The Night Before Christmas 2009

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through my pad,
not a damn thing was happening—it was really that bad.
The ghosts of Christmases past plied for holidays before,
but the memories weren’t that good, so their taunts were a bore.

My family was nestled all snug in their beds,
while I huddled in fleece from my toes to my head.
As I waited for Santa, I was plagued by swine flu,
and vestigial phlegm from bronchitis, too.

But the plague didn’t rage, and it wasn’t exciting—
it was slow, amateur—it wasn’t worth fighting.
The swine made me lax with its lack of predation:
Diarrhea? Insomnia? Not worth medication.

But I didn’t have the spirit to raise a fist
(I hadn’t even compiled a carol playlist),
so I waited it out, took my pills twice a day,
kept myself quarantined and helpful friends at bay.

While visions of company danced in my head,
I wondered what I’d done to deserve this, instead?
When what to my feverish brain should appear
but the reason for my isolation, quite clear:

2008: I’d left family and weather properly bleak
for tubing and sunburns in fair Mozambique.
I’d spent Christmas with strangers, and even on a plane,
and the jilted Christmas spirits had remembered my name!

“Christmas Eve was mundane, but tomorrow will be worse—
after last year’s half-assing, your Christmas is cursed!”
“But my tree—” “It’s not real, neither fir nor pine.”
“It’s Korea. If I cut down a tree, it’s a crime.”

“Precisely. You’re not where you are meant to be.
That’s two years you’ve deserted your family.”
“Our Christmases weren’t happy. They were worse than this flu.”
“But if you were with them, they’d be in quarantine with you.”

Well, that little jab stopped me dead in my tracks,
and up rose a memory of a December long past,
when the holiday footmen weren’t Dasher and Comet—
nope, Christmas that year flew in on vomit.

The whole family was sick; we’d been so for days,
and we spent Yuletide in a dehydrated haze.
The exchanging of gifts was laidback and placid;
we six lolled on couches, exhausted and flaccid.

Mom made a huge bowl of rice pilaf for dinner—
after days of soda crackers, that meal was a winner!
When you’re too weak to speak, it’s harder to fight;
I seemed to remember an okay Christmas night.

Spending Christmas abroad makes you grow up hard and fast,
when you can’t do the things you’ve done in the past;
can’t see the same people, can’t eat the same food—
can’t even leave your room ‘cause they’re paranoid of the flu.

The allure of Korea had long since worn off,
replaced by fatigue and a rattling cough.
I longer for the familiar, but it was so far away—
across the Pacific, behind a whole day.

My family may have fought, but they sure weren’t boring.
I missed them. I wanted to wish them good morning.
I wanted to add to their holiday cheer.
I wanted to hug them. I wanted them near.

On my Christmas night, I stayed up real late,
so I could call my parents once they were awake.
It wasn’t the same, and it wasn’t ideal,
but I wasn’t alone, and Christmas finally felt real.

Korean weddings

I went to the wedding of my head teacher a couple weekends ago. Here are the things I found interesting, in comparison with typical American weddings.

There was a flower girl and a ringbearer; no bridesmaids, no groomsmen. Both the groom and then the bride walked up the aisle, and when they got up there, the only other people onstage were the pastor and both sets of parents, sitting on opposite sides according to their offspring. The bride's dress was a typical foofy gown with a tulle skirt, glitter, etc., and a 10-foot veil (oh yeah, a good-sized tiara, too). She did carry a bouquet. The groom wore a black tux with tails, but on the jacket's front corners and the back of the collar was elaborate white embroidery--a nice touch. The mothers wore traditional hanbok; I don't remember if the fathers were in tuxes or hanbok. All three couples wore white gloves (the bride's were delicate mesh).

The decorations consisted mostly of a few long white banners stretched overhead from the back of the hall to the front and 3' wrought iron stands with silk flowers and lit candles on top. Proudly attached to the very huge white lectern (we're talking 10' wide of a seashell/fan shape) was a 1'x1 1/2' Samsung plaque. Throughout the ceremony, they utilized gelled lighing instruments, an upstage projection screen playing live-action wedding footage, dry ice fog, and a bubble machine.

The music was interesting. They had a few live instrumentalists, a soloist, and a choir, the latter being the most entertaining. At one point in their song, the choristers shouted a "3--2--1--blastoff!", during which the groom picked up the bride in the over-the-threshold-style and bounced her up and down in time to the countdown. Her hoop skirt wasn't rather the best thing to hide her lacy bloomers at that point.

