Hi Folks!
So as promised, my blog posts have become less frequent now that work is in full-swing and I no longer have the sleeping schedule (or energy endurance) of my college days. Ah, I'm getting old. In addition to teaching my regular classes, I also teach a conversation class every morning from 8:05-8:50, an advanced speaking class on Mondays after school (3:30-5) and an advanced essay class on Wednesdays after school. I also will be attending an informal English Teacher's workshop most Thursdays, where the English teachers get together and just discuss topics freely to practice their English. It's nice and informal yet another thing I must prepare for and fit into my schedule. I'm still doing private tutoring on Saturday evenings in Seoul, and I will probably be taking up another tutoring session for Cho Teacher's middle school-aged daughter. I know it's busy but the money is good so I'm not complaining!
Generally, work is going well. The kiddies are still noisy. I am getting a little frustrated about the last-minute information I get. I find out 45 minutes before the day is over that I have to submit my entire lesson scheme for my AM Conversation class by the next morning. Also yesterday I found out 10 minutes before class started that I had to must teach in a different classroom (which has different seating arrangements and materials) because somebody needed the English room. My whole class was designed based on how the kids were sitting in their groups so I couldn't really do my lesson. And they inform me of my extra classes only a week before they must start, even though I've been asking when they were going to start. I asked starting on my first day and they didn't seem to know until the week before and suddenly I have 3 extra classes per week to plan for. Wha??! I'm really used to planning ahead so this last-minute stuff is hard to get used to. But I have to realize that that is the Korean way. Oy. I think people forget to tell me things because they forget I don't speak Korean.
Although I have new phrases that I learned thanks to Cho Teacher and my co-teacher Nam Teacher: 'mashisoyo?' means, "is your meal delicous?' you respond "ney, (yes), mashisoyo." Now, 'mOshisoyo' means handsome, so I gotta be careful! I also have learned "ko-chi ipoyo" means 'the flowers are beautiful.' Cho Teacher and Nam Teacher also taught me how to say "it's cold" and "I want to go home", useful phrases for the coming months, but I forget them :/. Korean is hard!
Since I've been so busy at work there hasn't been much else to report. This past weekend Val & I went to the big market near Hwaseong Fortress where he shopped for a leather jacket and I for stockings. It suddenly got COLD here. I mean, suddenly. Up until last weekend it's been beautiful and in the 70's every day. Monday was like 50 degrees and the forecast only goes down (literally) from there. It's supposed to stay in the mid-50's this whole week. All of a sudden I'm wearing sweaters, jackets, scarves!
The past week I've been tending to Val's terrible migraines that have been acting up. He thinks it's related to the changing of seasons because we know it's nothing serious in his brain because he got a brain scan on Monday because it was so painful. So I've been massaging his feet and head, making warm soup, putting a cold washcloth on his face. Poor thing, when the migraines come he can't even stand up and he's writhing in pain in his bed. The massage and stretching has seemed to help (thanks for your tips, Maren!) but they still come. I never thought I'd say this but for this reason only I hope winter comes fast!
Tomorrow (Thurs) is the Sannam Middle School School Festival, so there's no class. I'm not really sure what goes down on the school festival but I had to prepare a quiz for the students to give orally in the auditorium. But it should be nice to not have to teach. There's no school on Friday either because everyone's going to Everland, the big amusement park in Suwon. I'm excited! Except that its gonna be cold.
That's all for now I think
Love,
Mel
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Saturday, October 16, 2010
First Week of Teaching, More Korean Culture, and War.
Hey Peeps!
