I found out at the beginning of this term that as I didn't have any kids enrolled in my Friday classes, I had Fridays off. Not one to argue with a permanent three-day weekend, I also didn’t think it would last for very long. As our school is still new in the area, we’re enrolling kids every day and I assumed it was only a matter of time until some rude excited kids would sign up for my Friday classes. And I was right.
A week ago, I was notified via email that I now had two students in my Friday night Intensive Reading class: Sherry and Kristy. While I was slightly annoyed that I would have to work a (barely) full five-day week, my liver was rejoicing about the much needed rest it could anticipate.
Sitting behind my desk that Friday, I was puzzled when a smiling eleven year-old boy walked through my door. Thinking he must have the wrong room, I asked what class he was supposed to be in.
Boy: Intensive Reading.
Me: Oh. Ok. I don’t think you’re on my list. What’s your name?
Boy: Kristy.
Slightly confused stare
Boy: (proudly) My full name is Kristy Michael Jackson.
As I’ve said before, kids at private English academies like the one I work at are allowed to choose their own English names, which can result in some pretty odd choices. So instead of accosting him and having him pick “Steve” or “Bob,” I simply applauded him for his creativity, smiled to myself and told him we were waiting on Sherry. Who may or may not have been a little girl.
When Sherry (a girl) did arrive right as the bell rang, she seemed to know Kristy already; it turned out that they went to public school together. Happy to not have to go through the awkward five-minute introduction name games (I’m Travis and I bring Tomatoes to the picnic. Sherry, what are you going to bring?), we were able to dive right in to the material. However, when Sherry opened her workbook, I noticed that she had already completed the first lesson. Flipping through more pages, I was confused to find the whole book had been already been done.
Me: When did you do this?
Sherry: I took this class already.
Me: Oh. Well. Ok. One second.
Puzzled, I told them to open their books and begin reading the first chapter while I left to quickly talk to the Korean staff. When I showed Mr. Rhu, the head of the school, her full book he confirmed that she had, in fact, just finished this level at another branch. Apparently she didn’t feel ready for the next level, and so had decided to repeat the class with me. Which was fine; however I couldn’t let her use a book that had all the answers already filled in – she would need a new book.
At this point, Sherry came up to the front desk (aren’t you supposed to be reading? And where is Kristy Michael Jackson?) and started speaking with Mr. Rhu in Korean, pointing excitedly at the book and scowling at me.
Mr. Rhu: She says she wants to keep her old book. So we will give her new book and she can keep this one.
Me: What? Then she’ll have all the answers already.
Mr. Rhu: She wants to keep old book.
Me: But that doesn’t make any sense.
As Mr. Rhu and I began to get into a somewhat heated argument over the issue, Sherry took the opportunity to grab the contested book and scurry back to class. I returned five minutes later with a new book and a directive from Mr. Rhu to deal with the situation as I saw fit (read: the little punk was not going to keep her book). Placing the new book on her desk, I politely asked for her old book – which is about the time she started bawling.
I understand Korean kids are under a lot of pressure; and I understand that she probably opted to take the class again because she thought that with all the answers, it would be one academy class she wouldn’t have to worry about doing the homework for. I was (still am?) a kid, and if there was anyone who could talk his way out doing actual work, Sherry had met her match. I am also an extremely nice teacher and hadn’t made a kid cry yet. Over her sobs, I explained to her that we would have a ton of fun this semester, and that there was no point in her taking the class again if she already had all the answers in her book.
Determined to start the first lesson, I pried the old book out of Sherry’s bag, let her leave her head on her desk and cry, and turned my attention to Kristy Michael Jackson, who had been sitting politely across the room, silently reading his book and occasionally glancing over at the now hysterical Sherry.
Pleased to find his reading level exceptional, Kristy and I began the lesson on dinosaurs over Sherry’s progressively dimming howls. Every five minutes, I would ask her if she was done crying and wanted to participate, and after the first half-hour she began to come around. By the second hour when Mr. Rhu came to check on the situation, I had two smiling students who were actively engaged in a serious discussion about the extinction of dinosaurs (Teacher, is a meteor going to hit the Earth again?!). Book problems were behind us.
It was in the third hour that I wanted to cry. We were in the middle of reviewing their in-class quizzes, and it was becoming apparent that Sherry had not done as well as Kristy Michael Jackson on a quiz she had already taken. This probably had less to do with their differing intellectual capabilities and more to do with the fact that she had spent the first forty-five minutes of class ignoring the lesson while she sobbed over a $3 textbook. Moreover, the grades from these quizzes do not affect their overall standing in the class.
Regardless, Sherry was pissed. With every answer she got wrong and he got right, I could see her anger towards Kristy Michael Jackson growing, until finally she couldn’t take it anymore and blurted out, “Kristy’s gay.”
The thing is, these kids are eleven and twelve; I doubt they could even explain to me in Korean how heterosexual couples consummated their relationships, let alone delve into defining differing sexual orientations in English. What struck me in the gut was that I was in a country where homosexuality is so taboo many Korean people don’t think their fellow countrymen are even capable of being homosexual, and yet this little girl knew exactly where to reach for her slurs. Gay.
Seeing Kristy immediately crumple under the insult, I paused the class and pointedly asked her if she knew what the English word she had just spoken meant. Sensing she was in trouble, she shook her head “no” and looked at the floor. In my mind, I was trying to figure out where I should go from there – I would have expected this in any American school, but I never thought I’d have to deal with this particular insult in Busan, South Korea, and so had no prepared game plan. Do I give them the definition of being gay? But then doesn’t that embarrass Kristy Michael Jackson? Should I tell them it’s a bad word? But then wouldn’t that leave them forever thinking that being gay is a bad thing? Should I just toss Sherry and her damn books out the window and forget she ever existed?
A bit dazed, I explained to both of them that in my classroom we respected one another, and I wouldn’t tolerate name-calling. For lack of anything else to do, I continued on with the lesson. As they were leaving class, I called Sherry aside and asked her where she had heard that insult.
Sherry: What?
Me: You know what I’m talking about.
Sherry: I saw it on movie.
Me: In Korea?
Sherry: Yes. American movie.
And there it was. She hadn’t learned it from her family, she hadn’t even learned it from her conservative Korean culture – she learned it from Hollywood. Turns out, along with wars, ignorance and Britney’s shaved head, we’re exporting homophobia. This made every argument I had ever had over the American media’s portrayal of gays and lesbians crystal clear; it absolutely matters how our fictional television and movie characters behave towards minorities, because the world is watching.
One of my co-teachers had Kristy Michael Jackson in her next class, and when I asked if he seemed ok, she said he was one of the best kids in her group and he basically had his hand up the entire three hour class. That’s the thing about a little boy who chooses the name Kristy Michael Jackson – you get the feeling he’s figured out at a young age not to really worry about what anyone else thinks. Somehow I don't think he learned that from an American movie.
In a county with over 10,000 temples and where one-third of the population are practicing Buddhists, it’s not uncommon to see monks walking around, on the subway, or at the grocery store. Having no knowledge of Buddhism beyond the fact that Richard Gere and the Dali Lama all of a sudden are best friends, I’ve recently become interested in finding out more about the religion, its practices, and if the monk robes are as comfortable as they look. Which is why I was pleased to find myself seated next to a friendly looking monk on the beach this afternoon.
