6 Months Already?!

Can you believe I’ve been here for six months already?! I sure can’t, and I’m the one who’s here. Over Easter I called home and my Nouna asked me what I thought about my experience so far, am I glad I came?

There was no hesitation in my reply. Yes. Absolutely. I had to come. I can’t imagine my life any other way, and that’s saying something since that’s never been the case.

It’s experiences like these that teach you a lot about yourself. One thing I’ve learned is that I’m quick to laugh and slow to anger. I also didn’t know how patient I am, not simply with loud and rambunctious kids, but also with basic human interactions and the daily experience of being misunderstood.

I also didn’t know I like kids. I knew I like the kids I’m related to, but they’re so little and cute, what’s not to love about a 3 year-old and 3 month old? But I love pretending and imagining and singing and dancing, I love being silly and uninhibited, and that’s what little kids do best.

I’ve always known I enjoy English. Words are way cooler than numbers, so I’m not surprised I enjoy teaching the subject. I even enjoy the tedious grammar lessons, although by the end of the day I normally want to pull out my hair.

The winter was a little rough, but just yesterday I took a two-hour walk around the city to see the blossoming cherry trees and people excited to be outside. My life in South Korea is great, and for this blog I thought I’d post the pictures I took yesterday and relay a few of the funny things my kids have said in these last six months.

We all know kids are hilarious, but then add a language barrier and my quirky ways to that mix, and I tell ya... I wish I had kept a record of the funny situations/predicaments/sayings, but here’s some of the more memorable ones:

Joel and Nick are really funny. Joel loves to whistle and always pretends to die when I sing along with him. The songs he whistles crack me up, and I just HAVE to break into song. Their response is to cover their ears and say, ‘No teacher, no!’ He’s whistled the theme song to Titanic, Hey Jude, the Mission Impossible theme song. Sometimes we act out a movie and the boys like to start by singing the 20^th Century Fox theme. It always surprises me how much American influence they’ve been exposed to in just the 10 years they’ve been alive. They even know Singing in the Rain.

Matthew asked me, ‘teacher drink beer?’ I was so surprised with this question all I could say was ‘why do you think that?’ ‘Face red’ and it promptly got even more red. ‘No I don’t drink beer, I just walked to work and it’s cold outside.’

I asked Joel what his birthday was and his asked, ‘Why? You try to hack my account?’ I dare you not to laugh at that.

My students always comment on my green eyes and ‘golden hair’ though of course we all know it’s just a mousey brown, but i suppose when you compare it to Korean hair it might look golden. When Nick and Joel said something about my hair I told them that I have quite a bit of grey (and it’s gotten considerably more grey since I’ve moved here.) They didn’t believe me so I showed them. They quickly screamed the word ‘Azuma’ and Joel drew an old lady with a walking cane pulling one hair out, and Nick drew a thought bubble that said ‘Oh damn!’ It was classic.

One student was making fun of another student and told him, ‘shut-up made in China.’ The other student responded by saying he was made in Japan.

I laughed when a student called a skyscraper a sky-crapper. Honest mistake, how could he have known what crap was?

One day Katie, a 15 year-old student in my advanced class, came early to ask me what a condom was. I turned various shades of red before I settled on the answer that it has to do with sex. “I know teacher, but what?’ I don’t duck the hard questions, but this was clearly one of those ‘grey’ questions, if not ‘completely-over-the-line’ questions. I hemmed and hawed and started by saying boys have penises, and she says, ‘peanut?’ and drew a peanut on the board. ‘Uh, no, not peanut.’ So I drew a stick figure of a non-gendered person, then I made a big circle around the nether-regions. ‘Boys.’ Then I drew a balloon, ‘condom.’ Luckily for me the light came on and she said in an embarrassed, but also glad to know voice, ‘oh, it covers.’ ‘Yep, it covers.' And I thought, for the love of all that’s holy, don’t ask me any other question like this, because I feel compelled to answer, but I’m just not made to teach sex-ed.

Apparently she was sent as an ambassador of sorts, because the other girls in class wanted to know what it meant too. I asked them where they heard this and they told me it was in a reading in Mr. Shin’s class. I could only wonder, what the hell he was teaching them? The girls asked Katie the meaning, but she was too shy to say it aloud, so she wrote it down on a piece of paper and I watched that paper get passed around the whole class followed my giggles.

I don't know what this window display was trying to sell, but it seemed fitting to place the image here, after the condom story :)

One lesson I asked a discussion question, have you ever had anything stolen from you? The class was silent, then a single voice range through, ‘ya, my soul.’