So, I survived my first week of teaching. In my 45-minute class, I first established some classroom rules, then I showed them where Rochester was on the map. When asked where I was from, I responded 'New York' and they all went "ooooooo New York!" because of course, they think I mean NYC. On my powerpoint I used a map of the US where the states where marked and labeled. I found pictures of popular city landmarks like the Hollywood sign, the Golden Gate bridge, and the Statue of Liberty and put them on the same slide with arrows to where they were located. Then I put a picture of a cartoon house where Rochester is with the city marked. I showed them how NY is not only a city but also a state, and I am from NY state. I showed them on the Powerpoint pictures of Rochester (the Erie Canal, the skyline, and snow). Then I showed on the Ppt 3 facts about me. I told them that 1) Korea was the first foreign country I had visited, 2) I had 3 sisters and 0 brothers and 3) I liked to dance. Obviously #1 is false so then I told them that one was not true and had them guess which one. The next slides showed them the answers: a slide with a picture of me dancing and other dance pictures like tap shoes and Jeanine from SYTYCD, a picture of my with Andrea, Al, and Maren at the post-Baccalaureate party at 'Berg, and finally pictures from Venice, Cape Town, Zambia, and Israel. Then I asked them to write down 3 things about themselves, 2 true and one false. I collected the papers and read them later, trying to guess which ones were false.
The end of the lesson focused on the U.S. I asked them what they thought of when they thought of America. I heard responses like fat people, junk food, rich country, money, Obama, famous, baseball, New York City, the Statue of Liberty, tall buildings, etc. That was what I expecting to hear, so with visual aids on my slideshow I explained how many Koreans perceive America to be all like NYC or Beverly Hills, but in fact what makes America so wonderful and interesting is its diversity. I ended the class with that lesson, praying that they actually got the message because I thought it was really important to help change people's skewed perception of what the USA is like. It was a fun lesson for me to teach. Next week I am explaining to the students how each table is a team who can earn or lose points depending on their behavior or participation. The team with the most points at the end of each class gets candy and the class with the most cumulative points at the end of the semester earn a pizza party. It's nice that the students are still young enough that that sort of bribary....er....motivation still works!
The students talk. A lot. Even if I shout sternly "Be quiet!" or "stop talking!" they don't stop. What's worse is that the English room echos so even when 5 students are talking it sounds like 15. Now, corporal punishment is still around here in Korea. Meaning if a student misbehaves, he or she comes to the teacher's office after class and gets hit, usually with a hollow plastic tube or sometimes with bare hands. This was really shocking for me to witness at first, even though I was expecting it. Sometimes the students get punished in class by having to stay in a "plank" position (like the position you're in when you do push-ups) or have to kneel on the floor and face the wall. Since the students are used to physical punishment, yelling does not scare them. It makes sense, you know? That is why I created the points and teams system, since Koreans in general are very competitive and very proud, especially when it comes to education, so the students are sensitive to points, especially if I display each team's points on the board during class. I hope that will act as motivation for them to behave.
Also, the English level of the students is MUCH lower than I expected. If you can imagine, I ..... literally ...... speak...... at..... this...... pace.......often.........repeating........myself.......or........saying.......something..........in another...........way.......,in a different...........way ....... and 80% of the students don't understand me. Sometimes the Korean co-teacher translates or says it in English to be sure they understand but I'm not really sure how I can get through anything if I have to talk at a baby snail's pace. Also, most of the students still don't understand basic grammar structures. For example, on their 3-things-about-me sheet I got things from 98% of the students "I like dog" or "I am boy" "I like play soccer" "I am Sannam Middle School" or "I love lamp." Just kidding on the last one :-P. But seriously, those are the kinds things I'm seeing from a very large percentage of students. So I have to modify my plans for the next few classes and incorporate a basic grammar lesson so they can at least know that. I decided to use next week to really drill that by having each team create a fun team name and then create a grammatically correct introduction for their team. I'm having them fill in the blanks of "Our team name is __________. We are going to win because we like ___(noun)__________. We are better than the other teams because we are ___(adjective)_____________. We are going to beat the other teams because we like ___verb______. I'm giving them a color-coded word bank to use when creating it. For review the next week I'll probably have them correct bad sentences and make it competitive somehow with teams.
