H1N1

Swine Flu. We joke a lot about how Koreans are overreacting to it here (or not reacting in logical ways, such as the masks that are worn too much, or frequently removed to talk or eat then put right back), but it’s getting to be a problem at my school.

Last week, as I was leaving the building with co-teacher H, she told me that people were coming to disinfect the school. Assuming it was about the flu, I asked if Koreans in Masan were more worried or less worried about it. Turns out they’re more worried. She also told me that a girl in 6-2 (my favourite 6th grade class, who sang Happy Birthday to me in September) had the flu.

I teach elsewhere on Mondays, so when I got there on Tuesday the conversation turned to the flu and I was told that 5 students were out with it now. The others are younger, in grades 1 and 3 (I mean that in elementary school terms, not middle school, so it’s a little more serious since they are small children).

I asked what would happen if there were more cases, and co-teacher E told me they would shut down the school. I admit, part of me would like a little vacation, but I’m more worried about more people coming down with the flu, teachers (and myself) included. Kids are all over each other here, fighting/cuddling during break time or even while I’m teaching, so if one of them has something, they will all have it. It’s only a matter of time.

I sneezed in class today (while teaching 6-2), and the students all gasped. I’m sure they are all waiting, hopeful, for the school to close.

An Interview

I was interviewed about Korea by my friend Lindsay, the talented and inquisitive author of the newly-minted blog Here for the View . You can listen to it here (the first one). We broke away from a party at the lake in Palyongsan, a mountain between Masan and her city (Changwon), and had the interview on a little platform on the water, where we could still hear the drunken revelry going on in the distance.

Be sure to check out her other interviews (and blog posts) when they become available.

Another Year

I had a Korea milestone recently; I’ve been here for 9 months. I have less than 100 days left. So, now is the time that I can start more seriously asking myself, “Do I have another year in me?”

I go through cycles with this. Sometimes I think that I absolutely could not. Sometimes I think, maybe. It’s not that hard living here, and I’ve noticed it’s all about friends. If I have friends that I can spend time with, I can handle it. But then, if I’m relying on English-speaking friends to help me along, am I really appreciating Korea? I could be doing that in Canada. Though it’s not just people from my hometown that I’m hanging around with; I see Canadians from other parts of the country, Americans, Kiwis, Brits, South Africans, a whole range. We talk about our own experiences, our own hometowns, and that is not the sort of thing I would exactly get at home.

Part of me feels like I’m done with Korea. I do like Korea well enough, I recently posted about that, it’s not a bad country. I think it’s a good idea for people to come here and try a year. Some people stay even longer than that, and I have met expats who have been here for 2, 3, 5 years, a couple longer.

Another part of me, the part that likes certain things about this place, and realizes that it’s good money for the job I do, wants to try for another year. What am I going to do at home? I don’t have any plans.

For now, though, I don’t think I have another year. I need to take these last 3 months and get as much out of Korea as I can with them.

Knitting at Work

My first semester here, before summer break, I was hesitant to do certain things during my acres of free time at work. I rarely knit, I didn’t listen to my ipod, and mostly I’d go between writing, studying Korean, reading, and surfing the internet. This semester, however, I decided to add two things; knitting + podcasts or music. Now I’m almost always listening to something, which doesn’t bother anyone fortunately. If it does, they’ve yet to tell me.

At my rural school, I have a lot of free time, especially since there’s a good chance that on any given day one or two classes will be canceled (and the co-teacher I travel with likes to get there an additional 20 minutes early). I don’t have as much space in the teacher’s room there (technically, I have no space. There’s a little cabinet that I can put stuff in, and I can sit wherever there happens to be room), so I go to the library to knit and listen to podcasts.

At first, I’d go in there, sit on one of the comfortable chairs and be more or less undisturbed. This is a tiny school, 72 students, so it’s not too hard to find an empty room. Eventually though, the kids noticed I was there and would approach me to attempt to ask about it. I’d explain, and they’d watch in fascination as I knit and purled. I’d show them the picture of what it would eventually be, and point to which piece I was working on (I’m mostly working on a cardigan now from Japanese Inspired Knits).

