The Best 2 Years I've Ever Had.

I thought I was done with Korea after setting foot in my apartment. I looked at my daunting schedule--5 schools, each one day a week, with one bus and only one bus to get me there. I looked at my hometown--a charming enough, yet total countryside anomaly in this urban jungle, with basically enough foreigners to count on one hand living in a 25 kilometer radius. I looked at my apartment, cynically thinking "this will never be a home. I signed on for a year, and damnit, I will dutifully finish my year."

I thought I was done with Korea after a year in the countryside. As it turns out, I fell in love with the countryside. I was enamored with the fresh (albeit dense with cow feces) air, a rarity in this heavily developed country. I was enamored with the locals, who in previous months were complete strangers (many of whom had never even seen a foreigner, much less spoken to one) and were now like old friends. I was enamored with the food, the freshness, the simplicity, the pride in one's gastronomical choices, and the fact that I had happily lost upwards of 10 kilograms. I was enamored with the children, who, for all their innocence and rural purity, had the ceaseless energy and uncompromising competitiveness and capacity for affection as my mother's black lab puppy back home, miles and miles away. I was enamored with the other expats I was so lucky to have met--truth be told, they are the backbone of my experience and ultimately explain how I've come to know this country in the ways that I have, and they feed my desire to continue knowing this place. I was also enamored with a beautiful, charming, and challenging girl as well.

I thought I was done with Korea after one year.
Alas, I was not.

I thought I was done with Korea after two years. Upon moving to a larger city, a city which granted a vast array of opportunities to meet new people, try more succulent food, travel to new places, try my damnedest to inspire a new group of children (this proved more difficult than I could have imagined, naturally), feed my desire to understand the language, figure out just exactly what the hell both bothers and excites me so much about this country (to no avail; I wholeheartedly believe it is part of the Korean experience to, despite all valiant efforts, never fully understand this country...counter-intuitively, this is perhaps what draws me back), and both physically live and emotionally grow closer to the aforementioned charming girl I had met.

I thought I was done with Korea after two years.
Alas, I am not.

A lot changed in that first year. Even more seemed to change in my second year. I shame myself for not keeping friends, family, fellow expats, or readers completely informed as to what my two years here have entailed, as to what tests of character have been met, as to what tests of patience have been met, as to what ends one may go to seek out, well, all that there is to seek out in this seemingly small yet unbelievably vast place. It occurred to me, and I can't specify when, that there's no perfect, all-inclusive way to clue you in on what it's like to be here. My mother and father, who made me feel as though I was the luckiest man alive upon their visits to Korea, testified that, although they had a hell of a time here, they were consciously "scratching the surface" of what Korea is.

I don't need to tell you everything because I can't tell you everything. And that's fine with me, and that's probably fine with you as well.

But there is something deeply grabbing about this place. I cannot emphasize enough just how simultaneously tumultuous and euphoric the last 2 years of my life have been. I have never been so lucky, I have never been so helpless. I have never been so stimulated, and I have never been so disinterested. I have never been so clear-minded, and I have never been so astray. And (thanks be to Third Eye Blind on this one, a nice break from my strange mood and a flashback to Sam's middle school days) "I've never been so alone, and I've never been so alive."

I thought I was done with Korea.

I'm not sure if I mean this to pertain to my employment status, my language acquisition, my diet, my circle of friends, my future aspirations involving family, travel, hobbies, or marriage. But I will say one thing with regards to my previous two years and future years to come.

I will never, realistically, be done with Korea.

And I'm ecstatic to see, exactly, in what ways that will play out.

The Little Things.

     Let's face it.   Whether I'd like to believe it or not, Korea is just not the place to simply walk up to someone and start a conversation.  Sometimes I miss this about my hometown and about my mother country as a whole--it's largely not an awkward and socially imposing thing to approach a stranger with a question, a friendly greeting, or just small talk on the street.

