Category: Life in Korea

Caveat: Not A Single Charming Feature

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / My Photos / Teaching & Methodology

That’s a bit of an exaggeration. I realized that since the whole apartment fiasco that my school put me through during my first two months, I never took the time to post any pictures of my new apartment. On the inside, it’s quite similar to my apartment in Ilsan, although it’s a bit smaller. At least it’s fairly new and in good condition, and the existence of a working airconditioner is definitely a redeeming feature. But it’s not charming, per se.

On the outside, it looks like a low-end Korean love motel, with the added bonus of being situated in the back parking lot of a gas station, and a 20 minute walk down a vaguely rural highway from the bus station. Here’s an outside view. My apartment is on the sixth floor (actually fifth, since “fourth” is skipped due to bad luck – much the way 13th floors are skipped in American buildings, sometimes), behind the false gable, second window from the left end.

picture

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: “Seu-naeng-naep” Part I – Konglish Challenge Quiz

Language & Linguistics / Life in Korea / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

When the Korean Language borrows words from English, those words undergo very regular and scientifically predictable sound changes (by the "science" of linguistics, specifically the sub-field of phonology).   It is inappropriate (and intellectually lazy) when foreigners (i.e. foreigners in Korea, meaning non-native-Korean speakers) refuse to understand this and make fun of it, or attribute "konglish" pronunciation to laziness or ineptitude on the part of Koreans attempting to use English vocabulary.

But it nevertheless can be challenging to figure out what is meant, or even to realize that one is hearing an English word at all.  I like the example above, "seu-naeng-naep."  I won't write it in Hangeul, because that might give it away to the more savvy and/or to the vaguely bilingual among my readers.  I was only able to figure it out because of the context in which I heard it, combined with above-referenced access to Korean phonological rules.

The Konglish Challenge Quiz question is:  what English word for a product advertised on TV, is being named by the term "seu-naeng-naep" (revised romanization; IPA [sɯnɛŋnɛp])? 

In "Part II" I'll give the answer.

Caveat: If it weren’t for that ad…

Found Online / Life in Korea / Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc)

I had an American friend, Peter, who worked in Ilsan.  He's back in the US, now, but one time when I was hanging out with him and the TV was on, and this commercial came on.  One of those ubiquitous, twitchy, obnoxious TV commercials.  Peter and I had been talking, rather seriously, about the positives and negatives of "life in Korea," and when that ad came on, Peter said, in a wry tone, "If it weren't for that ad, I would love this country."

That ad still comes on the TV all the time, half a year later.  And it came on, and I remembered Peter's joke, and laughed.  And just to give everyone a taste of something small and irrelevant but absolutely, undeniably a part of "life in Korea," here is that ad.  Enjoy!  Or throw things at me!  Whichever.

I think 원캐싱 (won-kae-sing i.e. "won cashing") is a check-cashing or salary-advance type service.  As if you could tell from the ad – although note the exhorbitant interest rate that flashes up in the fine print at one point.

Caveat: 음주산행 절대금지

Banalities & Journaling / Hiking & Travel / Language & Linguistics / Life in Korea / My Photos / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

I hiked up to the top of 월출산 (wol-chul-san = Moon Rise Mountain) with my friend Mr Kim. It took 7 hours – about 3 hours longer than we had anticipated – we went very slowly, like ants (우리는 개미처럼 천천히 가고 있었습니다) . We spent a lot of time pausing and trying to communicate with one another, me teaching English, him teaching Korean.

I became frustrated with “faucalized consonants” (or sometimes called “tense” consonants, and mistakenly understood by many as geminates because they are written as “doubles” of the regular series:  ㅅ[s] / ㅆ [s͈]… ㄱ[k] / ㄲ[k͈] … ㅂ[p] / ㅃ[p͈] … ㅈ[t͡ɕ] /ㅉ[t͡ɕ͈] … ㄷ[t] /ㄸ[t͈]). Not even the linguists seem really to understand these sounds. To my English-trained ear, I am simply incapable of hearing how they’re different, but there are many minimal pairs where understanding the distinction is important. I can’t produce the sound consistently either, although I can sometimes make myself understood by pronouncing a geminate or by using the “ejective” series that I worked so hard to master during my phonology classes as a linguistics major: p’, t’, k’, q’, s’ (these ejectives are common in many African Bantu-family languages, like Xhosa, I think).

Memorably, I was trying to say the word “dream”: 꿈 [k͈um] (standard romanization <kkum>), but Mr Kim was simply incapable of figuring out what I was talking about, because he was only hearing me say 굼[kum], which, standing alone, is a nonsense syllable. I was almost in tears when I realized I simply couldn’t express the sound correctly. Will I ever be able to do it? I wish I could meet a Korean-speaker who was also a trained linguist (or, a trained linguist who was also a Korean-speaker would do, too), who could teach me what to do with my vocal tract to make these sounds reliably. Most Koreans, when faced with the idea that the difference is hard to hear for non-native-speakers, will simply pronounce the faucalized versions louder, because that is part of how they’re perceived psychologically, I think.

Anyway… here are some pictures.

Approaching the mountain in the car from Yeongam Town.

picture

A small temple under construction.  I like the detailed woodwork on the eaves.

picture

A small purple flower.

picture

I’m not sure what “shemanism” is (sounds vaguely West Hollywood), but it’s definitely not allowed.

picture

The Cloud Bridge (구름다리)

picture

A dragonfly.

picture

“Hiking while drunk prohibitted.”

picture

Looking east.

picture

At the summit.

picture

A man surfing the internet on his cellphone at the summit (because we’re in South Korea, of course).

picture

On the way back down:  Six Brothers Rocks.

picture

Me, trying to look very tired (because I was very tired).

picture

A waterfall.

picture

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: The commute to work, part III: High Street

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Hiking & Travel / Life in Korea / My Videos

I don’t really know the name of the street.  It’s one of basically two streets that make up Hongnong town.  There’s a “High Street” and a “Low Street” – I mean these literally, because one street is farther up the hill than the other, and they run parallel to each other, with little alleyways between, for about 10 blocks in length.  The bus terminal is on the southwest end of “High Street” and the elementary school where I work is on about two-thirds along the same street, toward the northeast end.  Beyond the elementary school is the middle school and the fire station.

