Filed under: books, changes, host fam, how we roll, life in Jeju, miscommunication, okay seriously Korea, reading
Considering the typhoon, it was a surprisingly wonderful Sunday.
Full disclosure, as always: We brought the storm on ourselves. My friend G’s host sister, J, told her cheerfully that a typhoon was coming Sunday, but given the fact that no one seemed to be evacuating, we all laughed it off as typical Korean hyperbole.* Also, the two weather words all my students seem to know on their own are “fine” and “typhoon.” I thought this was funny.
I was wrong.
It’s been a rough week anyway for pretty much everyone I know – my friend A said that atmospheric changes were afoot, which explained my desire on Friday to personally throttle every single student in my second grade class, but I don’t know anyone on this island who made it through the week without at least once casting a longing glance back towards American shores. So ending with a Category 4 hurricane isn’t really surprising, I guess. Yesterday was cloudy, a little rainy, but about 75% of the island crew ended up seeing The Bourne Supremacy and/or wandering around looking for entertainment and/or eating Red Mango (finally), eating Indian food, receiving a free coffee mug from the only GNC in the province, and visiting the English bookstore and buying copies of Kingsley Amis’ Lucky Jim and Paul Auster’s New York trilogy. (Okay, the last part was just me.) Then G and my friend E and I went to the jjimjilbang with my host fam, where we all fell asleep on the floor and didn’t leave until 2 AM. At this point: no evacuations, no alarms, no warnings from the Big Brother-style speaker on my wall from which the superintendent declaims. I hope you don’t think I’m joking on that last part.
We woke up this morning with a promise hanging over our heads: pudding, or “ding-pu,” as HB has taken to calling it. (The first time I made it – out of boredom, on another rainy night – he called the ingredients pudding, but after witnessing its metamorphosis into dessert, decided that the name needed a change as well.) Because it was HB’s birthday party day, E and G and I ventured out into the rain to the supermarket down the street and to Paris Baguette for breakfast. It was a walk that would cost us four umbrellas. I had trouble standing upright. By the time we realized how bad it was, however, we were on a mission. Also so wet that it didn’t really matter if we got any wetter.
So we got our chocolate and our sugar and our croissants and sticky buns and green-tea-cream-cheese-pancakey-thing, and headed home, where the power appeared to be flickering, to no one’s consternation but ours. We made pudding by candlelight. We ate pudding and fried chicken with HF and HB’s friends by candlelight. At this point, trees were falling. Then we sat around and talked and read our books, in English, and took a nap, listening to the winds batter the window. When we woke up, the buses weren’t running, so we played Uno with HS.
When we finally made it to the bus station, the streets were flooded, windows were broken, and branches littered the streets. We got E on a bus to Seogwipo and G in her taxi to Hallim, and made it home, where HD, HB, HS and I ate ramen and, because I am forever behind every trend, I read more of the last Harry Potter, again by candlelight. (Side note: I can’t put it down. I wouldn’t call myself a Potter fanatic, but what I love about Rowling is her ability to create a propulsive story – i.e., I always always always want to keep reading.) Then the lights came back on, and I was able to discover that what had actually occurred was Typhoon Nari, with winds somewhere between 131 and 155 miles per hour. Oh.
This is so typical, for us to be here and have no idea that we’re surviving a massive storm. It’s the grand-scale edition of getting on a bus and hoping it goes our way. Welcome to life in a foreign country. My American mother asked me today if people don’t evacuate, and HS said no; I’m not sure if this was the first typhoon to hit the island, or if it was just the first typhoon in a while, based on what she said (see? SEE?), and I don’t know if people are blase or if they’re actually freaking out and they’re just doing it in Korean. You know? I never imagined that I could experience a storm in this way. But then I never imagined a lot of things.
*There is no typical Korean hyperbole. Mistake Number One.
