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.
I’ve been watching this music show thing with HS – maybe it’s an awards show? – and for lack of a better word, it’s awesome. A few observations:
- We just saw the lead singer of this band called Banana Boat prance around on stage in a tailcoat
- Um, I just saw a band called Banana Boat
- All of the bands seem to have at least seven members
- Maybe “bands” isn’t the right word?
- No one can sing – at least in America our production values take care of singers who go flat
Anyway I’m about to call Tony and head out to Hallim for the evening, but I think I have to spend a little more time with HF, since I just got out of bed, you know, an hour or so ago. I actually woke up at 8 AM (thanks, school), watched an episode of Cupid, talked to Glypie, and generally was unproductive before falling back into a hangover-induced stupor around 11. I was working under the (erroneous) impression that my host fam was also asleep, so my sloth was acceptable. Actually, my host family was doing things, like normal people do on Saturdays, and they just didn’t happen to be in the apartment.
So now I’m sitting here in a shirt that says “What a Lovely,” thinking about what the rain means for my plans tomorrow with HB and HS, and about last night. I’m still not worried about the island – I think we’re all settling in, trying to establish our places with our families. I can see how one might be concerned. But I’m not, yet. I’m still happy.
What I am concerned about, though, is Monday. If my class of obnoxious eighth-grade girls yesterday reminded me of anything, it was that I really do need to come up with some sort of disciplinary policy and a set of rules – even if there’s another teacher in the room with me. I wish I’d established this routine earlier. Why did I just assume that they wouldn’t be needed? The educational system is different here, but kids are kids are kids. Even if it seems like only in South Korea would I find a student reminiscent of a small, Korean Eugene Levy. Why are the only resemblances I find obscure ones?
I think – I think - we’re having our first a cappella (aka “English pop song? Do you want to join English pop song club?”) practice on Wednesday, where I will begin the process of whipping these children into singing shape. I want to start with “Lean on Me,” because it’s easy, and who doesn’t like it? Co-Teacher has been incredibly supportive of this endeavor, and she also wrote me a really sweet letter the other day that basically told me to keep on truckin’. It made me glad I spent a lot of money to take a taxi to buy us frozen yogurt.
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”
Guess what: the doctor in Chuncheon didn’t do anything helpful. That was, at least, the verdict given by the expat 의사 I saw today, whose services I lucked into solely through the fact that he came to the Program building to give us a talk on how not to get chlamydia in Korea. After I coughed through his presentation, he took me (and Alec, and Amelia, and Ellie – we’re a weak bunch) to Yonsei University’s Severance Hospital, which was nice, because Yonsei is, as far as I can tell, the equivalent of Yale. So their hospital looked like a really nice hotel. And while I’m not fond of being sick, there were definitely American magazines in the lobby. (Newsweek! A recent Newsweek!)
After examining me, the doctor told me that a) I needed antibiotics and b) he couldn’t even tell what they had prescribed me in Chuncheon. Which is both deeply disturbing and kind of comforting, because while I don’t like the fact that I was just taking something blindly, at least the doctor couldn’t figure it out either.
I’m a little ashamed of my intense relief upon finding an American doctor. I think the main issue for me has been the nagging concern that something was getting lost in translation; while some of the doctors/pharmacists I’ve been seeing have been fluent in English, I’ve never been quite sure that what symptoms I had were being clearly conveyed. Describing my symptoms in clear, precise detail was really, really comforting, especially because I was able to ask specifically what the medication was that I was being prescribed and what it would do for me.
Of course, the 약 doesn’t seem to have taken effect just yet. So we’ll see. I don’t want the first emotion that my host family feels for me to be pity.
On the subject of 미국, we had a pool party tonight. An honest-to-God American pool party. With burgers from Costco, and cheese. I didn’t realize exactly how much I missed swimming, but I do. 짐질방 are wonderful, but they’re not the same. And now I have an American tan and American mosquito bites. Like being home? Almost.
Other exciting developments: I got my homestay information!
Filed under: okay seriously Korea
Here is tonight’s discussion topic, as written on the weekly discussion sheet, for Kangwon National University’s KEY Club.
When I was a high school student, I made a bet with my academy teacher. It was to lose weight. The loser had to treat the winner to pizza and chicken. At that time, I wanted to have a pizza. You have no idea how much I desired. I had only one meal in a day and exercised every night. I felt thirsty because I had a little water. Sometimes I walked home for 2 hours. It was summer and I was tired. I saw an apparition. But, I endured hardships for pizza and chicken. Finally, I lost my weight and took the victory. I can’t describe how fabulous it was. I achieved it. Have you ever done anything like me? I want to hear your special story that you achieved something desired really.
Filed under: life in Chuncheon, lists, not cool, okay seriously Korea, orientation
- spend a weekend drinking a lot and sleeping a little
- wake up on Monday with sore throat/fatigue
- use illness as excuse to skip tae kwon do
- have no one believe you, because everyone knows you are lazy
- start coughing on Thursday
- go to E-Mart pharmacy on Friday
- describe symptoms for apparently Anglophone pharmacist
- receive suspiciously small supply of medication
- keep coughing hysterically
- run out of medication
- realize that medication was not working anyway
- buy cough syrup at another pharmacy with rationale that if coughs are physically suppressed with something that is designed to suppress them, maybe throat will have chance to recover
- take cough syrup (or sip, if you will)
- cough anyway
- have everyone around you sort of edge away
- go to the DMZ on a humid and rainy day
- pet some otters*
- realize that a) you are still coughing, and b) there is still some sort of gunk in your lungs, which is why you are coughing in the first place
- go to E-Mart pharmacy AGAIN and explain situation
- try to buy expectorant, cough drops; end up with expectorant, something that is supposed to be a cough drop but resembles a Tums
- keep coughing anyway
- go to hospital to see doctor
- realize doctor is at lunch
- cross town to go to other doctor
- that doctor is also at lunch
- finally see doctor
- allow doctor to laugh at you and ask why on earth you bought all of that medicine, then prescribe fourth set of pills
I’m still not sure exactly what went wrong, but I do know that I have to pack and whatever they gave me is making me sleepy. This is good practice for not being able to communicate with people for the rest of the year. This is good practice. This is good practice. This. Is. Good. Practice.