     I'm relatively reserved about such things in my own country--pretty trusting of myself, confident in what I'm doing and where I'm going, and usually in enough of a hurry to get there that I seldom have time and reason to just chat.  Here, having overcome some of the language barrier and cultural differences, I fear that's been amplified in that, sometimes, I forget, altogether, how to have such a casual conversation.  People here remain pretty shy, not just in speaking to foreigners (I sometimes joke with my parents about just how overly safe I feel in a country where people are often too scared to so much as talk to me), but also to each other.  From small talk to life stories, this kind of spontaneous bonding seems to have little place in Korea.

     On an average weekday, the most advantageous time for me to strike up such a conversation is around 7:40 a.m, during which time I wait for my morning bus to school.  My bus stop is located at a rather busy intersection that houses (what might be) the largest middle and high school campus in the city of Pyeongtaek.  As such, I see plenty of young people running around (and I do mean running around), always en route to school, academies, quick dinners in between, taekwondo lessons, and if they're lucky, home.  Each morning, I wait for my bus along with a half dozen other Koreans, more often than not middle and high school students departing for other parts of the city.  There is always an old lady, and she always gives me curious but rather friendly head-to-toe glances in front of her snack shop.  I've come to brush that off.  She's friendly, but does little to no talking; rather, she just uses hand signs to convey how tall I am.  We see this.

     Try as I may to say a simple "hi" or "how are you?" to some of the younger queued students, they simply giggle, get embarrassed, and, if they're feeling really conversational, toss back a "fine, thank you."  This happens with relatively frequency and few results.

     Then, on Monday (Was it Monday? It's been a long week already...), a cold, rainy, and altogether unpleasant morning, a friendly high schooler who, after originally standing 3 or 4 meters away from me, approached me with some English after a hearty throat clear.  It was awesome!

     Better yet, he looked up to see I had no umbrella, and that my blazer was damp, and immediately proceeded to hold his umbrella higher so that we could share it!  What a guy!

     He asked me, in awesome English, "What is your job in Korea?  Are you soldier?"
     "No," I replied.  "I'm an English teacher."
     "Ah, wow, great!  You are so tall, and I am happy to share my umbrella with you."
     "Thank you so much, you are so nice.  What is your job?"
     "Hahaha, you think I am old?  Thank you!  I am just a high school student."
     "Wow, you look very old and professional!"
     "Thank you so much."

     With that, my bus had arrived, and it was time to say goodbye.  "Thanks for the umbrella," I turned and waved and shouted.  "Have a good day!"
     "You too, nice teacher!  Have a good day too!"

     With that, my day was off to a nice start.  Why share that story?  It was 30 seconds of my life, 30 seconds that I could experience every morning of every week of every month of every contract in Korea.  It was 30 seconds of conversation that plenty of students and Korean people are generally capable of having.  It was 30 seconds, and that's hardly enough to make someone's day, or better yet, have your day be made my someone, right?

     I share that story because, after nearly 20 months in Korea, after 6 schools and a few thousand students, after hundreds of short bus rides to and from school, after all the cynicisms I may have accumulated about the utter lack of straight up, casual, for-the-hell-of-it, "how's life been?" conversation in Korea...

     All it takes is an umbrella, and/or a friendly face, and/or a little English confidence to make your day in 30 seconds, to reassure you that what you're doing here is worth both your time and that of others.

     It's all about the little things.

Cool As A Cucumber.

     Almost everywhere I go in Korea, despite all the fast-paced aspects of life on the peninsula, despite the incessant, hurried mentality of hard work and growth across the nation, despite the short tempers of taxi and bus drivers, despite the powerful elbows of the elder women who seek to jab the sides of bystanders (especially amplified on weekend market days), I maintain that there seems to be, for all people I meet here, a certain attainable, brilliant calm to Korean people that is, at once, under-appreciated and rarely seen in its purest form.  