Filed under: ACT, PCT, life in Jeju, miscommunication, music, pipe dreams, skool, teaching
So my room is filled with decorations from last year’s ETA, including class projects, English concepts, and signs that say “Happy Times with Jullienne” (sic). Monday, after many promises of redecoration, PCT and ACT offered to take me to the stationery store for room supplies the next day. The next day (yesterday), however, it was raining, so PCT came into my room and was like, “What I mean to say is I think maybe it is bad idea to go because the rain is so heavy.” And I was like, fine, whatever, and we made plans to go today. And they went anyway, because the rain stopped, and failed to call me. Although they bought me Post-it bookmarks. Which – granted – I needed. But still. And now PCT says she is too busy to help me make new signs for the classroom, which is fine, but I would be willing to do all the work – I just need to know what to do. I already tried emailing her documents she could print out and I could laminate (again, I would do this, but I don’t have access to a computer with a printer) and she told me that they were too small, or something. I don’t even know. And now ACT just came in – apparently we ARE going to the stationery store today, and I feel really bad, because I would have gone last night had I known, and thus avoided making them trek twice. Sometimes it just feels like there is a lot of stuff that they think/say in Korean and just, you know, forget to translate.
Also: first a cappella practice this morning. Students did NOT like “Lean on Me.” Which I was going to say is positively un-American, but then I remembered I am not in America.
PS. I am debating giving busted laptop to Candace for college, since Acer will take approximately six years to fix mine, and investing in a new one. And – I hate to say this, but I was looking at Glypie’s MacBook Pro, and it is so pretty. But a Mac? Really? In my family, that is akin to buying a Chevy, making cake from a mix, or voting Democrat. In other words, it means admitting the defeat of your convictions. Never mind that I don’t really want to vote Republican or Democrat or Green or Constitution, lately.
My laptop is 업서요, as we like to say over here in Korea-land. In other words, I opened it last night, the mouse wouldn’t move, and then the entire screen turned a shade of periwinkle. (Yes, periwinkle.) Which means that a) I will probably have to ship it back to Acer for the second time in a year to get this fixed, and b) all entries until further notice are coming to you from English Classroom 1, 1st Floor, Dong Middle School, Hwabuk, Jeju-si, Jeju-do, South Korea. Which is rather inconvenient, because this computer is still in Korean, and also totally slow. But a blogger has to do what a blogger has to do, right?
It started raining shortly after I got to school, and it’s raining harder than ever now, which means that I have to wait to go walk to FamilyMart and buy a soda and a Popsicle. I like the rain, actually; it’s cooling the weather, and it’s rather peaceful. I just like ice cream more.
Should I make it, though, I have to be careful about who sees me eat. Being here is a little like being on the Truman Show; everyone watches you all the time. For example: yesterday I went to the cafeteria with Pseudo-Co-Teacher, who is a teacher who has been assigned to look after me by Actual Co-Teacher when she’s not around. I took some meat and some rice, skipping the soup and two kinds of kimchi, and sat down. Then we had the following dialogue.
PCT: You do not want soup?
H: I’m not sure how hungry I am, so I think I’m going to wait.
PCT: Oh, okay. (pause) That is all you eat?
H: For now, I think so.
PCT: I think you maybe need vegetables?
H: I’ll go get some soup.
(H goes to get soup, which is not-delicious seaweed soup, which is why it was skipped in the first place, and sits back down)
H: Oh, I need a spoon.
PCT: Why you get up again?
H: Because I didn’t get a spoon the first time, because I didn’t think I was going to eat any soup.
(H gets a spoon, sits back down. Man across table starts muttering in Korean)
PCT: He wants to know why you did not get side dish, like we do. But you can try mine.
H: You know what, I’ll go get some kimchi.
(H gets up again, gets kimchi in a bowl, sits down for third time)
PCT: Usually, we put on tray. Not in bowl.
(H gives up)
Today PCT brought me some grapes. On a side note, grapes here are delicious; they are much grapier than any grapes we have at home. They are also much messier. Neither the skins nor the seeds are edible (although it is the grape near the seed that is the most tangy and delicious), so you have to spit them out, which inevitably involves sticky hands. Ice cream, on the other hand, comes in wrappers. However, if PCT sees me with ice cream, she will think I do not like/appreciate the grapes. And if any teacher sees me drinking soda, they will automatically assume – and tell all the other teachers – that my favorite drink is soda, which is not even true; I just want one. Navigating kindness, I think, is as difficult as the other sometimes.
