A Weekend in Seoul

I went to Seoul with the other teachers this weekend. We took the train up Friday night after school and returned late tonight. We stayed overnight at the bathhouse again. I loved it! It's the only place in Korea where I actually feel warm since my apartment is very drafty.

We spent all day Saturday walking around. We visited Insadong, which is the cultural district of Seoul, and Namdaemun, which is a huge market district, where everything from ginseng to clothing to kitchen utensils is sold.

It is very nice to go to Seoul because it is such a huge city--the largest city in the world by some estimates. People still stare at us, but not as much as they do in the smaller town. We were going to go back this coming weekend, but the railway workers are on strike, and only 34% of the country's passenger trains are currently running, including the subway system in Seoul. So much for that plan.

Below are my photos from Seoul. The photo of the sign is my favorite. There are comical expressions printed in English everywhere. The other teachers and I have been using "Dream in popince love for baby" to mean "sweet dreams." As it turns out, "Popince" is the name of the department store. The red writing in Korean says "Po-Pin-Suh." I'm getting very good at being able to sound out writing that I see, but I still have no idea what most of it means. It's become a game for me to look for words I recognize on signs, church bulletins, food packages, etc.

Without further ado, here are the photos!

Above: The Wesley Mission School staff in the hallway outside the classrooms.

Below: Kindergarten graduation. All these kids will move up to first grade in about a week. This was a formal event, as you can tell by their "hanbok" or traditional dress under their graduation gowns!

Here are some photos of my transition class. They will be moving on up to kindergarten in a couple weeks. The kindergarten class is still at our school, so I'll still see them in the cafeteria and halls, but I won't be their teacher anymore. Aren't they cute?

Valentine's Day in Korea

I decided to decorate the big picture windows in the hallway outside the classrooms for Valentine's Day. Two of the teachers made a design out of red hearts and wrote "We Love You" on three big hearts. I wrote each student's name in either pink or red on a little heart--all 86 students' names. I was about to start cutting the little hearts out when I remembered reading somewhere that the only time you write a person's name in red in Korea (and some other Asian cultures) is when that person is dead! I didn't want to risk anyone seeing my mistake, so I stuffed all the hearts in my book bag, ran across the street to my apartment, and started rewriting the names in pink instead of red.

Then I started wondering, "Is pink too close to red to be safe? If you write a name in pink, does it mean the person is only sort of dead?" I found Nathan, a Korean guy who is 22 and works at the church, and asked him if it's okay to write names in pink. He said most people wouldn't have a problem with pink, but the old people might. I didn't want to risk it, so I rewrote all the pink names in blue and purple. I'm just glad I caught my mistake before I put them all on the window! I also made a heart for each of the teachers and for Nathan, who helps us out a lot. His English is really good so if we need an interpreter, we call him. He's also the one who drove when they picked me up at the airport. Look carefully, the big hearts say "We Love You!" and the little white hearts have the teachers' names on them.All the little white hearts have students' names on them.I didn't make hearts for the 4 high school students who come for extra homework help in the evenings, and they were really disappointed. The director usually teaches them, but she had to do parent-teacher conferences, so I was in charge of that class. I let each of the high school students write their name on a heart and put it up with the others. They were delighted, but the director walked in as we were cutting them out and threw a fit. She yelled at me in front of the students for letting them do something that wasn't directly related to their studies, even though we had only been doing it for a couple minutes. All they were doing was writing their name, cutting it out, and taping it up with the others.

Yesterday, the director interrupted me in the middle of the Lord's Prayer (we recite it at the beginning of every class) to tell me I was saying it wrong. She said "thine" isn't English, and I'd better learn the prayer the way she does it, which is her own paraphrase. She also interrupted me in the middle of teaching the kindergarten kids the "Apples and Bananas" song and hollered "That song is nonsense! We don't teach nonsense!" Right in front of the kids! All day, every day, it's one thing after another from this director. She seems to hate me.