There was a bow to both sets of parents (to the bride's first, wherein the groom bowed all the way down to the ground) and some hugs; there was a lighting and blowing out of two candles on the tier cake, which was then given one downward slice; there were a couple prayers--but I couldn't figure out what was the equivalent of exchanging vows.

Given the number of engaged women I know who live in Korea right now, I think my yearly wedding tally is going to drop way below average. Down from roughly five to one--not bad, not bad.

Konglish

The boyfriend walked with the girl!! What is that?? (t-shirt worn by a girl)
Style, beauty, music, life. Your hair is my creative. (salon storefront)
Style or die (fashion-store window)
Big Bang is VIP (graffiti on a stair-rail at Everland, a theme park)
Kkul Tarea (honey skein) is a court cake made of ripened honey and malt, which was once presented to the king and valuable guests. It is brewed with the artisan spirit to make 16,000 strands suggesting the prayer for longevity, health, good fortune and wish--fulfillment. It is not much sweet, not sticky to teeth, but enjoyable with various tastes according to garnishings. It can taste better with teas as it is cold and frozen. (box of traditional candies)
Clothes to chill, not to kill (storefront)
Enjoy your magic day (package of feminine hygiene pads)
The 64th & 1st Highway revisited with corner original (shirt in a store)
Please be seated while you stool. (in a girls' bathroom stall at Wonderland)
Even if loved horse can die, love cannot die. (on a coffee shop interior wall)
Live or die--as long as deliver, the love will continue. (actually I made that one up--but after everything you've just read, it sounds plausible, doesn't it?)

More weirdness and wonderfulness about this country and its people

1. Space. On official-type forms, they don't leave much room in the blank squares to write the things you need to write. I am lucky I have a short name; otherwise, it wouldn't fit. This example is representative of space in general in South Korea.

2. Food. Koreans love food. A meal is very much a social event, not just a time to give your body what it needs. At a dinner with a group of people, or even just at snack times, people often share all the food from one big dish/bowl/cake, using their own chopsticks or spoon or other utensil. On the rare occasions when the kids bring lunches from home (such as for field trips), everybody passes their food around or just lifts a dish from their neighbor. The first time one of my students stole my cake when my back was turned, I flipped my lid and gave them a pretty good chewing-out, but I've since regretted it (a little), after realizing that it's a normal part of their culture for them to pick up food from someone else's dish. And for the most part, Koreans are way more generous concerning food than Americans. I can't count the number of times our Korean co-teachers have unexpectedly brought leftovers from lunch (always the good stuff) into the teacher's lounge and insisted we take a break to partake in the eating. Although it's sometimes really hard to take even a few minutes off, I really appreciate that they think food is so important. Sometimes, they'll even bring in food themselves for all the teachers, like clementines and instant-noodle bowls.

3. Dong chim. This is the term for an action children--and occasionally adults--make against another person: they clasp their hands together, index fingers pointed forward, and try to shove into your anus. The action of dong chim extends into kids sometimes just digging a hand into the buttcrack. I have had this happen to me a total of three times, one by Eric (torso-flasher), whom I threatened with a loss of five points if he ever did it again; twice by Daniel, a new student who, for the most part, I can't stand. He tried shoving his hand into my crack twice while we were standing three feet from his mother, who saw the whole thing and did nothing to dissuade it. According to Wikipedia, dong chim is the South Korean, Japanese, and Filipino equivalent of the American wedgie.

4. Parents. If parents of hogwon students get paranoid enough that their spoiled little packages might contract any of several forms of the flu at school, they just remove their kids from school for a month.

5. High heels are the dominant shoe form for women to wear here, and it's crazy because everybody does a ton of walking. In Itaewon, a friend and I sat people-watching for about 15 minutes, and, with pretty steady streams of people going in both directions, we counted a total of 11 women wearing flats. I went to a theme park a few weeks ago, and there were women in platform heels all over the place!