Sometimes the librarian would approach me and ask if I wanted copi (coffee). I usually said no to this as there was nowhere to put it, but one day she asked me if I wanted tea with it already in hand, so I accepted it. Lately, an older woman hangs around in there too. I’m not sure what her connection to the school is, but she is really, really interested in my knitting. Knitting, in itself, is not exactly a spectator sport, but she’ll sit beside me, touch the fabric I’m making, touch the yarn, look at the pattern, etc. I try to talk to her, but my Korean is dismal, and she doesn’t seem to know much English. I asked her if she knits, thinking she was pleased to see a foreigner knitting, too, but she shook her head.

At my main school, I get the occasional comment, but they’re used to me now. There’s another teacher who quilts at work, but she’s usually in the other building, so we don’t sit and craft together. It’s great that I can do this at work, it really helps pass the time and keeps me reasonably level-headed. So far this year at work I worked on a pair of mittens, finished a purse (that I don’t use, but it counts), and did most of a fine-gauge cardigan.

A Concert

I went to a concert in Korea for the first time this past Wednesday. While there was an orchestra playing (with one of my students in it), the show’s main draw was a woman from Seoul with only 4 fingers (2 on each hand) playing the piano, who I was told was amazing. Since there were free tickets and one of my co-teachers (H) wanted to go as well, we decided to attend, along with co-teacher’s sister.

Because everyone is still scared of H1N1 here, as we walked in to the Masan Arts Center we were scanned to have our temperatures taken, and I could see our heat signatures on a screen in blue, purple, yellow, orange and red. I was fine, but H had to have her temperature taken manually, then wait, then have it taken again. Of course she wasn’t sick, just warm. While waiting, I noticed some children around who had Down’s Syndrome and other conditions, and was told that this was a concert for disabled children.

The concert was very… English. I could have been sitting in a concert hall in Halifax, except there were more Asian people than usual. It was good, it started with an orchestra that featured a lot of string instruments, and they did 4 pieces, all by European composers. After the intermission, I noticed a short figure in red and yellow walk out. I had thought the star was a young girl from the picture, but she was a woman who had stumps for legs (but could walk). She made her way over the the piano, waving confidently as she walked, then took off her shoes and arranged herself on the bench to address the crowd. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but her piano playing was amazing. I was close enough that I could see her fingers hitting the keys, so while I knew that she was, in fact, only playing with 4 fingers, it looked like she had invisible ones that she was using as well, and that she might have more invisible ones than I had total. Her fingers were very long, and looked double-jointed.

She played European pieces, one of them a variation on Canon that I liked, and played with the orchestra. I had a program, and knew that Amazing Grace and Paul Anka’s My Way were on it, but I didn’t expect her to get up and sing. She sang the first one while someone accompanied her on the piano, and her voice was very powerful, though her forte is definitely the piano. A man, her manager, joined her for My Way, and she was singing something different instead of My Way that I couldn’t pick up (neither could H). It sounded like she was singing “Masah way”. Almost Masan, but not quite.

The Paul Anka piece felt surreal. They encouraged the crowd to rock back and forth waving their hands for it, and a lot of people were reluctant to do so, or switched to clapping instead. It was a good concert in all, about an hour and a half.

I was left a little disappointed that there was no Korean content whatsoever, except for the fact that the performers were Korean, and when the pianist spoke, she spoke in Korean. I know that I’m in a different country here, and there are times when I’m struck by that, but more often than not I’m struck by how much English is here. It’s in the signs, it’s in their music, it’s everywhere. It doesn’t even always make sense, like the tshirts that used to amuse me and now sometimes make me cringe. I’ve only seen actual Korean writing on clothing on things like uniforms, like my hapkido clothes. It’s hard to find actual Korean content, in Korea.

A Korea Rant

But not a bad one. After listening to the latest Seoul podcast where they talked about how no one ever rants about a good experience (not great, just good), I thought I’d give it a go.