Here’s the little video I made – all shakey and walky but whatever… it sorta captures the town.  Although that morning I didn’t run into any of my students, like I normally do.  The music is “Fractured” by Zeromancer.  Awesome track.

(Sorry the resolution is so poor – I’ve been having nightmares with uploading large files from home, so I cut the video output filesize way back, to make it tolerable on upload – it still took 25 minutes to put it on youtube.)

Caveat: Building a country from scratch; and later, the green tea plantations of Boseong

Banalities & Journaling / Hiking & Travel / Life in Korea / My Photos

Yesterday I took a day trip. It followed the pattern of many day trips I’ve taken with Koreans – a little bit random, with an initial plan but a lot of ad hoc changes, too. A bit like many things. Unlike in work situations, however, this kind of thing doesn’t bother me in the least. It’s a good way to do things.

I have a coworker, Haewon, who is Gyopo. “Gyopo” is what Koreans call fellow Koreans who are born or have lived abroad and pertain at least as much to that foreign culture as to Korean culture. Haewon grew up in Houston, Texas, and she is not a full-time teacher – she’s kind of bottom-of-the-totem pole, because she’s young – university age – and I don’t think she holds a Korean teaching certification. She’s kind of just a teaching assistant or part-timer. Anyway, being the only truly bilingual person in the school (and possibly the only truly bilingual person in the entire town of Hongnong), she often gets stuck with “translator duty,” which I think must be very hard on her.

At first, I didn’t feel that comfortable around her – she seemed too serious, and kind of gloomy. But I’ve come to think highly of her. She’s quite intelligent, although she hides it for the most part, and she’s got a sort of understated, wry sense of humor that shows up at odd moments. Friday, she told me she had been invited by one of her adult students (she teaches a night class at the nuclear power plant) to go drive down and look at Boseong, which is where the famous green tea plantations are, at the other end of Jeollanam Province. She conveyed her student’s invitation that I could come along too.

The adult student was Mr Kim, who is a nuclear engineer who works at the power plant as a senior reactor operator. Interesting stuff. He’s my age. He’s trying desperately to improve his English (because his next promotion depends on a certain minimum level of proficiency – it’s tied to recent contract the Korean Nuclear Power company has finagled to build reactors for the United Arab Emirates), hence the fact of his taking the night class, with Haewon, and also his invitation through her to any “foreigners” she might know to spend a Saturday hanging out and touring around. He’s a nice guy, and generous.

We didn’t follow the plan of going straight to Boseong. We ended up going the opposite direction, at first, because he wanted to go see this giant causeway (it’s a bit like the giant polders the Dutch have built to increase the size of their country, in engineering terms). First, though, we stopped at a ancient Buddhist temple called Seonsun, which is one of the oldest in Korea, having been established in 577.

The causeway, which stretches south of Kunsan in a great arc jutting into the Yellow Sea, is called Saemangeum, and basically, as I hinted, the Koreans appear to be taking a cue from the Dutch and are attempting to build more, brand new South Korea, from scratch. One dumps dirt and rocks and cement into the ocean, fills things in and drains water, adds roads, trees, buildings, harbors, and viola, more Korea!

The project is still in early stages, but the plan is humongous, vast – and although it’s not terribly photogenic, especially in the sticky summer fog, I tried to take some pictures. Then we drove to Boseong, after stopping at a fish market in Kunsan and eating some dried, smoked octopus tentacle, and then nearly drowning in a rainstorm while tailing a dumptruck.

Here are some pictures. I really liked the dumptruck bas-relief attached to the monument at Saemangeum – it would maybe make a good logo for my blog.

Here is a flower I saw at the side of the road, while walking to meet Haewon and Mr Kim at 7 in the morning.

picture

Peering into one of the temple buildings, at Seonsunsa.

picture

Me and the dumptruck.

picture

Me and Mr Kim.

picture

The giant, super-humongous tidal flood gates, near the midpoint of the 50 km. long dike that we drove along.

picture

A stream in the woods near the tea fields.

picture

Peering at tea from under cedars, misty day.

picture

Tea fields.

picture

More tea.

picture

Me, candidly, eating naengmyeon.

picture

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: The Pentecostal Buddhist Confucian Fascist Republic

Life in Korea / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs

pictureSouth Korea is unique, and complicated.

Pentecostal: 30% evangelical Christian, with a strong pentecostal character to the evangelical churches.

Buddhist: 30~40% Buddhist, with at least 1000 years’ tradition of resistance to authority.

Confucian: that was the state “religion” for over 500 years, to the suppression/repression of all others.

Fascist: which of the Asian “tiger” economies isn’t at core, a remarkable – and somewhat depressing – realization of the fascist fantasy: state capitalism with majority-consensus-driven (and minority-oppressing) politics?

Republic: yes, the democracy seems to sort of work, here, although I’m personally convinced it’s a lot more fragile than many analysts seem to believe.

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: A Call to Give Up

Banalities & Journaling / Language & Linguistics / Life in Korea / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

Last night I stopped in the stationery store to buy some more colored paper for my sixth grade town project, and had an actual conversation with the woman in the store, in Korean.   I was buying some stickers and toys too (thinking of using them as prizes at some point).

It was pretty cool:  Where do you work?  At Hongnong elementary.  The kids like these things.  Yes, they do.  Your Korean is pretty good.  No, I only know a little.  How long have you been here?  I lived in Seoul for 2 years and started living here recently.  Etc.

At the end, the woman complimented my Korean again, but I felt ashamed.  "계속 연습 하고 해요," I said (continuing practice [I should] do).  But it felt like a lie.