So, that's that. I also am in charge of teaching an essay class every Wednesday to advanced students and every other Saturday I teach a "Class with Foreign Teacher" class where I can teach whatever I want. This week in the Saturday class we played Trainwreck (ice breaker game) and the I taught them some line dances (The Electric Slide and The Cupid Shuffle) along with basic dance vocab like front and forwards, back and backwards, side and sideways, right, left, step, kick, heel, turn. Koreans don't like dancing, as I found out from warnings from my colleagues and me asking my students in class "does anyone else like to dance?" and seeing a total of 2 hands among my 500-something students. Greeeattt. I think I'll do different things each class, perhaps using an American movie to fuel a discussion about something or American culture.
I also had this really cool idea to do a class about Baseball. You're probably shocked to hear this because you all know how much sports, baseball especially, bore me to death. However after one of Val's soccer games the Ajou University baseball team started practicing on the field and he asked me to explain the rules because he'd never really seen it before. I was like, uhhhhhh, hmm. Someone's asking me to explain the rules of a sport?! So I told him the basics and realized that many phrases in the English language that are based on baseball that those who don't know the game probably don't understand. So I thought even for my regular classes I could do a class on baseball idioms in English because there are a ton! Covering all your bases, in the home stretch, getting to 1st, 2nd, or 3rd base, being way out in the outfield, he's up to bat. Can you think of others? I think it would be an interesting vocabulary and culture lesson for the students.
On another note, I am officially at war with a particular kind of Korean. They majorly annoy me and come to me uninvited and always overstay their welcome. And it has become my goal to murder as many of them as I come across. Yes, I am talking about the Korean mosquito. Somehow, these mosquitos, which are bigger than the ones in Rochester (not those little brown ones like in NY but those huge black ones) find their way into my apartment and feast on me while I get my beauty sleep. Many of you know that I have a really strong reaction to mosquito bites and even without scratching them they blow up to sometimes to be 7 or 8 inches in diameter. So I wake up looking like I have the mutated chicken pox and they bite me in the most inconvenient places, such as my toes, my face, and my top lip. Afterall, those are often the exposed skin when I'm sleeping. 2 weeks ago I had absolutely had it with the huge bites on my legs that burned that I went to the pharmacy and got some medicated cream and some pills. I don't take the pills because I don't know exactly what they are but the cream helps especially if I apply it right after the bite. I searched for repellent at HomePlus but couldn't find it but I know it's there because my neighbor has some and she got it there. Last night I was awake for almost 2 hours using myself as bait, turning the light on and off trying to catch the mosquitos buzzing around my ear and biting me. I ended up killing 2 but found 4 others this morning. Yep, that's 6 mosquitos in my tiny apartment in one night. I swear, they tell their mosquito friends "hey! come to this room! she tastes yummy!". Argh. So yeah, I'm going to HomePlus today and not leaving without that repellant. If i'm going to be at war with these suckers (literally!) I need to step up my game and get a proper weapon.
Before I end this long-winded post, I thought of another Korean culture thing you might find entertaining. Koreans love little dogs. I have yet to see a dog bigger than a schnauzer. And people dress their little dogs in little outfits. I HATE when people do that! and I swear to you, a few weeks ago when V & I were walking to get some dinner at a local restaurant we saw a tiny dog, being walked by a 30-ish year old man, wearing a little jacket and SNEAKERS on its paws. Seriously. 4 Mini sneakers on its tiny little paws. Val & I couldn't help ourselves bursting into laughter and doing some major eye-rolling. That is a typical site here. It's like the Hollywood fashion trend of tiny dogs has become the trend in all of Korea. Oy. Those poor dogs.
Thanks for reading!