I sent an email message to the coordinator of the mission program back in the US asking if he can find another assignment for me here in Korea beginning this summer. If not, I may see about coming home then or going somewhere else. It makes me very sad because I think about the people back home who are supporting me in my work here, but I think they'd agree that many of the things I experience here everyday are anything but Christian. I hope something can be worked out here, because I like Korea, but this director makes my life quite miserable. She says horrible things about all of us to the other teachers. She's constantly trying to pit us against each other.

The director just called and said she needs to talk to me and wants me to come to the school an hour early tomorrow. Wonder what that's all about . . .

Class is in Session

Class is in session. This is where students and staff leave their street shoes before entering the classroom area. There is a very specific shoe etiquette here. You must take your street shoes off before entering homes, some restaurants, offices, or classrooms. It is okay to have a clean pair of shoes or slippers that are only worn as indoor shoes. Every once in a while, I break the shoe etiquette and wear my shoes in my apartment but NEVER in the school! I think it's probably grounds for dismissal. (I'm serious about that!)

To get from the classrooms to the teachers' office, you have to pass through a hallway in which street shoes must be worn. From the classroom, you put your shoes back on, walk about 20 feet, take your shoes back off, and enter the office. Many people step down on the backs of their shoes and wear them all as slip-ons. Cobblers and shoe stores have a good business here in Korea!

A Weekend in Seoul

I went to Seoul this weekend with two of the other teachers and had a great time. We left after school on Friday evening. It took a little over two hours to get there. The train was really comfortable because we bought our tickets the day before and had seats. If you don't make reservations, you pay a slightly lower price and end up standing. The train was a lot like Amtrak, except that they allow people to stand in the aisles. It was going on 10 PM when we got to Seoul, and we went to Itaewon, a district just off one of the US army posts that’s the foreigners’ area in Seoul. We ate at Kentucky Fried Chicken and then walked for an hour, not really going anywhere, just taking it all in. Then we caught the last subway of the evening to another part of the city where we stayed at one of the public bathhouses for the night.

The public bath house, or jjimjilbang, was an interesting experience. The first floor is a locker room. You change out of your clothes and into a t-shirt and shorts that they give you. On the 2nd-4th floors, there are sauna-like hot rooms that are supposed to treat various illnesses, video rooms, restaurants, exercise rooms, etc.--something for everyone. The hot rooms are really hot. The coolest hot room was 104 degrees F. The hottest was 158F. I opened the door to that one but didn't go in. Down in the basement are the public baths, which are separate for men and women. First, you sit on a little stool and scrub up and rinse. Then you rinse again at a shower. Then you soak in any of 5 huge hot tubs. The sleeping rooms are on the fifth floor. There was room for men, a room for women, and a room for snorers! I thought that was funny. The sleeping rooms have thin mattresses on the floor--and bunks above them to create another floor for more thin mattresses. I chose a bottom bed so that the lights wouldn't be shining on me all night, since it's dimly lit in there all the time. All in all, it was pretty cool. For $10, it was a clean, safe, comfortable place to stay the night. It's hard to beat that.

In the morning, we ate breakfast at the bathhouse. I had the spiciest ramyeon I've ever tasted. Then we went back to Itaewon to go to a Western grocery store and stopped at McDonald's for lunch. Of all the things we saw yesterday, I was least impressed with Itaewon, because it was so Westernized. From there we went to Dongdemun, the fashion district of Seoul. We literally walked for miles through malls and clothing markets. I wasn't really interested in shopping at Dongdaemun, but it was amazing to see the blocks upon blocks of shopping malls. Then we met up with a Korean friend of the other teachers for dinner at a traditional hole-in-the-wall Korean restaurant, which was very good. After dinner their friend took us to the store where he works in one of the huge malls, and we gave him a little business since he works on commission and isn't paid much. I bought a very purple scarf. Since all the clothes were Asian sizes, I knew I wouldn't fit in them!

We caught a taxi from Dongdaemun to the train station and made it just 10 minutes before the train left at 7:55 PM. By a little after 10 PM, we were back in Sapkyo and walked from the train station to our apartment buildings.

It was a good weekend! I'm looking forward to going back to Seoul, but I think if I want to do things like see the gates or the palaces, I might have to break away from the other teachers for a while. They don’t seem to be interested in anything other than shopping and eating.