Why?  Because I have kind of dropped the ball on actively studying Korean.  My first few months here in Yeonggwang, I'd kept really well to my routine of working on Korean at least an hour a day.  But since the start of summer vacation, I haven't studied at all.  My vocabulary list on my cell phone has reached maximum size of 200 words, so I'm not even saving the words I look up anymore.  I'm not reviewing vocabulary.  I'm not carrying around my "grammar bible" lately.

I thought about this.  I think I was much more deeply wounded than I've been willing to admit, by the alcohol-imbued insults and mockery of my Korean-speaking efforts, that were directed at me during our "staff field trip" three weeks ago.   I took it all very personally.  And I took it as a call to give up on learning Korean.  Certainly, it really wrecked my motivation.

Keep this in mind, the next time you want to laugh at someone's English that isn't so perfect.  There are many English-speakers in Korea who have such an atrocious level of attainment that you want to laugh.  They can sound like buffoons.  But don't laugh.  Be positive.  I've been guilty of it, too – I know.

Learning a language is hard.  This is one of the reasons why I think it should be required for foreigners teaching English here to study Korean.  I think it would increase sensitivity to the emotional/motivational issues involved in language acquisition – they're not trivial.

Caveat: Dropping ants from toy helicopters to see if they can survive

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc) / Teaching & Methodology

I saw a Korean popular science game show type progrom where they were dropping ants from toy helicopters and then looking for the ants to see if they survived the fall.  The ants survived, of course.  I think ants are of such low mass relative to surface area that falling through air is like falling through water for something larger… the air resistance means their terminal velocity is quite low or something like that.  They ride the air down like a feather, floating and wafting about.

Today I had a lunch of delicious kong-guk-su (handmade noodles in an iced soy soup, with cucumber) – I went out with Cheor-ho.  

I thought my first grade class went well today -  I'm not sure why I think that, since the kids were running around like crazy monkeys.  Maybe I just felt more peaceful about that fact?  For a while I had them sitting in a circle on the floor with me, while we read a story.  I would stop and ask them simple questions, based on the model of the story:  "Do you want some milk?"  "Yes."  Miming, going around in the circle.  Before that, the kids had gotten hyper throwing paper airplanes we made, too.

I'm trying to get my sixth graders to start buying and selling land from each other in the town we've built.  But they're too respectful of each other's prerogatives… or too shy to aggressively buy and sell, even though they have no problem hurling insults at one another.  It's interesting observing these cultural differences, and to reflect on what implications they may have (if any) for how Korean capitalism actually works.

Caveat: 돈 있죠?

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / Life is a Dream / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

It’s said that when you dream in a language, you’ve “learned” it.   So, what does it mean when you dream in a language, wake up and immediately type the phrase into Google Translate, just to make sure you understood correctly?   That’s sort of what happened this morning.
I dreamed I was talking to a child on a bus.  This is rooted in reality, because when I went to Gwangju on Friday, I’d met two of my Hongnong students: two sisters in 6th and 4th grade – the younger is the girl I call “Miss Sardonica” (in my mind) because of her strange, sardonic-looking grin.  But they’re good kids.  I let them play games on my cell phone during the trip, because they looked bored.  It’s a notable, interesting difference between Korea and the US, that it’s utterly common to run into elementary-age children traveling alone on intercity buses here, for example.
Anyway, the dream:  the child in the dream wasn’t one of these two girls, but some random child – well, not completely random, he looked like one of the first-graders:  a certain extremely mischievous, bright-eyed boy named Ji-hun.  And he seemed a little bit lost.  There was a woman giving the child a hard time, but I didn’t understand what she was saying.  Asking him questions to which he evidently couldn’t offer satisfactory answers.  Not his mom – she was like a bus-company employee, the kind that get on the bus to check your ticket sometimes.  But then the child turned to me and asked, “돈 있죠?” (don it-jyo), and then I woke up.  It wasn’t a very complicated dream.  Just a dream fragment, really.  But it felt significant, because it had ended with a seemingly contextless question, spoken in Korean, that I felt I’d understood.  It felt like a triumphant moment.
I had fallen asleep with the air conditioner on, which normally I avoid because it gives me a sore throat (not to mention it seems an unnatural and expensive way to sleep), so my little apartment was chilly.  I looked out the window, and the sun was bright.  Sky was blue.
I looked at my cell phone, to see what time it was, but it was turned off.  Maybe some spam-text-message had inspired me to turn it off, the night before.  Sometimes, I wake up and have no idea what time it is, I will try to guess.  I looked out the window, noted the angle of sun’s shadows down on the gas station in front of my apartment building, noted the shade of blue of the sky, and said to myself, “hmm, 7:00… no, 6:50.”  A little game I play with myself, right?  I turned on my computer, and the clock read 6:53.  I felt impressed with myself, at that moment.
But suddenly I felt very insecure about whether I’d understood the Korean from the end of the dream.  So I opened up google translate and typed in the phrase, “돈 있죠?”
“Got money?” the google-monster muttered back at me, textually.
Yes, I’d understood.   But now it struck me:  what the hell did it mean?  I mean, in the dream-interpretation sense…  Why was this kid asking me if I had money?
I made some instant coffee and had toast for breakfast.  Good morning.

Caveat: Des Moines, SK? Paris, SK; Washington, SK.

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / Teaching & Methodology

When I first got to Gwangju, in April, I was inclined to describe it as the "Des Moines" of South Korea.  But having lived in glorious, hillbilliac Yeonggwang for the last 4 months, and returning there to spend the afternoon today, I thought, "jeez, it's like coming to Paris."

I hung out in a cafe (Yeonggwang doesn't really have cafes).  I had a scone.  I bought some real "imported from US" cheese (for about a dollar an ounce), took it home, and now I'm watching NCIS and eating cheese and crackers.  Call it a break from Korea.

After one week of teaching summer classes, here are my thoughts on the curriculum I developed and rolled out for myself.