Waking up early has become a habit that I haven’t exactly maintained since moving to Korea; when your job starts at 4:30 P.M. and ends at 10:30 P.M., your whole day is thrown off kilter, and you soon find yourself grocery shopping at midnight and cooking dinner at 1:00 A.M. However, the past couple of days I’ve managed to get to bed at a reasonable hour and this morning found myself wide awake at 7:30 with my last day of the Ch’usok vacation stretched out before me. After looking at pictures of our brief trip to Gyeongju, I decided I was frighteningly pale and should spend my last day of vacation at the beach, blinding the Koreans with my Midwestern glow.
A short subway ride later I was at the famed Haeundae Beach, Korea’s most popular waterfront destination. Having seen pictures and postcards depicting a wall of humanity, I was prepared to wade through piles of Koreans and stake out a square of sand on which to bronze myself. However, it seemed that the entire city was still celebrating the holiday, and so the beach was almost empty and I only had to share it with thirty other foreigners spread out over the three-mile expanse of sand. Needless to say, I was extremely pleased with myself and promptly fell asleep listening to my iPod and imaging how golden I would be in a couple of hours.
When I woke up, I noticed two things. I was definitely starting to pass the “tan” phase and enter into the “third-degree burn” phase, and there was a monk sitting about two feet away from me. Dressed in head-to-toe gray scrubs and topped with what looked like a floppy gray fisherman’s hat, he was smiling at the ocean. Noticing the flurry of commotion coming from my towel as I attempted to untangle myself from my iPod which had decided to strangle me in my sleep, he turned and nodded in my direction. I nodded back, flopped over on my stomach and tried to use my shirt to cover my bald, now crisping, scalp.
To my surprise, the monk began to talk to me – or at least I thought he was talking to me, because I still had my iPod on full blast and could only see his lips moving. I yanked my headphones off, apologized, and said hello. His English was comprehensible, and he seemed interested in my iPod. I scooted my towel closer, showing him that it was a music player. I offered him an ear bud and he accepted, and I was now faced with quickly finding an appropriate song to listen to with a Buddhist monk. My selection? Here Comes the Sun by The Beatles. It was at the beginning of my alphabetical list of artists, it seemed like a good beach song and it was the most innocuous thing I could find in ten seconds. And who doesn’t like The Beatles? Apparently I made a good choice, and soon we were bopping along and laughing to each other.
I think what attracts me to Buddhism is the sense of calm that I get from temples, monks, incense, and the statues of a smiling Buddha with his giant belly. This man was no different; happily sitting on the sand wearing pants and a long sleeved shirt in 85-degree weather he looked as if he could have been in a cool, dark movie theater watching his favorite film. Accustomed to religions that seem bent on judgment and judgment day and commandments and sins, conveyed in lectures from pulpits raised above a seated congregation who follow a best-selling book that was written (and edited) by men but is believed by so many to be the actual “word of God,” I find myself drawn to this religion seemingly based on happiness and quiet meditation.
He asked me more about the iPod; how much it cost, what else it can do and how often I listen to it. I wasn’t sure if he was genuinely interested in the machine or just wanted to continue the conversation; regardless, I can talk about Apple products with rabid enthusiasm for hours on end, stopping only to imagine what life would be like if I was Steve Jobs. I rambled on for a good ten minutes, probably using words that were way out of his vocabulary, until I realized that I was explaining the wonders of technology to a man who presumably had given away most of his earthly possessions and spent a large portion of his days in meditation. Good, Travis. I’m sure the monk is going to run out and buy an iPod. Way to be astute.
He nodded politely at the end of my rant and said wisely, “Too much noise.” I’m pretty sure he was talking about the iPod, but a piece of me thought he was referring to my voice and I immediately wanted to dig a hole in the sand and bury myself in it. Then he nodded towards the ocean and said, “This is my music.” I know, I know. Extremely corny when I retell it, but I promise you, at that moment I was ready to toss my prized iPod into the ocean and follow him back to the temple to live out a life of prayer and reflection.
Which, it turns out, I can almost do. He told me, in very broken English, about temple stays in Korea that offer visitors the chance to stay for three or five nights in a Buddhist temple, engaging in the same schedule and rituals as the monks. I had actually heard about this from a fellow foreigner who had done one herself, and once I can speak full sentences in Korean, I will absolutely be signing up for a weekend stay at the closest temple.
After sufficiently baking myself, I said goodbye to my monk friend and began the trip home. Pulling out my iPod on the subway (because while the sound of the ocean may be music, the sounds of the subway is definitely just noise), I selected a playlist and settled into my seat. However, instead of delivering Michael Franti to my ears, I got a jumbled beat accompanied with severe static. Panicking, I shook and blew on the headphones, hoping to dislodge whatever was intent on ruining my subway ride. After five minutes of rubbing, wiping and hoping they would work, I decided my monk friend had placed a Buddhist curse on my favorite accessory. Working myself up into a furor, I glanced around and noticed that my fellow passengers were staring, perplexed at my odd behavior, as if to say “simmer down, it’s just a pair of headphones. It’s not that deep.” Realizing I was the farthest I could possibly be from Zen at that moment, I took a deep breath, calmly put the iPod away, leaned back and tried to appreciate the noise music of the subway car.
When I told a close friend at home that I was going on vacation this weekend, they replied with “But aren’t you already on vacation?”
The simple answer is no; while I enjoy my current teaching job more than I ever imagined, at its core it is still just that: a job. However, in comparing my life in the past month and a half to anything that I’ve done since graduating college, I really am surprised that I’m actually getting paid for all this. When I first started reading information online about teaching English abroad, I tried to take everything with a grain of salt. Already equipped with an easily excited personality (This is the BEST movie I’ve ever seen, etc.) I didn’t want to move halfway across the world after reading three brochures; this decision was going to be well planned, well researched and if possible, I hoped to stave off the inevitable eye-rolling responses from friends and family when they heard of my latest adventure.
So when I started reading that the English academies would pay for your round trip airfare to Korea, I had to physically restrain myself from taking the first offer that called (“We pay. You come tomorrow?”) and use some discretion when selecting a school to work for. After posting a resume online, my phone started ringing at all hours of the day with extremely polite and persuasive recruiters from the various schools offering awfully lucrative sounding employment packages. However, the more I read and the more people I talked to, I began to hear the horror stories of prospective teachers who arrived in Korea only to find that what had been promised to them over the phone and even sometimes in a signed contract didn’t exactly pan out.
As with most things in my life, the circumstances I ended up with were the combination of effort, luck, and only a little bribery. And like I’ve said countless times before – the situation is very comfortable. I was given a free plane ticket, a free apartment (after only a minor debacle), free cell phone, extremely low health care costs and a great salary. Before I signed the contract, and even before I came to Seoul, I scoured the online discussion rooms to find out what exactly the catch was – was I teaching classes of 55 kids? Who had been diagnosed with ADD? And had never heard a word of English before? By “free” apartment, did that mean they would take half of my salary back in some unforeseen “tax”? There had to be something.
And there was. Mostly small things – where most hagwons are relatively laid back, ours is more regimented. While most teachers get to go to work in jeans and t-shirts, our dress code involves ties and khakis. Like I said – mostly small things. But the biggest catch? Excluding major Korean holidays, my contract only provides for seven paid vacation days for the entire year. Actually, as I just typed that, it doesn’t sound that bad; I’m aware that some jobs back home don’t give any paid vacation. Still, when other schools here are giving anywhere from two weeks to two months, seven days starts to look a bit measly. To top it off, the stipulations in the contract that outline exactly when we can take said vacation look like the beginning of an SAT prep test question:
The Instructor shall be entitled to seven (7) days of authorized leave per year to be taken upon written approval of the Management. The Instructor may not apply for leave until after the first four (4) months of the term of this contract, and no more than twice in any consecutive four-month periods. Leave may not fall on any Korean holidays, and cannot encompass both a Friday and Monday. Or Wednesday. Or every other Tuesday, excluding but including Leap Year.
