Burnt Popcorn

Tonight is, as many preceding nights have been, an odd mix of thoughts, acts, and emotions. It’s currently 2AM, Chris Isaak and Vienna Teng are highlighting and encouraging my mood, and I’m snacking on the last of some popcorn I burned earlier tonight. The popcorn seems like such an apropos metaphor for my mood that I had to write something about it. Inspiration is an unpredictable friend.

Last night I purchased my return ticket to the States, and that came with a lot of residual emotions that I hadn’t really planned on cleaning up, especially concerning the relationships I have with my family and friends at home.

On one hand I feel closer to my family and friends than I have in a long time. Whatever emotional distance lies between us has been the direct result of physical distance. Surely that can be easily accepted and dealt with, so I’m anxious to get home and get my relationships back on track, with laughs to share, stories to tell, and lost time to make up. I can’t wait for the reunions, and I feel drawn to everyone because my hope is that everyone feels the same as I do.

On the other hand, a lot has happened in a year and I’m not sure I’m the same person I was a year ago, for better or worse. If there’s a new Me, will I be compatible with the changes everyone else has undergone over the past year? I’m scared that I won’t fit back into the puzzle of people I was a part of when I left. I haven’t really been pulling my weight on all fronts trying to keep the ties tight, so I have some anxiety as to whether or not my hope for amiable reunions is requited. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see…

So why does burnt popcorn have a special significance for me tonight? Well, it’s by no means perfect, but definitely edible. I had to throw out a few pieces of burnt popcorn so I could enjoy the rest, but the discarded pieces have left a subtle but noticeable mark on rest. Korea has been a decidedly positive experience for me, but every unpleasant experience I’ve tried to discard has left its mark on all the rest. I have no regrets about the big picture, but there are a lot of instances regarding relationships at home and relationships abroad that I would probably change or ignore if given the chance. I guess that smokiness just gives this feeling a taste I’ll be more likely to remember.

Reflections – The 10th of 12

Imagine a pool filled with fish, and imagine that every time you reached in to take a fish from the pool all of the fish latched onto your fish, not because they want to save that fish from being caught, but because they all want to be caught. The weight of all the fish together is too much, and you can’t get just one fish at a time, so you can never get a fish from the pool. The best way to catch a fish, I think, is to just dive in and start eating.

I noticed tonight that not only have I severely neglected this webpage project for the better part of 5 months, I haven’t written ANYTHING since February. Now I’m trying to catch single thoughts and feelings from such a jam-packed pool of experiences that getting a single, clear idea alone for long enough to process it and write something about has become quite difficult. Time to dive in and start eating.

I might as well start by outlining the picture and leave the coloring and details for another day. I can confidently say that this trip has been decidedly more good than bad, and in no way do I regret taking this detour. I am, however, anxious to go home and to see at what point and in which direction I resume my life. I can’t help but think of my time in Korea as anything but a detour. Whatever road connects my past to my future doesn’t pass through where I am now. I’ve had to get off the main road to get here, but the places I’ve seen, the people I’ve met, and the experiences I’ve had are worth every minute of time I might have lost.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

I take a lot of the things I say for granted and assume that the speech patterns and vocabulary I’m comfortable with make perfect sense to anyone within earshot of what I’m saying. While this is probably not a bad practice considering that 99% of the conversations I’ve had have been with native English speakers who, at least culturally speaking, have a lot in common with me, there have been times I’ve become aware of strange words and sentences leaving my mouth.

And I’m not really talking about colloquialisms here; things like, “He really rubbed me the wrong way,” and “We’re up the creek without a paddle” that make perfect sense to Americans but don’t really translate well to other languages (or even other regions or dialects). I wanted to share some things my students have said that made me think about the words I take for granted and those don’t really fall in the realm of the colloquial, but more with assigning a definition to a word that doesn’t really fit.

The first instance of this that’s stuck in my mind is actually from babysitting a couple of years ago. I was watching a movie with one of the kids and she was explaining the plot to me as we watched (just in case I couldn’t follow Disney cartoons). I forget the movie exactly, but all the animals in the area were going to get together and have a meeting. “The meeting,” she explained to me, “is called a caribou.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her that a caribou is actually just a kind of animal that was at the big meeting, but from the movie I could tell how she came to assign that definition to the word ‘caribou’.

In one of my kindergarten classes the students were coloring on one of their worksheets and one of the girls asked me for a green crayon. I brought her a green crayon, what we might call like a dark green or hunter green, but she told me no, she wanted a SKY green crayon, which, as it turns out just means light green like sky blue = light blue. I’ve actually heard “sky green” thrown around a few times.