For first grade:  medium-to-OK;  about what I expected; it could be more organized, but those first graders are hard to manage, especially on my own, so I figure it could be worse;  the best material is when I have them moving around playing (role-playing, vaguely), acting out story-lines from stories we've been reading.

For third grade:  not going well;  they were really into the role-play last month, but I think I got too serious about it, and showing them videos (i.e. Spongebob) to give them ideas actually distracts them and they lose their focus;  I'm going to have to rethink, and change something.

For sixth grade:  I've never had a more successful self-developed curriculum!  They love it;  they come in early and demand that we start immediately, and they refuse to leave the class after the time is up;  mwahahaha – I win ^_^.    They've named our simulation bulletin-board town:  Washington, SK (cf. Washington, DC, I guess, but in South Korea).

Caveat: Kafka the English Teacher in Korea

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / The Wonders of Work

I'm certain they told me that I was teaching a special gifted student English class at the county education office on Thursdays, starting the first week in August.  Of course, that was back at the beginning of July.  I said "OK,"  marked it on my calendar, and nothing more was said about it.  Nothing.  Nobody told me what time, where, what students, what materials were expected.  I figured, well, that's just the Korean communication taboo, kicking in.  

Being the somewhat responsible person that I try to be, I researched the when and where by asking a coworker who had been doing these classes before, and showed up at the education office building in Yeonggwang yesterday at 4:45, expecting to teach some kids at 5 pm.  But they didn't know who I was.  Finally, with my broken Korean, I managed to understand that "oh, that gifted program is on vacation at the moment."  They told me to come back the last week in August.

Maybe I misunderstood the original request to do this – but I really don't think so.  It's just another example of how information most definitely does not work its way down hierarchies, here.

I don't really feel that upset about it.  But it's interesting, to me.  So I thought I'd document the experience. 

As I was walking back to my apartment afterward, I had a sort of insight:  information doesn't move down hierarchies reliably because it's always the responsibility of those farther down to find stuff out – the higher-ups are never wrong, by definition, so, in my case for example, I now owe an apology to my higher-ups for having misunderstood (or for having failed to confirm) the original request.   I remember my first hagwon boss's line:  "but you never asked."  As an employee in Korea, it is always one's responsibility to ask.

Caveat: 좋은 놈, 나쁜 놈, 이상한 놈

Life in Korea / Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc) / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

picture“좋은 놈, 나쁜 놈, 이상한 놈” is the title of a Korean western. Yes, western, as in western genre movie. It takes place in 1930’s Manchuria, which was a bit of a wild land at the time, with the Japanese trying to exert imperial control, while the Chinese, British, Germans and Russians tried to regain spheres of influence, and with disgruntled and outlaw-ish Korean freedom fighters and Mongolian tribesmen thrown into the mix.

The title is an homage to Eastwood’s classic American western “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” – it translates as “the Good, the Bad and the Weird.” The title itself tells you there will be some interesting post-modern things going on. It’s over-the-top in terms of violence, but worth seeing.

I love how it includes all these seemingly out-of-sync cultural objects and references – 1920’s big-band dance music, Japanese soldiers, Korean merchants or black-marketeers, Mongolian tribesmen sitting on horses on hilltops looking like Native Americans…  but I would imagine it might not be that far off vis-a-vis what Manchuria must have been like in that era. Of course, everything is exaggerated and re-imagined, just in the way American westerns re-imagine North American history, too.

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: Le Corbusier’s Fantasy, Manifest

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc) / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism

Walking along the Juyeop Park Esplanade yesterday in Ilsan in the humid, still evening, I watched the children playing among modernist statuary, parents playing ball with their kids, kids walking to or from hagwon as if they were college students, grandparents strolling, an old woman selling onions and garlic.  All around, a rectilinear park-like environment, punctuated by a seemingly endless array of identical high-rise apartment towers of dubious individual architectural merit.  This is Ilsan, a city of half a million that didn't exist the first time I came here, in 1991.

Yet unlike so many Modernist planned cities, Ilsan seems to work, at a very fundamental level.  Imagine something with all the charm of Cabrini Green (Chicago's infamous 1960's era Modernist housing projects), but inhabited by a mostly Lake Forest demographic.  The children play happily amid the soulless buildings, the parents are a bit overwrought, but deeply bourgeois.  This is not typical Korea, either, but it feels very much like the future.  The future that visionaries such as Le Corbusier and other Modernist "new city" proponents supposedly got so wrong. 

Ilsan represents to me the proof of the fact that although most contemporary urbanist thinking seems to focus a great deal on the way that we can influence lifestyles through how we plan our urban spaces, when you get right down to it, there are very few elements of the physical urban space that are guaranteed to make a difference, positive or negative.  Density is significant, but Ilsan is probably as automobile-reliant as any American city, if only because of the upper-middle-class status of most of its inhabitants – they need their cars, as aspirational objects, above all else.  Perhaps it makes me a bit of a cultural determinist (read:  marxist), but what makes urban spaces work has more to do with the socioeconomic position of the inhabitants than with how they are put together.

Caveat: Masa de Harina Nixtamalera

Banalities & Journaling / Español Aleatorio (Random Spanish) / Food & Drink / Life in Korea

Seungbae es uno de mis mejores amigos coreanos. Anoche cuando llegué a Suwon, me dijo de inmediato, “I think you need Mexican food.” Así, claro que me conoce bien. Nos metimos en su pequeña van amarilla y manejamos a Osan, donde cenamos fajitas y quesadillas y horchata, todas hechas por cocineros verdaderamente mexicanos. Los chilangos de Osan, Corea, con su improbable proyecto de dar a los gringos (y ¡pochos! porque así son las fuerzas militares estadunidenses, en estos días) de la base aérea ahí un sabor de su continente extrañado.

pictureHablé con el cocinero sobre el problema de encontrar la masa de harina verdademente mexicana. Me explicó lo que ya había sospechado: por alguna extraña regla proteccionista, no se permite importar la harina nixtamalera en Corea. Ésta es la harina de maíz que se usa para hacer tortillas mexicanas frescas, tamales, sopes, pupusas, etc. Me decía que cualquier otra necesidad de la cocina mexicana ha podido encontrar en Seul, menos esta. Incluso a traído maletas desde Los Angeles o Chicago o DF a este país llenas de maseca (la marca mas conocida de masa de harina).

