Posts (page 2)

While I’m busy opining about how old I look, I realize this insecurity may be highlighted by the fact that I’m in a country surrounded by people who look perpetually younger than their age. And tonight I found out why.

One of the things I’ve liked about being a teacher in a foreign country is that anytime I have a cultural question, I have forty to fifty different kids who are eager to explain away my confusion – probably because I’m offering extra credit for anyone who can do so in proper, complete sentences. It is in this way that I’ve managed to piece together certain nuances that aren’t readily available in Lonely Planet.

My school, like many things in Korea, is very technologically advanced. Most of my “paperwork” revolves around the computer in my classroom. If I mark a child absent in the system, his parents receive a text message within the first half-hour of class, letting them know their kid is not in his seat. I download every lesson plan, test, and handout from our server that’s updated by our research and development department located in Seoul; conversely, the kids are able to log in to the system from home, see their grades and complete their online homework. Very efficient. Very 2007. And very Korean.

From my screen, I can summon up all kinds of information about my students; test score averages, attendance records, which regular school they attend, what grade they’re in, etc. Most of this is useless to me, however I did skim over their grades and ages shortly before I began the term; being a new teacher, I thought I could gauge what level they’d be at by their age. But when I compared my first on-screen roster of thirteen year-olds to the class full of young faces staring back at me, I was a bit confused. Shrugging, I figured puberty must hit late on this side of the globe and was just happy they were so talkative. It wasn't until Sherry's birthday today that I began to question everything.

Sherry, the young woman who works at the school’s front desk, reminds me of a Korean Air stewardess: she constantly has a smile on her face, understands only rudimentary English, and is happy to get you a cup of tea but looks like she might stab you with a chopstick if you don’t say please. The first face I see when I get off the elevator and the last person I say goodnight to as I leave work, she’s always waving and smiling, which until my Korean vocabulary progresses to include verbs, is as far as our communication usually gets us. She, like the rest of our Korean staff, works tirelessly and I honestly don’t understand how she stays so chipper. They deal with parents all day and then kids all night – easily pulling ten to twelve hour shifts, while the Western teachers stroll in for our six-hour teaching stints and stroll right back out making double their salaries simply because our parents taught us “hello” instead of “an-young-kah-say-oh.”

So when I found out it was her birthday when I arrived to work tonight, I wished someone had told me sooner so I could have gotten her something. But the more I thought about it I realized this was my first Korean birthday and I wasn’t sure if my Western customs applied. Should I have gotten her a card? Flowers? A giant bottle of Soju to ease the pain? Feeling (familiarly) incompetent, I wished her a happy birthday and was shocked to hear that she was turning 27. The thing is, she doesn’t look a day over 14.

Back in class, my kids, eager to get off subject and always amused when they get to tell their teacher something he didn’t already know, informed me that in Korea people have two ages – their Korean age and their Western age. Their Korean age begins roughly around the time of conception (a tradition which I’m sure FOX News will no doubt be subscribing to shortly) and so babies reach age one when they come kicking out of their mother. Also, as I came to understand it, Koreans who are counting back in this manner also really celebrate their birthday on the lunar New Year – which to me just sounds like even more of an excuse for the whole country to get really drunk together. But I’m definitely not arguing.

According to this math, it’s possible for a baby to be two years old and only off the umbilical cord for two days. No wonder there’s so much pressure on the kids to succeed – they’re already slacking from day one. What? Are you just going to sit there? You’re almost three years old. Shouldn’t you be walking, talking and beginning calculus?

When I asked them their Western ages, my kids happily revealed that instead of being the teenagers I thought, the class was full of eleven and twelve year-olds – which, from what I remember about being that age, is a big difference. I think this explains their willingness to shout out answers in class and (gasp) speak in front of the opposite sex. As for Sherry, I found out that we’re the same age. A fact I had to prove to her with my passport. “But Travis. You so bald.” Annnnd there it is.