6. Dressing room. Sometimes it has curtains, sometimes it has more boxes of clothes than room to change. If you get lucky, it has a door; if you're even luckier, the door extends both below your shins and above your neck. Some days, you're out of luck, and they lead you to the open corner behind the two-foot-wide wall unit on the other side of the cash register; some days, you're completely screwed, and the only place to try on a miniskirt is directly in front of the counter. Some days--the gods spit on you, and give you a dressing room that is really just the back third of the store blocked off by a giant pink curtain, and the "back wall" of that dressing room is really a floor-to-ceiling window--blocked only partway by boxes--that looks into the hallway of the rest of the building, and you don't realize until after you've gritted your teeth and hoped for zero passersby that on the ceiling of that hallway, directly above the mirror that just saw you strip down to your skivvies and try on a slip dress, yes, directly above that mirror is a CCTV monitor.

Really funny, Teacher?

Today, after lunch, I was to teach reading to my 6.1 class. This is one of my hardest classes, because, after lunch, all the little 6-years are flaky and sleepy, and the book is useless. I decided to write three of the new reading words on the board today, and go from there. I started with "sound," then we worked on "funny" (these are the kinds of words the book demands beginning, non-native-English-speaker students to read). To demonstrate "funny," I laughed out loud, which scared the kids at first but then cracked them up, since they have never heard me laugh at work since I am always crabby at work. I made a few "funny" faces, and got them laughing, harder than I probably have before. Mission accomplished; they probably won't forget that word. The next one I wanted to work on was "really," so we practiced the phonics for that one, then it was on to demonstrating the difference between "funny" and "really funny." Pretty quickly, the whole class and Teacher were making funny faces, they asking me "Really funny, teacher?? Really funny??" I then looked at the back row and saw this kid,


the one in the army shirt, holding his prim and proper school uniform vest and shirt all the way up to his neck. I have never before laughed as hard at work as I did at that kid and his brazenly naked torso, so much that all the kids started laughing at me more than they were at Eric. Of course, the next few minutes were a chaos of trying to then stop Eric from pulling his pants down after he stood up in his chair, and then stopping two other boys from also exposing their torsos and trying for their lower parts. Some days, my life here is ******; other days, it's really funny.

Koreans

As my main intent in living abroad was to experience another country as fully as possible, it would have been lackadaisical of me not to experience the bad as well as the good. I would like to say that I am content to be lackadaisical, but you who know me know that this is not the case and that I do not like to be lacking in daisics.
In Korea, the accepted and expected way of dealing with life is to behave as if everything is "happy," even if it's not. I don't know what they do when someone dies. What I do know is I am not allowed to give any student a grade lower than a 4 (meaning "satisfactory") in any of the areas I grade, even if they usually finish less than one assignment a day, space off during every class (or, worse, won't shut up), hit other kids, refuse to eat more than two bites at lunch (yes, I serve and supervise that, too), scream at me, hit me, or do any number of other things they would never do in front of a Korean teacher. And I know that the majority of marketing ploys here center on the terms "happy," "friendly," "happy," "smile," and "happy." All jesting aside, probably anyone who will read this really does know that honesty is one of my most important values, and here I find myself in the land of willful oblivion, where every forcedly positive progress report I write carries off with it a piece of my integrity. I admit that I am afraid of how much a year of this will change me, simply by force of habit. And I wonder, honestly, if they maintain this outlook of "everything is so happy" all the time? Because, sometimes, life sucks, and that's just the way it is. And I pose the likely unoriginal argument that it is just as important to acknowledge this completely as it is to search for the good in every situation.

An update on this post: a friend who is wiser than me recently reminded me, quiet gently, that I might be forgetting how important the concept of "face" is in Asian cultures. In many countries, and I don't think South Korea is an exception, even deserved criticism of such things as academic achievements (or lack thereof) can be a slap in the face akin to "you're a bad person." Although it is difficult for me to get used to this concept, I can learn. Even if I get really frustrated with the method, I can learn how to work with it. Thanks to the person who reminded me that other cultures can, in fact, be fundamentally different from my own.

But to switch to a positive note (not because it's become habit, but because I like happy--perhaps the Koreans simply have the means to the same end as I better figured out than I), I learned a wonderful and effective Korean phrase last week: in reference to one's ability to arrange one's hair or make things, Koreans might say you have good "hand skills." Isn't that awesome?!

You know when sometimes you just want to curl up and bawl?

Yesterday at 6 pm, I was ready and fully planning to go back to my apartment and cry for at least half an hour curled up in fetal position on my pink comforter. Then, a wonderful thing happened--one of my coworkers took me out for dinner and a beer.