The last example of this is from one of my beginner classes. They’re not supposed to speak Korean in the classroom, so I was reminding them that they’re only allowed to speak English. One of the girls asked if they could then speak “Japan English” in the classroom and then rattled off a couple of Japanese phrases.

For ‘sky green’ I know that ‘sky’ is a word that these kids know, but I guess the association is lost when they start talking about colors. As for Japan English, I guess they just associate all foreign languages under the blanket term ‘English’, and this isn’t really such a stretch since even for me the word ‘English’ conjures thoughts of impossible grammar rules and mind-boggling verb tenses.

Open Borders

I had a strange conversation with some of my students today. We were talking about how Mexico and the US are neighbors, and how the US and Canada are neighbors and that all three countries are on relatively friendly terms. The discussion was normal enough, but then one student asked if people were allowed to drive between the US and Canada. I informed them that people were, in fact, allowed to cross the border and that I had crossed over myself to vacation. All the students seemed really shocked and surprised by this and then they asked if people were allowed to drive between Mexico and the US. I again told them that people were, for the most part, allowed to make that drive (avoiding the issues of immigration and porous borders since these are 9-year-olds) and they looked even more shocked. Imagine their dismay when I told them that mail travels freely among the three countries. At first I had trouble understanding why this would seem like such a foreign concept to these kids, but when I thought about Korea’s neighbors it started to make a lot of sense.

If you look at the geography of Korea, it’s a peninsula, surrounded by water on three sides. South Korea’s only land border is the DMZ, the most heavily guarded border in the world that separates North from South. It’s extremely rare that officials from either country cross this border, and almost impossible that a civilian would ever be allowed to cross. That rules out being able to drive to another country.

But the isolationism goes a bit deeper, I think. As much as is possible I want to avoid getting too deep into the inter-cultural relationships of Asians since 1) I’m not Asian and my outsider’s perspective can’t do these relationships justice, and 2) my history of the region is fuzzy at best and I’m sure I’d drop a lot of misinformation. I do, however, want to talk a little about the isolationism so I apologize for treating this too simply or for missing the point completely. This is just my outsider’s opinion. For a part of the world with so much history and so many ethnicities living in such close proximity, all parties are bound to have some historical event about which to hold a grudge. So South Korea’s neighbors are North Korea (‘nuff said), Japan, and China. Between Japan, China, and Korea are thousands of years of disputed territories, invasions and occupations, abductions, and full-blown war. Everyone seems to be playing nicely with each other now, save a few really touchy subjects, but the friendliness seems tenuous at best. With so much distrust under the surface I can understand any feelings of isolation, but I can’t imagine what this is like for the children, who know little or nothing of the history and can only base their opinions on impressions they get from older generations.

I can imagine that if North America had thousands of years of violent history (instead of just hundreds) and more pure blood lines our borders might not be as open and we might look at other cultures disapprovingly or warily, but I think we’ve got a good thing going with our neighbors to the north and south.

What’s My Age Again?

Something I’ve had a hard time getting used to is the way Koreans keep track of their age. It’s hard enough having to convert numbers from pounds to kilograms, Fahrenheit to centigrade, and dollars to won all the time, but I also have to convert from American age to Korean age, which seems a bit excessive.

Here’s my understanding of the Korean aging system (if I’m wrong about this, someone let me know):

Time spent in the womb counts towards your age. This would make an interesting sounding point in a debate about abortion, but maybe we’ll get into that some other time. Anyway…so when you’re born, you’re already a one-year old, or close to it. Then, instead of cranking up your age every time your birthday comes around (which seems like a logical way of doing things), Koreans all get together at the New Year and get one year older en masse. Birthdays are still big celebrations here, and I guess they don’t have to spend that night stressing about how they’re getting so old since they’re the same age as they were the day before. Hmm…maybe it’s not such a bad way of doing things.

So how old am I? In December 1979 when I was born, I was one Korean year old. Then in January 1980 I promptly turned two (at this point in real years I’m still 0). And so my age has progressed, getting one Real year older in December and one Korean year older at the New Year. I recently turned 25 in Real years, but in Korean age I’m still 26 until the New Year, when I’ll turn 27. Weird.

I guess there’s nothing wrong with asking Koreans how old they are, just make sure you’re using the same counting system. Or better yet, just ask them for their birth date.

What's in a Name?

So I named a child the other day. Actually two children, but the second one wasn’t nearly the shocking experience that the first naming was. I should explain. These are not my children. I mean - they’re mine in that I teach them English, but they’re not mine in any biological sense. Glad we got that cleared up.