Love,
Mel
So, I survived my first week of teaching. In my 45-minute class, I first established some classroom rules, then I showed them where Rochester was on the map. When asked where I was from, I responded 'New York' and they all went "ooooooo New York!" because of course, they think I mean NYC. On my powerpoint I used a map of the US where the states where marked and labeled. I found pictures of popular city landmarks like the Hollywood sign, the Golden Gate bridge, and the Statue of Liberty and put them on the same slide with arrows to where they were located. Then I put a picture of a cartoon house where Rochester is with the city marked. I showed them how NY is not only a city but also a state, and I am from NY state. I showed them on the Powerpoint pictures of Rochester (the Erie Canal, the skyline, and snow). Then I showed on the Ppt 3 facts about me. I told them that 1) Korea was the first foreign country I had visited, 2) I had 3 sisters and 0 brothers and 3) I liked to dance. Obviously #1 is false so then I told them that one was not true and had them guess which one. The next slides showed them the answers: a slide with a picture of me dancing and other dance pictures like tap shoes and Jeanine from SYTYCD, a picture of my with Andrea, Al, and Maren at the post-Baccalaureate party at 'Berg, and finally pictures from Venice, Cape Town, Zambia, and Israel. Then I asked them to write down 3 things about themselves, 2 true and one false. I collected the papers and read them later, trying to guess which ones were false.
The end of the lesson focused on the U.S. I asked them what they thought of when they thought of America. I heard responses like fat people, junk food, rich country, money, Obama, famous, baseball, New York City, the Statue of Liberty, tall buildings, etc. That was what I expecting to hear, so with visual aids on my slideshow I explained how many Koreans perceive America to be all like NYC or Beverly Hills, but in fact what makes America so wonderful and interesting is its diversity. I ended the class with that lesson, praying that they actually got the message because I thought it was really important to help change people's skewed perception of what the USA is like. It was a fun lesson for me to teach. Next week I am explaining to the students how each table is a team who can earn or lose points depending on their behavior or participation. The team with the most points at the end of each class gets candy and the class with the most cumulative points at the end of the semester earn a pizza party. It's nice that the students are still young enough that that sort of bribary....er....motivation still works!
The students talk. A lot. Even if I shout sternly "Be quiet!" or "stop talking!" they don't stop. What's worse is that the English room echos so even when 5 students are talking it sounds like 15. Now, corporal punishment is still around here in Korea. Meaning if a student misbehaves, he or she comes to the teacher's office after class and gets hit, usually with a hollow plastic tube or sometimes with bare hands. This was really shocking for me to witness at first, even though I was expecting it. Sometimes the students get punished in class by having to stay in a "plank" position (like the position you're in when you do push-ups) or have to kneel on the floor and face the wall. Since the students are used to physical punishment, yelling does not scare them. It makes sense, you know? That is why I created the points and teams system, since Koreans in general are very competitive and very proud, especially when it comes to education, so the students are sensitive to points, especially if I display each team's points on the board during class. I hope that will act as motivation for them to behave.
Also, the English level of the students is MUCH lower than I expected. If you can imagine, I ..... literally ...... speak...... at..... this...... pace.......often.........repeating........myself.......or........saying.......something..........in another...........way.......,in a different...........way ....... and 80% of the students don't understand me. Sometimes the Korean co-teacher translates or says it in English to be sure they understand but I'm not really sure how I can get through anything if I have to talk at a baby snail's pace. Also, most of the students still don't understand basic grammar structures. For example, on their 3-things-about-me sheet I got things from 98% of the students "I like dog" or "I am boy" "I like play soccer" "I am Sannam Middle School" or "I love lamp." Just kidding on the last one :-P. But seriously, those are the kinds things I'm seeing from a very large percentage of students. So I have to modify my plans for the next few classes and incorporate a basic grammar lesson so they can at least know that. I decided to use next week to really drill that by having each team create a fun team name and then create a grammatically correct introduction for their team. I'm having them fill in the blanks of "Our team name is __________. We are going to win because we like ___(noun)__________. We are better than the other teams because we are ___(adjective)_____________. We are going to beat the other teams because we like ___verb______. I'm giving them a color-coded word bank to use when creating it. For review the next week I'll probably have them correct bad sentences and make it competitive somehow with teams.
