university-age women, and I am still not convinced that any product that claims to firm skin, rejuvenate skin tone, or "reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles" actually does what it says it does. However, since I have noticed the aforementioned beginning to appear on my face (and yes, Babushka, they are in fact on my face), I have begun to wade hesitantly into the fray.
When we came here, I brought two or three bottles of Oil of Olay, but that ran out before we finished our first year. I managed to get another bottle from a friend who is stationed in Osan, and then another very generous high school friend from back home sent me another bottle, but eventually all my stores ran out. Korea is well-known regionally for excellent-quality skin care products, though, so I figured that I couldn't go wrong picking up something Korean. So, after my awkward naked Konglish conversation, I walked into Aritaum and told the sales rep that I was looking for a frangrance-free face cream. "Anti-age?" she asked, and I nodded as I began to wonder if my age was somehow showing. She brought me over to the Iope section and let me sample a delightful gold bottle that read Super Vital Cream Bio Intensive (Bioscience Formula). It was nice and light, with only a slight fragrance, so I reached into my backpack for my wallet and asked for the price. "Sip-man won," she cheerfully informed me. W100,000 - or just under $100.
I balked, and then began to wonder if I was being reasonable. Sure, I can pick up a bottle of Oil of Olay for about $20 or $30 back home, but is it enough? Is there perhaps something to all of the women who spend hundreds of dollars on Lancôme or Estée Lauder or Clinique to battle age, that constant specter that haunts women? I reasoned that although it was overpriced, I wasn't going to keep putting hand lotion on my face, so I decided to use my birthday money from my mother-in-law and just go for it. I was pleasantly surprised to see the sales rep include a sampler set of five products from the same line and ten samples of other products with my 50 ml bottle of Super Vital Cream Bio Intensive. I walked back to the apartment feeling (more) like I got my money's worth. And then I got home and opened the boxes.
 |
| Do all five of these go on my face at the same time? |
 |
| The product I actually purchased. |
 |
| Free samples to make me feel worse about myself. Yay! |
"Yes, but in what order?"
"Does it matter? Just put it on your face!"
"But the order might be important! Look it up."
Together we Googled the product line. "It says here the softener goes first, then the emulsion, then the serum, then the cream," he read. "So basically just follow the order they are in the box."
"What about the eye cream?"
"That probably goes on your eyes." I sighed as I fingered the miniature bags. "It's simple. Just put it on your face!"
We laughed as we got ready for work, but since then I have become more contemplative. As my birthday approached last week, one of my coworkers and I were joking that as we have gotten into our later twenties, we have noticed (painfully) that things catch up with us a lot faster physically. I can't stuff my face with cake without consequences anymore; in a few days it will be noticeably present on my waistline. If I lapse in working out regularly, I notice the difference. I tire more easily and can no longer function well on very little sleep. Illness is a lot harsher and takes longer to kick. Yes, I am aware that I am only 28, but my hyper-perceptive self-image has seized on these things as time creeps forward. I am now at the point where I seriously asking myself such ridiculous questions as whether or not I need to drop $100 on a skincare regimen to stay beautiful.
At least we finally got some real snow tonight.
Monday, November 18, 2013
Friends and Fireworks in Busan/Amigos e fogos de artifício em Busan
I know that my time between posts here is getting longer and longer. I can't quite put my finger on why. Part of me suspects that it is the increasingly busy nature of our lives as our date of departure looms closer - we are trying to cram more and more into less time, and we are really prioritizing time spent with friends that we may or may not cross paths with after we leave. I also have to admit that part of it is the steady wear-down of working 18 consecutive months with no real vacation. I adore the children we work with, but 18 months working in hagwon has cured me of the desire to ever come back and do it again. I will acknowledge that it is for some people, but it is not for me. I have a career that I now very much want to get back to.
On the bright side, a group of eleven of us took a trip to Busan at the end of October to see the city's annual fireworks festival. It was a fantastic trip - we had a really awesome time with our travel companions, and the show itself was the most breathtaking that I have personally ever witnessed. We decided to get a group together and rent out a ten-person private dorm in a hostel in the Haeundae area. Thanks to Facebook, we quickly rounded up enough people, booked the hostel, and headed out on Friday evening after work - first the EPIK teachers, then the couple who teaches kinder, and finally the hagwon teachers.
