mother nature

about a month ago, my friend lindsey and i took a trip with our (korean) friend jane to the ship festival on jindo. while it is quite close to mokpo geographically, jindo is a small island with a great deal of agriculture (please see pictures on facebook).

being that jindo is still dominated by nature, we had multiple encounters with earthworms throughout the day, much to jane's excitement. puzzled by her reaction to these worms, lindsey asked what was so special about them. jane explained, "korea used to have much more nature than it does now. when i was a child, i used to see worms all the time. now, i hardly see them in mokpo. to me, it is very exciting to see a worm."

turns out, jane is not alone in her excitement for mother nature. last week, one of my students approached me with a plastic cup. she said, "look teacher," tilting the cup to reveal the contents; inside, there was a caterpillar. not a cute, green caterpillar like you see in cartoons. no, this one looked more like a transparent slug. nasty. but, to her, it might as well have been a puppy.

and, quite frequently on my walk to and from lunch, students will be gathered around some bug or another: a praying mantis, a snail, a spider. my high school girls love to pick these bugs up, inspect them and, sometimes, chase each other with them. it reminds me of my childhood in the desert, catching lizards and horny toads.

kinda makes me appreciate mother nature all over again.

korean hospitality

i feel blessed to have spent a significant amount of time in my life with people from many different cultures, and i am always taken back at the overwhelming hospitality they show me. surprisingly, i have very few asian friends. so, as i embarked on my journey east, i was expecting to encounter the politeness that pervades the stereotypes of asian cultures. we are all familiar with these stereotypes: formal, well-mannered, lots of bows, etc. (please see figure below).


however, i did not anticipate the grace, style and sincerity of korean hospitality. world take notice: koreans know how to do it, and it is impresivo.

i give you...Exhibit A: the plane ride over on asiana air.

my plane. (ok, not really, but i flew on one just like it.)

for a minute, i thought i was in "catch me if you can" with these uber-classy flight attendants who, by the way, were also the nicest flight attendants i've ever encountered.

first class (i wish) where the seats recline completely flat into nearly full-size beds.

complimentary toothbrushes and toothpaste in the plane bathrooms that were cleaned repetitively on our red-eye flight from LA to Seoul.

Exhibit B: service.
it's cold in korea. really cold. it's not even cold yet, and i'm already cold. i'm freezing. i think it has something to do with the wind and the concrete walls that take hold of the fall chill and turn my school into a (very environmentally-friendly) freezer. of course, it could be that i am from the desert and meant to exist only in temperatures ranging from 80-115 degrees. i am becoming slightly concerned that i might not survive winter.

fueled by this fear, and by my ever-present desire to be warm, i walked myself down to shinae (old downtown mokpo) and bought a north face puffy coat. really, i have been looking for an excuse to buy a puffy, as i lost one a few years back, and life has never been quite the same without it.

upon paying for my puffy coat, the lady behind the counter put up her hand and said, "wait. service." she ran to the back and returned with a plaid fleece blanket wrapped in plastic. she placed it in my bag, and i left, elated. this is a common thing in korea. from free coke at restaurants to free facial products at the beauty store, when you spend money at an establishment in korea, you are rewarded with "service." i realize that this is all an attempt to obtain my loyalty as a shopper, but i don't care. frankly, it works; it works a lot better, i think, than an ever-present sales associate haunting me through the store and stalking me in the dressing room.

service? yes please.


