Tanabata

on dark nights
I think of friends
shining across continents:
a constellation
whose form is yet unnamed
whose nature is love

I remember you
I remember this
small moments cupped in my hands
an offering to our great becoming

wherever I go
I carry your light



(I wrote this last year after my college's five-year reunion. Thinking again of friends near and far as I begin a new year in Korea.)

(..........) Julia (.........)?!

This panel from Hikaru no Go perfectly illustrates my work life at school every day, especially during lunch.

It's especially paranoia-inducing when there is a flurry of stares and chatter in Korean with my name interjected and I... have no clue what I just did. I was just eating? Maybe I drank my water in a hilariously foreign way?

Blog-warming

I can't believe it's been almost a month since I last posted here. The semester is winding down to its final weeks and I'm "desk-warming" again, because my classes got cancelled in favor of school festival preparation. Desk-warming is the time-honored practice beloved/dreaded by ESL teachers in Korea of sitting at your desk all day and staying sane.

It doesn't take much to fall out of the posting habit! A few weeks ago, I had planned my next post to be a tour of my apartment, but it was too messy and bare to capture in photos. I'm ashamed to say that it's still the case...

It's been a busy, interesting month. Holidays have been barreling through like bullet trains in my quiet, countryside existence. The expat crew had a Thanksgiving dinner of fried chicken, beer, and french fries at the local chicken place, which was satisfyingly American. I'm glad to have passed over the horrors of Black Friday this year.

I went with Dani to Cheongju to spend the weekend with her friends Kerrie and Minseop and share in a traditional Christmas dinner. I haven't been here long, but roast chicken, stuffing, and apple pie filled an absence that I didn't even know was growing.

Christmas dinner, thanks to Kerrie and Minseop!

Filling the void of homesickness, or the black hole in my belly.

The honeymoon period has ebbed away, leaving behind a sense of relief and balance. As much I enjoyed existing in a constant state of barely restrained excitement and exuberance, I'm glad to mellow out and start appreciating the routines I am starting to develop. It feels like coming home after a rock concert. It's getting colder and darker and I'm looking forward to quiet nights of knitting, movies, poetry, and copious tea drinking. Winter in Korea means always being a bit too cold. I try to keep the heating bill low in my apartment by trapping all the cold air in my kitchen. investing in fleece pajamas, and sealing the windows. This means my kitchen always smells like fried oil and the Arctic.

I need an adult version of this. Christmas is next week!!

My commute to and from my schools feels mostly automated now. I remember just a month ago keeping my eyes fixed outside the window for the whole 20-40 minute ride, watching indecipherable street signs pass by and waiting for my stop to magically appear.

It's almost the end of the semester and my middle and high school students have all taken their final exams. They still have to come to school for a month and a half before vacation. I have the particular joy of being an anxious new teacher with completely burnt-out kids who beg me for candy and Simpsons episodes. Most of my classes have been cancelled last minute for exam prep or school festival practice. It's a weird time to be a new teacher.

Since my apartment still looks terrible, my next post will be snapshots of life in Hampyeong, from the Chrysanthemum Festival to our first snow. :)

Small blessings

I don't have a religion, but I believe in gratitude as a practice. I have a lot to be thankful for.

Real life friends again, at last!

First of all, Dani, because I can't express how happy I am to live so close to her again! Not only is she one of my favorite people, we share a lot of geeky interests and she is a perfect traveling buddy. I am terrible with directions and logistics, so it's been wonderful to follow around a seasoned traveler in Korea and see all the best things with someone who likes the same things I do! She's been taking such good care of me, giving me advice about the best way to handle things smoothly and checking in with me almost every day.

I got a cold over the weekend, probably from my Nasan kids on Friday because there's no hand soap in the bathrooms. I sent a message to the Hampyeong crew asking where I could buy jook to eat. Jong Min, one of our local Korean friends, offers to COOK SOME FOR ME and brings it right to my building.

Yes please!!!

It is really hard to be sick and alone in a new country and if there is ONE thing that could make me feel better, it's homemade jook like my mom always made for me when I'm sick. Sorry mom, but Jong Min's jook was actually tastier?