It’ll be more of a list, actually:

- I like my school. The kids are good (I have never seen a single Dongchim. As far as I know, it’s something that happens only at other schools, and in the anime Naruto), the teachers are friendly and greet me when they see me, and aside from one rather strange act of being a jerk, my principal is great. Now that doesn’t mean my kids are perfect angels, they are still children, but they are good for kids. I’ve never been attacked, physically or verbally, unless you count the time a little girl said my shoes were ugly. They were crocs, so really, she was in the right there.

- I have acres of free time, which means I can sit at my desk (or on one of the sofas) and knit while listening to a podcast, or read, or use the computer/internet for at least 2-3 hours in the day, outside of whatever lesson planning I need to do. I really recommend taking up a craft to any public school teacher. Another teacher at my school quilts, she gets so much done in between classes.

- While I do contribute some money to the coffee/tea/crackers fund to keep our teacher’s room comfortable, there is also often free fruit and snacks at any time of the day, frequently the first break of the morning. Usually it’s gifts from the parents. We’re a big enough school that we rarely run out of gift fruit.

- I make a lot of money for what I do, I don’t have to pay rent on my apartment, and can use convenient public transportation. I have a little buspass keychain on my phone that I can swipe when I get on the bus, and it can be refilled with money in several convenience stores. I don’t live paycheque to paycheque, I have no debt, and I can occasionally treat myself to something expensive.

- I like my apartment. True, it’s one room plus a bathroom, but it’s clean, it has a great view, I have loads of storage, and it’s (mostly) all I need.

- Seasoned laver (seaweed) is the best food ever. It’s perfect with rice.

- I’m rather short at 5′0″, but here I feel roughly average height. Not a huge deal, but it’s nice to have some people around who I don’t have to crane my neck to talk with. Also, I can easily find socks to fit me, though shoes have mysteriously been more of a challenge.

- On a few occasions while lost, I was able to get help either from a Korean who approached me, or after I asked someone for help. A few of these people have gone out of their way to actually walk me to where I wanted to be.

- My two favourite cities, Masan and Changwon, each have huge lakes. In Masan, there’s the Bongnam reservoir in the Palyong mountains, which features a stunning view and a two-story pagoda with benches and tables. In Changwon, Yonghi lake is inside of the city, and has a large patch of grass (with public washrooms nearby) as well as benches everywhere along the lake.

- I need to mention the mountains again. I can see them from almost anywhere in Masan, particularly the view from my apartment, and they are stunning. Since I’m in a harbour city, I can also see the ocean from some places.

- Dried soybeans almost anywhere. Tofu almost anywhere. Korean pears are delicious.

- The palaces and temples are beautiful, and the drive to my rural school is scenic.

- I have met, hands down, the most fascinating people ever here. Mostly expats, I admit, because interesting things happen when people leave their home country for a year to teach. I have also met some thoughtful, wonderful Koreans.

- Korea has the fastest internet connection in the world, and I can also visit PC rooms if I can’t use it at home for some reason. And while I should be enjoying another country and it’s own shops, I appreciate the Starbucks that are here (in my defense, there are no Starbucks’ in my province, so it’s a new thing for me. We do Tim Hortons where I’m from, and I hate their coffee. Sorry, Canada.).

- I feel very safe here. I know there is still crime, but I don’t feel like I have to guard myself and my possessions at all times.

- I like using chopsticks. I like seeing how other people use them; I learned how to use them in a strange way that I don’t see other people use. I can’t describe it well, but my index finger is between the two sticks.

What are YOUR favourite things about Korea?

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme

In the past 7 months that I’ve been here, I missed having fresh herbs around. I missed plants in general, though I wasn’t sure if they would survive in my apartment. At first it was very cold and I had the heat on when I was in the apartment. So it would go from being quite cold, to warm, to quite cold in a cycle that I thought might kill a plant. Now I’m at the opposite end, where if I’m not around for a while it gets sweltering in here, then cool when I have the A/C on, then warm, etc.