We were working on two-word verbs, like pull out, pick up, drop off etc. and which verbs can be separated with possessive pronouns. Joel, smart as a whip, says, ‘oh, like knock it off - that’s what you say to us sometimes.’ It’s true, I just had smile and agree. ‘Yep, just like that.’

It’s funny the things kids pick up on. Sometimes Joel is a little moody and I ask him why he’s cranky. One day a new student in class, John, was upset about something so Joel asks, ‘why are you cranky?’ And then preceded to sing the party pooper song I taught them.

‘Every party has a pooper and that’s why we invited you. Party pooper, party pooper.’

I have a student named Tyson, and he could very well be the loudest student on the face of the planet, but he's also funny and smart so... Anyway, he asked how I like Korea and I told him it's great, I love it here. He told me he doesn't like to travel because foreign food makes his stomach itchy. Yeah, my stomach gets itchy too.

Well, I’ll keep a better record of the funny things that happen in the classroom, but until then, see ya. Oh, and thank goodness it’s spring!

Cabin Fever Randomness

This post will be a compilation of all the random things I’ve wanted to say but couldn’t because they don’t fit nicely into a pre-packaged blog theme.

As you know, I arrived in Korea on October 6^th, but didn’t start teaching until October 12^th. There were a few weeks of good weather, but that soon ended, leaving me coatless with a Russian wind. The temperature here is about the same as home, the only difference is this wind. Bitter, bone chilling wind. The kind of wind that makes my teeth ache in pain and freezes my hair after a brief 3 minute walk. The kind of wind that makes me contemplate the meaning of life because I know if I stay outside for too long I will die. No questions asked. I will just simply no longer exist. That kind of wind.

So needless to say, though of course, apparently, I do have some need to say, I have not been outside more than is necessary, which has put a damper on my great plan to organize a massive student revolt here in Andong. It has also affected my ability to find, meet and befriend other foreigners. I know they’re here, my students have told me of new English teachers at their schools, but I can’t force myself outside very long. Hmm...

And just last week I thought this conundrum may be settled, but of course that was before a massive dust storm came in. I know, a dust storm! I thought that only happened in the Midwest during the 1920’s! I stand corrected. But I’m gonna keep positive that once April hits, it’ll be sunshine galore.

During the moments I feel isolated and/or homesick, I just look at the bright side of life. Hakuna Matata! Which brings me to my next point:

An Unlikely Friend

I was walking home from the grocery store one night when something fluttered in the road in an unnatural way, which of course caught my eye. And what do you think I found?! A frog! Yes, that’s right, a frog. And for those of you who don’t know, I LOVE FROGGIES!!! I can’t get enough of them. When I went to Zion Nat’l Park with my cousins Jello and Gassy Gus, it was during frog season and I caught like 20 frogs and stuffed them into my boot and limped around screaming ‘FROGGIES!’ True story. So like it or not, this little discovery and I were bound to be best friends.

I walked with this little frog in my hand, dragging my groceries behind me, and once inside the warmth called home, it occurred to me I have nowhere to put this little guy. I was already crooning to him, so he wouldn’t be scared you see, but even though our friendship was developing very quickly, I just didn’t want him to roam around my single room abode unattended. So I put him in a pot, inside my sink. He seemed a docile fella, so I didn’t think twice about it. Have you spotted the build up yet? Well, as it tends to happen, I got distracted by tv, and while my dinner was cooking in the space I call a ‘kitchen,’ the little bugger made what I can only describe as a Herculian jump, out of the pot, out of the sink, and was now doing exactly what I never wanted him to do, roaming about my small quarters. And just like that, everything that was right in the world suddenly became wrong.

Even though I had caught this wee lad, courted and betrothed my love to him, I was now terrified. Of him? Maybe. But mainly, I did not want to step on him. It was out of concern you see. I spotted him in an unreachable corner, as it tends to happen, and thought now was as good a time as any to do those dishes I’d been putting off. Really, I wanted to trick him into thinking I’d forgotten about him, and maybe the noise would startle him back into my loving embrace, but as with most plans of entrapment, this did not work. In fact, it had an opposite effect, he scurried under the cabinets and worked himself into a frenzy. By now I was imagining how my itty domicile would smell if my newfound friend died under there, and I too worked myself into a frenzy. I told him that I never had any intention of keeping him, I just wanted to take him to class tomorrow and introduce him to some of my students, but if he didn’t want to meet them, then he better march himself out so I return him to the wild streets of Andong. And that’s just what he did, so I did as I promised. I’m a man of my word you see.