Después de comer Seungbae y yo hablamos algunas horas acerca de las dificultades de la vida, en nuestra singular mescla de español, inglés y coreano. Es un hombre muy inteligente, con buen sentido de humor. Acerca de mis dificultades digamos emocionales con mi lugar de trabajo, me dijo: “there is no good medications except for time.” Que es exactamente la verdad, e?

Estuvo bien. Hoy voy a ver a mi otro buen amigo coreano, en Ilsan.

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: Sulk. Sulk.

Banalities & Journaling / Hiking & Travel / Life in Korea / My Photos / The Wonders of Work / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

One of the things about the Thursday-Friday school staff fieldtrip that got me really depressed was the fact that I didn’t receive a lot of positive encouragement in my efforts to speak or understand Korean. I felt frequently ridiculed and mocked.

I’ve indicated before, on this blog, that right now, in my life, trying to get better at Korean is near the top of my list of priorities. Call that quixotic, or peculiar, or pointless. But it’s true.

So to the extent that the fieldtrip, and my interactions with some of my coworkers, squashed my optimism and enjoyment of trying to learn the language, it was was a real downer. And so… what have I done, today, in the wake of this?

I felt crappy. I didn’t go off to Seoul, as I’d planned – I lacked motivation. I had zero interest in going out into the Korean-speaking world. I sulked. This is bad behavior. I know.

Here are some pictures taken during the better part of the trip, done with my cell phone, so they have rather poor resolution. We were climbing the mountain Daedun.

picture

picture

picture

picture

picture

And here are the principal and vice principal, plotting some new humiliation – or maybe (more likely) just being clueless and cold-hearted, in a good-natured and paternalistic way.

picture

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: The Hongnong Alcohol Blacklist

Banalities & Journaling / Hiking & Travel / Less Banal Than Usual / Life in Korea / My Photos / The Wonders of Work / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

I have just returned from the worst 24 hours I’ve ever spent in Korea. Well, maybe there were a few 24 hour periods back when I was a soldier in the US Army stationed at Camp Edwards, up in Paju, (DMZ/Munsan/Ilsan) that were worse. But I’m just sayin.

My biggest mistake was that I’ve recently been relaxing my formerly teetotaller approach to alcohol – since my trip to Japan, when I made the breakthrough realization (or recollection – call it “personal historical revisionism”) that one of the reasons I managed to learn Spanish effectively in the 1980’s was because I wasn’t adverse to falling under the influence. It lowers inhibitions, which is a big issue with language-learning.

But this school that I work for – well, they’re a tribe of “college-frat-party”-worthy binge alcoholics. And that’s not my thing. Never has been my thing – even when I was doing my own share of binge-drinking myself, back in college.

Maybe I’ll give a detailed breakdown, later.

Let’s just say, I was witness to manifold unkindnesses, and became depressed, despondent and angry. I was in tears when I got home to my tiny Yeonggwang apartment. I haven’t been there, in quite a while – in tears, I mean.

I hold it all in: the anger, the tears. Bottled up. And then it comes out, when I can finally get alone, even though the drunk moment has passed. Alcohol sucks. And I’ve always been a weepy, grumpy, judgmental drunk – I know this about myself.

Hell. I know I can never renew at this school – alcohol reveals depths and truths about people, and although there are many kind and wonderful people working at Hongnong Elementary, none of those kind and wonderful types are the ones running things – the manager-types showed their true selves pretty effectively, as far as I’m concerned. And not in their own favor, frankly.

I will survive this contract. I can avoid the management types, mostly. But they are cruel, unkind people, who furthermore insist on excusing their cruelty as “tradition” and “Korean culture.” Fine. I know, confidently, that there are other types of Korean culture: types that don’t require cajoling people to get drunk, that don’t require laughing at (not with) underlings, that don’t require groping female employees.

Mr Kim (remember him? – the PE teacher) was actually among those who were pretty kind to me. He seemed a bit disgusted with how out of control the alcohol games got, too. He explained to me, mostly in Korean (with a dictionary in hand), that we should make a Hongnong Alcohol Blacklist, and that the first three members included certain highly placed individuals in the school’s administrative staff. I laughed at that, and he was sullenly pleased that he’d managed to make a joke across the cultural and linguistic divide.

Okay. That’s enough.

Looking out the window of the bus, coming home, I saw a cloud with a silver lining. Literally. Korea is a beautiful country. And there were enough “off to the side” kindnesses shown to me in my sadness, today, that I know better than to give up on the humanity of Koreans. Generalization and stereotyping are almost always really bad ideas.

Here’s a mountain or two, that I saw.

picture

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: Work Related Excursion

Banalities & Journaling / Hiking & Travel / Life in Korea / The Wonders of Work

I'm in Daejeon with my coworkers.  The whole school staff piles into a bus, the moment the kids have left campus for the start of summer vacation earlier today.  We drive to Daedunsan (Muju), the more ambitious hike some trails (I'll post some cellphone pics later), we drive to Daejeon, and have a hweh-sik with way too much beer, soju and makkeolli flowing.  Now I'm in a hotel, and my roommates, being high on the seniority list, have been socially obligated to go drink some more.  I've bowed out.  Tired, and, as many know, I don't enjoy drinking too much.  I'm feeling deeply melancholy as it is.  I don't need more.