This is more or less what I have to deal with. The good news is that my school does give us some Korean holidays off. And by “off,” I mean we have to work the following Saturdays to make up for lost time, but vacation is vacation. The first of these holidays? The Korean Thanksgiving period called Ch’usok, which is this weekend through Wednesday.
Like most Americans, when I hear “Thanksgiving,” my stomach immediately goes into stretching exercises, preparing to hold my body weight in mashed potatoes and corn. And from what I gathered from my kids this past week, the Korean festivities also center around eating – although I doubt anything can rival the American appetite when it comes to the holiday season. As Bill Mahr points out, one of our most treasured traditions involves stuffing food inside of food – and we wonder why two-thirds of our kids can’t see their shoes.
Also, like our holiday season, Koreans travel across the country to return to their families. While Ch'usok is usually described as a kind of Thanksgiving for a good harvest season, it is also an ancient holiday dedicated to a family’s ancestors. As such, it is tradition for the eldest son to host the entire family, performing various rituals that honor the dead. This all sounds fascinating to me – but the point that the kids kept reiterating? All the relatives in one place means more presents for them. It seems the kids hit up each aunt and uncle for around $10, and so usually return to school with fond memories of Ch’usok.
Not having a Korean family to collect money from, the Texan couple from my school and I decided to head out of town for a weekend adventure. However, because we only recently started getting paychecks, our bank accounts weren’t ready for a trip out of the country. We figured this wasn’t really an issue; there was a whole country we hadn’t explored right outside our door – who needs to get on a plane? According to anyone who heard our plans, we did; every foreigner we talked to advised us that we did not want to be in Korea for the holiday. As most Koreans were with their families, apparently nothing would be open and the whole country would be dead. Not one to take other people’s advice quickly, I was glad to find my new travel companions equally as hardheaded. There had to be some things open – the whole country couldn’t shut down. And besides, we wanted to go hiking and sightseeing – we didn’t need banks or post-offices to be up and running. Please.
The task of picking a destination seemed easy enough: so far we’d only been to Seoul and Busan, so anywhere but those two cities would definitely qualify as an adventure. Hampered by my strep throat and subsequent visit to the medical center, I was out of commission for most of the week leading up to our departure, and so let the Texans decide on our destination. They settled on Gyeongju, a city roughly an hour north up the Eastern coast from Busan. The place seemed to have an endless array of tourist spots – ancient tombs, temples, a lake resort, a national park and roughly ten youth hostels. And travel expenses? The one-hour bus ride cost $3.50. Sold.
As I had to teach a make-up class on Saturday afternoon, the Texans planned on taking an earlier bus up and I was to meet them later that night. Getting sporadic texts Saturday during my class – “rented bikes, this is awesome” and “we love Gyeongju” – I got more and more excited for a weekend away in the Korean countryside. It wasn’t until I got on my bus around 6:00 that the texts started changing – “is it raining there?” and “make sure to bring a coat” – plus the dark clouds in the distance didn’t look promising.
By the time I pulled into Gyeongju, it was pouring. Because I had envisioned a weekend hiking in the sunny mountains and hadn’t gotten their later texts until I was already on the bus, I had only packed shorts and t-shirts. But it was ok. Cold rain is great weather for a bald guy trying to get over being sick.
After meeting up with the Texans who had spent the day biking around the downtown, we decided to head over to the lake area to try to find some dinner before locating a hostel to crash at. We hailed a cab, spent five minutes pointing at the designated area on the map, and were soon flying through the countryside, excited for the weekend ahead. Passing resort after resort, we wondered out loud what all the gloomy predictions were for – clearly this was a tourist town, and was not at all dead.
Ten minutes later the cab driver, apparently deciding he had taken us far enough, stopped in front of a random hotel and declared we were “there.” Piling out of the car, we could see the lake through some buildings and trees and figured we could walk the remaining distance – and unless we managed to hail another cab on the highway, we didn’t exactly have a choice.
At this point the rain had let up to a steady mist, and the three of us trudged towards the lake, where we envisioned we would find a warm meal in a bustling restaurant. When we finally arrived to the area twenty minutes later, we found every single shop, stand and restaurant closed and not a person in sight. Anywhere. Still not wanting our vacation to falter, we decided to take a cab to the area with the hostels; surely with ten hostels there would be a semblance of nightlife and a place to grab a bite to eat.
Sitting in the front seat, I was given the assignment of negotiating with our cab driver, who clearly did not seem to want to deliver us to the part of town I was requesting. Again, I used our trusty map and repeatedly pointed until he shrugged his shoulders and began driving. I couldn’t understand why he kept pointing at the train station, but figured he saw three white people with backpacks and assumed we wanted to get on a train. It wasn’t until he was dropping us off in front of one of the hostels that I noticed the smirk on his face. As he pulled away, he smiled, waved and said “good luck.” This could not be good.
The term “ghost town” does not apply to what we found – even the ghosts were gone, busy being honored at their relatives' houses elsewhere. Walking up to three hostels in three blocks, we found each of them darkened and closed. As we headed towards the fourth hostel on the map, the Texans decided to take this opportunity to tell me about the horror movie Hostel, which involves unsuspecting travelers getting lured into a hostel only to be mutilated and killed. Exactly what you want to hear when you’re walking around what looks like an abandoned city.
The fourth hostel took up an entire city block, and from the dimly lit sign hanging over the open parking lot gate, appeared to be open. However we couldn’t see one room light on in the entire place. At that point, we had missed the last bus back to Busan and as the only car we had seen in the past half hour was the taxi that deserted us, it didn’t look like we had any way of getting to the bus station. Nervously laughing at our situation, we entered the hostel, almost certain that we were going to die.
Maybe it was all the talk of movies, but I’m not kidding when I say that from the inside, the place looked like the hotel in The Shining – impossibly long hallways with darkened doors and again, not a person in sight. Ringing the bell, we were greeted by a tired looking Korean man who spoke near fluent (too fluent?) English with an affected British accent. Feeling both grateful that he was open and confident we could bargain on the price for the room, we negotiated a price and he showed us down one of the hallways.
Still a bit frightened but happy to have a place to stay, I was confused when he presented us with an empty room. He quickly informed us that hostels in Korea do not come with beds; rather, guests are given blankets and sleep on the floor. If we had known this, it might have affected our negotiation strategy, but we kindly thanked him for the blankets and locked the door behind him. I would like to say this is when the “we’re doing to die” jokes stopped – but twelve seconds after he left, we discovered what could only have been dried blood splattered on the wall. Blood. On the wall. No one around. We’re going to die.
As I’m writing this, I’m not sure why we didn’t just ask for another room or run out of there screaming. It just seemed we didn’t have any options at that point, and figured if he was going to kill us, it would probably come quicker if we inquired about the previous tenant’s blood on our walls. We also were starving, and he had mentioned there might be an open restaurant a couple blocks from the hostel. On our way out, trying our best to smile as we walked past the killer front desk guy, he asked us if we wanted towels or bottles of water, and said he would just put them in our room while we were out. We’re going to die.