Although our friendship only lasted an hour, little frogie, I love you.

It turns out there are only 2 frogs in Andong, 1 is poisonous and the other is not. He was not, but I had a 50/50 chance of needing the cunning skills of Dr. Gregory House had this not been the case.

A Few Confessions

There are a few secrets I feel obliged to share with all 12 of you, my dedicated followers. These are in no particular order, but I feel like it would be a lie not to admit these things out loud, and on the Internet, for all to see and judge as they deem fit.

1. More often than not, when I wake up, I am completely convinced I have magical powers.

I’m not just speaking of the hazy moments between dreams and reality, I mean, I’ve gotten up, gone pee-pee, and am on the computer when it occurs to me how wonderful blueberry pancakes would be for breakfast, and even though I know there is no blueberry pancake mix in my cabinets, I still take a gander because my mind is more powerful than I could ever imagine, and maybe, just maybe...

Then, 10 minutes later, I check again, you know, just in case...

2. I am constitutionally adversed to capitalization.

For the purpose of this blog I practice a little self-restraint, but aside from this little publication, I refuse to capitalize. I feel like the nouns we decide to cap are so arbitrary and I despise being told how to show a conceived form of respect. The only phrases that I willingly cap in emails are 'President Obama' and 'Elder Bavelas.' Obama for obvious reasons, he rocks, and Adam, because he's a stud. I told Adam this once in an email and he was quite flattered to be on the same playing field as our Commander-in-Chief in this deranged head of mine.

3. It’s true that I am quickly approaching the ripe old age of 30. It’s true that I am able to pay my monthly utility bills (which has oddly reaffirmed my adulthood) and it is also true that I cannot sleep without my beloved stuffed animal named Effie the Effelant.

Aw, Effie the Effelant. Effie has travelled the world with me. He has been a friend, confidant and pillow in times of need. In the private moments of our slumber I am always aware of the exact positioning of his little trunk sos he can breathe properly. True story.

A little known fact about Effie is that he is in fact a hermaphrodite. I have told him that that is not a politically correct phrase these days, that he is ‘intersex’ and saying hermaphrodite is like calling a Black person a Negro or an Asian person Oriental, but he insists on hermaphrodite, and I figure, eh, who am I to argue?

4. I haven’t yet decided, but I see a promising future as a pirate, ghost-buster or lunch lady.

This is actually why I went to business school. I thought, what better way to learn the ways of pirating than attend Westminster’s Gore School of Business? It was a wise choice. Do you want fries with that? And of course I’m a nut for mystery and adventure, so ghost-busting seems like a natural course of action. I will use my time here to think on it a bit more, arrrrr!

5. This one is especially hard to admit, but here goes nothing: I am a fan of American Idol. There is said it, and it feels so good to get that off my shoulders!

Before moving out here I’d never seen a complete episode of this bloody show. My cousins raved about it, people spoke of the contestants like friends or family members, but other than a brief clip of the exceptionally bad performers, I had absolutely no desire to see it. Then I came to Korea, and I guess that means I start watching American Idol? Well it would seem so.

I’ll tell you what got me hooked. They had these promos on which city they’d be visiting and I saw Salt Lake was in the midst, so it peeked my curiosity. Then I glimpsed those mountains that mean home, and sat through an entire episode for the first time. Even though I’d never seen an episode, of course I know who Adam Lambert is and was even more interested to see his ‘legendary’ performances.

So that’s my deep dark secret. Ah, what a load off!

My Own Personal Fan

I am often greeted by smiling children saying hello as I walk to and fro, but adults rarely do anything other than stare at me. Because of this, the first time I encountered what can only be described as the town drunk, I was convinced his ecstatic salutation was meant for anyone other than me. Nope. It was for me. Whenever he sees me he rushes to shake my hand, which is definitely not a standard greeting, and mumbles the few English words he knows. Once he walked me to his friend who sells apples, so a bought a few and now he’s my apple guy.

There are times I am in a hurry and have to duck out of the way to make it to class, and then there are days I go out of my way to be recognized by the only member of my personal fan club. Seriously, this guy always cheers me up, I’ve never met anyone so excited to see me. It’s great!

Welcome to the Monkey House

This is the last bit of random information that doesn’t quite fit into any preconceived theme on this here blog, and it’s about my neighbors. I live on the 2^nd floor of this building, and there are 6 studio apartments on this floor. Besides the out-of-place American who lives in 203, there are some notably eccentric residents. My neigbors who live just right of me are apparently together for all the wrong reasons because they never stop fighting!