THE CAST
EPIK:
J-Ram
J-M
Straight L (as in straight-haired)
Curly L
Mal
KINDER:
Irish Cream
Tall J
HAGWON:
Me
Joel
The Nymph
Shae-Shae
The hagwon crew doesn't normally get off of work until 10 p.m., so we bought tickets for the 10:30 bus out of town a few days beforehand. Shae-Shae and The Nymph, who work at a different school, had bought our tickets for us, so we agreed to meet up with them at the bus terminal. Joel and I got lucky and got a cab right after work, and the driver correctly assessed that we were in a hurry and hauled major ass to the bus terminal. Alas, not so for Shae-Shae and The Nymph. Joel and I sat biting our nails for the next 20 minutes after arriving, waiting nervously as the other passengers got onto the bus and the driver prepared to leave. Just as I was mustering up the courage to use my broken Korean to explain our predicament to the driver (and assure him that our friends really were right outside, the pair came running up to the gate. We all piled onto the bus, relieved, and started the journey.
The bus ride was mostly uneventful, other than a middle-aged Korean woman tapping me on the leg twice and shushing me. It's a little bit obnoxious to be shushed on the bus, but apparently we were spared the worst of it: the EPIK ladies, who were all chatting at the back of the bus, were silenced by a Korean man who stood up halfway through the ride and yelled across the bus, "Hey! Shut up! Shut up! Okay?!"
Lovely.
At any rate, we rolled into town, found ourselves at the farthest-outside-of-town bus terminal in the history of the world, paid a small fortune for a cab to take us into town, and met up with the rest of the peeps. We checked into the hostel, where the EPIK ladies and The Nymph retired to bed. Meanwhile, the guys, Irish Cream, Shae-Shae and I decided to hang out for a while and have a few drinks on the beach. While we were there, we met a group of friends led by a pair of French students studying abroad (which, naturally, meant that I had to put my rusty French skills on display - go figure). We hung out for a while, with the more sensible of us watching the less sensible of us chase each other around with firecrackers in a game cleverly dubbed "Harry Potter." After a few more hours of hanging out, Irish Cream and I headed off to bed, and the others eventually followed.
The next morning after breakfast, I headed to the Busan aquarium with The Nymph, Straight L, Curly L, J-Ram, and Shae-Shae. I had never been to an aquarium before, so I was like a kid in a magical wonderland of Nemos, Dories, and jellyfish. We even got to see the penguin-feeding show! (To be honest, it wasn't much, but I was embarrassingly excited.) After we finished up there, we met up with Joel, Irish Cream, and Tall J to get kebabs for lunch. Mal and J-M had already reserved a spot for us on the beach around 2:30, so we headed over to the beach to meet them just before 4.
Sitting on the beach started out fun. Most of us chatted while Joel and Tall J played Hold 'Em for each others' change. We were lucky to have gotten such good seats, or so we thought - until, as the afternoon wore on, we realized how many people we had to step over to get to any semblance of a bathroom. Because the fireworks show didn't start until 8 p.m., it became progressively more difficult to get off the beach for anything, be that buying snacks or drinks, using a restroom, or hunting for a convenience store that would change my phone battery (which meant that I couldn't take any pictures with my phone). We typically went to the bathrooms in pairs or threes, mostly for protection, because people got angry when you stepped over them - whether it was something as innocuous as stepping on a mat with shoes or as careless as kicking sand into some poor bastard's ramen (which Joel may or may not have been guilty of). I personally stopped drinking anything whatsoever about three hours before the show, but it was inevitable to have to get up at least once more to properly enjoy the fireworks. Some of our cohort was a little intimidated at the prospect of stepping over the masses, but if I have learned one thing after living here for eighteen months, it's this:
Anyway, after one more wee (as my English friends so adorably call it), I settled in to watch the show. And oh, what a show it was.