I went for it just recently. You can get herb kits at 1000 won shops that contain a plastic pot, soil and seeds. I bought a bowl, too, to catch water from the bottom. The directions are in Korean, so I took the box to Sabunim to translate for me (this isn’t an exact translation):

- Put 80% of the soil in the pot.
- Add the seeds carefully, don’t put them all in one spot.
- Put in the remaining 20% of the soil evenly.
- Add enough water so that it comes out through the bottom (into the bowl you’ve already put there, hopefully).
- Water every 2-3 days as needed.
- Should be growing well in 7-10 days.

I could see tiny sprouts after 3 days.

I could have gotten a cheaper bowl than the 2000won one I bought, but honestly, it’s only about $1.80 Canadian.

I went back today to get some more, but my only choices were chives, dill, and the thyme again. Since I have dried dill on hand and I’ve never been that keen on it, I went for the chives:

You can get herb dill (not sure why they need to add herb there), lovage, lemon balm, lavender, chives and thyme. I’d like to get some lemon balm and lavender if I can find it, and I’m still looking around for basil somewhere. There are a lot of places to get plants around here, I just need to look further than the 1000 won shops.

Hapkido Portrait

I’ve been waiting a while for the hapkido pictures that were taken in February. Above is just the expats, and not the whole class.

I had a white belt that day, but wore a green belt for the pictures. The funny thing is, I’ve never been a green belt, by the time I got back to class again the system was tweaked, and now I’m a blue belt which is one step beyond that.

The Korea Experience

It’s different for everyone, obviously. It can be different for the same person depending on many factors such as their city and school, as can be proven if you ever talk with an expat who mentions their awful first school, and how much they liked their second school. Or third. There also seems to be the Seoul experience vs the everywhere else experience. The city versus rural experience, the island (Jindo or Jeju, for example) versus mainland experience. For a country the size of Canada’s thumb, where all the cities seem to look alike after a while, there are so many different people and schools that it can feel like a different world from the north side to the south (by north, I just mean the northern provinces, not North Korea).

I’ve wondered, though, if this experience is very different depending on if you’re a man or a woman. I’ve read blogs by men where they talk about awful experiences in Korea, things I haven’t really gone through yet, and wonder if that’s something that is a possibility for me. Or do women have a different kind of nightmare here? There is the possibility of rape and being taken advantage of, or overlooked. For men, they run the risk of being harassed for dating Korean women and having drunken men starting fights with them.

For myself, my own Korea experience has taught me a lot so far. I’ve learned about myself, about other people and about life in a way that felt both safe and completely unsafe in some cases. I’ve experienced fear, loneliness, melancholy, joy, bliss, serenity. Stress, anxiety, relief, hope. I’ve made friends from all over the world, and even if those friendships don’t stand the test of time, they are important to me now and are helping me to see NOW.

It’s been 7 months. I still remember being in this apartment, most of my stuff still in my luggage, unable to use my laptop and wanting to be teleported back home. The idea of the plane trip frightened me, because it’s really a very long way from my little home island to here. I may actually be on the other side of the world.

I think, though, for anyone who is here having trouble finding friends, they should know that everyone is having trouble. It’s hard. It takes a long time of looking, and sometimes it might not even seem worth it in the end. If you spent months looking and then have only a few left, what was all that for?

The Korea Experience is not any one thing. It can be negative or positive, it can be a range of things in the space of a week. It is what you make of it.

Seoul and Suwon

I went to Seoul again on July 17th. The plan, this time, was to use the attractive-sounding fast train. I was to meet L and B in Busan, take the fast train to Seoul, and get there much more quickly than a bus would take me. We’d check into a hotel and the next day me and L would meet up with the Seoul knitters again.