I can’t count how many times I’ve woken up to shattering glass and yelling, the girl is a screecher you see. Apparently they have no appreciation of proper sleep cycles either, because it doesn’t matter if it’s 2am or 5:42am, they yell as loud as they see fit. It was actually this that prompted me to learn a few explanatives in Korean, but I’ve yet to use this helpful skill. They were gone this last week and it was an oh-so-sweet-heaven, but they’re home now so...

Occasionally I chat with the foreign teachers who used to work for Mr. Shin and was told these people have been fighting like this for over 2 years, which makes me speculate about the causes of this incessant battle. Maybe he drinks, maybe her mother-in-law hates her, maybe he’s a player, maybe she has a degenerative brain condition, who knows? All I know is, as annoying as it is, it’s also oddly comforting, like a sound of home. Weird huh?

My other neighbor is quite colourful also. Some of you may or may not know I have a very odd sleep cycle, and that combined with the echoing effect of the stairwell, allows me to decipher when and what neighbors come home. For the last few months I had a few suspicions about the girl living two apartments left of me, but now, I can say without a doubt, she is indeed a lady of the night!

The first clue was how late she comes home, apparently only to leave, then return home again. She wears high heels so her echo is rather distinctive. Then I got a look at her business attire, and even though my hair would freeze from the wicked wind outside, she was wearing a short mini-skirt, no tights, and a skimpy shirt. The thing about Koreans is, I've never seen a scantily clad woman unless she's working a corner, so that, along with my keen observation skills, and the confirmation of a previous teach, all tells me she is a woman of the night. Aw, all this 'real life' experience! Invaluable I say!

Well that’s all for now. Oh, except, Happy Birthday Papa and Jello! Mmmm, jell-o...

Book Review: 'The Brothers K'

As long as I’ve been in Korea, I’ve wanted to do a brief book report on each book I read. As you can see, I’m behind. Nearly 5 months behind, so I will begin retroactively and start with the first book I read here, ‘The Brothers K’ by David James Duncan.

I am so appreciative that this is the book I began when I moved here. The theme is good ol’ America from about 50’s – 70’s. It was especially comforting to know that no matter how far from home I am, the feeling of home can be reached within a paragraph or two.

This book would be just as phenomenal if I hadn’t just moved across the world, but since I had, it offered a kind of nostalgia only David Duncan can make, especially since I’ve never lived through the time periods he writes about.

‘The Brothers K’ is transporting. The premise is simple enough, it’s about a family. That’s it. It tells the tales of one family and within the pages of description you might find your own family, or the neighbors’ family, or the family you always wished you had. It has all the details of what makes a family real. The characteristics of family members that are endearing, but more often than not, are a nuisance, which kinda makes them endearing. It describes the brother who talks louder to win an argument, or the sister who looks at life with scientific goggles, the quiet and easy to forget brother (who narrates this tale) and the genius brother that wishes he was a little more like his father and a little less like Einstein. A church fanatical mother who uses church to rip the family apart and play siblings against each other, and an athletic and loving father whose life turns upside down after a rather ordinary mill accident. But through each person's perspective, the individual celebrations of personalities and development, baseball is the component that allows this staggeringly different family from completely forgetting each other. Baseball holds them together in a way God, love or any other soul felt experience couldn’t. Baseball. Which, I suppose, is why it’s as American as you can get, even when eating intestinal soup with ramen noodles in a room where I am the only person whose eyes are as big dimes. And so this book quickly made it to the top of my ‘favorites’ list.

This is a book made me laugh out loud and within 10 minutes I’d be crying. My emotional response was so powerful. I feel connected and protective of every character, and even though the baseball rhetoric can be thick at times, each story is so sincere that it became engrained in my every day life. Usually I’m not one to write in the margins of a book, I get too caught up in the story, but I had to with this book, if only to highlight specific passages here in my blog. So here are a few (dozen) of my favs -- bare in mind these quotes are taken completely out of context, and I’m doing my best not to give anything away.

‘...whenever it’s really hot Elder Babcock’s sermon—even if it starts out being about some nice quite thing like the poor or meek or weak—will sooner or later twist like a snake its head run over to the unquiet subject of heaven and hell, and who all is going to which, and how long you’ll have to stay, and what all will happen to you when you there, and he goes on so loud and long and the air gets so used up and awful that bit by bit you lose track of any difference between his heaven and his hell and would gladly pick either over church.’