I had a neutral day yesterday. The director had parent-teacher conferences all day, so I taught her classes. The kids were great for the most part. One kid (11 or 12 years old, I'd guess) was really obnoxious, and another kid in his class fed off of him, but other than that, they were really good.

I sat in on one of the preschool classes in the morning, and two of the kids ended up crying for no apparent reason, so I took them on a walk to find their regular Korean teacher. The preschoolers are so cute! There are two little girls who are serious troublemakers and bordering on being out-of-control. There is another little girl who just doesn't like me. If I look at her or smile at her or wave or anything, she scowls, folds her arms, and turns away from me. My goal is to make friends with her! There is another little girl who is a complete sweetheart. She sees me coming and runs to give me a hug. And there's a little boy who, as soon as I sit down, plops down right next to me. He's the smallest kid in the class but has a very grown up face, and every time I've seen him, he's been dressed in a button down shirt and sweater-vest which makes him look like a little man. There is only one more week in their school year, and then all the kids move up to the next class, so the preschoolers will be in the transition class, and we'll get a new batch of preschoolers.

I thought everything went really well in the director's classes yesterday, but when she was done with conferences, she came into the room and started yelling at me in front of the students for doing too many pages in the workbook and for leaving the classroom unattended. The kids didn't understand what she was saying to me, but they could certainly understand that she was mad at me. She had left me no lesson plan whatsoever, so I had no idea how many workbook pages to do. And the only time I left the room was between classes when all the teachers go stand in the hall to make sure the kids don't kill each other while running from classroom to classroom. When I told her this she said, "Obviously you left the kids in here unattended because look at all these things on the floor." "All these things" included a roll of toilet paper (which people here use for tissues) and a small pencil sharpener that had fallen from a table.

After school, the youth pastor at the church invited us to go with the youth group to Yesan, the next town over and the county seat, to hear a band and choral group. The high school kids, most of whom I hadn't met, were impressed by my ability to read Korean, even though I had no idea what I was reading. I'm really working hard to learn how to read, and it always tickles me when I come across an English word written in Korean. The group we heard last night was called the "Korean Continental Singers." In Korean, it's written "Hankuk (means "Korean" in Korean) Con-tee-nen-tal Sing-a-suh." Similarly, Wesley Mission School is "Oeh-sel-lee Mee-shon Suh-kool." There isn't an "L" sound or an "R" sound in Korean, but there is a sound in between, so R's and L's are a little confusing. Words can’t end in some consonant sounds in Korean, so they add a slight vowel sound to the end to make it easier to pronounce. People also seem to have a hard time with V, F, and TH sounds since those don't exist in Korean. People here pronounce their F's as P's. I had a little girl get very mad at me yesterday when I told her "fork" was not a P-word. "Yes, Teach-uh," she said, "PORK, PORK, PORK!"

I'm going to Seoul on the train tonight. I'm staying at a bathhouse, spending all day Saturday in Seoul and coming back on Saturday night. I'm really looking forward to it.

Miss America

Well, today was a much better day. The director, who still doesn't seem to like me very much, called this morning and asked me to meet her at the school in half an hour. She spent almost an hour and a half going over the curriculum with me and explaining how things run, how the classes are divided, etc. I told her again and again how helpful that was. I also told her I intend to be an excellent teacher here at the school and that I take a lot of pride in my work, so having time to prepare is not only helpful but really important to me. That seemed to be a good answer. She was sweet to me all day and even took me for a walk around the town after lunch to show me where some things are. I hope this is a new beginning and not just a temporary reprieve.

I'm going to start teaching preschool (4-year-olds) and the pre-K transition class (5-year-olds) on Monday. The rest of this week I'm mostly sitting in on the other teachers' classes. Just sitting there is really pretty boring. The director has some parent-teacher conferences tomorrow, so I will be teaching a couple of her classes alone. I'm fine with that now that I've actually seen the textbook and have an idea of what they're doing and what they can do.