The one open restaurant was less of a restaurant and more of a family’s living room – regardless, they fed us incredibly good food and we didn’t mind that they were watching Korean soap operas one table over. Finally full, we spent the next hour exploring the rest of the neighborhood only to conclude that it was, in fact, desolate. Trekking back to the hostel, we darted inside our room without incident and luckily didn’t find anyone waiting there with a chainsaw. Unfolding our “beds,” we collapsed and went to sleep before midnight for the first time since I arrived in Korea.
At 5:30, I woke up sweating, thinking my fever was back and cursing my immune system for not working properly. However, when I sat up for a minute the fever seemed to go away. Confused, I laid back down and stared at the ceiling. The blankets were hot, and it wasn’t until I flipped over the pillow that I realized it wasn’t the blankets that were hot, it was the floor. Like most places in Korea, the room had heated floors for the winter, and someone must have turned them on. Unsuccessfully searching the room for a control switch, I flopped back down and decided that while we may not have been met by a man with a chainsaw, this must be the front-desk guy’s slow torture method – he was going to fry us to death.
Unable to sleep on the now roasting skillet, the Texans were up by 6:00 and we resolved to make the best of our early day and head off to the nearby temple. Glad to be alive, we packed our things and decided that we would stay elsewhere the next night.
What we couldn’t tell from our hostel window was that the rain had not let up, and the sea of gray clouds did not look like that was going to change anytime soon. Regardless, we walked the ten blocks to the ancient temple where a kind old woman sold us three ponchos, which made our day.
The temple was amazing – built over 1500 years ago, it has since been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site and just walking around the place you felt a sense of quiet peace. Ok, it wasn’t exactly quiet due to the sound of pouring rain on the plastic poncho glued to my bald head, but you get what I mean. From there, we found a bus that took us to a park with small hills under which ancient rulers of Korea were buried. And after that we walked through a giant outdoor market, where we finally found actual people selling everything from clothes to pig heads. This was all before noon. And all in the pouring rain.
As we sloshed our way from one activity to the next, we silently mulled over the fact that our cozy apartments were a mere hour and $3.50 away, and so when the discussion of the next night’s accommodations came up, we somehow found ourselves a block away from the bus station. Each inching towards finding out when the next bus back to Busan was, we finally caved and saw there was a bus leaving every thirty minutes or so. Waiting for the next bus, we decided our vacation wouldn’t be a total failure if we spent the rest of our time off in Busan. We had a great time in Gyeongju – we literally had the entire city to ourselves. We came, we saw, we conquered. And there was plenty we hadn’t done in our own city, right? We could have adventures in Busan –they just wouldn’t end with us sleeping on a sweltering floor and wondering why there was blood splattered on the closest wall. And so, an hour later, I’m back in my apartment happy to have a bed and the next two days off.
When I first moved into my apartment building, I noticed there were two signs posted in the elevator in both Korean and English. The only problem was the Korean signs took up the entire page; five distinct paragraphs complete with bullet points, underlined phrases and multiple exclamation points. The English versions? Scrawled at the very bottom of the page, almost afterthoughts: “Sort the trash,” and “No trash in toilet.”
I’ve already tackled the first sign: I’ve become accustomed to regularly sorting my trash into various piles around the apartment, and taking down food compost on a daily basis. As I’m still not able to communicate properly, I like to think this redeems me in the eyes of my ever-present Super. He still can’t speak Korean, but at least he knows how to recycle properly.
Originally, I thought I could ignore the second sign. Trash in the toilet? Surely they must be referring to female trash, right? And so I went about my business. The only problem was my toilet never seemed to flush properly, and when I consulted the former tenant about the problem, he told me that in the short three weeks he lived there, he had the same issue and so rarely used the thing. This did not sound like much of a solution to me. Although there are public bathrooms on the ground floor of almost every building in Korea, I would like the option of answering nature’s call in my own home. I figured this wasn’t too much to ask.
I want to take this opportunity to apologize for what I’m about to write. But I’ve thought about this long and hard, and if my aim is to capture a true picture of my time in Korea (and it is), I figured I couldn’t just include the nice, rosy, good smelling things. I have to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Right? Right. And so we plod on.
While my toilet and I were fighting the first couple of weeks, I was also in serious discussions with my digestive system. It seemed that the constant stream of red meat, seafood, rice and seaweed was at odds with the strict diet of Subway sandwiches my stomach had become accustomed to in New York. And it was having none of it. As I saw it, I had two options: either locate a Subway in Korea and move my belongings to one of its comfy booths, or impose martial law on my revolting stomach until it got used to this new, Korean diet. After discovering there weren’t any Subways in Korea, my decision was easy; I was going to eat all Korean, all the time -- regardless of what my stomach thought about the matter. Eventually, it would get used to it.
The timing of both battles was unfortunate for both my bathroom and my social life. It seems a favorite pastime of foreigners after first meeting you is to come over and check out your new digs. I’m assuming this is partially to bring over some type of housewarming gift (usually alcohol, which is promptly consumed) but mostly to see if your school’s apartments are better than what they’ve been given. However, when said apartment is overflowing with the causalities of the aforementioned gastrointestinal conflict because your toilet refuses to complete its job, you can’t exactly host a housewarming party. Evading invitations with excuses ranging from “Oh, I still have to buy…light bulbs,” to “Next week after I get some…chairs in there I’m going to have everyone over,” only work for so long. I needed to figure out a solution.
However, bringing up your toilet troubles in random conversation is like asking your grandparents to talk about their sex lives; it’s just not something you toss out over dinner. But I had to find a way to stop my apartment from smelling like a refugee camp. The first person I went to? My sweet, unassuming and very helpful Super, Mr. Lee. Taking the elevator down to his office in the parking garage, I was rehearsing how to ask him what I should do about my toilet, without having him come up and see what I’ve been living through for the previous two weeks.
Unfortunately (mostly for him), he was waiting for the elevator when it arrived, and so while I stood there awkwardly weighing my options (walk away like nothing is wrong? pretend you just enjoy riding the elevator aimlessly?) he climbed aboard and asked me how everything was going.
Me: Oh, you know, fine.
Mr. Lee: Very good. Very nice apartments.
Me: Yes.
Mr. Lee: Everything work?
Me: Yes. Well, actually I’m having a slight difficulty with my toilet.
Mr. Lee: Toilet no work?
Me: Yes, well, it's just a little --
Mr. Lee: I come up.
My aim in talking to him had been to hopefully gleam some hidden trick in flushing, or plunging or both. What you need to do is plunge right as you flush. Flush, then plunge, then right before it’s full, flush again. Something. Anything. But now he was coming up to see firsthand what the American had done to his toilet.
The entire ride up I was sweating. Trying to think of ways to avoid having him come over, I was arguing with myself as to whether or not this was in his job description. A super fixes things in apartments, and sometimes they might have to roll up their sleeves and plunge. That’s what they do. It probably doesn't happen often. They must love their jobs. Who wouldn’t? He has a great job. I’m jealous of how great this man’s job is. I wish I could have the easy-going job of a Super. Maybe I should be a Super when I get back to New York. I wonder how you even apply to be a Super...
Before I knew it, we were at my door and he was turning the key. He has a key? After burning incense every day for a week, I liked to think the place smelled…woodsy? Like a campsite? On a landfill? Either way, Mr. Lee didn’t seem to notice and marched directly to the bathroom. The scene of the crime. Seemingly unnerved by the contents of the toilet, he calmly turned to me and asked
Mr. Lee: You throw garbage?
Me: No. Never.
Mr. Lee: (pointing to toilet paper) Garbage. In toilet?