When I came to Dongtan, I was under the impression that the "co-teachers" I'd been promised were going to be in the classroom along with me and that I would have two days of training before starting to work. Not so, on either count. One of the other teachers' contracts ended last week, and she made up her mind to leave. I met Emily, this teacher, last Saturday, when she took me out for a night to the outlying area of Seoul, and she told me about her contract and reasons for wanting to leave and that it had ended badly because the school wanted her to stay longer--the information I didn't get, though, was how much her fully justifiable actions were going to affect me. Instead of receiving two days of training from and then taking over for another teacher named Micky, whose contract is also ending and who has a normal amount of classes and a total of one co-teacher to work with, I was thrown immediately and rather mercilessly to the wolves of Emily's overloaded class schedule and plethora of co-teachers. I taught six full class periods--by myself--the very first day, for five different groups of students, a couple of which contained the brattiest little snots I have ever come across (okay, admittedly, I was new and overwhelmed, so they were really testing me and I really had no way of coping--and a couple of the classes' students were pretty good). I followed someone else's lesson plans as I went along, over half the time not knowing if I was using the right textbook or knowing for sure that I couldn't even find the stupid thing. I ended up with stacks of textbooks and papers on my desk that loomed dangerously close to eye level, and still the Korean teachers wouldn't quit throwing more at me. I tried. I froze up. I failed. I honestly considered breaking the contract in flight for the States. I had one saving grace, in the person of one of my co-workers, a Tennesseean (correct term? I doubt it) named Milindi. She constantly checked up on me, answered as many questions as I could cohere from my short-circuiting brain, brought me worksheets and books I needed for the day, and took me out after work.

Today was infinitely better. Emily came back in for a day to help me and do some training, the kids were incomparably easier to control and teach, the lessons came together, and I even had some fun. I have embarked on the voyage of writing lesson plans, devising clever visual aides and disciplinary measures, and grading homework, and I only hope I will find my sea legs before long, because this kind of open water makes and has made me ill for quite some time. I thought that I had a frantic life back in the US--I am dismayed to tell you it pales in comparison to this Korean existence. The terrible, yet hilarious, reason behind the mayhem here (according to an American co-worker) is that Koreans are hopelessly disorganized. I hate to say it, but it makes me laugh pretty hard to imagine the reason behind their urgent clip and rapid-fire speech to be an obligation to fix the things they weren't able to do right ahead of time or the first time around.

More facts about South Korea: they recycle EVERYthing, and what's left for garbage has to be sorted into food and non-food, each of which goes into its own special kind of bag you must buy. No substitutes. And I have yet to see an outdoor garbage can in Dongtan.

This morning, on the walk to work, I saw a Korean granny wearing a pants suit and heels riding a 3'-tall bike with training wheels. That picture would have been worth a thousand words.

Link to the second photo album is http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2037537&id=1306823245&l=67fa3361e1

First week

Where to begin? This week I've been "resting" at the suggestion of the Korean government--foreign teachers (that's what I and my ilk are called here) all take a week of rest before starting work, so I've been trying to keep myself occupied. Mom, you were right--I got bored real fast.

Dongtan (pronounced Doong-tahn) is about forty minutes outside of Seoul, the capital. My nearby area is quiet, except for two construction sites and a main highway two blocks away. For anyone from the Monmouth area, it's more or less like living a few blocks from 99, plus construction sounds. There is a roadside garden next to my high-rise apartment building (about eight floors), which apparently is the normal thing for any land that's not developed. Apartments are tiny in Korea, and mine is no exception--I don't even have an oven. (For pictures of EVERYthing, go to the link below--it's my Facebook page.) The school supplied what little furniture fits in my room, meaning a bed (the mattress is attached to the 10" legs), bedframe, small table, and two chairs. The combo washing machine/dryer is hilarious--it sings a little electronic song when it's all done working. The outlets are, of course, a different configuration than in the States, as is the voltage (250). Upon testing these outlets, I discovered with a bang that my power strip could not handle that many volts (applaud me for not checking the strip's voltage capabilities before switching it on), but another day or so later I was going nuts from my laptop's nearly-dead battery, and so, acting upon the information that at least one other American's computer handles the voltage just fine, I plugged mine in and--whew. No bang. It's working fine, and the husband of my school's director (a very nice man named Mr. Lee; the director is Esther, also very nice) took me to the right store to get a voltage adapter for my speakers. I'm currently bumming off some neighbor's wireless, so in case anyone was wondering, it is possible, although a little challenging, to get a fairly normal computer setup in Korea.