I just got back from the Wednesday night prayer service. The people all pray aloud at once, so it's a very noisy place. I'm going to use the audio feature on my camera to record it sometime. It's really something to hear! On my way down the church steps after the service, a woman tapped me on the shoulder and started talking excitedly at me. A teacher who has been here three years and can have simple conversations in Korean, said she wanted to know why I was here. He explained I'm the new missionary teacher, and she started jumping up and down in her hanbok (long traditional dress) and almost fell down the very steep stairs. She then followed me across the parking lot saying "Thank you, teacher. Thank you, teacher!" As I've said before, the people couldn't possibly be more welcoming.

Something comical happens everyday. I sat in on the kindergarten class when another teacher was teaching. The kids wanted to know where I was from. "Teacher, you China?" they asked and giggled. "Teacher, you Korea?" More giggles. "Teacher, you Africa?" and they pointed at the other teacher, who is from Liberia, and giggled some more.

I said, "America." (No one says "United States" here, even when speaking English.)

"Oh!" one little boy exclaimed. "Teacher Miss America!"

Now the whole kindergarten class calls me Miss America.

That's all for now. 4 days down and I still like kimchi.

Everything is okay so far. Three days down, and I still like kimchi. Actually, all the food is very good, but I don't know what most of it actually is.

The kids are cute as can be! I'm supposed to get my own preschool and kindergarten classes next week, but it may even be this week since Kathy, my roommate, is going crazy with them. I'll have my own elementary and middle school classes in March. For now I'm just sitting in on the other teachers' classes. Just sitting in is a little boring, and I think the director doesn't like me very much for some reason, but hopefully that'll get better.

A Couple Photos

This is the church building with a light dusting of snow. The school building is to the right of it.This is my apartment building as seen from the steps of the church. I literally live just across the street from the church and school. It's an easy commute!And here's Wesley Mission School on a sunny but cold winter day.The first floor is for the preschool and kindergarten classes. The second floor is for the elementary, middle, and high school English classes. The left hand side of the school building has the cafeteria downstairs and an auditorium upstairs. The right hand side of the building has classrooms. The preschool, transition, and kindergarten classes are all on the first floor. They are in school from 9 until 3 everyday with their Korean teachers, and we go down to their classrooms for an hour in the mornings to teach English. Upstairs are the English classrooms for the elementary, middle, and high school students who come to Wesley from their regular schools for two hours of English classes everyday.

Education is very serious business here in Korea. High school students are in school from 8 AM until 10 PM, with breaks for lunch and dinner. Younger students are in school from 8 AM until 5 PM. There is a lot of pressure on students to do well in school, and parents pay a lot of money to make sure children get the best possible education. Wesley helps keep the costs down for families because it is supported by the church and because we teachers are missionaries and do not receive salaries. This helps make English classes available to more students, which allows the kids from this small community to be competitive for university admission and gives them an edge in the working world. Most of our language students are very serious about their studies and work so hard to learn English.

Having said all that about Korean schools, I must say that kids are kids everywhere. They are mostly well behaved but occasionally act up, and kids here don't like homework or tests any more than kids in the U.S. do!

Greetings from Korea

I made it safe and sound to the Land of the Morning Calm. My flight was uneventful. I had a window seat, so I was delighted to see far northeastern Russia as we flew over. The mountains were beautiful, but did it ever look cold down there!Two of the other teachers and one church member met me at the airport in Seoul. I thought it was really funny that they were holding a sign for me. It said “WELCOME” in big letters and my name in little letters at the bottom. My name was too small to see clearly until I was pretty close to the sign, so it didn’t help me to locate them at all, but I thought it was cute. From the airport, it was a 2+ hour drive to the town I'm now living in. We drove past, but not through, Seoul, and I was struck by what a big city it is. The rows and rows of apartment buildings remind me of dominoes, all lined up and ready to topple, which left me feeling a little uneasy. As it got darker outside, I could see all these neon red crosses on the tops of buildings. The other teachers told me that they’re all churches. It seemed a little like a surreal graveyard

Today church was at 11:00, but everyone goes at about 10:45 because they do all the music before the service. The congregation was really friendly, and the people seem genuinely glad to have me here. The church service today was very nice, though I didn't understand any of it. The service, of course, is in Korean, but they have volunteers who interpret the sermon into English, and we five teachers wear little earpieces to hear the interpretation, which I probably could have done without. The only thing I could really make out was that the interpreter said about 15 times, "Even though Rahab was a prostitute and sold her smile for money, she was a sensible woman." Hmmm . . . I think there must have been more substance to the sermon than that! Everyone at the church was so friendly and welcoming. I had about a dozen people tell me I'm beautiful!