Made from ground unicorn horn

Later that night, I was messaging with Alissa and telling her that I was out of food, but I was too miserable to trek out to the market in the cold. As we're talking, Hyeonseon sends me a stealthy text message to tell me to check my door handle. I open the door and there is a bag of food and medicine hanging on my knob!! There's no way she could have known! It's like she read my mind! I was so happy I could have cried. I was instructed to pour the medicine from its little glass bottle and heat it in a cup for a bit before drinking. I don't know what's in it, but it cleared out my chest congestion instantly.

A perfect pair

For another bit of surprise mind-reading, I've been telling Dani that I wanted to buy a travel mug to bring to my schools and a pretty ceramic cup to use at home. We even went to three stores in Gwangju last weekend to look for them, but I wasn't happy with the prices or styles. On Monday, my vice principal presents me with the PERFECT purple travel mug. I wish I knew more Korean to tell her just how floored I was, but I hope my facial expression did it for me. Later, one of the really friendly teachers comes over to my desk looking a bit sad. When I asked her what was wrong, she said she actually bought me a cup too, but now she's embarrassed because someone else just got one for me. She showed me the cup and it's this adorable ceramic mug with a matching lid. She did know some English, so I did not spare any words in telling her just how perfect her gift was!!

My heart is full from meeting new and old friends. The Hampyeong group has been so welcoming and kind, right from the first night when they treated me and Michelle to dinner and drinks and showed us around town. They're the type of folks who know how to have a proper noraebang night into the wee morning hours, but will also share coffee and honey bread and chat about our day. I'm excited to get to know them better. I'm also glad to come here with Michelle, my roommate from orientation. She is such a fierce person (seriously, she is a bodybuilder and a bombshell), but also so open and warm. She inspires me to push to be my best self too.

Roomies!

Life is good. :) I hope I can give back as much as I am receiving.

Citron moon

I had citron tea (yujacha) during my first week in Korea, a bright, tangy syrup with slices of rind in a glass jar like marmalade. I arrived here one month ago today and I'm still flying high on what's known as the honeymoon phase from the stages of culture shock or living abroad. It reminds me of sipping tea that is too sweet, but I can't stop because it's like liquid sunlight.

Compared to my life in New York, there is a sense of buoyancy that pervades my every moment here. Every basic thing, from staring down my heating control panel or knowing when to push the stop request button on the bus, makes me feel giddy. I know, textbook honeymoon phase, but I fully plan to enjoy it while it lasts. I have some great friends here, but I really treasure those small alone moments of triumph. I want to become more independent. Ironically, it's hard to do anything here without relying on others to teach you at first, so I am absurdly proud of myself for the smallest things.

First time I went to a restaurant alone. At least I can feed myself now -- level 1 complete!

My favorite project from my time in AmeriCorps was building a 1000 feet bridge in a national park in Alabama. It was my last project with my team and the monotony of outdoor labor, isolation, and homesickness was making us act truly terrible to each other. No one had much compassion left for anyone anymore and I frustrated myself and my team for being so physically weak.

Working that nail gun.

I have really fond memories of this time, even though I think I cried myself to sleep most nights from every kind of fatigue. It was a rare opportunity to face the best and worst parts of myself and others. It felt like being really alive, better than hot showers or cushy office chairs. I knew I was getting stronger in one way or another. Each day, I could see how many boards I laid down. Stronger people could have done the job faster or better, but it wasn't about that. Nothing was at stake. We had the time to finish the job slowly or quickly, with no rewards attached to reaching the end early. Life was just practice, not a performance. Practice was the means and the end.

Everything is challenging here too, but it's a contracted position so it gives me the freedom to treat everything as a practice. I'm doing BETTER and working harder. I've been on time every day. I wake up early enough to do my hair and makeup nicely and get compliments on being so polished. I'm a new teacher, but I can learn and I don't feel like I have to be perfect right away. I can try and learn and grow.

I've been a walking beacon of positive energy here and not surprisingly, everyone I've met has been so warm and friendly. My cup is overflowing with small kindnesses and beautiful things. I'm glad I have made it a habit to push myself out of my comfort zone, because I can enjoy the good times without worrying whether I can handle what comes next.

I can handle anything if there is honey bread to be had...

If this post made you thirsty, check out this great infograph on 12 kinds of tea you can find in Korea.