Me: What? That’s garbage?
Mr. Lee: In toilet?
Me: But, that’s not garbage. That’s toilet paper. It’s meant for the toilet.
Mr. Lee: No put in toilet. Understand?
Me: What am I supposed to do with it?!
Mr. Lee: Throw in garbage.
Me: Seriously?
He continued to give me the eye for another minute in order to make sure I understood this decree that he had so clearly written on the sign in the elevator. Then he turned and plunged like I have never seen anyone plunge before. You could say he plunged the shit out of that toilet.
Thanking him profusely as he left, I was now faced with another dilemma: I was supposed to discard used toilet paper in something other than the toilet? And if you remember, trash bags in Korea cost over $1.50 each – which effectively ruled out the option of taking out the garbage on a daily basis, unless I literally wanted to throw away my savings. Sitting on my bed, I stared at the wall and started to laugh out loud: I had never before in my life put so much thought into toilet paper.
I decided to ask the Mormon, who was a Peace Corps volunteer in Mauritania and had regaled me earlier with stories of sleeping on roofs and installing her town’s first well. Surely she had experience in this area and after two years in the bush might (hopefully) lack my bashful disposition when it came to this toilet talk. I was right.
Mormon: Yeah, you just wrap it up.
Me: What?
Mormon: Take clean TP and wrap it up.
Me: And then burn it?
Mormon: No, just throw it away.
Me: But isn’t that how typhoid was spread?
Mormon: What?
Me: Nothing.
To be clear, there are toilets in Korea that do accept toilet paper. I'm just not lucky enough to live in a building where the plumbing can handle it. And apparently this is not uncommon in my part of Busan. After being introduced to the club (first rule of Wrap Club: don't talk about Wrap Club), I started noticing large trashcans with tightly secured lids located by most public toilets in my neighborhood. I also asked a couple other foreigners who confirmed the scenario; I was now going to have to start “wrapping it up.”
In my mind, there were so many things wrong with this situation – not least of which was that if any of my family or friends did end up coming to visit me, I would have to explain to them that the goal is to use as many public toilets as possible. But if you happen to be in my apartment when the kids need to be taken to the pool? You’re going to have to wrap it up. Which is when it struck me: I could wait for that awkward moment, or I could write a giant blog about it.
Since graduating high school, it seems I’ve been intent on collecting as many stamps in my passport as it will hold. Much to her dismay, I’ve taken one of my mother’s sayings, “the world is your oyster,” entirely too literally, and am always confused as to why more people don’t take the opportunity to travel. When I moved to France for college, people looked at me like I was insane – but four years later, everyone I talked to was bitter they hadn’t thought of doing the same thing. I often think people invent countless excuses not to travel more: not enough money, no time off, they’re convinced their plane with drop out of the sky, etc. And while some of these might be valid, they don’t hold water for long – if you’re determined to get up and see the world, it’s out there waiting for you.
I still don’t think my family and close friends completely understand my latest move to Korea. I had a fine job in New York, a great apartment and a group of unbelievable friends. After finally getting comfortable in my finances, I was able to make frequent visits back to Chicago to see my family, and in the meantime found time to make trips up and down the East Coast, getting to see a part of my own country I hadn’t explored. Why leave a good thing?
I can’t really explain the itch that have, other than to call it as such. I have an itch to see everything I possibly can while I’m still around, and every couple of years I guess it has to be scratched. As I’ve said before, I think that people are fascinating, and the more different kinds of nations and cultures I get to observe, I think the more I can learn about myself.
However, this all comes to a screeching halt when I get sick in a foreign country. My mother often accosts asks me when it is that I get homesick – what I miss most about the States and why the hell I have to move halfway around the world to teach people English when there are people in Chicago that need to learn English!?! In response I usually just hem and haw – because for the most part, I’m too busy enjoying everything I come across to spend time yearning for what’s at home. This is not to say I don’t miss my family and friends – I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought the only thing that could make this experience better is if I was surrounded by everyone I love. Yet as the standard response from those people when asked when they’re planning a trip over here varies from “probably never” to “over my dead body,” I’m not exactly holding my breath.
No matter how much I love traveling, as soon as my body gets even the slightest ailment, all I want is my mom’s couch, 192 channels and some home cooking. Which is why on Sunday when I woke up with the beginnings of a sore throat, I braced myself for the oncoming waves of missing suburban Chicago. When the slight soreness started to turn into full-blown strep throat accompanied by a raging fever, I decided that my attempts at gargling warm salt water, sleeping and hot tea were not going to do it this time. I needed some medication.
As it was already Monday afternoon and too late to find a sub for my classes, I headed to the pharmacy, where after a lot of pointing at my throat and grimacing I was given a bag of ibuprofen and five bags of indiscriminate brown sludge. Carrying the bags into class, I explained to my kids that because Teacher’s throat hurt, I wouldn’t be screaming and dancing around the class like usual – but if anyone could describe what I was supposed to do with the brown substance in complete English sentences, they would get extra credit. The kids told me that I was given a Chinese herbal remedy for colds and sore throats – a liquid derived from ginseng root and a deer’s antlers. I couldn’t get a clear answer on what exactly they did with the antlers (ground? boiled?), but it explained the illustration of the proud deer on the front of the bag. They told me that while it was effective, it was also disgusting. During my break, I choked down one packet and almost threw up; it tasted like a combination of dirt and tree bark, with a hint of cinnamon. I suffered through the next five hours of class and as soon as the night was over, retreated to my apartment to hopefully sleep this thing off.
As my fever rose that night and I alternated between sweating through my sheets and shivering, I knew that the antler juice wasn’t cutting it and I needed to see a doctor. In the morning, I called my head instructor and told him I had gotten worse and found out there was a medical center down the street from my apartment. The only problem? I still didn’t have my Alien Registration Card. Or my passport. Or my medical insurance card. When I called my Korean branch manager and told him the situation, he told me it wasn’t a problem and that I could just borrow one of my co-teacher’s insurance cards and it would be accepted.
Coming from a country where I’m nervous to even look at a doctor’s office for fear of accruing debt, I couldn’t imagine that they would take someone else’s insurance card, and figured something was getting lost in translation. Regardless, my throat was on fire and it was worth a shot; I called the Texan, borrowed his card and headed down the street to the medical center.
After living in France, I’m not a complete stranger to universal health care and think it’s a tragedy the U.S. hasn’t decided to make this issue a priority yet. But living in the only industrialized country in the world that doesn’t offer coverage to all of its citizens for the past two years, I quickly forgot that in the rest of the world, treating the patient is the main concern of doctors. So when I nervously handed over my fraudulent insurance card, I fully expected to be told that I couldn’t be helped and escorted to the door. As I held my breath, the receptionist looked from my New York driver’s license to the insurance card and back to the license.
Receptionist: (Pointing to license) This you?
Me: Yes.
Receptionist: (Pointing to insurance card) This not you?
Me: No, it’s my co-worker’s. But my throat really hurts.
Receptionist: Your friend?
Me: Yes. My card is coming soon.
Receptionist: Ok, it’s good.
And with that, she began processing my paperwork. I would have kissed her if it wouldn’t have gotten her sick.
I would like to report that I was then passed through to the doctor’s office quickly and efficiently, examined, and released with a prescription thirty minutes later. But things don’t happen like that for me – this was going to take most of the day. I’m not sure if this is routine for everyone, or if this particular receptionist simply wanted to practice her English, but she proceeded to interrogate me using an online Korean-to-English dictionary which would produce questions ranging from “You get sick always?” to “Maybe you are tonsillitis?”