Exhibit C: "sharing makes us happy"--for this title, i give credit to nanette r. grant, who probably said this 100 times a day when we were kids. see mom, it stuck.
koreans are all about sharing, particularly when it comes to food. many of you will be familiar with this concept if you've eaten at a korean restaurant. but, this goes far beyond sharing dishes at a restaurant. the teachers in my office will often bring in food for everyone to share: fruit, drinks, pastries, traditional korean cakes and other delicious snacks. also, they spontaneously offer me half of an orange or a handful of candy. while this is dangerous for my waistline, i find the gesture endearing and quite impressive.

mom, you'd be proud of korea. they're all about sharing, and i think it does make them happy. because, contrary to the stereotype, koreans are perhaps the least formal people i know; they are quick to laughter, kind-hearted, and warm. i feel lucky to spend a year enjoying and learning from their extraordinary hospitality.

week 2: settling in

as most of you know, i am a fickle blogger. however, with my move to korea, i am committed to changing my past blogging habits. mostly, because i don't want to forget this experience, and i am terrible at writing in a journal. but, also because i want to share my life in korea with my family and friends back home.

unfortunately, the decision to start this blog has presented me with a problem: what, exactly, do i want this blog to be?

is it a travel log?
is it a diary?
is it a photo album?
is it a study in korean culture?
is it a teaching log?
is it a random sampling of my thoughts?

i suppose in many ways, this is the ultimate question facing bloggers (or, maybe i'm just obsessive). regardless, figuring out how to blog about my life in korea has been complicated.

but...

i have persevered and finally found a solution to my problem. unfortunately, now i have a ridiculously long list of things i want to write about. so, faithful readers, please bear with me.

week 2:

forrest gave me some great advice during my first week: make your house your own. most of my time the second week was spent doing just that. i continued to clean, moved some furniture around, reorganized the kitchen, and finally unpacked. this process did wonders for my emotional health. my little studio is now very much mine, and if i may brag a bit, in true brooke fashion, is very well organized.






it also helps that i have some reminders of home thanks to my amazing parents. they gave me this card when i left for korea, and the heart post-it notes were stuck onto individually wrapped chocolate chip cookies. yes, mom, this means that i ate all of them, and they were delish! (i found the seashells on a beach on jindo island during the ship festival. story to follow in week 3's update.)



but, the highlight of week 2 came on wednesday.

i was walking up to school in the morning, when i heard some girls yelling "teacher! bird! teacher! bird!" as they hung out of a 4th floor window . "yes," i said, "i hear the bird." i was slightly confused at why they were so excited about a bird chirping in a tree. pretty standard. it wasn't until lunch time that i realized what had them so excited: there was a huge, beautiful owl in the tree right outside of our building. it was one of the most awe inspiring animals i've ever seen. sadly, i didn't have my camera with me, but he looked just like this:


while the owl sighting was thrilling, the best part of wednesday came during lunch. i had a conversation (via students translating), with the vice principal, who is always especially kind to me, about how rare owl sightings are in korea. during that conversation, he had one of the students ask me if i knew who he was. "yes, of course i know him. he's the vice principal," i said.

he seemed quite pleased with my recognition of his title and position. i asked the students to tell me his name. they did; i can't remember it all, but his family name is mun, which is pronounced like moon. this pronunciation similarity then became a game of charades and ended in my decision to call him mr. moon from now on. he agreed.

lunch that afternoon was spent bridging cultural divides and relishing in an amazing pumpkin soup.

pumping...air?

i never really think of my vocal cords as being controlled by muscles until i have to teach after a lengthy break. then, like any muscle that hasn't been used in a while (sidenote: there are too many of these in my body), my vocal cords remind me that they are, in fact, controlled by muscles and pumping air is no joke.

my new job has my vocal cords on a pretty serious workout: i talk for the majority of 5, 50 minute classes a day, 5 days a week. this calculates to 250 minutes a day, 1,250 minutes a week. a good deal of those 250 minutes a day are spent trying to talk over (or silence) chatty, giggly korean high school girls. and, to add just a little more intensity to the workout for my already strained vocal system, when i am walking to and from class, to and from lunch, or even sitting in my office, i have 700+ girls that all say "hi!" every time they see me. i think i have said "hi" over 10,000 times in the last few weeks.

don't get me wrong, i love teaching these girls. i love that they all want to talk to me in english outside the classroom (my goal this year is to get them to speak english more frequently than once a week in my class). i love how excited they get to say hi to me. but, my vocal cords, and the attached muscles, are suffering. i can feel them in their little place screaming out at me: "please stop talking! we are going to snap!" alas, i cannot stop. at least, not until september 19, 2012.