Filed under: changes, host fam, life in Jeju, miguk fam, skool, stuff, teaching
Korean Minkus* was back in class today. I have to say that a) I really kind of love Class 1J** and b) in addition to KM, it has this really adorable fat kid, another one with these sort of weirdly cute crossed eyes, and one (non-fat) student who clearly speaks English pretty well and uses it to be an asshat. That would be the one who told me that his favorite hobby was “studying” and that I was “beautiful, very beautiful.” (Again, how sad is it that the only kids who tell me that are the ones who are blatantly sucking up?) But he’s funny, and tiny, and I like both of those things.
I’m taking my happiness where I can get it this week, so I was happy to see them, and happy to teach “weather words” today – my goal is to push them out of this semester with the ability to answer basic questions about themselves. Ex. Where are you from, and what is it like? Just to be able to get around. That’s all I’m asking.
In the meantime – I spent tonight painting. Some things about Korea still surprise me, like the fact that the dinky, junky 문방국 (stationery store) down the street sells palettes for $2. As I walked with Host Sister today to the store, I couldn’t help imagining the same goal in Tennessee; first I would have to go to Michael’s or Wal-Mart, but it would be a drive, and depending on traffic and what else was going on that day I would probably have to wait until there was another occasion to go…Here we left; we went into this store that, quite honestly, didn’t look like it should have anything worthwhile, and bought a palette with cartoon characters on it; and then we walked to the grocery store across the street and bought Popsicles. I ate a melon bar.
*My brother has a Shawn Hunter*** jacket – a leather bomber with a shearling collar – and one day my sister and I started calling him and my dad “Shawn and Chet,” which always makes me giggle when I remember it, partially because my father is the opposite of a Chet and partially because Chet is a funny name.
**The people who are sponsoring this yearlong vacation have politely requested that we all dissociate our blogs from: the organization, our schools, our families. So from now on, following Laura’s lead, my organization is now The Program, the people who run my organization are now The People Who Run The Program or possibly The Powers That Be, my school is now My School, my host family is now made of Host Brother (HB), Host Sister (HS), Omoni (Mom), Aboji (Dad). And Class 1J is obviously not named Class 1J. As of right now my friends’ names are staying in, but that might change. If you actually know me and you want more specific information, feel free to comment.
***Did you know that Rider Strong graduated Magna Cum Laude from Columbia? (I accidentally typed in Manga. That must be why I didn’t.)
The idea of going back to my classes tomorrow is already disheartening, which is a definite sign that something about my lessons needs to change. Right now I feel like a cog in a giant education factory, kind of like the cheese factory in “Mouse Hunt,” if you’ve ever seen that Nathan Lane gem. I think the major problems are as follows:
a) my students may or may not understand me
b) I have no real way of knowing if my students understand me
c) I don’t know anything about my students
d) They have heard all the stuff I am teaching them before
e) I have to stand up there and deliver a PowerPoint about myself, and I don’t like PowerPoint much, and I know about myself
Tomorrow, lesson modification: they have to fill out worksheets answering the same questions they ask about me. This should make my teaching more interesting, at least. If I can get my hands on some string I might have the kids on Tuesday make nametags. The hammer, however, is not going anywhere. The hammer is the only thing standing in between me and classroom anarchy. I would like to think that this would not be the case if I were teaching in a classroom where I knew for sure that the kids understood what I was saying, but I sort of doubt that such is the case.
Tomorrow I am also cooking for my host family; what, exactly, depends on what I can find at E-Mart. They have requested Italian. I am debating gnocchi. I know for sure that E-Mart will have the ingredients for gnocchi. I also know for sure that I’ve never cooked it before and that it’s a whole lot of work. I hope it goes okay. At least they can’t eat until around 8 PM, because my host sister is doing some sort of extra extra extra school thing, in addition to her actual school and hagwon – something about an at-home math test, or maybe math tutoring. I’m never really sure of anything around here. You know.
Yesterday, after a scooter-buying adventure that almost but did not quite end in Tom buying a possibly stolen moped, the Jeju-sians headed out to Seogwipo, where the beach is beautiful but it does occasionally rain. And by “occasionally,” I obviously mean, as you might guess, “yesterday.” We got a good hour of beach time in before spending another hour wandering around, trying to collect everyone’s soggy stuff, and losing a drunk Drew, who ended up in a hotel lobby with his bottle of Carlo Rossi. Having polished off a fair amount of wine myself, and having forgotten to charge my cell phone, I wasn’t much help. We finally ended up outside of the Seogwipo E-Mart (of course), where I had to buy new clothes so I didn’t look quite so much like a lost street urchin, and meeting Tony for chicken. I like the beach. I like Seogwipo, although not as well as Jeju-si. I like Jeju-do.