Halfway through trying to explain my condition and that the bacteria lodged in the back of my throat made talking pretty painful, she said something that made absolutely no sense to me: colonoscopy. She was referring to the doctor, at which point I again pointed at my throat and said, “Not my colon – my throat. Can the doctor please look at my throat?”
Twenty minutes later, apparently bored with the same answers I kept giving her, she had me write my symptoms down in English and proceed to the near-empty waiting room where I watched a cooking show for the next ten minutes. As I hadn’t eaten anything in the past 48 hours, this was pure torture. Finally a nurse retrieved me, and took me in to the doctor’s office, which to my horror was covered in illustrations of gastrointestinal tracts, colons, and the various positions one should be in whilst getting a colonoscopy. I wanted to cry.
The doctor came in and cheerfully explained that his English was the best in the building, and so he would be helping me. The fear of my impending rectal exam must have been all over my face, because he reassured me that he was going to look at my throat. After a quick “aaaaah,” he told me that it was indeed very swollen, and I needed medication and a shot. While his English was better, it still had some holes missing, and I told him that I had never before received a shot for a sore throat.
Doctor: In Korea, very common. Very good.
Me: In my throat?
Doctor: (Laughing) No. (Pointing to my butt) Behind.
Colonoscopy or not, he was going to have me drop my pants. I told him that I needed to be teaching again in a day, so whatever he thought would be the quickest medication is what I would take. A nurse then came and took me into a small room with a bed, which she instructed me to lie on while she retrieved various items from the cabinet. When I saw an IV bag on her tray, I jumped off the bed and ran back to the doctor’s office.
Me: I need an IV?!
Doctor: Very good. Fluid.
Me: But I’ve never had an IV before. This is for my sore throat?
Doctor: Yes. Very good. Don’t worry.
I’m not sure if it was the lack of food in my stomach or the burning pain in my throat, but I just sighed, shrugged my shoulders and figured the man was a medical professional – he must know what he’s doing. After apologizing to the nurse for my erratic behavior, I let her start the drip in my forearm, which apparently was the hairiest thing this woman had ever seen, because she called a colleague in to check out the forest of arm hair she had to navigate through. When she finally finished (so many hairs...goodness...so many hairs), the doctor came in with another needle which he inserted into the IV, saying it would help but might make me feel a bit dizzy.
Two hours later I woke up to a knock at the door. At that point I wasn’t sure if my organs had been harvested for the black market, but my headache had disappeared and someone had kindly put CNN on the television. The nurse came in, brandishing another needle and telling me to roll over. Figuring I had little to lose at this point, I let her jab my ass with whatever “good fluid” that needle contained and promptly passed out for another hour.
I woke up to the doctor handing me a prescription and telling me I should feel much better in a day or so. As the nurse busied herself untangling the IV from the jungle on my arm, I thanked the doctor and gathered my things. Thankfully, he didn’t prescribe any more antler residue, and I left the pharmacy five minutes later with a bag full of pills. The bill for a day at the medical center and the accompanying prescription? $10.
After sleeping for most of the day today, I can happily report that while my ass is still a bit sore, I think my throat is on the mend. I’m just grateful I’m in a country where health care is so easy and (relatively) painless. By the end of the week I’m sure I’ll be back to making a fool of myself in my various attempts at understanding the Korean culture. While I still would love some American home cooking, my Korean branch manager stopped by unexpectedly tonight with Korean porridge his wife had made, which was amazing. And as for the mindless television, I’ve found some reality shows that are broadcast over the internet and have kept me busy being appalled at the various inane personalities we insist on collectively gaping at. Though I'm far from suburban Chicago, the combination of porridge and pointless television always helps me feel better. Even in Korea.
After finally coaxing the internet company into sending a repairman to my apartment this week, I now officially have my first Korean bill to pay. As Korean bank accounts don’t come with checkbooks, I’m still a bit unclear as to how exactly one goes about doing this; the repairman mentioned that I need to pay it at the bank. Or with the bank. Or by the bank. Regardless, I have a month to figure it out, so I’m not too worried.
Even with this access to a world of information, I did not find out until last night that a typhoon was set to hit Busan today. I’ve never been a person who checks the weather religiously, and marvel at those people who can give you the week’s forecast down to the likely percentage of rain and inches of snow predictions. I generally just need to know if it’s hot or cold, and beyond that I pretty much always carry an umbrella in my bag, a habit which I picked up in Paris.
I had noticed that it had been raining for two days straight, and was wondering if we were entering a rainy season of sorts. I kept meaning to find out if Korea even had a rainy season, but kept getting distracted by emails and whether or not Britney Spears was fat or high or both. You know, more important things than knowing a giant storm was about to descend on my city. So it wasn’t until I made a joke last night about it seeming like there was a monsoon in Busan did I find out that no, Travis. This is not a monsoon; this is a typhoon.
To be honest, I wasn’t exactly sure what a typhoon was. Thank god for Wikipedia, which told me that typhoon and hurricanes are the same thing. And that typhoons hit the southern tip of Korea regularly. Similar to the rest of the world, these storms have been getting stronger every year – unless of course you believe that global warming is a myth; then you think the buildings are getting weaker. Either way, there’s a lot of rain coming my way.
In 2003, Korea was swamped by the worst typhoon in a century – Maemi. And the area it hit the hardest? Busan. Winds reached speeds of 135 mph, tossing boats into the air, killing over 100 people and causing over $1.3 billion dollars in damage across the country. I still can’t find any English news about the current storm, but the dark clouds gathering outside my fifteenth story window are enough to tell me it’s not exactly a good day to go to the beach. My area of Busan is located a bit more inland, and I’ve heard teachers from other schools by the coast are coming over to my neighborhood today to wait out the storm and avoid any flooding.
Having lived a typhoon-free life, I have no idea what I should be doing, but I feel like I should do something at this point. Stocking up on canned goods or boarding up windows or filling sandbags. Something. What will I end up doing? Probably cook myself some food, do some reading and watch the typhoon from my window. I would have been useless during Katrina.
I’ve always enjoyed meeting new people; the more the better. I’m not saying I don’t get into moods where I want to turn my cell phone off and hide – because I definitely do. But generally, I think people are insanely interesting and I’m always curious to find out what makes us all tick. I don’t know why, but I can’t really relax until I’ve made someone laugh after first meeting them. Or at least crack a smile. I think it’s because sharing a laugh together denotes we’ve found common ground; laughter means the same thing in every language.
My willingness to talk to pretty much anything that moves has proven to be an asset in Korea. Evidently, waving at strangers is more common than I thought, and talking to another white person simply because you share the same skin color is perfectly acceptable. Since arriving in Busan, I’ve heard that my neighborhood, due to the eight or nine English schools located within a three block radius, has an incredibly high concentration of foreigners – most of which live in my apartment building. And the best way to meet everyone? Drinking on the corner.
In Korea, much like when I lived in France, you can drink alcohol anywhere. On the street, in a taxi, on the beach – the possibilities are endless. Unlike France, or anywhere I’ve been for that matter, most of the stores, restaurants and bars are not at street level. Every ten-story building that you see is home to ten or more businesses, each displaying their business name on the exterior of their designated floor. Which I think is why the neon signs are so popular; if people have to be enticed from eight stories below to come to your restaurant or internet café, your sign better be huge. And blinking.