My first full day here, I was terrified of going out the door, but I did go down to the basement to drop off my recycling (they recycle EVERYthing here--in fact, a person is hard put to find trash cans outside the house). The second day, I made it about five blocks from my apartment when I decided that was probably enough; it was okay to go back home. Esther then drove me to do a few errands, so I saw more of Dongtan that way. The third day, I did a couple more five-block walks, but in different directions. Later that afternoon, Mr. Lee picked me up and drove me all around, showing me bus stops, doing some more errands (voltage adapter), showing me Byeongjeom (a neighboring town), etc. He pointed out Wonderland (my school), and we both decided that it's probably not far enough from my apartment to warrant a bus ride. The fourth day, I got completely fed up with it and walked all the way to downtown Dongtan in search of Wonderland. I left at 9:30, intending to be out until 3:00, when I needed to be back at my apartment for someone to install a screen on my window. Well, I got lost. Kind of. Thank God I know how to tell north from south and east from west when the sun's out, so I at least knew I was going southeast. After walking forever, stopping at a Paris Baguette for some food, and seeing a few cool things, I stumbled onto Central Park, where I intend to go again, then found a cute little boutique. The store owner came out to speak to me, and it turns out she spoke English (and German). We struck up a conversation, and upon my casually asking her if she knew where Wonderland was, she got on the phone to track down the school's phone number, and then got ahold of the school and then put me on the phone with one of the other foreign teachers and then took the phone back and told whoever was on the other end of the line at that point to send someone to pick me up. Ack! No! That's not was I was wanting! Too bad--I had to go outside and wait. After ten minutes, no one had showed up, so I went back into the store to show her my address (written in Korean) and ask her if she knew which general direction I needed to go to get there (I guessed northwest). No, she got back on the phone and asked them to come pick me up. I went back outside. Someone did, indeed, pick me up, and she (Hannah) took me to the school (three blocks east of Paris Baguette). At the school, I met Jackie, who was very smilingly paranoid about my safety (I think the rather erroneous words "I got completely lost" set her off) because I'm new and I don't have a cell phone and it's easy to get lost and hard to find anyone who can give directions in English, and politely commanded me to stay in or near my apartment--until I'm not new? She then sentenced me to a car ride back to my apartment with the apologetic Hannah, and it was on that ride that I realized I had made my very first turn about two blocks too soon. That was yesterday, and today I marched right back out my door and straight to Wonderland, this time without missing it by a mere three blocks. I also did some shopping, which proved harder than I thought it would be, because 75% of the establishments in the downtown area are food places! So many places to eat, so few menus I can read. Dressing rooms: tiny, like 3'x3', and the mirror is on the outside of the door. I had to keep going in and out to look at what I was trying on--but maybe that's just what crazy foreigners do.

I have eaten kimchi! I have a bag of pre-made kimchi dumplings (also called mundu) in my fridge, and I had a sample of something that tasted a lot better than those at E-Mart, "Number one store in Korea." A side note: the carts at E-Mart (and probably other department stores) are CRAZY: you have to pay 100 Won (about a penny) to unlock one from the next one in line, and all four of the wheels are on casters. I don't think I ever thought casters were a bad idea before, but I do after using a cart that pulled me in wide arcs around any corner I tried to turn and wouldn't go straight the rest of the time. A lot of the fruits and vegetables are familiar to me: peaches, plums, bell peppers, leeks, garlic, etc. However, there are different mushrooms, and I bought some kind of citrus fruit today which I haven't tried yet and whose identity I don't know.

Craziest fact I've learned so far about this place: Dongtan is one year old. They started building everything three years before it became a city. Hence, why all the trees are supported with poles. Ergo, there was probably nothing here half a decade ago. Here's some blank space for you to wrap your head around that:















And with that, I conclude my first-ever blog post, leaving you with only the URL to a photo album of Dongtan on my Facebook account (or the option to just click on the photo of the traditional Korean building at the top of the page, which is hyperlinked to said photo album).



http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2036352&id=1306823245&l=a6684fd38d