Jeollanamdo Language Program

Today marks my first week in Hampyeong and so far, I have taught at 3 out of 4 of my schools. I have the day off because of the most important milestone in Korean education: high school seniors are taking the College Scholastic Ability Test, which will pretty much determine the course of their future success. This is the day when all the endless hours of studying and hard work starting from age 5 pay off. This website has a good overview of just how big a deal this exam is for Korean students.

For me, this means catching up on this blog and doing all my lesson planning for next week because Dani and I are going to Seoul this weekend!

This entry is mainly geared for people interested in teaching in Korea, who might stumble across my blog someday in their fervid internet sleuthing, like me a few months ago. Friends, I will write an actual update on my life here in Hampyeong soon, I promise. :) If anyone has any specific questions about my program, feel free to leave me a comment.

Overview of the Jeollanamdo Language Program

You may have heard of EPIK, which is Korea's major government-run recruitment program for native English teachers in public elementary and secondary schools. The Jeollanamdo Language Program functions essentially the same way, except it is run by the Jeollanamdo Office of Education and places teachers only within public schools in the Jeollanamdo province. No other province has their own language program, so that makes JLP quite unique.

Jeollanamdo's location in Korea

I only stumbled across an open JLP position because I was trying to find a job near Gwangju, but I would highly recommend this program if you are interested in teaching in Korea. Unfortunately, there isn't a main website for the JLP, but I posted the contract details for my current intake year at the end if you are interested in the  specific timeframe and benefits. They hire for positions with start dates in August and November and post open positions on forums like Waygook and Dave's ESL. You can also contact their main recruitment agencies, Canadian Connections and Jeolla Jobs (jeollajobs@gmail.com).

Differences from EPIK

JLP offers the same public school benefits as EPIK, with a few key differences. Since you work with one of their recruiters for specific positions, you can have some say over your location and type of school, more so than with EPIK. They offer 32 vacation days, versus EPIK's standard 21 days. They also have a native English coordinator, which I think is a significant highlight to the program. I was accepted to EPIK initially and the application process for both programs was like night and day.

Please bear in mind that working with a recruiter who would communicate with EPIK on your behalf would likely eliminate the issues I encountered by applying to EPIK directly, even though they recommend applying directly.

Both offices were very professional, but I struggled with communication problems with the Korea-based EPIK coordinators. I sent them a few emails which were intended as polite requests for clarification regarding my salary range eligibility, only to be rebuffed for "not understanding Korean culture." By comparison, I had an incredibly positive experience working with Jeolla Jobs. One of my goals of being in Korea is to learn more about Korean culture, but it is REALLY helpful to have a native English liaison serve as a buffer between your Korean employer so any communication missteps do not impact minor things like your living and working situation. Both EPIK and the JLP have full-time English coordinators who lead the orientations and support teachers throughout their contracts. I can personally vouch for Chris Devison from JLP, who has been highly approachable and knowledgeable.

JLP positions are provincial, so they tend to be rural and range from being among a handful of foreigners on an island to being among a dozen or so in a small city. Yeosu, the largest city in the province, has a population of about 250,000. EPIK hires for everywhere else in Korea, including all the major cities. I think SMOE and GEPIK hire for public schools in Seoul and its suburbs. It is also not uncommon to teach at multiple schools since they are mostly rural placements.

Orientation Week

There were only 26 of us in the November intake group, compared to the group of 90 in August, so it was easy to get to know the other teachers. We had a full schedule for the whole nine days, including lectures on Korean culture, teaching methods, and a few field trips. I was a bit antsy to get settled in my new home and start working, but the programming was designed to help new teachers slowly acclimate to Korea, especially for those new to living abroad and/or teaching.

I really appreciated that the presenters were mostly current or previous native English teachers who could relate directly to our experience. I was expecting a lot of bureaucratic mandated lectures, but all the information was interesting and quite candid.

Some highlights from orientation week:

• The Korean music teacher sang a sorrowful ballad typical to a certain region of Korea so masterfully that it made a girl start crying.
• Visiting the hospital for the required HIV and marijuana tests. Everyone was worried because there are quite a few things that could set off a false-positive result, such as ibuprofen, Midol, dental anesthesia, vitamins, or recent vaccinations. False positive results are very rare though, and all of us made it through. You have an opportunity to voice any concerns in advance during your private meeting with the doctor.
• Raising my hand for every question during the Korean Wave (pop culture) presentation. All those hours watching kpop on Youtube finally paid off...
• Meditating during a visit to a nearby temple. I included a bunch of photos below because it was easily the best part of orientation week.