‘Vic Power, the Indians’ Negro first baseman, is the hitter. It’s weird to see a big black man like Power getting called an ‘Indian.’ Come to think of it, it’s pretty strange to see a bunch of white guys running around calling themselves ‘Indians’ too. How are real Indians supposed to feel about this? I mean, what if there was a team of white guys, with an Indian first baseman, called ‘the Cleveland Negroes’? It’d make exactly as much sense. Better yet, what if there was a team of Negroes and Indians called ‘the Cleveland White Guys’? I think a lot of pale-faced folks wouldn’t be all that thrilled.’

‘I give him everything from my lunches I hate, which is called Charity.’

‘And Bet, who spent a whole day making a Christmas card for Uncle Marv and Aunt Mary Jane last year, then got so proud of the card that she refused to mail it to anybody but herself. ‘That’s the Christmas spirit!' Everett told her.’

‘Thus did my siblings and I learn one of the hard lessons of life: the best way to strip the allure and dreaminess from a lifelong dream is, very often, simply to have it come true.’

‘This A.M. bodily maintenance project was soon dubbed ‘the ABCDE.’ His mind was so adrift that the acronym’s meaning would change now and then, but generally it stood for something like ‘Another Brainless Clone’s Diet Effort’ or ‘Amorphous Blob Cooks Detritus for Evertt.’ What didn’t change much was the ritual itself: the ABCDE began with three boiled eggs, cooked sometimes too soft, sometimes too hard, almost never just right. Everett loathed overly soft eggs and he loathed overly hard ones, but since his A.M. mind couldn’t keep track of time without its morning coffee, and since coffee gave him heartburn on an empty stomach, he had to eat eggs before he could drink the coffee. So every morning he mistimed, miscooked and disliked them. He’d tried fried eggs for a while. But whenever he’d burnt them (which had been almost daily) he went through hell trying to clean his cast-iron skillet afterward. With boiled eggs, if the shells didn’t break (or what the heck, even if they did), the hot water for his coffee was ready just as soon as he spooned the eggs out and the pan was as good as clean as soon as the coffee got poured out into his cup. Clever. For an Amorphous Blob.

Everett drank drip coffee only. Percolated, cowboy or instant gave him even worse heartburn than drip, adding milk didn’t help, and Canadians hadn’t yet discovered the cappuccino and the like, so black drip it was. He also tried fixing toast to accompany the eggs now and then. Since he had no toaster he had to use his gas oven, and since he used it in the midst of his pre-coffee stupor, he usually burnt the toast to cinders. Even if he didn’t burn it he seldom ate it, because he didn’t like toast unless it was hot and served with coffee and he couldn’t have it with coffee yet, because his eggs were still boiling in his coffee water, and by the time he got the eggs shelled and salted and peppered the toast was stone cold. But he liked to make toast anyway, if only because by operating the gas oven in the midst of his pre-coffee stupor he daily stood a very real chance of dying.

Death. By all sorts of means. This was a topic Everett contemplated long, hard and none too carefully on these dank gray-hued late-winter mornings. Stumbling round the kitchen, not comprehending time, he would fix and consume his preposterous breakfast till the eggy coffee did its work and his literacy kicked in. Then he’d start to read whatever printed words or numbers his eyes lit upon. Not Russian novels; not books; not even magazines or newspapers. Thought, literature, informative writing of all kinds—these were for suckers. Because they all tried to give life meaning. But once your life had the acquired meaning, all it really meant was that you’d doomed yourself to hurt like a twice-hammered thumb once Unmeaning came along, as it always does, and knocked the teeth, brains and stuffing out of your puny meaning. All Everett required each morning, thank you, were some random household objects with a few meaningless words printed on the to add a little fuel to his contemplations of death...’

*Side note, if this book had a movie rating, it would be rated R for strong language and adult content, just in case you care about that kinda of thing...

Japanese vs. Turks

The topic today is Korean Independence, which is celebrated on March 1^st. This is often referred to as the March 1^st Movement, and like most movements, began with a declaration. A Buddhist monk and writer collaborated to draft the Korean Declaration of Independence, which was then ratified by the leaders of the revolution and a copy sent to the Japanese Governor General.

‘We herewith proclaim the independence of Korea and the liberty of the Korean people. We tell it to the world in witness of the equality of all nations and we pass it on to our posterity as their inherent right.