The fireworks were, for me at least, beyond description. From what we could tell, the purpose of the show is meant to celebrate the rise of the city of Busan from the ashes of the Korean war into a prosperous port city with its own unique identity. The show was about 50 minutes long. Make no mistake: this wasn't just some pretty lights in the sky. The fireworks were synced to music. They were colossal, and colorful, and some of them even made shapes or spelled out letters. There were fireworks falling from the bridge and fireworks on the water. There were several remote-controlled birds that flew over the beach and released fireworks as phoenixes. There was even a group of five acrobats who jumped down a skyscraper behind us in neon-lit suits! Here is someone's (admittedly poor-quality) video of parts of the show:
I think I probably had my mouth open the entire time, just out of sheer wonder. A few tears may have even been shed - and not just by me. One of our party took a few pictures.
All pictures taken by, and property of, the lovely and talented Nerina Van Der Westhuizen.
After the show, the group split up for dinner and agreed to meet back up later. Since nakji (aka still-moving octopus) has been on my bucket list since I set foot in this country, Tall J, Joel, and I headed straight for a restaurant outside our hostel that advertised it and sat down for the most adventurous meal of our lives. Just as we were about to brave the squirming tentacles, the French guys ran into us eating outside and watched, mouths agape, as we ate them. It was epic. Later on, we met up with most of the others and spent a night out on the town.
On Sunday morning, I went with Straight L, Curly L, and The Nymph for a walk along the coast. We walked along the beach and then followed a short trail to a strange building that looked like a UFO but turned out to be a meeting hall for a major political Asian summit a few years ago. Go figure. Afterwards, we made our way back to public transportation. After mustering up all of my Korean skills to talk to the guy at the information desk, only to find that you could not buy bus tickets online in Busan (go figure), Straight and Curly L agreed to head to the terminal to buy bus tickets for us, since Shae-Shae and The Nymph wanted to check out the Shinsegae (which is the world's largest department store) and I wanted to go to Spa Land. Luckily for me, there were no buses available until about four hours later, so I was able to get scrubbed within an inch of my life by an adjuma and appreciate all of the themed rooms at the largest public bathhouse in Asia. Curly L told me that the subway ride from the Shinsegae to the bus terminal was about half an hour, so I figured that I would have plenty of time to take the subway and even grab dinner if I gave myself 45 minutes.
My mistake.
Our bus was scheduled to leave at 7 p.m., and The Nymph had my tickets. Fine. I got on the subway and zoned out for a while, then looked at my phone when I was about seven stops away. I felt the color leave my face when I saw that it was 6:42. Okay, I thought, if it's two minutes per stop, then I will have about four minutes to make it to my gate, and the bus terminal isn't that big. I felt the time slip as I watched the stops go by. Finally my stop arrived and I bolted through the subway, flew up the stairs, and reached the street...only to realize that I didn't know which building the terminal was in. I scared the bejeezus out of some poor shoe vendor by demanding to know where the terminal was, which I then raced toward, steeling myself for the possibility of jumping in front of my bus to make it stop. I reached the doors and, with some relief, saw that the bus was still at the platform.
"Jessica!" Straight L called out to me as she saw me through the crowd. I pushed my way to where she and Curly L stood in line. "Where is The Nymph?" Panic returned as I realized she had my ticket.
"She's not here?"
"No! We don't know where they are."
The bus was delayed, so we quickly brainstormed solutions as I wondered if I spoke enough Korean to explain what happened and beg them to reprint my ticket. Then we saw The Nymph and Shae-Shae running through the crowd. I called out to them, and they came over. The Nymph was so relieved that she dissolved into tears for a few minutes. Laughing, we boarded the bus and headed home.
All in all, a pretty epic trip.
On the bright side, a group of eleven of us took a trip to Busan at the end of October to see the city's annual fireworks festival. It was a fantastic trip - we had a really awesome time with our travel companions, and the show itself was the most breathtaking that I have personally ever witnessed. We decided to get a group together and rent out a ten-person private dorm in a hostel in the Haeundae area. Thanks to Facebook, we quickly rounded up enough people, booked the hostel, and headed out on Friday evening after work - first the EPIK teachers, then the couple who teaches kinder, and finally the hagwon teachers.