The stores that you do find on the ground floors? Mostly cell phone shops, shoe stores and convenient stores. One of these convenient stores, the GS25, has a decided monopoly in my neighborhood – there is one on the ground floor of my building, another one at the end of the block, one across the street from that, and two more one block in either direction. I’m not complaining, because they’ve taken “convenient” to a whole new level, stocking everything from Drain-O to underwear to beer. Furthermore, most of them have tables and chairs set up on the sidewalk, where on any given night you can find white people congregating after work, happy to share a cheap beer and stories from their day of teaching. So far I’ve met a fair amount of people in my neighborhood in those plastic chairs, and as the store never seems to close, have found myself on the street corner until later than I ever imagined I’d be hanging out at the local 7-11.
Everyone has their reason for coming to Korea, and I’ve heard most of them. To pay student loans, to jump start a teaching career, to continue a teaching career, to travel, to learn a new language, to take a year off from the nine to fives. I’m always interested in hearing what people did before they moved across the world, and what their plans are post-Korea. The only thing is, keeping in step with the wanderlust theme, I’ve found many people can't really articulate what they're planning to do after this experience.
Except for Pete, who I met last night. If I feel tall among Koreans, Pete must feel like Shrek. From my vantage point, he was probably twelve and a half feet tall, give or take. Originally from Michigan, Pete said he had moved around a lot in the last couple of years. Arizona, California, Texas.
Me: Oh, because of your job?
Pete: Yeah. It was a lot of travel.
Me: What did you say you did again?
Pete: I was a cage fighter.
He said it like he was saying “I was an accountant,” just another job. You know. Cage fighting. It’s not that I doubted that he could be a cage fighter – when I thought about it, he looked like all he was missing was a cage to fight in. I just would never look at someone and think “Yeah. Definitely a cage fighter.” My shock must have been all over my face, because his girlfriend promptly leaned in and whispered, “Don’t worry. He’s a gentle giant.” Well, I wasn’t worried before she said that, but now I was envisioning him picking up the table and smashing it over someone’s head who had unwittingly provoked the devil in him.
Turns out, Pete could not have been nicer. He patiently explained to my horrified face the ins and outs of cage fighting, and I got a couple of laughs out of him by referencing Fight Club. See? I can bond with a bad ass.
Me: So how do you get out of the cage?
Pete: Well, you can either tap out…
Me: Or?
Pete: Pass out.
Me: Oh my god.
Apparently, he had been doing a lot of amateur fighting at home, and had just broken through to his first professional fight this June. Unfortunately, this was around the same time he ran out of money, so he decided to come to Korea to bulk up his savings in order to return and really focus on building his career.
In the meantime, he’s joined a league in Busan, which I immediately thought had to be illegal. The man is four heads taller than me – there’s no way the fights would be fair. But his first match was last week and his opponent broke Pete’s nose. Apparently they’re small but mighty. And his next fight is coming up, which I’m invited to go watch. I never thought I’d end up at a Korean cage-fighting match, but then again, I never thought I would befriend a cage fighter at the corner store.
I know I wasn’t the best student throughout my school years. There were teachers I harassed continually from the back of the room, thinking that what I was yapping about was infinitely more interesting and funny than anything they could possibly be going on about up by the blackboard. My math teachers got the brunt of my misbehavior, principally because I decided somewhere along the line that I wasn’t good at math. I like to think this was a decision, because the alternative version of history is that I genuinely am not good at math, and this doesn’t quite square with the “I’m good at everything” mentality I’ve been carefully cultivating over the past twenty-five years.
When I moved to Korea, I honestly didn’t give that much thought to the job of teaching: there would be training, I would figure it out and it wouldn’t be that bad. And it hasn’t been. Quite the contrary, for the first time in a long time I legitimately enjoy walking to work every morning. Well, ok, technically I don’t walk into work until the 4:30 in the afternoon, but it feels like morning when you’ve only been up for an hour. Same difference.
But it didn’t really hit me until I was writing the required notes to my student’s parents before work tonight that I’m actually a teacher. That what I wrote down (Austin is a very hard working and motivated student. Mary needs to work on getting to class on time. I haven’t heard Jake speak a single word of English yet…) would end up in the hands of parents, who would then decide on appropriate rewards or punishments for their kids. I am now in a position to judge the progress of these little munchkins; moreover, I’m the one who is actually supposed to be spurring the progress in these kids. Frightening.
I remember parent-teacher conferences growing up – mostly because we got half the day off from school and I could finally get back to perfecting my performances of Les Miserables in the basement. I mean, playing baseball. Whatever. From what I recall, a majority of the comments were basically positive:
Travis is a good student, but needs to talk less.
Travis has a lot of potential, but should concentrate more on his math than making jokes.
Travis is a joy to have in class, but sometimes breaks out into show tunes. What’s that about?
As I sat at my desk tonight and went through kid after kid, I imagined the parents opening my note and looking down at their child, reading what I wrote and trying to find the appropriate reaction to help guide their kid along to greatness. Knowing that Korean parents place an inordinate amount of pressure on their children to perform in school, and even more (if possible) when it comes to their English education, I realized my words held more weight than probably anything I’ve ever written before in my life.
Parents pay a hefty fee for their kids to attend my school, and the kids in turn pay a hefty price for their parents’ dedication to this type of education. As if going to class until 10:30 at night wasn’t enough, my classes each come with one to four hours of homework in their various textbooks. Students then have to complete written essays that they submit online and get feedback from online tutors. Done yet? Not quite. Every day, five days a week, they also have their “mobile learning” component – a unique feature where the kids have a daily speaking topic that they need to phone in and discuss for one minute on an answering machine that I then listen to. Keep in mind this is not their regular school – they come to me after attending classes all day. And in most cases, this is not their only private academy that they’re going to; some kids have academies for English, Science, Music, Dance, Math, French…the list goes on and on. And remember: they start all this around age eight.
So as I wrote note after note, I tried to keep in mind that maybe a kid was two minutes late because they were grabbing something to eat in order to endure this marathon of education. Or maybe a kid was goofing off for twelve seconds because he’s ten, and that’s what ten year-olds do from time to time. As far as progress, I’m proud to report that almost all of my students have shown measurable improvement in the short time I’ve been with them. Where blank stares were three weeks ago is now a group of little kids that understand what I’m rambling about. And I think they might even be enjoying it.
And me? Well, I still burst into show tunes from time to time. Haven’t made much progress there.
The good news is I met my Korean teacher this past weekend. The bad news is I’ve been here almost a month with no formal training (discounting Bonita’s valiant attempt) in a language that sounds to me like guttural gymnastics. As you can imagine – and have read in some of these posts – my lack of any ability to communicate beyond wild facial expressions and gesturing has left me extremely frustrated. And so on Friday night, when I was introduced to Pixie (almost certainly not her Korean name) and was told that she is the best Korean teacher in Busan, I immediately signed up for classes. The only problem was we met at a bar sometime after midnight, and so by “signing up,” I mean scribbling my email address on a napkin. But I did get her number (score), and plan to give her a call this week.
I’m only explaining this because I didn’t want to write yet another story of me bungling around town and leave you thinking I’m the ignorant foreigner who isn’t making an attempt at learning my host country’s language and customs. I am. In fact, I woke up early on Sunday morning to head to a bookstore where I came home with “Survival Korean,” a book/CD program that looks extremely promising. In order to impress Pixie, I’ve already begun working on the alphabet, which is surprisingly straightforward. But what led to this burst of determination, you ask?
