Thanks For Joining The Program!

Last Thursday night I went out with my co-teacher and two other teachers in the English department of my high school.  We were going to have a "teacher meeting."  One of the teachers is short, rotund, and soft spoken.  Apparently, the students call him "Baby".  I'm guessing because he physically resembles one.  The other teacher is fairly tall and has a rather gruff voice.  I think the former is in his 60s and the latter is in his 40s, but you can never really tell in this country.  While we were on our way to the former I described also mentioned how he was out until 2:00 a.m. the last night and had to be at the school at 7:30 a.m. this morning.  This is how the Koreans party!  The drinking culture is very important here.  Not just for socializing, but it's truly seen as a way to make new friends.

At the restaurant my co-teacher ordered 삼겹살 (Romanized as Samgyeopsal).  It is pork belly slices that are cooked right in front of you.  Accompanying the pork are any number of side dishes including sprouts, garlic, chili paste, eggplant, bugs (I ate them, they were good!), pickled radish, kimchi (fermented cabbage covered in chili paste), among many others.  Once the pork is cooked, you're supposed to follow this order of preparation:

1. take a piece of pork and dip it in sesame oil
2. put that on a sesame leaf and/or a cabbage leaf
3. take a slice of garlic and dip it in some chili sauce and put it on the leaf as well
4. choose any number of other sides to add on top
5. roll it up and eat it in one bite

The first time I made one my eyes widened as a result of the all of the flavors that were playing and mixing in my mouth.  What a fantastic dish!

While eating, we went through 6 or 7 20 oz. bottles of soju.  Soju is Korea's national drink of choice and is a rice-based liquor that has a really smooth taste.  While we were drinking, I learned of all the etiquette involved with drinking with people that are senior to me, both in age and in position.  I'm not going to write it all here because the rules are quite tedious, but you can read it under the "Etiquette" section here.  While drinking, my co-teacher wouldn't stop talking about how excited they were to have me as well as some of the expectations they have for me.

After getting a little intoxicated, my co-teacher insisted on taking me home to get some sleep while the other two teachers apparently stayed out until 2:00 a.m. or so doing karaoke (called "norebang" in Korean).  Immediately upon entering my apartment, I received a text message from my co-teacher that read, "Thanks for joining the program tonight."  Thus, my first real dining/drinking experience in Korea came to close. 

I'm started this blog with that episode because it's representative of what life here has been like the last two weeks:  a constant barrage of information about the culture, people, tradition, and language.

All of our teachers for metropolitan cities arrived on the same day at the Incheon International Airport in Seoul a couple of weeks ago.  They organized buses leaving at intervals to take us to Daejeon, which is the city the orientation was in but also the city in which I teach.  Daejeon is just a few hours south of Seoul by bus.  From the windows of the bus, Seoul looked like an amazing city and I look forward to visiting.  Turns out it's an easy weekend trip as the KTX (bullet train) can get us there from Daejeon in 50 minutes.

The orientation was tedious but ultimately informative and helpful.  There were lectures on creating lesson plans, working with co-teachers, Korean culture, and Korean language.  We also went on a field trip to a Buddhist temple, a Pre-Modern history museum, and a showcase of traditional Korean music.

At the orientation, they had us grouped by the city in which we would teach.  There were over 50 people in my group.  Most were from the United States and Canada, but we also had some English and one South African.  Despite that somewhat homogenous nature of our group, there are certainly a variety of personalities in our group!  I won't bother mentioning them here by name as they will inevitably be described in future posts.

Last Tuesday was the big day!  We were scheduled to meet our co-teacher(s).  A co-teacher is the person who not only teaches classes with you, but also is supposed to mentor you and help you adapt to life in Korea.  Unlike most others in my program, my co-teacher is actually the head of the sophomore class at the high school.  I only teach one class with him which is a special kind of class dealing with English speaking activities.  However, he has been unbelievably kind and hospitable.  For example, he came to pick me up yesterday and treated me to lunch.  Then he took me to the Daejeon dam.  Then he took me to a historical village that featured some old thatch-roof houses (the style that they used hundreds of years ago).  Then he took me to the downtown areas.  Finally he took me back to my area and treated me to dinner.  I offered to pay for dinner just as soon as he declined and made a swift getaway from our table straight to the front to pay.