i was worried about all kinds of things before i came to korea:

will i like the food?
will i get lonely?
will i like my school?
will i be able to survive not knowing korean?
will i find friends, both korean and american?
will i be able to adapt my teaching experience to high school? to korea? to esl?
will i miss my family so much that i die?

no, no, dear friends, these are not the things i should have been worried about. what i should have been worried about were those little muscles in my throat suffering permanent damage from excessive exercise.

week 1: arriving

well, world. i made it to korea. i can hardly believe that it's been a week. time is a funny thing; i feel as though i just arrived, but i also feel as though i've been here for months.

the departure and travel were not without tears and frustration, which is unusual for me, the world traveler that i am. in all the years that i have left home and country to travel and live for various amounts of time, i have never struggled leaving home like i did this time. many prayers were offered by me and for me, and somehow, i managed to fall asleep on the plane. this was a miracle and a much needed blessing.

my life in suitcases...just how i always imagined it.

not bad after a 20 hour travel day.

goodbye mr. washington...hello korean figure heads i don't know.

i kept one, just to have a piece of home.

hanging out in the incheon airport in seoul. waiting on mr. kim.

my first korean angel. mr. kim (one of many) picked me up at the airport and put me on a bus. he was so nice. made my first moments outside of the airport quite reassuring.

on the bus ride from seoul to mokpo (about 4.5 hours), i found myself forgetting that korea was an unfamiliar place. in moments, korea already felt like home, particularly when i saw the sea. i knew, instantly, that i would be just fine.

bus ride pics:












my first look at mokpo:

my transition from that point to this has been mostly seamless, despite being ridiculously sick and spending hours and hours and hours and hours cleaning my apartment that still isn't clean. i meant to take more pictures of the grossness of my apartment (which has a mold problem that i have a feeling i will be battling for a year), but it was so gross that i didn't want to stop cleaning in order to take pics. unfortunately, these few pictures do not tell the story well. alas, they're all i have:

bathroom floor under washing machine. sick.

bathroom door...before.

bathroom door...after.

other than cleaning every surface with chemical products that, i'm sure, have done lasting damage to my body, i met some pretty cool people my first week in korea. the teacher who i replaced at the school stayed in korea for a week, and introduced me to the city. on sunday (september 18th), i went to lunch with a slew of english teachers from the states, england, south africa and canada. one of these teachers, lindsey, works at my sister middle school. she lives in the building, and we walk to and from school together every day. having her around has made for a much easier transition.

my first week at school was filled with giggly girls that were wowed by pictures of my family, friends, car, and house. they would all sigh in unison, awww, at pictures of ryder, thought maiyah was the most beautiful american they had ever seen, and peppered me with questions about my love life. i laughed the whole week. one of the english teachers told me that having a social life here is crucial to being happy. he said that he wanted to help me meet people so that i will like it here and want to stay. most of the teachers tolerate their jobs for the experience. honestly, i'd stay here just for the job. it's my favorite part of the korean experience thus far. i love these girls (all 700+ of them), and i'm excited to spend a year teaching them.

the girls in one class had made me a welcome sign when i walked in...i love them.

tangerine peel she put in her hair to look like a flower. (also a good example of what all of my classrooms look like).

that is a picture of me that this girl drew for my first day in her class. presh.

super awesome cup...made to look like a camera lens. even more awesome, shy korean high school girl, nervous about getting her picture taken.

how it works: i teach all the girls in a privatized public high school. it's actually a christian school, which i kinda dig. there are familiar (subject not artist) paintings of christ's life all over the school. makes me feel at home. so, the school has 3 grades (1, 2, and 3) (essentially sophmore, junior and senior). the classes have about 30 girls each. i teach each class once a week, 5 classes a day. it's a lot of talking, a lot of teaching and a lot of girls. but, i love it.

my desk at work

here's to a beginning a new adventure!!