Going out to eat in Korea is something that I didn’t really anticipate becoming a regular habit. When I envisioned settling in, I mostly saw myself cooking (endless amounts of pasta) in my apartment and trying to keep the trips out to restaurants to a minimum. I am on a budget and hope to save money here, and coming from New York City where you pay $10 just to look a menu, I didn’t think the two went hand-in-hand. Once again (are you sensing a theme here?), I was wrong.
The Korean dining experience is like nothing I, or my gastrointestinal tract, have ever seen. To begin with, there seems to be food everywhere. The street corners feature older women who have unfolded blankets on which they sell potatoes, scallions, and more varieties of lettuce than I ever thought possible. Men stand outside parked pick-ups overflowing with fresh apples. Impromptu food trucks appear, hawking various steaming dumplings and meats on sticks. Small outdoor cafes spring up in tiny alleys, which feature menus varying from fish to waffles.
And then there are the actual restaurants, which seemed to be stacked five high. Beyond the lame western imports (Bennigans made it over here? Do people even eat Bennigans in the States anymore?) the majority of the cuisine offered that I’ve seen has been different variations on the Korean theme. Which is fantastic.
Most of the restaurants are divided into two sections, with patrons choosing to dine either sitting on the floor or at a table and chairs. Always wanting to feel as Korean as possible, I opt to sit on the floor, routinely trying to wedge my six-foot tall frame underneath a table that’s maybe a foot off the ground. Halfway through any meal I am forced to get up and do a couple yoga positions just to keep the blood flowing.
Regardless of whether you’re on the floor or at a proper table and chairs, the center of every table either has a pit for a bucket of coals, over which you roast different meats or seafood; or is a type of burner, on which pots of various soups are placed. Either way, almost every entrée comes with five to ten side dishes, filling the table from end to end with different vegetables and a salad and rice and more meat and more seafood and more rice. After a night of roasting your own meat, and then picking around a table of small dishes, you leave feeling full, but nowhere near stuffed. And the bill? Usually around $4 - $6. Seriously.
The only problem is if you can’t read Korean, you can’t read menus. And if the menus don’t have pictures, you’re reduced to randomly placing your finger down in the middle of the page and seeing what comes out. This has resulted in me getting seafood when I wanted soup, beef when I wanted chicken and pork intestines when I really just wanted a salad. Do I have any room to complain though? Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t tell them what’s wrong with the situation – instead I pick up my chopsticks, take a deep breath, and dig in.
So, when a friend called on Saturday night telling me I should meet him at this great seafood restaurant in the center of town, I had no qualms putting the pasta away and heading out. At the restaurant I was introduced to John, a friend of my friend, who has been in Busan for eleven years (he originally came for a summer sabbatical, and…). The seafood restaurant was situated on the seventh floor of a tall, shiny building with wall-to-wall windows, and definitely seemed more upscale than any place I had frequented. However, I figured after not really spending any money up to this point, I could afford to splurge a bit. And when I saw the menu didn’t have a graphic in sight, I decided John should order for the table. And order he did.
Course after course of seafood came out for a good hour and a half. Some I could identify, but not wanting to keep bothering John with “what’s this one?” every thirty seconds, I ended up just closing my eyes and chewing. Raw tuna. Crab legs. Cooked tuna. Raw salmon. An entire fish of some sort. Cooked salmon. Shrimp. White fish. Fish eggs. Seaweed soup. And on and on and on. They had to keep taking empty dishes away to fit the new arrivals, and by the end of the night the table was littered with our intrepid attempts at keeping up with the wait staff’s endless barrage of food.
John: Which one was your favorite?
Me: Umm. This one, I think. This salad thing.
John: Oh, you mean the whale?
Me: Excuse me?
John: Yeah, it was a tuna and whale salad.
Me: Oh…
John: Good, right?
But at least now I know why they’re having such a hard time saving the whales: they’re really tasty.
In New York, I used to marvel at the amount of trash our relatively small three-bedroom apartment could produce. Add a house guest or a dinner party, and it seemed there was always an overflowing bag that needed to be taken down the one flight of stairs and tossed out. And I used “tossed” because that’s what we literally did; the garbage area had long ago been surrendered to the rats. As soon as a bag would land, you would hear the scurry of claws scraping against metal. And if it was light out, chances are you’d see a giant rodent smiling back at you, happy for its latest snack.
Like almost any household in America, we saved every plastic bag that came in the house for use in later trash runs. No bag was too small to be shoved with debris, and at any given time, we would have 57 plastic grocery bags under the sink, waiting for their turn to be delivered to the Rat Kingdom.
I didn’t bring many assumptions with me to Korea. I like to think I was a blank slate – determined not to label anything weird, but rather the more enlightened different. Therefore, it was not weird that they swallowed the seeds of grapes, it was just different. See how cultured I am? But it seems every day I’m met with another thing I had never even thought I would need to examine. Like garbage. Who thinks hard about garbage? Garbagemen. Anyone who runs a landfill. And rats. That’s who.
Apparently you can add the entire Korean population to that list.
After finally getting into my new apartment, I discovered I needed to buy almost everything. Thankfully, there were sheets provided this time, but in terms of household items, a trip to the local department store was definitively in order. Hangers, pots, pans, dishes, chopsticks (remember how cultured I am? When in Rome…) etc. Three trips later, my apartment was stocked with the essentials, and I was left with twenty or so plastic bags and a sizable pile of garbage. So, like I had done so many times before, I used one of the bigger bags to collect most of the damage, and stored the rest under the sink.
Taking the elevator down to the basement, I wasn’t even thinking about the task at hand. Just find the (hopefully rat free) dumpster, throw my bag away and get on with my day. The doors opened, and my introduction into the world of Korean trash began.
Rounding the corner, I noticed the two adjacent walls were lined with various bags and trashcans, each neatly labeled (thankfully, in both Korean and English), separating the refuse into more categories than I had ever seen. Food waste. Small plastic bottles. Big plastic bottles. All other plastic. Glass cans. Aluminum cans. All other glass. All other aluminum. Cardboard boxes. Paper products. The list went on and on, and standing there with my giant bag of things I never even thought to recycle, I suddenly felt like the Exxon Valdez.
Man I hadn’t seen: You live building?
Me: Yes.
Man: New?
Me: Yes.
Man: (pointing to the bag I was now trying to hide behind me) Garbage?
Me: Yes.
Man: Bag no good. Need different bag.
Me: What?
Man: Buy new bag. At store.
And with that, he grabbed my bag, ripped it open, and began dutifully separating each item, placing it in its appropriate (and environmentally friendly) receptacle. Apologizing profusely, I properly introduced myself (as the wasteful American), and found out he was the building’s exceedingly friendly super who spoke broken, but comprehensible English. Shuffling me back in the elevator, he kept repeating that I needed to buy bags, and I vigorously nodded my head, vowing to promptly enroll in those Korean classes.
The next day I found out from one of my co-teachers who lives in my building what the super was telling me: that I indeed needed to buy separate garbage bags, and they were insanely expensive. It turns out, the very little trash that Koreans don’t recycle or compost is required by law to be contained in bags that can be found near the checkout line at the department store and cost roughly $1.50 each. For a bag. That you throw away. This is why the entire population has embraced recycling with open arms, and why it’s not strange to see a neighbor in the elevator holding a tray of broken eggshells and banana peels.
As far as a cultural divergence, I’ve realized this is not weird, and beyond different. This is better, and – although forced due to a limited budget and a conscious that won’t let me literally throw out $20 a week – I have quickly been transformed into a happily green member of Korean society.