We make this proclamation, having back of us 5,000 year of history, and 20,000,000 of a united loyal people. We take this step to insure to our children for all time to come, personal liberty in accordance with the awakening consciousness of this new era. This is the clear leading of God, the moving principle of the present age, the whole human race’s just claim. It is something that cannot be stamped out, or stifled, or gagged, or suppressed by any means.’

As far as declarations go, I think we can agree this had some umph to it, and after Chung Jae-yong read this publicly to massive crowds in Seoul, a procession formed. And with any movement with a valid voice, the police attempted to suppress it. The result was 7,000 massacred Koreans.

The March 1^st Movement was the catalyst for the establishment of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea and influenced the non-violent resistance in India. It changed the way the Japanese dealt with the Korea even though Korean independence wasn’t achieved for another 26 years.

So what was so bad with Japanese rule, you may be asking yourself, and you’d be perfectly normal to wonder that, after all, I thought the same, which is what prompted me to do a bit of research on the subject. That, and the way my students loathe the Japanese. See, they’re mostly a loving group, so it took me aback when I heard the tone and expressions that reminded me of the way I’ve heard old-school Greeks talk about Turks.

The Japanese occupation of Korea lasted from 1910-1945 and has often been described as cultural genocide because of the suppression of Korean national identity and language. One way this was accomplished was by altering public monuments, including temples, palaces, scripts, memorials and statues. Songs and poems originally dedicated to Korean Emperors were re-written to adore the Japanese Emperor. The Chinese characters where modified on carved monuments so the their meaning would change. The Japanese colonial authorities destroyed 85 percent of all the buildings in the Korean Royal Palace, as well as assassinating the Empress, and burned Korean history books. Many cultural artefacts were destroyed to taken to Japan and remain there still.

Before the Japanese rule of Korea, education was a privilege for aristocrats only. The Japanese changed this by introducing universal education, though the classes focused mostly on teaching the history of the Japanese Empire as well as glorifying the Imperial House of Japan. Korean history was not part of the curriculum. As in Japan itself, students were made to worship at the school’s Shinto shrine regardless of their religious beliefs, and bow before portraits of the Japanese Emperor. After 1930 all classes were taught in Japanese and the use of Korean was forbidden in all schools and businesses. Many Koreans adopted Japanese surnames to avoid discrimination and harassment.

Many Korans also became victims of war crimes. Villages found hiding resistance fighters were dealt with harshly, often with summary execution, rape, forced labor, preventable famine and looting.

There is a term called ‘comfort women’ that refers to the forced prostitution of the Korean women for Japanese soldiers during WWII. I’ve heard it’s estimated that 200,000 women were kidnapped and taken to Japan, but it’s hard to get an official number because the Japanese refuse to acknowledge this and the surviving women are dying. My friend Val met a woman who experienced this, she was in her 80’s, and told some intense stories. She said that when she tried to run away she would be beaten severely, and the bottoms of her feet were tortured so she couldn’t walk, let alone run. Val said the thing that stood out the most about this woman was how positive her outlook on life was, and even though her many years of forced prostitution left her barren, she married a man who already had a daughter and was able to be mother. It sounds like although this horrible thing happened to her, it was not the defining event of her life, which is an attitude we can all learn from.

So why had I not heard any of this before? Why do people believe Koreans still eat dogs and are poor and uneducated? History. History has a way of rewriting itself, a fact that has only been more illuminated as I continue to read Howard Zinn’s, “A People’s History of the United States.’

Japan altered history to rationalize the occupation of Korea to the international community. They depicted Koreans as backward and in need of modernization by only showing photos of the impoverished. Japanese history is something I often hear my students criticizing. For example, Koreans were used as test subjects in human experiments with liquid nitrogen and biological weapons. Though vivid and disturbing testimonies have survived, the Japanese government largely denies them.

One way both North and South Korea has boycotted Japan was by banning Japanese products. It wasn’t until 1998 that the boycott was gradually lifted in South Korea. Some Japanese cultural items, including anime and music, have been introduced into South Korea even while they were banned, though Koreans didn’t know they were Japanese in origin.

Twenty years after the end of WWII, South Korea and Japan re-established diplomatic relations with the 1965 signing of the Treaty on Basic Relations. The details of this treaty were kept secret for 40 years. Documents show that Japan provided 500 million dollars in soft loans and 300 million in grants to South Korea as compensation for its occupation. It was also revealed that the South Korean government assumed the responsibility for compensating individuals with lump sum and rejected Japan’s proposal for direct compensation. However, the South Korean government used most of the loans for economic development and have failed to compensation to the victims adequately, paying only about $300 per death to their relatives.