I’m not aging well. This thought usually occurs to middle age men as they examine their receding hairline in the store windows just before they purchase the red convertible they’ll sell exactly one year later. However, this thought has been on my mind since I was nineteen – not because I’m particularly vain; but because that’s about the time the hair follicles on my scalp decided to close up shop. This fact alone doesn’t necessarily bother me, and I honestly don’t get up in the morning and think to myself “well, another bald day.” However, it’s hard to forget when I’ve had a steady stream of onlookers who feel the need to comment on the situation atop my head on a near hourly basis.

It’s amazing how little decorum people observe when it comes to this subject. Obesity? Wouldn’t dare. Acne? Never noticed it. But the second a bald guy walks in the room everyone is immediately free to comment on the one malady that has apparently been deemed socially acceptable for dinner conversation:

“Do you shave your head? Or are you bald?”
I shave my head because I’m bald.

“Have you tried Rogaine?”
Have you tried tact?

“Well, at least you have a nicely shaped head.”
Yes, and at least I’m not hunchback. But thanks.

And my personal favorite? The people who insist that I have hair; that all I need to do is give it a chance to grow. My mother is the ringleader in this category – every time I see her, she laments how I could have a beautiful head of hair if I would just let it grow out. Here’s the thing about being bald – the hair doesn’t grow. I’m not doing this for fun. I would rather not have my head reflect the flashes in photographs better than most mirrors. I could go without the Mr. Clean jokes for just one day. Really. I could.

But, this is the head I was given, and so me, my bald scalp and my freakishly large eyebrows descended on Korea, a country chocked full of kids who love talking about my exposed cranium. You would think they've never seen a bald person before; kids gather around my desk at break times and have recently taken to petting my scalp, asking me questions like "did you ever have hair?" and "when will it grow?" I can’t get through an hour of class without some cute munchkin somehow finding a way to incorporate a recently learned vocabulary word into a sentence about my hair malfunction.

    Me: Who knows what “glow” means?
    Kid: Teacher’s head glows with no hair.
    Me: Good. Very good. I hate you.

And the kicker? In my Korean class this week we learned that there is one commonly used Korean word for both head and hair. The example my teacher came up with? Travis has no hair but he has a head. Because you know, it had been thirty-seven minutes since the last bald comment was made. Thanks, Pixie.

Ex-pat communities are always somewhat strange – people gathered together for no other reason than they share a skin color, a national anthem or a language. These commonalities are further highlighted when you’re in a country where the language barrier is daunting; suddenly the mere fact that you can understand someone’s conversation across the street gives license to introduce yourself, join them for a drink and swap cell phone numbers. Even though I’ve never had much of a problem talking to complete strangers, it takes a while to get over feeling like…well, a loser. No matter how hard you try to control your inflection, you inevitably come across as the new kid on the playground with no friends. “Hey guys. I was just walking by and saw you. So I thought I’d, you know. Stop and say, you know. Hey. I’m, um, Travis? I just got here. Are you teachers? Am I still talking?”

But the thing is that even though some people have been over here for years, everyone remembers what it was like to be fresh-off-the-boat, and so with a knowing nod usually overlook the first bumbling introduction. It’s in this awkward way that you start meeting people, and then they introduce you to friends, and friends-of-friends, and soon your phone starts to fill up and you can step away from YouTube and into a social scene.

Which is where I found myself these past couple of weeks. Starting to get over the first-month hump of going out every time someone asked (because how can you say no to someone you just met? What if they never ask again? And you’re forced to spend the rest of the year locked in your apartment watching old Oprah episodes online?) I had begun to get into a routine of sorts.

The more foreigners I meet, the more I find they fall into two camps: those who want to speak Korean, and those who don’t. I have also found that almost every other characteristic that can be attributed to them stem from this central point; the foreigners who have taken an interest in learning Korean are less likely to make inane statements about the country (Have you noticed that all the older Koreans hate foreigners?) and are more likely to know cool places to go on a Friday night. It was this crowd who referred Pixie to me as the best Korean teacher in Busan, and after meeting her and signing up for classes late one night at a bar (see? It’s a good thing I went out every night), my classes finally started today.