Caveat: 티처 좀 외계인처럼

Banalities & Journaling / Kids / Life in Korea / My Videos / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

A student said this to me today:  티처 좀 외계인처럼 [ti-cheo jom weh-gye-in-cheo-reom = teacher a little like an alien].  She was talking about me.  I was flattered.
Sometimes I’m definitely an alien.  Or among aliens.  Or something like that.   This seemed very true when I walked down the hall to the 4-1 classroom, where teachers were seated on the floor playing Korean percussion instruments:  사물놀이 [sa-mul-nor-i].  They were practicing for the school concert that was later this evening (I attended, and may post some video from that, later).
I really like 사물놀이.  Here’s some video.

Caveat: 여름방학

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / The Wonders of Work

Today is supposedly the last day of school before summer vacation (여름방학).  Summer vacation for students, that is.  And many (if not most) students will be attending summer camps and hagwon for most of the summer – that's the Korean way.  I will be teaching school-run summer classes for the month of August, and I will get next week off.   But I have to continue coming to work this week, as there are many things going on for staff at Hongnong Elementary.  Sometimes it seems a little pointless to have to stay, despite the fact that most of the staff goings-on aren't relevant to a non-Korean-speaking foreigner.

But I'm not sure I really agree with those who vilify the "desk warming" phenomenon.   It's what you make of it.  Most of the staff in a school during these desk-warming days are quite busy:  making plans, rearranging classrooms, preparing presentations for the school talent night, etc.  If one chooses to take the time to interact with these people, and offer to help, you can build a lot of goodwill and it can be a learning experience, too.  

Yesterday, I had only one regular class (the others were "cancelled").  And I did a little desk-warming, I admit – surfing blogs on the internet.  But I also spent some highly productive time developing lesson plans for one of my summer classes, along with the person I'll be co-teaching it with.  And I accompanied one of the third grade teachers with her class to the gym for a highly entertaining PE class, where I kind of had the role of observer / English-speaking kibitzer.  And on Monday, I had my morning classes canceled and the kids for my first grade afternoon class didn't show up, but I was very busy developing detailed program plans for my other summer classes (for which I won't have a co-teacher).  I was working "above and beyond" as they say, making more detailed plans than requested.

Nothing is more effective in building goodwill among unpredictable Korean administrators than unexpected displays of competence and dedication, in my experience.  Actually, that applies to more-or-less competent administrators anywhere.  Korean administrators aren't incompetent – they're just different.   They're operating by different cultural rules, that for them and their underlings are largely transparent.  These rules are only opaque and seem crazy to us Westerners because we haven't grown up within them.

Caveat: How long should our troops stay?

Life in Korea / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs

With a title like that, you will think I'm writing about Afghanistan, or Iraq.

But I'm not.  The U.S. has had a significant, continuous military presence in South Korea since 1950 – 60 years.  That makes our time in the middle east, so far, seem pretty minor.  Admittedly, once the cease-fire was signed with the North in 1953, Korea didn't have the kind low-grade, sustained civil war that U.S. troops have been having to cope with in those other countries.

Perhaps if we could have installed a cozily sympathetic, hard-ass dictator like Syngman Rhee was in South Korea in Iraq or Afghanistan, we could have reached a point where the U.S. troops were out of harm's way and a very long-term occupation would have been more feasible.  It's been more than clear, among the "nation builder" neocons, that Bush and company believed that they could achieve some kind of sustainable situation of this sort. 

But in today's geopolitical context, installing cozy, pro-U.S. dictators ain't what it used to be.  Witness how precarious Karzai's position is in Afghanistan.  He'd have been getting our unequivocal support if this were still the cold war.  

Actually, though, I don't mean to be writing about the these Bushian adventures.  I'm thinking about South Korea, and its love-hate, push-pull affair with the U.S.  I'm particularly disturbed by a recent spat that has erupted over the issue of nuclear power, nuclear fuel reprocessing, and related issues.  I was reading about it in the New York Times (q.v.).

Particularly relevant and important in that article is when it quotes someone named Mr Pomper:  “It is understandable why Seoul would be frustrated that India, a non-N.P.T. state, would be given this deal while South Korea, a loyal U.S. ally and N.P.T. member now in good standing, would face resistance from Washington.”  [NPT means "non-proliferation treaty"]

Why, indeed?  If the U.S. trusts South Korea enough to keep 30-40 thousand troops on the ground in the country, after 60 years, and under nominal unified South Korean command, at that, why not trust them to reprocess their own nuclear fuel? 

I'm not even sure the end of the article is entirely relevant – whether or not Seoul wants to build nuclear weapons isn't, and shouldn't be the issue.  Given the North's transgressions, it seems hard to justify – in terms of sovereignty and peninsular security – making a carte-blanche judgment against the South pursuing its own nuclear security, either via a U.S. "umbrella" (as it currently has), or via its own program (as it once briefly pursued in the 1970's).

I mean, if India and Pakistan and Israel get to keep their bombs, and Iran and North Korea can't be stopped from making theirs… that's a dangerous world.  Why not South Korea, too?  Let's all have bombs, together.  We'll all be super-safe, right?

But… seriously:  how do we stop this?  How do we take control of it?  Shouldn't we at least treat each other as adults capable of rational decisions?  That's all that South Korea is asking that the U.S do for them, I think, with respect to the nuclear fuel issue. 

Caveat: Kimchee Rockets

Hiking & Travel / Life in Korea / My Photos

Korea has no donkeys, mules or horses. I don’t know if this is characteristically Asian, or if it is more specific to Korea, as a legacy of the total destruction that occurred during the Korean War. But it’s one way in which that makes rural Korea different from other poor or developing countries I’ve visited – mostly these have been in Latin America, where there are strong traditions of using equine beasts of burden, but I also remember seeing a lot of rural animals pulling things in Morocco.

Anyway, rural Koreans use these small, two-wheeled tractors instead. They can pull carts to and from town, they can work in the fields… they are general-purpose, internal combustion beasts of burden – although you can’t eat one if things get rough. Back when I was in Korea with the US Army, the soldiers had a slightly insulting name for these tractors: kimchee rockets. For whatever reason, that term has stuck with my mental vocabulary – it’s difficult for me to think of them as anything else.