It should also be mentioned that several Japanese Prime Ministers have issued official apologies. Koreans welcomed the apologies at the time, but now view the statements as insincere.

I have a few students who clearly look like they have Japanese ancestors, and I’m often on guard to see if these students are ever mistreated. Luckily I’ve never seen any form of discrimination, which is a comfort.

When March 1^st came, I asked my students to explain the holiday to me. I got simple answers from some students, freedom, independence, but all of them spoke of a girl, a hero, named Yu Gwan Soon. She was a young student, who at 19 years old, waved the Korean flag in public and was tortured and executed, along with all of the members of her family. I wasn’t able to find out what year this happened, but the interesting thing about this story is that, in all the articles I read about the March 1^st Movement, and the history of Korean independence, there was not one mention of this girl. Not a single citation, yet every single one of my students knew her story. It made me wonder...

And since we’re on the subject, here’s a bit about the S. Korean flag:

The Korean flag is called Taegukki. Its design symbolizes the principles of the yin and yang in Eastern philosophy. The circle in the center of the flag is divided into two equal parts. The upper red section represents the positive cosmic forces of the yang. Conversely, the lower blue section represents the negative cosmic forces of the yin. The two forces together embody the concepts of continual movement and the balance and harmony that characterize the sphere of infinity. The circle is surrounded by four trigrams, one in each corner. Each tripgram symbolizes one of the four universal elements: heaven, earth, sun and moon. I have also read that they represent the four seasons, the four compass points, the four elements, and express the principle of the movement of all objects in the universe and the moment of the universe itself.

The white color of the background stands for the peace and purity of the Korean people who have loved to wear white colored clothes and have been called the white-clad nation.

Korean Superstitions

The topic of superstitions came up with a few of my students, and I thought the follow information was irresistible.

Let’s start with what is called a “Bujuk “ A Bujuk is based on Korean Buddism and shamanism. Bujuk, traditionally, is a piece a paper bringing good luck and gets rid of bad luck. People carry it or keep it in their homes for protection. Visitors of Buddhist Temples and Japanese Shrines are welcome to take a Bujuk with them for fortune and glory (name that movie). ‘Fortune and glory kid.’ These rolls of paper are written in many different languages. The common English letters are V, for victory and G for good/great.

My students, Nick and Joel, drew a few Bujuks and told me what different colors signify. If the paper is yellow, it is lucky. It means an old grandmother with a cane, peg-leg and scythe walked over you while you were sleeping – not my idea of luck, but the boys were adamant that it is. If there is red writing I will become a zombie. BAM, just like that, a zombie! There is no other possibility, red Bujuk = zombie, that’s all there is.

The color red is very symbolic, anywhere really, but in particularly here. My first day on the job, I wrote a student’s name on the board with red marker and heard a deep intake of breath from the rest of classroom. Apparently, you only write a name is red if the person is dead. *Note to self. Blushing, I corrected this mistake with a black marker and recommenced my lesson. I couldn’t believe I had blundered so magnificently in the 15 minutes on the job. There was no warning on my pamphlet ‘So you’ve decided to teach English in Korea,’ though of course such pamphlet doesn’t exist. I can still hear, ‘No Teacher, no. Red very bad color.”

So as it stands, it seems to reason that the color red would have a rather large and ominous role in Korean superstitions.

There is a ‘Red Pen’ test for all knew homeowners. Throw a red pen behind you while inside the new (to you) home and it if you hear it hit the floor, no ghost. If there is no sound, it means a ghost caught it. Is it just me, or does this seem like the kind of test Dr. Peter Venkman would ‘perform.’

There is also an Egg-ghost, it’s an egg with feet and ‘strange’ eyes. The only thing that scares the egg-ghost is a frying pan. That made me laugh.

These have been playful and fun, I mean really, a yia-yia with a peg-leg? Really? But I haven’t told you about the Lady with a mask yet. She is someone to avoid at all costs. I’ll explain.

There is a Lady with a mask, and there are two factors that determine your interaction with her. First, the color of her mask. Second, what blood-type you are. For this purpose, I will write about your interaction if she is wearing a red mask during your unfortunate encounter.

She will ask you if you think she is pretty or ugly. There is no way to avoid this question, and whatever your response is, the results are not pretty. If you tell her she is pretty she will rip your mouth into an exaggerated smile. Here’s where your blood type comes into play: if you have A-type blood, the rip is only 1 cm long. Not ideal, but manageable I think, well, at least when you compare it to the other blood types. B-type blood, she will rip your whole face into a big smile, we’re talkin forehead to forehead here. And if you 0-type blood, like me, she will scratch off your face completely. The AB blood types have it easy, you die.