But then, of course, the trouble was getting from my apartment to Busan. Haeoondong to Hapseungdong took about 40 minutes. The bus to Busan, which I thought would be another 40 minutes (and is actually supposed to be an hour and 15 minutes) took over 2 hours. We missed the fast train, KTX, that we wanted to take, but we got another one that got us to Seoul at 22 past midnight. It was, admittedly, a nice ride. There’s a bathroom, someone comes around with a cart of food, there’s a vending machine with water and other beverages, it’s nice. There’s even a tv that often plays a strange commercial about a kid who dreams the KTX experience is a trip through wonderland on a rollercoaster.

The Rainbow Hotel was… alright. More expensive than the last time my friends were there, and the room wasn’t that great. There was a bathtub (I miss bathtubs), but it didn’t look comfortable to sit in and there wasn’t a way to plug the drain. The bed was hard, the AC was very noisy, I didn’t sleep very well.

The next day we headed off to the Baskin Robbins meeting point and had breakfast at Dunkin’ Donuts. Seoul is such a different world for me, it’s like I’m back in a huge city in Canada, or maybe the US, and someone’s added Koreans (and everyone else, actually). We made our way to Dongdaemun, which has the most yarn I’ve ever seen in one place. After a long time of looking around, we walked up to the fabric and buttons, then left for lunch at Mr. Pizza.

For some reason, I talked with 3 different people about Lasik eye surgery during this trip. The first two were L and then, I think, S, but the third was Y, who wasn’t even with us for the first two conversations. L had hers done in Myeongdong in Seoul.

We also went to Banul, where I bought more yarn, and MyKnits, which has a lot of brands that are more familiar in Canada/US (but more expensive).

MyKnits is in Insadong, so not long after coming out, we encountered this scene:

Communists, prostitution protests, war re-enactors? No idea. It eventually started raining again, so I waited for Y to meet me after my friends went their own ways. There was a tv outside of a convenience store that kept playing that strange “I’m Your Energy” commercial with the tiny, naked boys holding basins to hide their peppers.

We took the subway to Suwon, and I stayed with Y’s family for that night, sleeping in her sister’s bed. Her sister was not warned about me visiting, so when she walked into the apartment she turned to look in my direction, saw some white person sitting on the couch, and jumped. Although in her situation I wouldn’t have jumped (I don’t think), I’m sure she did so because she thought she maybe had entered the wrong apartment, or I had broken in, or she stepped into an alternate universe. She recovered just enough to run to her room, where Y soon followed her to explain what was going on. We had a great meal that Y’s mom cooked, and then settled down for the night.

It was nice to wake up in a family home. I actually slept very well, and woke up to the small sounds of Y’s parents in the kitchen, getting things ready for breakfast, waking up in general. Y’s father took us to the Korean Folk Village, which was a lot of fun.

The performers were incredible. They would also swing around the ribbons on their head, which looked very hard to do.

The man below is an actual living man and not a mannequin. He was covered in flies while he was working, and I wondered what sort of person would want to work at a job where you sit in a hut, covered in flies, and make straw shoes.

Below, there’s a red flower that will dye your fingernails when mashed up and applied. You need to keep the mush, wrapped in a leaf, on your nails for an hour or so.

Weaving silk.

There was a stream running through the entire market area, possibly because of the heavy rains.

Leek pancake, kong guksu, kimchi, bean sprouts and spinach.

We also had the chance to see a real wedding, not just a reenactment, in the traditional style. There were some Chinese people sitting nearby who kept laughing for no reason, I guess their own conversation. I hope that couple couldn’t hear them, but I think they probably could.

Before heading to the bus to take me home, we stopped off at Y’s uncle’s house, and I got to see a Korean house for the first time. It was huge, and we had caught them by surprise; they were moving things around. They talked in Korean, and occasionally Y translated something for me to which I responded, and she translated. There was a huge, HD screen on the wall playing some sort of Korean drama that kept distracting me. Of course they also offered us food, and we had some apple juice with ice, and I declined having some corn since I was still full from lunch. It’s interesting that corn is so common here, too, I had always thought of it as a North American crop. I ended up leaving with a bag of 3 ears of cooked corn, and caught the bus back to Masan.