We were constantly having to dodge kimchee rockets when we (my support battalion) drove rural highways in northern Gyeonggi province (near the DMZ) back in 1991. There’re a lot of expressways and much more development up there now, so the kimchee rockets are rare on major highways. But there are still a lot around in Korea – especially down in the significantly backward part of Korea that I’m in now.

Here is a picture of a farmer driving his kimchee rocket towing a low-tech, ad hoc trailer, into town on the road in front of my apartment here in Yeonggwang. I took the picture yesterday morning as I watched the fog lift, while waiting for my carpool to arrive.

picture

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: Dawn over dumptrucks

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea

I would say most mornings here lately are thickly overcast if not foggy.  Unless it's raining.  In fog aspect, the summer here is a bit like in California.  But the rain is what makes it different.  A lot of rain, this weekend – yesterday was just sheets and sheets of it in the morning.

Despite not sleeping well last night, I woke up at dawn, which seems to be becoming my habit.  I had a sore neck – sleeping on it wrong or something.   There was fog out my window… but when I looked up, the sky was pale blue, and streaked with gold and pink.  The forested hills are deep green, and there are shreds of mist across the peaks.   It's like a postcard.  Except for the three dumptrucks arrayed at the gas station in the foreground.

As you might guess from the title of this blog, however, I feel OK about dumptrucks – Korea's national vehicle. 

Caveat: Very Important Subject

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

My morning carpool (riding with two Korean teachers who happen to live in Yeonggwang, most mornings) is sort of an impromptu Korean Language lesson, many times.  But yesterday morning I was unable to grasp on to what they were talking about, and I just sort of zoned out.

As we pulled off the expressway and slowed at the traffic light in Beopseongpo, Cheorho (whose English is pretty good) turned to me and asked, "Do you understand what we've been talking about?"

"No, sorry," I answer, truthfully.

"Alcohol.  술," he explained.  "Beer and soju, which is better."

I respond, laughing slightly, "I think that's a very common topic in Korea."

"Very important subject," he nodded, gravely.

"네," chimed in Hyeongyeon.

Caveat: Hongnong Skyline

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / My Photos

The view from the new, probably temporary English-teachers’ staff room, taken last Friday when it was rainy and steamy-hot, right after the chaotic move.

picture

Note that even a town as small as Hongnong has some high-rises, the cookie-cutter 20-storey apartment buildings that are ubiquitous in Korea. The overall population of the town is probably about 15,000, I would estimate. Not big enough for a traffic light, by Korea standards. But they have a 7-11. And about a dozen churches.

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: Korea… contingent chaos, constant quasi catastrophe

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / The Wonders of Work

Today was one of those chaotic days.  Yet I feel OK about it.  It's weird how some things affect me, and other things, that seem to so profoundly affect others around me, slide over me with barely an impact.  Some types of chaos I can handle, others I can't.

Today they decided to announce that they were going to start remodeling the language classrooms – immediately.  That meant we had to move to a different place, a kind of supplementary staff room, and teach our after-school classes in a who-knows-where location. 

I wish I had taken pictures of the parade of children helping move all the stuff from the language classrooms.  It all seemed very communitarian. 

Well anyway.  Such is Korea.  Sometimes, given how institutions and groups make and execute decisions, it's puzzling to me how they've been so successful

Caveat: Riding down, riding up, riding along…

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / Life is a Dream

It was a very up-and-down day.  Or down-and-up day.  Or something like that.  Great mood!  Terrible mood.  Great mood!  Terrible mood!  Great mood.  Like that.

First, I was in a good mood.  I had really good classes with the preschoolers.  I could tell they liked me.  I could tell the Korean teachers over there like me.  I thought we had fun with the kids, too.  We did monkeys jumping on the bed.  We read a story about drawing rainbows, and then we drew rainbows.  We talked about colors.

Then I was in a bad mood.  We were testing the kids, today, for the 4th graders.  It was kind of a last-minute thing.  Maybe not for everyone, but for me, since I'd only heard about it yesterday.  Communication (and lack thereof) works that way, in Korean workplaces.  And my coteacher for the 4th graders changed how she wanted me to do the "speaking part" of the test at literally the very last minute.  So I felt like I was testing the kids without much of a footing.  But I tried my best.  I kind of know where these kids stand, ability-wise, at this point, anyway.  So, as usual, some of that subjectivity came into play.

Then I was in a good mood.  Lunch was tasty, and at least a dozen kids said, "teacher teacher!"  and I said, "what?" and they said, "hi!"  

And then I was in a terrible mood.  Haewon said that lesson plans for the month of July for the afterschool program were due today.  I doubted this (and, retrospectively, I was right – no one said a thing about lesson plans today – they WOULD normally have been due today, but today was staff volleyball day, and volleyball trumps minor administrative things like monthly lesson plans).  I had been planning to work on my lesson plans and finish them tomorrow, since I have an easy schedule on Thursdays.  But grumblingly, I set to work on my plans in my one free period of the day, after lunch.  And I finished them up, roughly.  And printed them out.

And then it was staff volleyball day, and Beopseongpo Elementary came to Hongnong for inter-school staff competition.

And I was in a good mood, because I saw my colleague Donna, who works there at Beopseongpo and who I had gotten to know during training back in April.  Donna's cool.  Very clear headed.  Kind.

And then Mr Kim (the PE teacher, and exactly like PE teachers anywhere, in any culture – he requires no further description) asked me to join the team, during game number three among the men staff.  I was thinking that because it was inter-school play, the game was too important for such a bad volleyball player as myself to be included.  But I took it as a friendly gesture that he was inviting me to join.  But too much was on the line:  it was one game to each school, and Hongnong was losing.  So after about a third of the game, he was making disgusted facial expressions and he switched me out.  I mean… I understand, from a "gotta win" perspective – I don't belong on the volleyball court.  I know this.  But it feels just as humiliating now as it did in highschool PE in 1981.  I'm better at "solitary" sports: running, hiking, etc.  I'm terribly uncoordinated.