1. American music played: Azure Ray (host mom likes, natch)
2. Teaching today, I realized that I sound like Will Ferrell talking to Sean Connery on “Celebrity Jeopardy.”
3. New KFB post…check it out on the sidebar, kthx
I am too stupid to use Korean phones. Despite the fact that my own cell phone allows me to videochat, despite the fact that I am a college graduate, I had to have my twelve-year-old host brother call Severance Hospital today. After repeated declarations of “Hillary-homestay. Hillary-homestay!” the man at the desk apparently told us not to call back. Ever.
I’m sure all good readers of this blog are sick of Sick Posts, but the fact remains that I am still a miserable pile of bacteria. My antibiotic supply ran out today, and while I am better, I am not better – I am still sick-ish, and one can only assume that in the absence of drugs, I’ll go back to being a consumptive old woman, so. Also I apparently pulled some muscles in my back coughing, which means that it now hurts to do any lung-related activity. My host mom and dad have been after me to go back to the doctor, and finally today my co-teachers sent me home early and took me to a clinic here. At which point my host father said, “I told her to do that yesterday.”
My father gave me drugs before I left; unfortunately, they’re MIA – I can only assume that they got lost in the packing process. So I have a new supply of a different antibiotic, as well as what I think is Advil. Everyone here seems really concerned about the Advil. “Ibupropen? You have taken before?” “Ibupropen? You can buy at pharmacy?” I tried to explain that you can buy ibuprofen at the American equivalent of Family Mart, but they seem to think that it’s a variant of hydrocodone. I got some from the 약국. I’m kind of surprised.
(Note for Dad: The doctor I saw today is friends with the doctor I saw in Seoul Meanwhile, that doctor is supposed to get back to me tomorrow. Also, he’s the parent of a student at my school, so I ended up getting the medicine for $7.)
I had a really cute moment with my host fam last night though. They told me from the beginning to call them omoni and aboji, and that they wanted their kids to call me nuna and oni, “big sister.” But the kids haven’t yet, so I told them again last night that they could and should, and they got really excited. We also played an epic series of Uno games in which Host Brother told me that he was “very clever” and that he won once in a blue moon. Tomorrow I’m going to the grand opening of Lotte Mart. Maybe I shouldn’t be so excited.
PS. My female students think my brother is gorgeous. My male students think my sister is gorgeous. And my mom.
I took pictures today of all the artistic renderings of me that my students drew today, but I can’t figure out how to upload them online. I guess it’s my own fault, since I gave them a worksheet with a relatively formless image of yours truly, but still, was it necessary to label me as wearing a “cheap dress”? Or to draw me holding a chainsaw in one hand and a bloody skull in the other? Or to illustrate the flamethrower laying at my feet? Or to write “nice (?) hat”?
Anyway. My vice-principal asked me if I liked makgeolli, aka rice wine you drink by the bowl, when I finished with my classes, and of course I said yes, and of course I ended up sitting in a makgeolli restaurant being force-fed rice wine and blood sausage. Mmmm. My poor co-teacher had to go along to supervise, since she knew, I guess, that the male teachers with me would insist that I have large eyes. (This is a compliment. Apparently.) Then I came home and drunk-talked to Drew for half an hour and now I’m here, feeling exceptionally lazy. I have stuff to do. I think. I would rather go watch Korean television.
Filed under: fondness for analogies, host fam, life in Jeju, music, okay seriously Korea
Good thing it’s around midnight and I still have a PowerPoint to complete for Classes 1-4 tomorrow. In college, to be honest, that would have been a decent track record. But now I am a functioning adult – I am – and so I should be doing these things earlier, even though the rush of excitement I feel about tomorrow is the same feeling I’ve always had before the first day of school, from age five to age now.