THE CAST
EPIK:
J-Ram
J-M
Straight L (as in straight-haired)
Curly L
Mal
KINDER:
Irish Cream
Tall J
HAGWON:
Me
Joel
The Nymph
Shae-Shae
The hagwon crew doesn't normally get off of work until 10 p.m., so we bought tickets for the 10:30 bus out of town a few days beforehand. Shae-Shae and The Nymph, who work at a different school, had bought our tickets for us, so we agreed to meet up with them at the bus terminal. Joel and I got lucky and got a cab right after work, and the driver correctly assessed that we were in a hurry and hauled major ass to the bus terminal. Alas, not so for Shae-Shae and The Nymph. Joel and I sat biting our nails for the next 20 minutes after arriving, waiting nervously as the other passengers got onto the bus and the driver prepared to leave. Just as I was mustering up the courage to use my broken Korean to explain our predicament to the driver (and assure him that our friends really were right outside, the pair came running up to the gate. We all piled onto the bus, relieved, and started the journey.
The bus ride was mostly uneventful, other than a middle-aged Korean woman tapping me on the leg twice and shushing me. It's a little bit obnoxious to be shushed on the bus, but apparently we were spared the worst of it: the EPIK ladies, who were all chatting at the back of the bus, were silenced by a Korean man who stood up halfway through the ride and yelled across the bus, "Hey! Shut up! Shut up! Okay?!"
Lovely.
At any rate, we rolled into town, found ourselves at the farthest-outside-of-town bus terminal in the history of the world, paid a small fortune for a cab to take us into town, and met up with the rest of the peeps. We checked into the hostel, where the EPIK ladies and The Nymph retired to bed. Meanwhile, the guys, Irish Cream, Shae-Shae and I decided to hang out for a while and have a few drinks on the beach. While we were there, we met a group of friends led by a pair of French students studying abroad (which, naturally, meant that I had to put my rusty French skills on display - go figure). We hung out for a while, with the more sensible of us watching the less sensible of us chase each other around with firecrackers in a game cleverly dubbed "Harry Potter." After a few more hours of hanging out, Irish Cream and I headed off to bed, and the others eventually followed.
The next morning after breakfast, I headed to the Busan aquarium with The Nymph, Straight L, Curly L, J-Ram, and Shae-Shae. I had never been to an aquarium before, so I was like a kid in a magical wonderland of Nemos, Dories, and jellyfish. We even got to see the penguin-feeding show! (To be honest, it wasn't much, but I was embarrassingly excited.) After we finished up there, we met up with Joel, Irish Cream, and Tall J to get kebabs for lunch. Mal and J-M had already reserved a spot for us on the beach around 2:30, so we headed over to the beach to meet them just before 4.
Sitting on the beach started out fun. Most of us chatted while Joel and Tall J played Hold 'Em for each others' change. We were lucky to have gotten such good seats, or so we thought - until, as the afternoon wore on, we realized how many people we had to step over to get to any semblance of a bathroom. Because the fireworks show didn't start until 8 p.m., it became progressively more difficult to get off the beach for anything, be that buying snacks or drinks, using a restroom, or hunting for a convenience store that would change my phone battery (which meant that I couldn't take any pictures with my phone). We typically went to the bathrooms in pairs or threes, mostly for protection, because people got angry when you stepped over them - whether it was something as innocuous as stepping on a mat with shoes or as careless as kicking sand into some poor bastard's ramen (which Joel may or may not have been guilty of). I personally stopped drinking anything whatsoever about three hours before the show, but it was inevitable to have to get up at least once more to properly enjoy the fireworks. Some of our cohort was a little intimidated at the prospect of stepping over the masses, but if I have learned one thing after living here for eighteen months, it's this:
Anyway, after one more wee (as my English friends so adorably call it), I settled in to watch the show. And oh, what a show it was.
The fireworks were, for me at least, beyond description. From what we could tell, the purpose of the show is meant to celebrate the rise of the city of Busan from the ashes of the Korean war into a prosperous port city with its own unique identity. The show was about 50 minutes long. Make no mistake: this wasn't just some pretty lights in the sky. The fireworks were synced to music. They were colossal, and colorful, and some of them even made shapes or spelled out letters. There were fireworks falling from the bridge and fireworks on the water. There were several remote-controlled birds that flew over the beach and released fireworks as phoenixes. There was even a group of five acrobats who jumped down a skyscraper behind us in neon-lit suits! Here is someone's (admittedly poor-quality) video of parts of the show:
I think I probably had my mouth open the entire time, just out of sheer wonder. A few tears may have even been shed - and not just by me. One of our party took a few pictures.