Art as a meditative practice.

Check out our handiwork! Mine is the green one.

Tea ceremony with lotus blossom tea and rice cakes.

The remains of a famous monk, now a national treasure.

All 26 of us! Plus an adorable adjumma

Old and New

"When I look to the future, but always look to the past. Time is a circle, the future and the past in the same direction, and this moment is the thinnest layer..." (artist unknown, Gwangju Design Biennale)

As promised, a bit of belated coverage on the Gwangju Design Biennale as an excuse to weave in some thoughts on Korea's rapid transformation from a third-world agricultural nation to the technological powerhouse it is today in just 60 years... because that's how my mind works.

The Gwangju Biennale

Gwangju is known as the arts and culture capital of Korea, so it is not surprising that they host two large biennales to support local artists. This year's theme at the Gwangju Design Biennale was called "Anything, Something."

GUSIGI, MASIGI (Anything, Something) : the 5th Gwangju Design Biennale will explore cultural habits, shared characteristics, and coded conventions that inform the many unspoken contexts by which we communicate with one another. Two Korean words widely used in the Jeolla province, “GUSIGI, MASIGI,” is used to refer to an object or idea when the actual name escapes the mind, and is similar to the phrase “what do you call it” in English. Adopted from “GUSIGI, MASIGI”, “Anything, Something” keys into different elements of communication beyond literal speech such as emotional and cultural prompts as well as responses. The exhibition will explore such hidden contexts and habits in our day-to-day communication that inform designers sensitive to both familiar and new environments and who strive toward creative forms of understanding and expression. (Gwangju Biennale)

Given the theme, it was fascinating to visit this exhibition within the first week of moving to a country where I don't know the language or customs. The individual galleries were wide and varying, ranging from deconstructed straw mats to Louis Vuitton to Chinese furniture. Dani and I couldn't find printed literature on the theme, so it was hard to understand how these different things connected to each other. I was already feeling adrift between cultures, so it somehow made sense to have all these disparate pieces collected in the same space.

The featured gallery was called "Old and New" and focused on how traditional objects considered the "cultural DNA of Koreans" could be re-interpreted in a contemporary way highlighting their symbolic significance.

Featured gallery on the "Old and New"

A cascade of straw bowls, "equally valid as an object of elegant design as well as utilitarian purpose."

Some of it was pretty pretentious, but you gotta give props for dropping "dream of postmodernism."

I thought about this exhibit again after our orientation group was given a presentation on Korean history this week, covering the central defining events from the 1900s onward. The presenter was a young Korean-American woman and her passion for sharing her pride in Korea's incredible transformation from a third world to first world country had us enthralled for two hours. She did not hesitate to cover the darker, painful sides of Korean history, such as the hardships the Korean people endured during multiple wars, as well as the disturbing modern societal trends instigated by a national obsession with physical perfection and test scores.

I only took courses on China and Japan in college, so what I knew about Korea was through those courses or covered somewhat in colloquium. The precedence given to China and Japan is an ongoing issue within the field of East Asian Studies, so I graduated with this degree not knowing much about Korea. Given this, I am profoundly grateful for this opportunity to learn about this country from its own perspective.

What comes to mind when you think of Korea? It's probably...

Dramas!

Kpop!

Internet! Internet everywhere!

See also: Televised gaming tournaments, Hyundai, LG, RAINNN!!!!

Before the 1960s, none of that existed. The Korean War caused such devastation to the point that it was considered a third world country.

This is an iconic image from the time. Children were raising children.

Korea was able to progress so rapidly through the highly controversial leadership of Park Chung Hee, who became president in 1961 through a military coup. He silenced any opposition and rebuilt all of Korea's infrastructure with the same ruthless efficiency.

Seoul before and after.