     Plainly stated, to the best of my knowledge in my 19+ months here, many folks here have seemingly learned to grow thick skin, to move on from hard ships, to put yesterday behind and simply move forward to face a new day.  I too have learned a bit more about what this calm can do for one's general outlook.  Last year, at my countryside job, which I still miss sometimes, a bad day was never simply a bad day.  I had bad weeks, even a few bad months, and I simply hadn't grown the skin, the confidence, the teaching authority, and the flexible memory required to just let myself have a bad day and look forward to the next day.  These days, with a slightly less hectic school load, one school instead of five, and a clearer understanding of my ambitions, abilities and shortcomings as a teacher, I too have learned to find this calm.

     But this post is not really about me.  This is something I've been meaning to communicate, in as many words as it takes, to those of you who dearly worry about us expats on the Korean peninsula.  It is, of course, difficult to perfectly and logically describe everything that happens here on the ground to family and friends 7,000 miles away, but I want you to know that we're all okay.  

     People here, on the topic of North Korea, seem to be as cool as cucumbers.  We wake up, and sure, North Korea is the main focus of morning radio shows.  No surprise there.  We wind down and go to sleep, and North Korea is the main focus of the nightly news shows.  No surprise there.  We go to school, where teachers debate, in a language that I try so desperately to grasp, seemingly everything BUT North Korea.  That might be a surprise to many.

     I don't remember ever having a talk about North Korea with anyone at my school.  Kids seem to be more comically passionate about the issue, and some of my similar-aged Korean friends are open and concerned enough to talk about it.  

     I can distinctly remember the day that Kim Jong-Il passed away in December of 2011.  I was shocked to read the BBC story that broke, and immediately ran to the main teachers office to alert everyone.  I had, in my head, pressed some sort of panic button without any hesitation.  I explained, in my broken Korean, that the former Dear Leader had kicked the bucket.  Upon being told of the news, a few teachers turned around, shrugged, made a face, and returned to their computer screens.  The principal thanked me for the news, and everyone went back to work.  Everyone just went back to work.

     A year and a half removed from that moment, nothing seems to have changed, at least in a way that I can clarify to you if you're not living on the peninsula.  People here remain, for the most part, cool as cucumbers.  And why is that?

     It's easy enough to say that those in Korea are "desensitized" to the issue by now.  I'd imagine most of you stateside would echo this sentiment.  Frankly, I'm happy to be dealing with this abroad, as I can't even imagine what the West's top news dogs will do to create buzz about this story.  I'm glad I'm not there to see it.  I'm glad I'm here to live in.  Even if I only live 100 miles from North Korea.  

     That makes no difference to me, nor does it to anyone here.  I sincerely believe that, although we might be desensitized to this issue, that desensitization does not have to perpetuate ignorance or apathy.  That is not the case, I can assure you.  It's not that people in Korea have come to be so familiar with the topic and the geo-politics of it all that they forget it's all happening and cease to worry about it completely; nothing could be farther from the truth.  But there's something to be said here for the way that people continue to live, knowing what they know, living where they live.  

     People here are busy.  Ask almost anyone between the ages of, oh, 15 and 60, and they'll probably tell you how loaded their schedule is with work and study and family responsibility. You could easily make the case that people simply don't have enough hours in the day to spend much time worrying about North Korea.  That's where I would start, anyway, if asked to get to the heart of why people here are as cool as cucumbers.  

     People here have also come to be fully aware of just how better off they are, as well. North Korea, the DPRK, is none of those things--it's not democratic, it's not a republic, it's certainly not for the people.  And the effect of South Korea's rapid growth, economic and academic development, and subsequent prosperity (in some ways more than others) is hardly lost on those who live here.  Koreans know where they have come from, they remain as proudly humble about it as they are eager to press forward and continue to develop the country.  I think a less appreciated answer of the "why do people here stay so cool about the whole issue?"  question is the very fact that people remain ever-motivated to separate themselves from the identity of North Korea, to solidify themselves on a world stage, to continue to pull the nation up by its proverbial bootstraps, and to proclaim that it's all in a day's work, it's just part of the national mentality.  South Korea knows where it's been, and it seems, in many ways, to know where it's going.  It can't look back, it won't look back, and nothing good will come from looking back.  The fast pace of life can explain, on the surface, why the attention is not always drawn solely to the issue of North Korea, but the perpetuation to improve life, to move forward, to seek proud autonomy and honest effort might contribute as well.