All pictures taken by, and property of, the lovely and talented Nerina Van Der Westhuizen.
After the show, the group split up for dinner and agreed to meet back up later. Since nakji (aka still-moving octopus) has been on my bucket list since I set foot in this country, Tall J, Joel, and I headed straight for a restaurant outside our hostel that advertised it and sat down for the most adventurous meal of our lives. Just as we were about to brave the squirming tentacles, the French guys ran into us eating outside and watched, mouths agape, as we ate them. It was epic. Later on, we met up with most of the others and spent a night out on the town.
On Sunday morning, I went with Straight L, Curly L, and The Nymph for a walk along the coast. We walked along the beach and then followed a short trail to a strange building that looked like a UFO but turned out to be a meeting hall for a major political Asian summit a few years ago. Go figure. Afterwards, we made our way back to public transportation. After mustering up all of my Korean skills to talk to the guy at the information desk, only to find that you could not buy bus tickets online in Busan (go figure), Straight and Curly L agreed to head to the terminal to buy bus tickets for us, since Shae-Shae and The Nymph wanted to check out the Shinsegae (which is the world's largest department store) and I wanted to go to Spa Land. Luckily for me, there were no buses available until about four hours later, so I was able to get scrubbed within an inch of my life by an adjuma and appreciate all of the themed rooms at the largest public bathhouse in Asia. Curly L told me that the subway ride from the Shinsegae to the bus terminal was about half an hour, so I figured that I would have plenty of time to take the subway and even grab dinner if I gave myself 45 minutes.
My mistake.
Our bus was scheduled to leave at 7 p.m., and The Nymph had my tickets. Fine. I got on the subway and zoned out for a while, then looked at my phone when I was about seven stops away. I felt the color leave my face when I saw that it was 6:42. Okay, I thought, if it's two minutes per stop, then I will have about four minutes to make it to my gate, and the bus terminal isn't that big. I felt the time slip as I watched the stops go by. Finally my stop arrived and I bolted through the subway, flew up the stairs, and reached the street...only to realize that I didn't know which building the terminal was in. I scared the bejeezus out of some poor shoe vendor by demanding to know where the terminal was, which I then raced toward, steeling myself for the possibility of jumping in front of my bus to make it stop. I reached the doors and, with some relief, saw that the bus was still at the platform.
"Jessica!" Straight L called out to me as she saw me through the crowd. I pushed my way to where she and Curly L stood in line. "Where is The Nymph?" Panic returned as I realized she had my ticket.
"She's not here?"
"No! We don't know where they are."
The bus was delayed, so we quickly brainstormed solutions as I wondered if I spoke enough Korean to explain what happened and beg them to reprint my ticket. Then we saw The Nymph and Shae-Shae running through the crowd. I called out to them, and they came over. The Nymph was so relieved that she dissolved into tears for a few minutes. Laughing, we boarded the bus and headed home.
All in all, a pretty epic trip.
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Saying Goodbye/Dizendo adeus
Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road / Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
The senior-most couple at our hagwon finally said goodbye today. The last of our cohort - the couple that showed us the ropes when we arrived nervous and bright-eyed last May - threw their parties for their students, said goodbye to the staff, and left. Our friends, our rivals, our supervisors, our peers...sixteen months of working together, partying together, fighting together, suffering together, exploring and discovering and navigating and stumbling and fumbling through Korea are over. Our Korean head teacher was so sad that she was in hysterics when she said goodbye, startling my sixth graders during their end-of-session exam. Tomorrow is a holiday, so as of Friday Joel and I will be the senior-most foreign teachers and the proverbial kings of the mountain.
It feels excessively weird.
So make the best of this test and don't ask why / It's not a question but a lesson learned in time
Living and making friends here is so unlike anywhere else. It's such a relief to find someone you can relate to when you're a stranger in a strange land that you tend to get attached to people very quickly. We were no exception. They showed us the ropes at work and around town, kept us laughing when things at work got tense, and reassured us when we were still learning what was worth worrying about and what wasn't. She was more resourceful with the internet than anyone I know and always seemed to have an answer to the questions I was asking, whether it was about food or travel or shopping around town.