I can't say if the ends justified the means, but the results are incredible. It is no wonder why Koreans are so proud of their country. The pace of progress explains the bali bali culture,where everything and everyone here moves FAST. There are people in just their 50s, my parents' generation, who can remember an entirely different Korea while their kids are born clutching smartphones. People my age can only remember this bright and spectacular Korea, but it wasn't long ago at all that it was covered in rubble and farmland. The strata of society is comprised of generations of people who may as well been from different worlds. Despite the tension and friction from growing pains between the old and new, South Korea is a remarkable country and I'm excited to be here and learn more.

"Cure" (Smartphones and candy inside IV drips)

"Gangnam Style"

A gallery of proposed designs for a flag that would represent both North and South Korea. Visitors could vote with small yellow stickers.

For family and friends who follow this blog to stay updated on my activities and not for history lessons, I'm finishing up orientation week and will be moving to Hampyeong on Thursday! 

Coming up: An overview of the Jeollanamdo Language Program and orientation week.

Bingsunami!

I know folks back home are reveling in their pumpkin spice lattes and candy corn, but I have been ALL ABOUT the bingsu this week.

Bingsu is Korea's version of shaved ice dessert. It seems like many Asian countries have their own take on it and I am definitely loving Korea's! I have had one almost every day since arriving since it's the tail end of bingsu season. So before the temperatures drop down much lower, I present to you... bingsu!

OREO BINGSU! With red beans and condensed milk lovingly laced through the snowy interior. I'm more than a little excited.

Green tea bingsu! The taste was un-matcha-ble.

I berried my spoon right to the bottom!

This one cured the tiramisery of jet lag.

O-pun sesame! Omnomnomnom...

I just settled in at the SBC orientation center where we will be receiving teaching and cultural training for ten days before moving to our various towns in Jeollanamdo. Opening ceremony tomorrow morning!

Culture Complex, part one

Are you suffering from culture complex?

I may not be sure of what I want to do for a "career" or even if such a thing is for me, but I knew that I wanted to spend at least a year living and working outside of the United States. Preferably in an East Asian country, since I was an East Asian Studies major in college.

Why not Japan? I missed the application deadline for the JET Programme and didn't want to wait another year to leave. I studied Japanese language and literature extensively and spent a semester in Kyoto. There will always be a part of me that lives in Japan (a horcrux, as Alissa would say), but if I lived there now, I would feel this pressure to be Miss Japanese Studies and I wanted a different kind of abroad experience.

As for China, my parents immigrated from China and I was born and raised in New York. I have never been to China. I know I will want to go someday, but for now, I didn't want to have a year characterized by grappling with my identity and heritage.

I chose South Korea because I wanted a particular type of living abroad experience. Aside from kpop and kdramas, I am unacquainted with South Korea and wanted to get to know a country with fresh eyes. I wanted to stumble through a brand new language with no expectations of being anything more than a beginner and a guest. I looked forward to a life where every basic daily interaction would confuse, delight, fascinate, and humble me.

What surprises me is how my mind is choosing to contain and translate the sensory overload of being here. As a New Yorker with immigrant parents, I am comfortable with encountering cultures other than my own and engaging in something that is more of a respectful understanding than communication. The problem is that all my prior experiences are making it difficult for me to see this country on primarily its own terms. A walk in downtown Gwangju reminds me of Flushing and many Korean foods, words, and customs are similar to Japanese or Chinese ones. Obviously cultures are not interchangeable, but there are enough initial similarities that the real challenge for me has been sorting them into "old knowledge with new names" and "randomly unique to South Korea." Forgetting nuances in either scenario is when I risk being offensive, more so than possibly someone who doesn't have a lot of prior knowledge of Japanese and Chinese culture.

Flat chopsticks? Mind blown!

One example is Korean utensils. The chopsticks here are stainless steel and flat-edged. Their shape and weight force me to hold them slightly differently than I am used to, but it throws my chopsticks auto-pilot completely off. It's also fine to hold one chopstick in each hand to slice food apart. It's almost like relearning how to use chopsticks.