All of the students at our school are given English names. I’m not sure of the real reason behind this, but I suspect it has something to do with exposing the kids to as much English as possible and yadda yadda yadda. Whatever the reason, it works out great for me because I don’t have to sort out which kid is Lee Joon-sook and which one is Lee Jin-seuk. I can try to differentiate them in terms that I’m more familiar with. Some of the kids come to school with an English name that someone has already given them or they chose for themselves. The rest of them – the poor nameless souls – are given names by their first teacher. These titles are by no means carved in stone, but there’s a good chance the kid will have this name for much of their youth, if not the rest of their life.

So I have once class of brand new students, ranging in age from probably 5 to 8 American age (7 to 9 Korean age, but that’s another posting). Two of these girls came to school with no English name so it was left to me to name them. I’m not sure how it compares to naming your own child, but this was a very weird feeling. I mean - there’s a lot of personality associated with a name, so in some sense I’m giving these girls a personality as much as I’m giving them a name. That’s a lot of pressure.

Luckily I was told that I was going to have to name these kids, so I had some time to prepare. I looked around the school at some of the other classes and the names that those kids have. I was surprised to find how many classes resembled lists of characters from American TV shows. There’s a class with the casts of Friends, and one with the casts Dawson’s Creek and 90210, complete with a Pacey and a Dawson. Oh, it gets worse. There’s a Cosby Show class, with a Theo, Rudy, and a Cliff. I’ve also heard rumors of a Simpsons class, but I haven’t met the unfortunate souls named Bart, Homer, and Marge. This practice may seem harsh, and I agree that sticking a kid with Bart for the rest of his English-speaking life is downright cruel, but how else would you go about naming a kid that you haven’t met before? I could pick names out of a hat, but that would be a name completely void of significance for anyone. I could give them the name of a good friend or family member, but that’s a weird association for me. What if the kid I thoughtfully named after my sister turned out to be a complete pain in the ass?

So naturally I decided to follow suit and name my kids after characters from my favorite show: Alias. First of all, it’s a show I really like so the names have significance for me, but more importantly, the names are mostly pretty innocuous like Will or Lauren, or (what I consider to be) pretty like Sydney. So the first little girl I named Sydney, and the second is now named Irina. Now the process for naming a child is far too simple given the long-term social implications of a name. In case you ever want to give a Korean child an English name, this is how it works. 1) Meet the child. 2) Tell the child, “Your name is _____.” 3) Write the child’s new name on the board with a dry-erase marker so they know how to spell it. And that’s that. I felt like I should have had some elaborate ceremony and knighted the child with a sword in front of the entire school, but it was just a dry-erase marker in front of three classmates.

Most of the Koreans I’ve met traveling or studying abroad have English names, and I can only wonder how many of these names were thrust upon them by a teacher who loved M.A.S.H or Laverne and Shirley. Years from now, if you meet a Korean girl named Sydney or Irina who speaks impeccable English with a slight southern accent, tell her I hope she likes her name.

From left are Irina and Sydney. The taller guy sitting uncomfortably in the ceter is me. The two on the right came to school with names already, so I kindof resent them for messing up my Alias themed classroom.

Putting Your Best Foot Forward

One thing I've learned very quickly is that in places where it is customary to remove ones shoes upon entering a house, school, or restaurant, it is important to wear respectable socks. This is something that I had been able to take for granted in the states, where one seldom removes his shoes. Even socks that I wouldn't have considered 'bad' before I now have to give a second look. Any discoloration or hole whatsoever is going to be a glaring faux pas and noticed immediately by others - ESPECIALLY elementary school kids who are, by virtue of their height, much closer to my feet than someone who is full-grown.

There's something quite nice about being able to walk around in socks or slippers, but I've exposed another part of my wardrobe for scrutiny and I'm not used to having to put my best foot forward, so to speak.

The Breakdown

The school where I’m working is called a hagwon, which is just a private school that specializes in a certain area. My school is an English language hagwon, but there are math hagwons and martial arts hagwons and everything in between. From an early age there is tremendous pressure placed on the kids here to do well and make good grades because there is tremendous pressure to get into a good college and get a good job. To get into a good college you need to be in a good high school, taking higher courses, and to get there you need to have taken higher courses in middle school, and so on and so on. Families will pay top dollar to give their kids any advantage, even at an early age. Our school offers an English language kindergarten program, where instead of going to normal Korean public kindergarten, the kids learn in English, so not only do they learn the basics of reading, writing, and math, but they do so mostly in English. Kindergarten lasts from 10am to 2pm every day, and then the older students come for their after-school programs. So from 2pm to 8pm there is a steady stream of elementary schoolers coming in for an hour-long English lesson.