And I was in a terrible mood.  I was walking to catch a bus home to Yeonggwang, feeling dejected and grumpy.

And then one of the preschool teachers, with three hyperactive preschoolers bouncing good-naturedly in the back of her car, pulls to a stop beside me on the streets of Hongnong and asks me where I'm going.  In Korean.  And I answer.  And she offers me a ride.  She's going that way – one of these kids isn't hers, and she's got to deliver him to his mom.  So I get in and  I ride with this frazzled mom/teacher and three very happy, excited (because the English foreigner teacher is riding in their car!), loud children down the expressway to Yeonggwang.  

I'm in a great mood.  The mom is talking to me in a sort of gentle Korean monologue of which I understand more than I expect but less than I need, punctuated with entirely comprehensible, repeated reminders to the kids to sit still, stop kicking the seat, don't throw things please, etc., etc.  The life of moms and preschool teachers, anywhere.

And she drops the kid with the kid's mom at the main intersection in Yeonggwang, where's she waiting with her car.  And she drops me off at the traffic circle, a block south closer to my apartment, and goes zooming off, reminding the kids to stop bouncing in the back, but smiling kindly.

And I realize I've left my cellphone on the seat of her car.  Which is bad enough.  But if it was just that, I'd have lived without a cellphone until I could chase her down tomorrow at work.  But my apartment key is dangling on a bauble attached to my cellphone.  I can't get into my apartment.  And I can't call anyone to say that I can't get into my apartment. 

So I'm in a terrible mood.  Trying to think of what I should do.  Stay in a motel for the night?  At least I have my wallet.  Find a pay phone… and call someone who can call someone else to find out this woman's number so I can call her and get my cellphone and apartment key?  What to do, what to do?

And then  I recognize the other mom, driving by.  The one we just left the little boy with, at the other intersection.  I flag her down.  And in my halting Korean, I explain I've left my phone in the other woman's car.  She grins, and scoops up her own cellphone and speed-dials her friend, the woman I'd just had a ride with.  Explains that I'd forgotten my cellphone, and tells me she'll zoom back to the traffic circle shortly.

Did I mention it was raining?

I wait in the rain for 4 minutes, and the white Hyundai zooms back up with the frazzled, friendly mom-slash-coworker, and she rolls down the window and the little boy in the back hands me my cell phone.  "아주 고마워요," I bow gratefully.

I'm in a great mood, as I walk back home to the distant rumbling of thunder.  

Caveat: Handwriting

Banalities & Journaling / Kids / Life in Korea / Teaching & Methodology

I was having a problem, when I started out, with my first graders “lying” about who they were. They would switch names with each other when I was calling attendance. I was generally able to sort things out… but it often would eat up 10 to 15 minutes of class time, and would tend to put them in a rowdy mood.

For that, however, I discovered a fairly elegant solution. I have them write their names on little slips of paper that I hand to them as they enter the classroom. For whatever reason, they don’t seem as comfortable making stuff up in writing – partly, at that age, it’s pride in being able to put their own names in writing. Also, I think part of the fun in name-switching is that it’s a performance for their peers, which having them write mostly eliminates. I insist that they write their Korean names – “English names” are too fluid and their level of ownership of them is weak at best.

But this has the consequence that I have to decipher a bunch of 7 year-olds’ hangeul handwriting. So far, I’ve always managed fine, except in an instance where the kid only put down a family name (이 = Lee) – which, given how Korean family names work, managed to narrow it down to 7 possibilities! Here is a picture 4 examples of hangeul handwriting that I feel particularly proud of having been able to decipher.

picture

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: 쭈쭈!

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / Teaching & Methodology / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

I’m sorry if that title offends anyone.  Learning a language is fraught with difficulties – and one of them is that people are reluctant to talk about “bad words,” but somehow we must nevertheless learn them.
I had an unfortunate day, today.  Specifically, my afterschool first grade class (difficult to manage even on regular days), was just too wild.  I had one kid throwing things.  I mean, REALLY throwing things.  He nailed me on the head with rather hefty crayon – THWACK!
So I took him aside and yelled at him a bit.  These are little kids.  How do you manage this, when you don’t have a co-teacher who can speak Korean, nearby?  My Korean Language skill isn’t adequate to express my feelings about this kind of behavior in a convincing way to the kids.
And then there was the kid drawing pornography.  I mean, seriously… he’s what, seven (or at most 8 or 9, if you want to count in the Korean style which gives people extra years)?  I suppose kids will be be kids, and draw weird stuff, sometimes.  But he was drawing anatomically correct, adult-looking women and even coloring between the lines!
And that wasn’t enough.  The clincher is that he was then running around the room, yelling “쭈쭈!  쭈쭈!”   And all the kids thought this was hilarious.
This gem of vocabulary isn’t in any dictionary, nor online.  And it’s not something I could figure out by typing “쭈쭈 meaning english” into google, either.  Nevertheless, somewhat eerily, Korean language spellcheckers don’t flag it as wrong, either.  It’s a “secret” word?
My best guess, based on the child’s illustrations, combined with some weird dance moves two of the other boys started doing, is that it means “tits.”  Charming.  If any of my better-at-Korean-than-I readers want to provide me with some reassurance that my reading isn’t too far off, I’d appreciate it, but I realize it may be a bit awkward.
I couldn’t find a Korean teacher anywhere in my wing, when I finally got fed up and decided to try to find someone to talk to the boy in Korean.  I ended up hauling him down to the staff room, but that was a bit awkward, since I walked in saying “쭈쭈” myself, among other things, but I found the principal and vice principal in there, in some kind of high-level-looking meeting.   Ah well, I left the boy with my colleague.  Hopefully things will sort out on Monday.

Back to Top