As my coworkers were also interested in learning the language, we arrived at 11:00 A.M. this morning to a building by Pusan’s National University, each gripping notebooks and freshly sharpened pencils; a group of teachers reduced to nervous students on the first day of school. Greeted by a perky Korean woman, I introduced myself and told her we were looking for Pixie – which is when she introduced herself as Pixie. Whom I had already met. Good, Travis. Laughing about how it was late and dark and did she get a new haircut? I was quickly let off the hook and we were shown to our classroom, a decent sized space across the hall from a group of students who sounded to me like they were learning Chinese. Or Japanese.

    Me: Oh, the school offers Chinese classes, too?
    Pixie: What? No, just Korean. Why?

Wondering if there was a three-strikes-and-you’re-an-idiot rule, I silently agreed to only speak when spoken to, and settled in for the first of our two-hour lessons. Which was incredible. Sitting on the other side of a language class for the first time since beginning to teach ESL was eye-opening, both for my Korean vocabulary and my day job.

The ever-patient Pixie slowly took us through the Hangol alphabet, an incredibly straightforward set of characters laid out by a Korean king in 1444. This king, apparently fed up with the complex Chinese characters that kept most of that country and all of his illiterate, set out to make a written language every commoner could use. Five hundred years later it’s pretty clear he succeeded, and now every Korean can admire him daily – as his image still adorns the currency. His goal for the characters? "A wise man can acquaint himself with them before the morning is over; a stupid man can learn them in the space of ten days." Apparently we were somewhere in the middle; after two hours of chanting and grunting, we were assigned a series of scripts to trace for Wednesday’s class and sent on our way.

Armed with the fledgling ability to read, the city had now become a giant library for us. Every sign was a learning opportunity, and we excitedly piled on the subway back to our neighborhood, proudly sounding out each stop as it flashed across the screen on the train. A helpful reminder I’m sure our fellow passengers appreciated.

Returning to my classroom this afternoon, I had a newfound appreciation for what my kids go through, and tried to remember to extend the same patience Pixie afforded a group of twentysomethings who struggled to learn the Korean alphabet to my group of ten year-olds, who are struggling to paraphrase complex passages about carbohydrates and proteins. And the coolest part? I totally scored points with my kids when I could read their Korean names aloud. After looking at me like I had just sprouted another head, they animatedly started speaking Korean back at me, which is when I had to explain that while I could read, I still couldn’t understand much of anything. “Don’t worry, Teacher. You’ll get it. It’s easy. Not like English.”

When I say that I didn’t have any preconceived notions about living in Korea when I first moved over here, one might think it’s because I aimed to forget everything I knew about the country and arrive with an open mind. And that would be true, if I actually knew anything about the country to begin with.

To my credit, I did buy one book off Amazon (“The Koreans: Who They Are, What They Want, and Where Their Future Lies”) which I would read and then recite out loud to my roommates in New York. “Did you know it’s important not to challenge your Korean boss in front of other subordinates because then he’ll lose face?” As I don’t think they actually thought I would pick up and move, they were polite enough to feign interest for the first couple of chapters, before switching to their tried and true tactic when dealing with my Interests of the Month: smile and nod.

    Me: Did you know Korea has the 13th largest economy in the world?
    Roommate: (Smiling and nodding) Oh?
    Me: Yeah, and up until the 70s it was basically a third-world country?
    Roommate: (Slightly dozing off) Hmm.
    Me: And now Seoul is the sixth largest city in the world?
    Roommate: (realizing I was still talking) Yeah. I have to go. Alphabetize my grocery list.
    