After church, Dr. Kim and his wife took a bunch of us out to lunch--the five teachers, Pastor Jeong and his wife, and another lady. I have no idea who the other lady is. No one introduced themselves by name, only by relation to other people. The other teachers call Pastor Jeong's wife "Pastor Jeong's wife". That's going to take some getting used to. We went to a restaurant in Yesan, the next city over. I have no idea what I ate, but it all tasted good--a little spicy but not too bad. Everyone was impressed by my chop stick dexterity. Apparently Dr. Kim and his wife take the teachers out to lunch most Sundays.

I just got back to the apartment and have free time until evening services at 7:00. I think I'm going to take a nap, because it's Sunday and that's what I do. The apartment leaves much to be desired, but the heated floors are nice. Kathy and I each have a very small bedroom, double bed, nightstand with a little cabinet underneath, and a little wardrobe. There is a kitchenette and a table with 4 chairs (only 3 of which are usable, I found out the hard way), and then a sitting room with a desk and chair, two stuffed chairs, a coffee table, and a credenza. It's pretty bare. There's some serious mildew on the wallpaper, but they say they're going to fix it. The bathroom has a bathtub about half the size of a regular bathtub and a shower head, but no curtain or door, so the water goes everywhere. Fortunately, there is a drain in the floor. It's all sufficient, but bare bones. My room has a little balcony which will be nice when it gets warmer, but for now, it just means that it's drafty. Our apartment is on the first floor. The associate pastor and family live above us, and I think there is another apartment above them.

Antipodal Points

Ever wonder what's exactly on the other side of the world? When I was a teenager in Germany, I remember telling a friend something about digging a hole to China. She laughed and said that the saying in Europe is to dig a hole to Australia. While I didn't know it at the time, we were discussing the mathematical concept of antipodal points, any two points that are diametrically opposed to each other on a sphere. Incidentally, the antipodal point of the most the USA is not China but the Indian Ocean, and the antipodal point of most of Europe is not Australia but the Pacific Ocean. To dig a hole straight through the center of the earth to China, you'd have to be in certain parts of Argentina or Chile. I guess "digging to the Indian Ocean" just doesn't have the same ring to it. Dad and I were discussing this at lunch today. How far away can you go before you start coming closer again? When I first looked into the possibility of a longer-term mission trip, I wanted to return to Mexico. Korea looks to me to be about the farthest place from Mexico! (As it turns out, Korea's antipodal point is just off the southern tip of Brazil in the Atlantic Ocean, so it really is about as far from Mexico as anywhere else on the planet!) Even though it isn't exactly the location I originally had in mind, even though I've never in my life thought "Gosh, I'd like to go to Korea!", I'm really excited about this opportunity to be in ministry on another part of the planet.

A Sad Farewell to Galena

Well, Galena, it's been a great five years, and you sent me off well! My former youth group kids stopped by for ice cream Friday night, which was a fitting way to spend my last evening in town since so much of my life in Galena was punctuated by the youth group in one way or another. When the last three of "my kids" drove away, I sat down and sobbed, sad to say good-bye but also overwhelmed by the honor of being a part of their lives and the blessing to have them in mine! On Saturday I waited until Grandma Shirley made it home from the Chicago suburbs before heading out of town. It was a hard good-bye, and I cried for about the first 50 miles of the drive to Mom and Dad's in Wheaton.

Today I visited the Aldersgate UMC in Wheaton with my parents. I was very touched by Pastor Gamlin's impromptu send-off prayer and the group of parishoners who wished me well. The prayers of my friends and family and the larger Christian community sustain me.

Travel Plans

I am scheduled to depart from Chicago on Friday, February 3rd. It's a 14-hour nonstop flight to Seoul. I am very excited but also more than a little nervous. I am thankful for the support and encouragement my friends and family have shown as I've prepared for this journey.