It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right / I hope you had the time of your life
She and I shared a lot. She was the first person I summited Mudeung with. She vented her frustrations over her student loans to me; I unburdened my marriage and life stage anxieties onto her. We found common ground in very different childhoods and even more different choices. We bounced off of each other's ideas, disappointments, dreams. She helped me to see what I have and don't have, and how to be grateful for both.
So take the photographs and still frames in your mind / Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time
No friendship can remain unchanged over the years, and it would seem that some must end. How can a person know if one ends well, or if it ends right? Or if it should end at all? Is it okay if it fizzles out over late-night hookah and kimbap, or should it just go up in a blaze of glory?
Tattoos and memories and dead skin on trial / For what it's worth, it was worth all the while Perhaps these months will always be a gray area for me, but I loved it nonetheless. Safe travels, nigs, wherever they take you.
It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right / I hope you had the time of your life
The senior-most couple at our hagwon finally said goodbye today. The last of our cohort - the couple that showed us the ropes when we arrived nervous and bright-eyed last May - threw their parties for their students, said goodbye to the staff, and left. Our friends, our rivals, our supervisors, our peers...sixteen months of working together, partying together, fighting together, suffering together, exploring and discovering and navigating and stumbling and fumbling through Korea are over. Our Korean head teacher was so sad that she was in hysterics when she said goodbye, startling my sixth graders during their end-of-session exam. Tomorrow is a holiday, so as of Friday Joel and I will be the senior-most foreign teachers and the proverbial kings of the mountain.
It feels excessively weird.
So make the best of this test and don't ask why / It's not a question but a lesson learned in time
Living and making friends here is so unlike anywhere else. It's such a relief to find someone you can relate to when you're a stranger in a strange land that you tend to get attached to people very quickly. We were no exception. They showed us the ropes at work and around town, kept us laughing when things at work got tense, and reassured us when we were still learning what was worth worrying about and what wasn't. She was more resourceful with the internet than anyone I know and always seemed to have an answer to the questions I was asking, whether it was about food or travel or shopping around town.
It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right / I hope you had the time of your life
She and I shared a lot. She was the first person I summited Mudeung with. She vented her frustrations over her student loans to me; I unburdened my marriage and life stage anxieties onto her. We found common ground in very different childhoods and even more different choices. We bounced off of each other's ideas, disappointments, dreams. She helped me to see what I have and don't have, and how to be grateful for both.
So take the photographs and still frames in your mind / Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time
No friendship can remain unchanged over the years, and it would seem that some must end. How can a person know if one ends well, or if it ends right? Or if it should end at all? Is it okay if it fizzles out over late-night hookah and kimbap, or should it just go up in a blaze of glory?
Tattoos and memories and dead skin on trial / For what it's worth, it was worth all the while Perhaps these months will always be a gray area for me, but I loved it nonetheless. Safe travels, nigs, wherever they take you.
It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right / I hope you had the time of your life
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
A Reporter's Glimpse into North Korea
I've toyed with the idea of turning this blog into a sort of North Korea watch blog after we get back home. Then again, I'm not sure if I will want to keep using it as our travel blog; we are, after all, taking the Foreign Service exam in Seoul on Saturday (at least we were, until the damn government shutdown cast doubt on that prospect...eff you, Congress!). Maybe I'll create a separate "North Korea Watch Page" or something.
At any rate, I just find any and all news that comes out of the Hermit Kingdom to be fascinating, including a shipment of ski lift equipment being cancelled due to sanctions and Kim Jong Un's former lover being killed by firing squad. This, however, is a slightly different piece, written by a reporter who has been allowed repeated access to the country by the regime over the last several months. He has written a piece in National Geographic about the different, and confusing, views he gets of the country, between what his government-appointed minders want him to see and the occasional glimpses of genuine phenomena.
At any rate, I just find any and all news that comes out of the Hermit Kingdom to be fascinating, including a shipment of ski lift equipment being cancelled due to sanctions and Kim Jong Un's former lover being killed by firing squad. This, however, is a slightly different piece, written by a reporter who has been allowed repeated access to the country by the regime over the last several months. He has written a piece in National Geographic about the different, and confusing, views he gets of the country, between what his government-appointed minders want him to see and the occasional glimpses of genuine phenomena.