So now your wondering, why didn’t I say she was ugly? You can of course, but you’ll just die afterwards. It’s kinda a no-win scenario.

Her punishments vary depending upon the color of the mask she is wearing. She could use her tongue like a boa constrictor and kill you that way. She could turn you into a vampire or she could make you smell like death.

It seems evident to me that the best course of action is to stay away of this lady, clearly she has some issues.

I don’t want to leave you on a bad note, so I’ll tell you about the Ye-gi-mong ghost, who whispers your future in your dreams. I guess that’s the only way parents can get kids to go to bed after some of these tales.

Korean New Years

I’ve had a lot of people ask me if Korea celebrates Chinese New Year. Being an adopted Korean, I am inclined to report that Korea celebrates Korean New Year.... and then argue that the ‘Sea of Japan’ is misnamed because it is a silly and absurd idea that a country can own part of the ocean, unless that said country is, in fact, Korea. So I openly show my resistance by referring to the span of water between Korea and Japan as the East Sea, but getting back on track...

So, the Korean New Year, it’s called Seollal, and lasts three days. There are a set of rules that determine the actual dates it falls between, something about the moon, bla bla bla, much like Greek Easter, bla bla bla, and this year it fell on February 13, 14 and 15^th. This served me well because I got that Monday off. I slept in, ate fried octopus tentacles dipped in ketchup, sang Barry Manilow in my underwear -- trying to win over the heart of my rooster friend -- all the while, the tv was showing reruns of Smurfs, though of course, entirely in Korean. Now that I’ve burned that image in your mind, I’ll move on to the more sustentative partitions of this blog ;)

Korean New Year is also the Chinese, Mongolian, Tibetan and Vietnamese New Year. According to Wikipedia, ‘[These] commonly used Western name[s] to describe this festival inclusively, although scientifically incorrect, is Lunar New Year.’ Sos you know. Many Koreans greet the New Year by visiting the East coast to watch the first sunrise of the year.

This is a family-oriented holiday. People return to their hometowns to visit with relatives and perform the ancestral ritual, Charye, shown in this image. It is the customary way honoring ancestors. A deep bow of respect, called Sebae, is the formal greeting to living elders. Sabae is exchanged between family members and neighbors along with well-wishes. These are prayers for one’s wishes to be fulfilled or to congratulate one on fulfilled wishes.

*Side note, the color green mean prosperity, so children get money, about $10. Don’t let that fool you into thinking they only get a few bucks. One of my students got the equivalent of a month’s salary!

The New Years garb and grub are also tied to tradition. Many Koreans dress in colorful Hanbok. Hanbok has an interesting history, and since this is my blog and my Wednesday night, I thought I’d elaborate a bit. The literal meaning of Hanbok is “Korean clothing” and is often characterized by vibrant colors and simple lines without pockets. Throughout history, Korea had a dual clothing tradition. Rulers and aristocrats wore foreign styles, while the commoners continued to use a distinct style of native clothing that is known today as Hanbok. There are many variations and combinations of this clothing that has it’s own name, but for the purpose of this brief synopsis, let us celebrate the main idea and not get bogged down with details. So that’s the garb aspect.

As for the grub. Well every student was particularly excited about ddeock. Naturally, I assumed it was some dish with duck in it, but alas, my cunning postulations failed me once again. Damn these etymology traps! Damn them I say! It is a Korean cake made with steamed sweet rice. There are hundreds of different kinds of ddeock eaten year round, but on New Year’s Day, it's a celebratory food ranging from elaborate fruits and nuts versions, to the plain-flavored ddeock used in home cooking. Common ingredients are mung bean, red bean and sweet red bean past, Korean mugwort, jujube and other dried fruits, sesame seeds and oil, sugar, and pine nuts.

And so, in short, Seoullal is a 3-day celebration to honor ancestors and living family life. It is a chance to dress in elaborate Korean clothes and eat comfort food while surrounded by loved ones. And on at least one day, you drive to the ocean or sea, and if that’s not available, to the mountains, and watch the first sunrise as a family. Oh, and if you are a child, you can make a killing. It's easy to understand why this a special holiday for Koreans.

I thought about asking to share part of this holiday with a fellow teacher, but as I came to understand the familial importants, I decided my wild time with Mr. Manalow just may be the beginning of my own Seoullal tradition.