The spoon thing is totally new to me. Both rice and soup are eaten with a flat metal spoon and it's inappropriate to hold a bowl closer to your face or drink from the bowl as I would at home.

juk vs. jook

Then there is my ultimate comfort food from home, congee. In Cantonese it's called jook and it sounds the same in Korean. I desperately craved this food whenever I lived away from home, as well as my mom's herbal soups. Both are readily accessible here and I've occasionally caught wafts of my mom's cooking from the shops on the street. It's disorienting to have such a distinct reminder of home and be 8000 miles away in a country I have never visited before. It's homesickness inverted to the point of becoming an utterly foreign experience.

onigiri vs. kimbap

One of my fondest memories of living in Japan is walking to the combini and picking up onigiri for breakfast to go. I can do the same thing in Korea, but it's called kimbap here. It's a small thing, but I have so strongly associated this specific simple act with my whole experience of being in Japan, living in a different country for the first time, and the person I was at that time in my life. I'm not yet able to describe what it means to me to be here now and be able to do the same thing, but it's something like time traveling and meeting that younger self again.

So not quite the starry-eyed bumbling new traveler, but an unexpected unfolding of something else that I'll be interested in tracking as more time passes.

Next up: More fun times in Gwangju! The Gwangju Biennale and folk art museum, copious food porn, and a burgeoning adoration of Benedict Cumberbatch 

Crash course in Gwangju

I made it to Gwangju on Tuesday, after only a grueling straight 30 hours of travel!

I managed to bring only a single suitcase and a backpack for the year, partly to live life minimally and make it easier to haul all my stuff around as a petite person. Actually, scratch that first reason-- I'm living in a wonderland of shiny, cute things that steal all my won. Damn you, Etude House. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Take my won!!

R. drove me to JFK at 3:30am, after I spent all night desperately pulling things out of my suitcase to get it down to the magic 49 pounds. I slept right through the flight to San Francisco, even though the seats were made out of an interesting high-tech concrete material, spent the next 12 hours studying Hangul flashcards and not getting the proper immigration forms because they assumed I was Korean (surprise!) and finally got to Incheon, where I sprinted onto the next bus to Gwangju as it was leaving the station. My first taste of Korea's "bali bali" (faster faster!) culture.

The remains of the welcome snacks pyramid.

Dani met me at the Gwangju bus terminal. I think we slo-mo hugged, but that might have been my brain melting. She brought me back to her apartment and showed me the epic Korean ramyun and snacks pyramid she built to welcome me. I'll be staying with her for a few days before my work orientation begins, so she was thoughtful to provide some back-up food in case I wasn't up to figuring out how to navigate the restaurants here yet. We caught up a bit and she took me to a pajeon restaurant, where I ate the most delicious fried pancake of my life.

There is a channel devoted to live gaming. Oh Korea!

The view from Dani's apartment

The tour went just like this scene.

The next morning, I magically woke up completely alert at 7am. Is this what it feels like to be a morning person? Dani came back from work early and we ended up walking all around her neighborhood and Shinae, the downtown area, for hours. Dani fed me a steady stream of fascinating details on life in Korea and how not to get completely lost and screwed over when I inevitably have to navigate the streets on my own. 

Picture highlights from the day!

Steamed mandu (dumplings)!

Public exercise machines, mostly used by older folks.

A lone Buddhist temple in a sea of neon crosses in Sangmu.

Overlooking Gwangju from the top of a Buddhist pavilion.

A subway station in Gwangju. So spacious and clean! Just like New York! Har har.

A magnetic token ticket. You tap it at the turnstile to enter and drop it into a slot when you exit.

Loud blaring melody to announce when the train arrives. The inside was squeaky clean and enormous. All stops were announced in 4 languages. New York, take note!

Hot ginseng drink that reminds me of my mom's herbal soups, aka homesickness in a bottle.

Why not? FASHION BUSINESS!

Street cart with assorted dried... everything. A vat of boiled silkworms in the top left.

G-Dragon! Can you introduce me to TOP?

Even the kids here are better dressed than me.

GALBI! NONOMONOMONOM.

Bibimbop! So delicious, it burns!

Riding on a bus in Gwangju. I managed an action shot, aren't you proud of me?

Since we shamelessly bought bags of beauty products from the legions of cosmetics stores downtown, we had some girly bonding time at night over nail polish and paper face masks. Mine was an "anti-trouble" mask, which is the face-saving term for pimples. Face-saving, get it? Wooo, East Asian Studies jokes...

Batman's "anti-trouble" mask

Next up on the blog, a discussion of "culture complex" and the story of how a pair of chopsticks blew my mind.