We’ve learned that what we see in passing is often more revealing than our destination. We’ve found that unguarded moments can be captured in photographs taken from bus windows and that wrong turns can provide revealing details. Like the time our bus driver accidentally veered off a perfectly maintained Pyongyang street onto a narrow, dusty road pocked with potholes and lined with unlit buildings. Or when we spotted a moldy tower of apartments one evening, each room lit by a single naked bulb casting a sickly yellow light. We have ventured outside the relative prosperity of Pyongyang to cities without modern high-rises, where dimly lit stores contain half-empty shelves.
It is necessary to go outside the country—to South Korea, Britain, or China—to find the only North Koreans who can speak freely about the realities of totalitarian life: the ones who have left. “Looking back, I wonder now why we had to live such sad lives,” says a former North Korean coal miner, who fled to Seoul in 2006 because his father was politically suspect. Refugees describe a hidden caste system based on ideological background: Three generations of a family can be imprisoned if one member is convicted of a political crime.
The coal miner is one of about 25,000 North Koreans who have escaped to South Korea since the war. They have fled political repression, an enveloping police state, and desperate poverty. The UN estimates that one-third of North Korean children are chronically malnourished. But the number of refugees has dropped dramatically since late 2011, when Kim Jong Un tightened security along the once porous 880-mile border with China. In 2012 only about 1,500 North Koreans made the dangerous journey.
The North Korean government, of course, works relentlessly to present a view of life in which schools are filled with happy, well-fed children, stores are filled with goods, and loyalty to the Kim family is universal. People know to speak to reporters in surreal, mechanical hyperbole, spouting praise for their leaders. “Thanks to the warm love of the ‘Respected General,’ Kim Jong Un, even rural people like us can come here and enjoy mini-golf,” Kim Jong Hui, a 51-year-old housewife from the country’s remote northeast, tells me one day at the country’s first putt-putt golf course, in Pyongyang. Overwhelmed by this benevolence, she says, “I have made up my mind to do my duty to help build a prosperous, powerful state.”
It is easy, after many such encounters, to believe in the caricature of North Koreans as Stalinist robots. The challenge is to find the far more elusive—and more prosaic—reality. Sometimes that takes stumbling onto a subject that gets North Koreans to open up a bit.
Like Gone With the Wind. This nation revels in the 77-year-old novel, finding echoes of itself in the tale of civil war and the ruthless, beautiful woman who vowed never to go hungry again.
...
In a country with few entertainment choices that have escaped the propaganda bureaucrats, the novel gripped the capital. Today it’s hard to find an adult in Pyongyang who hasn’t read it. A guide at the Grand People’s Study House, a musty Pyongyang monolith, sees the book as proof that American women are poorly treated. A Kaesong bureaucrat, a haughty man with a fading blue-striped tie, sees the book as a Marxist morality tale. A woman with a troubled marriage tells me she discovered strength in Scarlett O’Hara’s cold-blooded tenacity. The book is entertainment and solace and inspiration. It’s a window into America. It’s a celebration of a people who, like the North Koreans, are fiercely proud of fighting the Yankees.
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Wake Me Up When September Ends/Me acorde quando setembro termina
Summer has come and passed / The innocent can never last / Wake me up when September ends
I suppose in a place like Gwangju - or Korea, more generally - as long as the system of cycling foreign teachers persists, saying goodbye over and over again becomes a way of life. I never wondered why the long-term expats were so much harder to get to know; it always seemed fairly obvious that the normal, mature caution exercised by adults when approaching new relationships might come off as a bit distant compared to the unnerving openness of newly-arrived teachers. I knew that was why the men and women with stable jobs and families weren't as freakishly friendly as the still-jet-lagged hagwon recruits, and why the old-timers joked about the new EPIK class with gentle disdain, and why our Korean colleagues were politely distant and approached us all with caution.
Despite knowing all this, it still feels odd to be on the other end of it.
Like my fathers come to pass / Seven years has gone so fast / Wake me up when September ends
Joel and I have been here for a full 15 months now. With five months to go, we have again found ourselves at the entrance to the maze of getting to know the incoming teachers as we say goodbye to the outgoing ones. To be fair, six/five/four months is not an insignificant amount of time to spend with someone, and we enjoyed the (even shorter) time that we got to know the teachers that were leaving as we arrived...but our minds have already begun to wander in the direction of leaving, and I worry that my efforts to get to know the new recruits will just look perfunctory and shallow.