     This is a chaotic post for a chaotic topic.  All I can say to those of you stateside is that I'm in good hands, I feel safe every day, I work with people who care about my safety and wellbeing, who have their fingers on the pulse of this issue as much as anyone, but who simply don't jump to press the panic button for a number of good, if poorly articulated by your's truly, reasons.

     So all of us, Koreans and foreigners, have really learned to become cool as cucumbers on the question of North Korea.  We're as tuned in as any, make no mistake.  But we all have  busy lives to live.

     More on this to come.  

A Slow Monday.

I’m currently on my laptop, but here’s what’s tabbed up on my school computer: a hockey game (currently streaming full-screen), my G-mail inbox, 2 articles, 1 on drone strikes and Obama’s foreign policy, and another on the finer points of raising taxes for the American public, as well as an hour’s worth of sappy Korean drama, courtesy of YouTube, my Korean listening practice for the day.

You know, the computer I should be doing work on. For school.

Of course, for some of us expats in the Korean ESL industry, especially this time of year, this is a large part of our jobs, a great deal of what we truly have come to be so good at—being at work, but not really working. You see, most of us in the public school system have no classes these days. The kids have all gone again, this time for about 2 weeks, on spring “vacation.” But make no mistake about it, this is not so much a vacation. Not for the students of our school. They apparently go back home, where most teachers attest to a lack of love and compassion, and at times, sadly, a lack of parenting or parents altogether. They go to academies, which see little to no vacation time for both teachers and students. They most certain don’t travel further than downtown Pyeongtaek, and they most certainly get little stimulation outside of a computer game.

Today, and for the next two weeks, I have no classes. But these things tend to, at any other point of the school year, change on a daily, no, hourly, no, as-the-seconds-tick-away basis.

Upon hearing the faint rumble of what could possibly be our English room door opening (which by association means my “co-teacher” will soon step into our office and observe what I’m so curiously busy doing), I turn the volume down on the stereo speaker that, up until this moment, blasted the sounds of skates and sticks and hip checks into the boards. St. Louis leads Vancouver, 3-2, late in the 3^rd period. Vancouver has about 20 seconds left on the power play, and still shows plenty of life.

Turns out that rumble was not our door. Crisis averted. Sound is on again.

Such is the nature of a day with no students, no classes, and barely any teachers in the school. If not for the humming of the ceiling heater, one could all but hear a pin drop in the English room office.

It’s 1:31 p.m. on a Monday afternoon. My co-teacher has made exactly 2 trips to the English room today, each time alerting me that she’ll be spending most of her day in the teachers’ room. There, she’ll answer phones, make schedules, kiss a little vice principal ass, and generally stay busy and as informed as she can about all the happenings around the school. She does this because she has to. She does this because, in Korean schools, those below the principal and vice principal work their entire lives (and, consequently, their entire asses) off for a mere crack at the opportunity given to the education system’s most superior figures (one of my vice principals last year would kick his feet up the sound of 9:00 a.m.’s class starting bell, open the newspaper, and break from this routine only to stroll down the hill for lunch). My co-teacher is the head of all the school teachers at our school, and as such, she spends most of her free time back and forth between the principal and vice principal’s offices, doing a little brown nosing and staying overly diligent.

Vancouver’s really peppering St. Louis in the offensive zone now.