I have 6 to 8 phonics classes that I teach to the kindergarteners during the week, and then I have three afternoon classes teaching kids of varying ability. Two of the classes are higher-level classes, which are a lot of fun. The students are old enough to have a good sense of humor and their English is good enough that we can communicate on some level. My third class is a beginner class, which is basically learning the alphabet and sounds now. This is going to be a difficult class to teach, but I think it will be very rewarding as the year progresses.

So that’s the breakdown, best as I can tell three weeks in. Once I get the hang of lesson planning and paperwork and I learn the materials I’m supposed to teach and how to teach them more effectively, this will start feeling a lot less like busy work and possibly be a lot of fun.

Pre-Game Jitters

It’s less than one week to go until I leave for Korea and the realization of what I’m about to get myself into is finally starting to set in. Actually, I have no idea what I’m getting myself into and that’s the problem. The reality checks remind me that I’m going to be living in a country where I don’t speak the language and don’t know anyone, and that I’m completely unqualified for the job I’ll be doing. Holy shit.

Sometimes (now being one of those times) I really wonder if I’ve made the right decision. I’ll be leaving a secure, well paying job and adding the stress of long-distance to an amazing relationship so I can take a year off and soul search. There’s a lot at stake here.

The most soothing words came from a friend of mine who had gone through a major career change not too long ago. She said that the biggest help in making the transition was her support group of friends and family, that no matter how unsure of herself and her plans she became there was always someone to prop her up and give her whatever encouragement she needed. Across the board, I have found the same to be true with my little adventure and my friends and family. The outpouring of support has been amazing. Everyone I’ve talked to about the coming year has been very encouraging. I feel like on some level everyone understands why I feel like I need to do this, even if it’s not a decision they would have made for themselves. More importantly I feel like I’d still have a big support group if this doesn’t work like I want; that the same people cheering for plan A would cheer just as loudly for plan B (um…what plan B?).

So the lesson learned at this early stage is that we’re never really left to face the world alone, that there will always be someone to catch us when we fall. This kind of support is truly empowering, and I’ve garnered a lot of strength in just knowing that there are people cheering from the sidelines that don’t really care whether I succeed or fail in what I’m setting out to do, but who are simply cheering the effort. I’m finding that the risks I take when I have a safety net like this become much less risky and even a little exciting, and that the rewards of taking these risks become that much more special since they don’t belong just to me, but to everyone who has helped me along the way.

So my sincerest thanks to all of you, without whom I wouldn’t be able to get in way over my head.

Disclaimer

I feel I should start by explaining myself, lest any eyebrows be raised at my blatant and shameless blogging. The intent is to find a way for me to more effectively share my adventures with anyone who cares to know about them. This frees up email for more personal correspondences (since I would probably end up copying and pasting the same stories to everyone anyway) and leaves me with more of a forum setting for this kind of writing.

In a move which can best be described as “getting in way over my head”, I’ll soon be leaving for Korea to take up a position teaching 5-10 year olds how to speak English with a slight southern accent. I hope that this year-long foray into the unknown will teach me a lot about Korean/Asian people and culture, but I suspect the new perspective will teach me even more about myself and my life as I now know it. These are the experiences I most want to share with those closest to me. I hope that my stories not only offer a clearer view into my mind and soul, but also help to cast others’ thoughts in a different light, perhaps offering new clarity to an old image that had been taken for granted. Really I just hope to have some kick-ass stories to tell.

The trick will be finding a varied pool of experiences and emotions from which to draw these postings. The few attempts I’ve made at changing thoughts into words have been the result of brief spells of confusion or depression. For some reason I only feel introspective when trying to come to terms with an unpleasant – that’s the wrong word. Let’s say “dark” – a dark emotion. Maybe it’s good that I don’t feel called to explore what makes me content, or even what makes me happy, and that I can enjoy those moments for what they are, but I think there’s as much to be learned from confronting what lifts us up as there is confronting what weighs us down. My goal is to be every bit as inspiring as I am depressing this year. The trick then becomes finding time to write.

I wanted to set up a web page for this little experiment (and I still might), but using xanga seemed a lot easier for now. Plus I still need to think of the perfect domain name for my website. Any suggestions? Since I’m going with the forum approach for these submissions, I want to encourage feedback. Maybe you’ve been touched by something I’ve written. Maybe you think I’m full of shit. Either way, I’d like to know.