The couple that arrived at the beginning of August has already lived and taught here for a year, so they are probably already too cool for me anyway. :-D We just welcomed a couple from Canada that is totally new to Korea (today is their first day on the job - good luck, guys!). We had them over for dinner last night, since we couldn't go out to eat as a group on Thursday last week. As soon as I found out they were ethnically Dutch, I immediately thought of one of my bridesmaids who married a man from a Dutch community in Iowa - it was nice to meet someone new and remember home (and not feel like a tool, since I already know so little about Canada).
Here comes the rain again / Falling from the stars / Drenched in my pain again / Becoming who we are
And so we begin September, and the fall - it looks like the horrific Texas-style heat wave that plagued us has finally passed, as the weather has been deliciously cool for the last few days. At this point we have said goodbye to all of the teachers that arrived after us, and at the end of this month, the last two teachers that were here when we arrived - the current senior-most teachers - will go home, and we will be kings of the mountain (or something). One or the other of us may be made Foreign Head Teacher (I personally am not sure they will continue the position). Meanwhile, pop culture back home is still reeling from this year's MTV VMAs, two of our friends from Austin just got married (Mazel tov!), and our best man is getting hitched in October. We have one more vacation this year (coming up in about two weeks, actually).
Oh, and we are apparently gearing up for war in Syria - because the last time we jumped into a conflict in the Middle East, it worked out really well.
As my memory rests / But never forgets what I lost / Wake me up when September ends
I suppose in a place like Gwangju - or Korea, more generally - as long as the system of cycling foreign teachers persists, saying goodbye over and over again becomes a way of life. I never wondered why the long-term expats were so much harder to get to know; it always seemed fairly obvious that the normal, mature caution exercised by adults when approaching new relationships might come off as a bit distant compared to the unnerving openness of newly-arrived teachers. I knew that was why the men and women with stable jobs and families weren't as freakishly friendly as the still-jet-lagged hagwon recruits, and why the old-timers joked about the new EPIK class with gentle disdain, and why our Korean colleagues were politely distant and approached us all with caution.
Despite knowing all this, it still feels odd to be on the other end of it.
Like my fathers come to pass / Seven years has gone so fast / Wake me up when September ends
Joel and I have been here for a full 15 months now. With five months to go, we have again found ourselves at the entrance to the maze of getting to know the incoming teachers as we say goodbye to the outgoing ones. To be fair, six/five/four months is not an insignificant amount of time to spend with someone, and we enjoyed the (even shorter) time that we got to know the teachers that were leaving as we arrived...but our minds have already begun to wander in the direction of leaving, and I worry that my efforts to get to know the new recruits will just look perfunctory and shallow.
The couple that arrived at the beginning of August has already lived and taught here for a year, so they are probably already too cool for me anyway. :-D We just welcomed a couple from Canada that is totally new to Korea (today is their first day on the job - good luck, guys!). We had them over for dinner last night, since we couldn't go out to eat as a group on Thursday last week. As soon as I found out they were ethnically Dutch, I immediately thought of one of my bridesmaids who married a man from a Dutch community in Iowa - it was nice to meet someone new and remember home (and not feel like a tool, since I already know so little about Canada).
Here comes the rain again / Falling from the stars / Drenched in my pain again / Becoming who we are
And so we begin September, and the fall - it looks like the horrific Texas-style heat wave that plagued us has finally passed, as the weather has been deliciously cool for the last few days. At this point we have said goodbye to all of the teachers that arrived after us, and at the end of this month, the last two teachers that were here when we arrived - the current senior-most teachers - will go home, and we will be kings of the mountain (or something). One or the other of us may be made Foreign Head Teacher (I personally am not sure they will continue the position). Meanwhile, pop culture back home is still reeling from this year's MTV VMAs, two of our friends from Austin just got married (Mazel tov!), and our best man is getting hitched in October. We have one more vacation this year (coming up in about two weeks, actually).
Oh, and we are apparently gearing up for war in Syria - because the last time we jumped into a conflict in the Middle East, it worked out really well.
As my memory rests / But never forgets what I lost / Wake me up when September ends
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