My co-teacher is very talkative and energetic.  He is married and has three boys, one of whom is my age.  He has been teaching at my school for 22 years and I think he is about 50 years old.  He constantly tells me how happy he and everyone else is to have me teaching at his school.  He is clearly very proud of the school because seemingly every other sentence he utters begins with the words, "At my high school..."

I asked my students to come up with a list of things that I should know or learn about Korea and some of their responses were funny, surprising, and of course, informative. 

Probably the most popular response was the "Dok Do" islands.  These islands are disputed territory between Japan and Korea.  They are completely unhabitable, but because of oil reserves beneath the ocean floor, estimated to be worth 7.5 billion dollars.  When I asked why the islands were important for me to know, every student responded, "Because they are OUR islands."

 

The Koreans really do not like the Japanese.  This hatred stems almost entirely from the Japanese occupation of Korea from 1910-1945.  During this time the Japanese basically tried to destroy Korean identity.  They did not allow the Koreans to speak anything but Japanese and the Koreans were forced to take Japanese names.  Also, many Korean women were used as "comfort women" for the Japanese...basically sex slaves.  A pretty horrific time by all accounts.  However, probably the only good thing that the Japanese did during this time was invest a lot into developing Korea's infrastructure...a fact that no Korean will likely acknowledge. 

 

One of my students went so far as to say "You should learn to hate Japan." 

 

Other hilarious or left of center responses were that I should date a Korean girl, I should eat dog soup, and I should know about double eyelids.

I conducted an informal survey in one class to see how many students had actually tried dog soup.  It was about half.  I asked them if it was good and I got several pained grimaces in return.

 

Surgery to get double eyelids is very popular for girls here.  Almost a rite of passage...even for teenage girls.  As some argue, they want the surgery because it makes them look more "white", which some might say is the product of the hegemonic "white standard" of beauty.  I guess another argument is that they want to look like other East and North Asians who have the double eyelid characteristic.  In any case, it is a common practice here.

 

Like my Chinese students from a few years back, my Korean students are mostly very shy in class and reluctant to speak.  This week I have been conducting an activity in which they have to speak with a partner (with extremely easy vocabulary and key expressions).  Walking around while this activity is happening, most pairs aren't speaking to each other.  If they are, it's in barely audible hushed tones.  Korea is very much based in a sort of Confucian Collectivism.  To be an individual is not seen as being distinct in a positive way, but to stand out like a sore thumb.  For that reason, I think students are very weary of speaking out in class.  They don't want to be singled out.  Needless to say, it is going to be challenging to get them to speak.  I think one way I might be able to do that is by intimidation...if they won't talk to their partner...maybe they would like to say something in front of the entire class?  *cue sinister laugh* mwahahahaha

Coming back to the idea of Collectivism.  It seems to dictate all aspects of life here.  People dress the same, people buy cars that look the same, people listen to the same type of music, etc. 

Last Friday night, the teachers in our program that have already been here for a while through a party for us at a foreigners' bar called Cantina.  Almost everyone from my orientation came as well as an equal if not more number of foreigners already here.  I had a good time seeing everyone from my orientation, but also meeting some of the veteran teachers.  Strangely enough, one of the veteran teachers went to a college with a childhood friend of mine.  Furthermore, I found out that there was a foreigner here last year who had gone to KU.  I actually worked with him at the same call center I worked at before going to Chile.  I remember seeing him around that awful, soul-leeching place.  I firmly think our spiritual, mental, and emotional health is all that much better for leaving that hell on Earth.  Anyway, it's a small world and stuff!

Last night, my co-teacher invited me out for another "teachers' meeting".  This time, it was with the other teachers that I share an office with.  With the exception of my co-teacher, these weren't English teachers.  They are just different sophomore teachers.  Of course, while we were eating (much the same meal as I described at the beginning of this post), we were also downing beer and soju.  I was asked to pour/drink shots with each teacher present (there were eight) in order of descending age.  My co-teacher made it a game as I was to guess everyone's age.  I needed a lot of help in doing that because no one in Korea looks like their age.  99% of them look quite a bit younger than their actual age.  Eventually I got through all of them and afterwards they made sure I was well fed to avoid any extreme inebriation.  I also gave a speech (translated, of course) thanking them for all of their hospitality and promising to do my best at their school.  After dinner, we went to a pub style restaurant where we drank beer and ate snacks.  We called it an early night around 9:30 or so.

OK, I'm seriously done writing.  Seriously.