Needless to say, as my plane dropped out of the clouds on the way to Seoul, I was glued to the window, excited for my first peek at the country I would be calling home for the next year. Fighting off the sleeping pills I had ingested to survive the fourteen hour haul, I was pleasantly surprised to see endless rows of green mountains with small and large cities sporadically peeking out. I soon found out about seventy percent of Korea is covered with mountains, and as anyone who has watched the videos I posted from Busan a week later can attest to, I’m slightly obsessed with the ones that are now a five-minute walk from my apartment. Hey. You would be too if you grew up in the Midwest where the closest thing to a hill was the slight incline of your driveway; suddenly finding myself choosing between an afternoon at the beach or a hike in the mountains was a nice change.

Excited to go up my local mountains and encouraged by stories from other foreigners about the great trails that were waiting for me, I set out a couple weeks ago armed with a bottle of water and my iPod. Somewhat a novice when it comes to hiking, I didn’t think to ask for directions to the trail entrances; I figured if I could see the mountain from my apartment windows, all I needed to do was walk until I hit the bottom, and then hike upwards. Well, I found the bottom, but no trail. Not one to let minor details get in the way (who needs a trail?), I began my climb, clutching the trees and hoisting myself up the side of the rather uninviting mountain. Ten minutes later, I was back at the bottom after nearly stepping on a snake and almost knocking myself unconscious on a low hanging branch in my frantic and less than graceful descent. So when the Texans called this morning inviting me to join them on a hike, I was excited to actually experience hiking the mountain trails.

From what I can tell, Koreans love to exercise. And more importantly, they love the accompanying apparel one has to buy in order to exercise. One of the first things I noticed about Busan was the abundance of sports stores; swimming, hiking, rafting, skiing – if there is an outfit for the sport, there was a store nearby selling it. I had seen hikers walking around town, each wearing matching black pants, long sleeved shirts, vests, walking poles (think cross-country skiing), white gloves and visors. Hoping this was voluntary and not a strictly enforced dress code (“You no climb. Need poles.”), the Texans and I started up the trail clad in our mismatching shorts and t-shirts.

Happy to find the trails extremely well maintained, complete with stairs for the steep inclines, we were walking for about twenty minutes when we came to a clearing in the woods and saw what looked like a nearly complete gym. In the forest. Bench press, squatting machine, a combination treadmill and elliptical apparatus, parallel bars, a pull-down weight contraption, chin up bars, inclined sit-up bench, giant hula-hoops, etc. In the middle of the forest. No membership fee, no annoying guy about to bust out of his baby tee hovering in front of a mirror – just us, some identically dressed Koreans, and the squirrels. And the best part? There wasn’t just one Forest Gym; in our two-hour hike, we came across four different areas with similar equipment. They did not mention this in my book.

Pausing for a mini-work out (I’m embarrassed to report my abs are somewhat sore from five minutes of hula-hooping – who knew?), we continued on with our hike, and I made a mental note of the path’s location for any future wilderness work out sessions. As far as the outfits go, after spending the morning feeling like a social outcast and swatting at the itchy grass brushing up against my calves, I now understand the utility of the uniform and am considering investing in some of those comfy looking black pants. I have to draw the line at the visor though – it just doesn't go with the bald.
 

I love outdoor markets. Any outdoor market, really. I’m not sure what it is, but food just looks better to me when it’s away from the fluorescent glare of the supermarket and under a tent. And in Korea, the person selling the food is generally a sweet old woman, who I can never really say no to. Which is why my fridge is currently overflowing with three pounds of cherry tomatoes that I’m now eating like grapes.

One of the biggest markets in Busan is two subway stops away from my house and is also around the corner from the Mormon’s apartment. So when she asked if I could help her carry a table home that our director had brought to school for her, I agreed on the condition she’d show me around the market afterwards. Deal.