*actually, I recommend petting the otters.
Filed under: Fulbright, crushes, how we roll, life in Chuncheon, music, okay seriously Korea, orientation, pictures, poetry, reading
Standard conversations with my teachers:
HILLARY Bang-teacher!
BANG-선생님 (teacher) Yes?
HILLARY Doesn’t your last name mean “room” in Korean?
BANG-선생님 You call me over for that? That is not question.
in Korean
KIM-선생님 We talk about location. So right now I stand in front of the
HILLARY Oh! Blackboard! I know this one!
KIM-선생님 Um…yes.
Note: we learned “blackboard” on the first day. I tend to get so excited when I recognize words, however, that I call them out regardless of their relevance. It should come as no surprise to anyone, then, that Bang-선생님 had to reassure me repeatedly tonight that she does not think I am stupid.
Here is Bang-선생님:
And here is Kim-선생님, shown here with my friend Ariah:
And here is part of our class at a hof called 75 (or 칠십오 , if you’re into that sort of thing):
This was, of course, pre-Korean haircut. On this night (Thursday), it was just our class. Apparently we are so well known for our poor performance that the advanced teachers actually make fun of our Bang and ask her how the dumb class is going, and she gets really heated on our behalf.
Friday was all the beginning classes’ party. This is post-Korean hair. Which is $8, so I highly recommend.
The club was called “STOP!” Our teachers reserved tables for us and set a cover charge. Note: In Korea, hugging is regarded as strange, but drinking with your teachers is totally acceptable. The above is an abstract depiction of noraebang.
Korean hair:
Something was funny, obviously. You can see the top of this Yoshitomo Nara shirt (also $8, incidentally) that says “mumps.”
These are the pitchers our teachers bought us. Lest you think “Oh, that’s not so big,” let me inform you that my friend Andy, who is shown above holding the aforementioned pitcher, is 6′8″.
The rest of the subjects I have mentioned in previous entries as needing discussion also require photo viewing, and I do not wish to overwhelm the reader, so I’ll deal with these topics incrementally. I will leave you, instead, with some lyrics to a song that I like. Also, I did not bring any books of poetry with me, so I am putting out an official request: blog readers, send me poems you like.
orange ball of peace - the mountain goats
they wanted me to be a lawyer. they wanted me to work in a machine shop. they wanted me to be a designer, but I came out on top. I'm a fire-man. I'm a fire-man. stand and watch the smoke. see the flames rise to the sky. I stand and watch the flames climb higher. I feel the smoke get in my eyes. I'm a fire-man. I'm a fire-man.
Tonight at cooking class the teacher told me I look like some American movie star (although she couldn’t remember who). As it currently stands, my bangs are too long, I wear really gross t-shirts and jeans all day, and I’m always sort of shiny. I look like an Asian Ramona Quimby. Koreans, however, seem to equate that with “famous” – a few days ago, someone compared me to Jessica Alba, even though I smelled like garlic. I’m not going to lie; I like this. It makes me feel good, even though I’m starting to suspect that maybe all they read is Us Weekly and so only see stars buying groceries and sipping lattes.
Tomorrow is my big zine lesson. The only one I could find online that was remotely appropriate was WRFL’s RiFLe, and even so, I had to cross out a lot of places where there were pictures of hats that said “beer” or jokes about crystal meth. As far as the kids are concerned, this is because of copyright violations, and not because I want to protect their precious and adorable ears. I also printed out a few pages of a Flipside from 1986 and removed an ad for the Butthole Surfers. The camp instructor I’m working with is, of course, from Louisville; she went to Sacred Heart, lived in Springhurst, knew Kim Kidd, went to EKU GSP… I keep expecting Wilson to pop out from behind a bush or something. This is getting ludicrous. Anyway, she totally understood the zine idea, which is good, because I tried to explain it to one of the other teachers in The Program and it was kind of hard, i.e., I’m worried that if college graduates don’t understand maybe kids who don’t even speak English as their first language won’t either. I also feel like a little bit of a fraud for doing this; I’ve never written for a zine (although I did submit to the Lexington Project), although I think this was mostly because it wasn’t like Danville had any. I read them a little bit in high school, mostly if I was at the BRYCC House and they were laying around. But I guess it’s never too late. And I can’t wait to see how these kids express themselves – Christina (my CI) said that her class is pretty creative, but as I understand it, creativity isn’t something that’s really emphasized in Korean schools, so. We’ll see.
We also had Korean kids come to tae kwon do today to do some demonstrations. Several of the Program teachers are fluent in Korean (nyah), and one of them somehow got roped into translation duty, so she’s always forced to translate lines like, “He says that this workout isn’t hard at all” and “Our roundhouse kicks and side kicks suck, so he’s going to have his kids show us what to do.” In this context, “kids” are “ten year olds,” or “eerie robot machines.” They all looked about seven, they all kicked and punched with the cold determination of Robocop, and most of them were black belts. The ones who weren’t were red/black, and it was only because they were too young to have a black belt, so they basically lost out on a technicality. One of them came to watch me today in line and stood still, looking at me punching the air with a mixture of pity and wonder.