So today, and this doesn’t happen too often, there is no one in the office with me for the better part of 8 hours. At my job, it’s as cool as it is sad. While I was initially thrilled at the chance to mindlessly internet surf, read books as I pleased, even watch movies or catch up on recently missed episodes of useless TV shows as I saw fit, I tried to spend a great deal of this time writing, studying Korean, and preparing some classroom materials that, for myself and my co-workers, at least give the impression of an honest day’s work. I can remember a few conversations in the last month or two in which we, Pyeongtaek’s expats, asked each other “so, what do you tend to do while deskwarming?”

I watch hockey at my desk, too. I can’t deny that. But you can bet that, when I hear that distant door slide open, the volume’s off and the Korean study book is opened to a seemingly complicated page, full of new words and reading practice.

Vancouver just tied it…and we’re heading to overtime.

Just Another Thursday

     Tardy on the blogging yet again. And why? I've spent so much time at my desk these days, I've literally stated scrambling for ways to try to look busy when my eternally stressed co-teacher comes in, frazzled about vice principal this and obligations that. I want nothing more than to help her, but I've settled on the fact that her answer will be the same as it always is: "you look busy, and I don't want to burden you."

     "But Mrs. Cheon, I'm really not so busy right now, and I would really like to help."

     "Why aren't you busy?"

     Such is life here. I can't really buy a win--the students come in, and sure, I'm happy to see them, but it would be nice to be notified of such once in a while. Conversely, there will be entire days with no classes, during which I'm totally prepared in that the computer is on, the heat is blasting, and the review game .PPT is all set...

     And then nobody shows up, and suddenly I feel a little empty inside. I hang my head, turn off the computer, turn off the heating, close the window (don't get me started on Korean teachers and their insistence to have, yes, simultaneously, windows open and heat blasting in the thick of winter), and saunter back to my desk. I say saunter because, if I step too firmly on the floor, our little space heater starts flashing and sparking and altogether not working.

     And yet I'm not sure what that has to do with anything. I don't know where I was going with that. I guess, these days, I'm just bored. I study Korean in my free time (the grammar is starting to eat away at what brain capacity to learn a language I have left), I watch hockey highlights (happy to have it back!), I read my Hemingway book (A Farewell to Arms, good stuff), and I prepare alphabet books and simple stories for my kindergarten and 1st-2nd graders next semester. I still have 3 weeks to do...just about anything! Our semester will start again in March.

     My life has become one awkward conversation with my co-teacher.

     We have an hourly chat about an English word in which she takes some interest in using in a few sentences, we squabble about the room being cold, she takes a few calls from superiors and is visibly flustered, and I bide my time with the aforementioned attempts to look busy.

     On the bright side, although it is Valentine's Day (better spend it with the teachers!), we have a teachers dinner tonight--in Korean, this is referred to as a "회식." These are always really fun events, and I can in no way complain about how well we are all treated at such 회식s. There is usually amazing food involved, heavy drinking from the male end of one, awkwardly long table, stories told about school, life, relationships (some meant to be heard by all, some merely soju-induced spats about things that should not be uttered in such company), and even a quick 5-minute jab at American culture and customs...if we're really lucky, an elder, Mr. 최, offers a rant about why Samsung has been, is, and will continue to be, the greatest company conceived on this fine planet and why Apple can simply never match up.

     Of course, then it's on to the 노래방, literally "singing room," or karaoke, where all is forgotten and everyone's just down to have a good time, drink some more beer, get a little frisky (and by that I mean our 60-year old female principal danced pretty close to me during my rendition of the Rolling Stones's "Honky Tonk Women" at our first such get together), and just pound on the 2-3 tambourines each room is offered.

     Tomorrow the 6th graders graduate. I've got some mixed feelings on that...certainly I'll miss them, but they've been real punks as of late--surely, the knowledge of the proximity of their ceremony has not been lost on them. All teachers are pretty psyched, it seems, to have them out of the school, as they've all but given up on any form of classroom work that doesn't involve a smart phone or an open space in which to tackle each other.

     That's all from the captain's chair today, folks. Thanks for reading!

     -Sam