I should have known that by “help” she meant I’d be carrying the table myself; as if the two foreigners don’t get enough stares speaking English on the subway, I was now the white freak show with a table strapped to my back. The thing is this was not my first time carrying strange items on a subway: in New York, my roommate and I once trekked an eight-foot Christmas tree home via two different trains. But in New York, people stare for a minute and then move on with their lives. It seems once Koreans find you puzzling, they can gawk for hours. Fortunately, the ride was only two stops. Unfortunately, she lived on the fifth floor and the table didn’t quite fit in her tiny elevator. Twenty sweaty minutes later, we had deposited the table and were off to explore the market.

As she shops there almost daily, she confidently showed me down the never-ending maze of small alleys and winding streets, packed with tiny stalls selling everything. Intent on coming home with a plant, I walked into every flower store we saw looking for the ideal tiny green thing that would hopefully last longer than a week. Convinced that she knew the perfect plant store but unsure of how to get there (I know it was by the fish. But maybe it was past the grains?) we spent a good hour searching up and down every aisle.

Near the end of the fish market, I began to smell something pungent and familiar. While I was trying to figure out where I knew the smell from, we rounded the corner and I found out. Lining both sides of the narrow street were rusty cages with two or three dogs apiece, mostly lying down or asleep. The breeds didn’t look too familiar to me, however they were all big animals whose coats were long overdue for a brushing. But these dogs weren’t waiting to be groomed. Just next to the cages were refrigerated display cases, showcasing freshly killed dog meat.

When I moved to Korea, I had heard jokes about people eating dog, but somehow assumed that it was a tradition that had been done away with. Like foot binding or scrunchies. However, standing there staring at a row of dead dog paws confirmed that the custom apparently lives on and I was suddenly mentally reviewing every piece of meat I had eaten since my arrival, wondering if I had ever unwittingly consumed a poodle with my noodles.

Initially repulsed, I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to figure out why a dead dog made me want to alert the authorities while a dead pig meant bacon with my eggs. Every argument I threw out didn’t hold up for very long. Because dogs are pets, that’s why. Well, they’re only pets because we made them pets. In parts of India, aren’t cows pets? Yeah, but dogs are smarter than cows. But aren’t pigs smarter than dogs? Yeah, but bacon tastes really good. Mmmm. Bacon.

Until recently, dogs weren’t kept as pets in Korea, and for the most part it seems they widely prefer the small breeds for companions. These big dogs were raised to be killed, much like any farm animal. When I asked my kids about the practice, they all protested that the only people who like the meat were their grandparents, but when I asked if they’ve ever eaten dog, about half of the class raised their hands.

It seems that until I learn more Korean, I’m limited in the information I can find on the subject, as most English articles are just a tad biased: “Why It’s Wrong to Eat Dog,” or “Animal Rights: A History of Cruel Dog Eating in Asia.” From what I did find, about 10 percent of the country say they include the dish in their diet, generating a business that brings in close to a billion dollars annually. However, partly because the Korean government faced fierce opposition to the practice from Western groups during the 1988 Seoul Olympics and again during the 2002 World Cup held jointly in Korea and Japan, dog meat has no legal status in the country, which has caused the industry to move underground. While some critics deplore the inhumane conditions the animals are sometimes subjected to, they also argue against legalizing the industry, which would effectively end these conditions with regulations much like the ones imposed on the beef, pork and poultry businesses. It seems officially including dog on the country’s menu poses too much of an image problem with the West.

Still, unless you’re a militant vegan, it’s hard to defend one animal while you’re chewing on another’s leg. The cultural supremacy inherit in the argument is blatant; you shouldn’t eat that because we think it’s wrong. It’s all relative, and the clash of my suburban American upbringing and my current home in Korea made my head (and stomach) hurt.

Nevertheless, while I can defend the practice in principal, the thought of ordering dog soup still makes me a bit queasy. After yelling at the Mormon for not warning me I was about to be scarred for life, we soon found the hidden plant store and I came home the proud owner of a small green shrub with yellow flowers. That promptly died two days later.

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.