Again, full disclosure: I would probably have made more progress had I not arrived at school this morning, achy and congested, to find that my computer was entirely in Korean. This made making a snazzy presentation difficult. It actually made making any presentation difficult, since I couldn’t understand any of the commands. After half an hour of trying to explain to the other teachers that I just wanted my computer commands in English, I did NOT want to type in Korean, I did NOT want to read English-language websites, and I was NOT having trouble accessing Microsoft Word, I was able to move on to asking if I could go home and work on my laptop, where all the commands are in beautiful, blessed English. After deterring me for another half hour with hollow promises of repairs by the computer teacher, it was finally discovered that the computer teacher was too busy to fix my computer that day. But then, of course, it was time for lunch. Not time to go home and get some work done, time (of course) to eat. They told me that if I was not feeling well that I should order some mandu with them, so I did. Then they got me some Tylenol and told me that I should eat some noodles before taking the medicine, and that we would be eating both noodles AND mandu, despite the fact that I didn’t really want any mandu in the first place, much less noodles + mandu. Eventually I managed to talk them down to just noodles, although the moment I came home my host brother and sister were like, “Hey, do you want some mandu?”
But in the interest of complete truth, I will admit that I went downtown exploring with HS and HB today, as we had previously planned, when I had foolishly believed that my morning might be productive. After they left for hagwon I stumbled upon an underground fish and vegetable market, where the fish were so fresh that the market didn’t smell and huge pyramids of Jeju tangerines decorated the stalls. I felt like Alice in Wonderland. Then I emerged back into the downtown, went to the wrong Pizza Hut, and finally made it to meet the Jeju-si crew, where – much to my surprise – I almost cried in relief. I told my host mom that I like Korean food better than pizza, which is largely true, but tonight this was the best pizza I had ever had, despite the fact that it was accompanied by really gross and partially frozen lasagna. The crust was filled with cheese and sweet potato. I suggest you not knock the combination until you have tried it.
The operative word around here seems to be “maybe.” As in, “Maybe the computer company is very busy, so they will maybe come tomorrow, or maybe Monday,” or “Maybe that is cuttlefish,” or “Maybe my mother will pick you up.” The element of terrifying uncertainty that’s already inherent in having your language brokenly translated by a twelve-year-old is amplified by such statements; will my host mother be there, or won’t she? Is it squid, or isn’t it? The only explanation I can come up with is that “maybe” is somehow synonymous with “to be,” or that here on this island, nothing is for sure, not even the identity of dried seafood. But it still seems to fit, somehow; after tonight, I have hope for this year. Will it fly? Maybe.
I don’t know if I could drive a car
Fast enough to get to where you are
Or wild enough not to miss the boat completely
Honey, I’m thinking maybe
You know just maybe
- Liz Phair, “Shatter”
- “Praise You,” Fatboy Slim
- “Satellite,” Dave Matthews Band
- the entirety of Sufjan Stevens’ “Michigan” album
- Ralph Stanley
To be fair, the first two stemmed from the fact that Host Brother was working on his English vocab, and two of the words just happened to be “praise” and “satellite.” Also the fact that I will use any excuse. I played Sufjan when we returned home from seeing “D-War” on Saturday night and I was eating instant udon with my host brother and sister, and my host sister requested “soft” music. (My host mom, or omoni, liked it so well that I made her a CD. Incidentally.) As for the bluegrass…well, that’s what I brought them, so. I don’t speak Korean, so this will have to do.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about compromise, and not compromising. I am so happy to be on Jeju with these ETAs, specifically. I am. And I cannot wait to see them. But – at the same time – I am very happy here, happy to be settling in, to continue to get to know my host family, to befriend my teachers, to know the beaches. I miss my friends in other cities, but I’m not leaving Facebook wall posting for everyone I see. I think I’ll be okay for the next six weeks, in other words. But I can’t help but wonder: is this wrong? Is the absence of dependence just a masquerade for the absence of connection? I am content here, at least so far. I know I shouldn’t be doubting myself. But I am.
Last night I also watched an episode of “Scrubs” with HB, who seemed to think it was funny, probably because of Fat Albert’s double cameo appearances. At the part where Dr. Cox explains, “Kelso’s not just some harmless guy pushing my buttons, Carla. He’s a pod person,” I found myself laughing out loud for no particular reason. I seem to be prone to inappropriate displays of emotion lately; for example, right now I am thinking about Coldplay’s song “Yellow” and Joanna Doiron’s house, two things which have no obvious connection, and even though I am lying in a room filled with giant yellow flowers on the walls, I’m in, as they say, a glass case of emotion.