So, that's that. I also am in charge of teaching an essay class every Wednesday to advanced students and every other Saturday I teach a "Class with Foreign Teacher" class where I can teach whatever I want. This week in the Saturday class we played Trainwreck (ice breaker game) and the I taught them some line dances (The Electric Slide and The Cupid Shuffle) along with basic dance vocab like front and forwards, back and backwards, side and sideways, right, left, step, kick, heel, turn. Koreans don't like dancing, as I found out from warnings from my colleagues and me asking my students in class "does anyone else like to dance?" and seeing a total of 2 hands among my 500-something students. Greeeattt. I think I'll do different things each class, perhaps using an American movie to fuel a discussion about something or American culture.
I also had this really cool idea to do a class about Baseball. You're probably shocked to hear this because you all know how much sports, baseball especially, bore me to death. However after one of Val's soccer games the Ajou University baseball team started practicing on the field and he asked me to explain the rules because he'd never really seen it before. I was like, uhhhhhh, hmm. Someone's asking me to explain the rules of a sport?! So I told him the basics and realized that many phrases in the English language that are based on baseball that those who don't know the game probably don't understand. So I thought even for my regular classes I could do a class on baseball idioms in English because there are a ton! Covering all your bases, in the home stretch, getting to 1st, 2nd, or 3rd base, being way out in the outfield, he's up to bat. Can you think of others? I think it would be an interesting vocabulary and culture lesson for the students.
On another note, I am officially at war with a particular kind of Korean. They majorly annoy me and come to me uninvited and always overstay their welcome. And it has become my goal to murder as many of them as I come across. Yes, I am talking about the Korean mosquito. Somehow, these mosquitos, which are bigger than the ones in Rochester (not those little brown ones like in NY but those huge black ones) find their way into my apartment and feast on me while I get my beauty sleep. Many of you know that I have a really strong reaction to mosquito bites and even without scratching them they blow up to sometimes to be 7 or 8 inches in diameter. So I wake up looking like I have the mutated chicken pox and they bite me in the most inconvenient places, such as my toes, my face, and my top lip. Afterall, those are often the exposed skin when I'm sleeping. 2 weeks ago I had absolutely had it with the huge bites on my legs that burned that I went to the pharmacy and got some medicated cream and some pills. I don't take the pills because I don't know exactly what they are but the cream helps especially if I apply it right after the bite. I searched for repellent at HomePlus but couldn't find it but I know it's there because my neighbor has some and she got it there. Last night I was awake for almost 2 hours using myself as bait, turning the light on and off trying to catch the mosquitos buzzing around my ear and biting me. I ended up killing 2 but found 4 others this morning. Yep, that's 6 mosquitos in my tiny apartment in one night. I swear, they tell their mosquito friends "hey! come to this room! she tastes yummy!". Argh. So yeah, I'm going to HomePlus today and not leaving without that repellant. If i'm going to be at war with these suckers (literally!) I need to step up my game and get a proper weapon.
Before I end this long-winded post, I thought of another Korean culture thing you might find entertaining. Koreans love little dogs. I have yet to see a dog bigger than a schnauzer. And people dress their little dogs in little outfits. I HATE when people do that! and I swear to you, a few weeks ago when V & I were walking to get some dinner at a local restaurant we saw a tiny dog, being walked by a 30-ish year old man, wearing a little jacket and SNEAKERS on its paws. Seriously. 4 Mini sneakers on its tiny little paws. Val & I couldn't help ourselves bursting into laughter and doing some major eye-rolling. That is a typical site here. It's like the Hollywood fashion trend of tiny dogs has become the trend in all of Korea. Oy. Those poor dogs.
Thanks for reading!
Love,
Mel
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Biting Into the Second Apple
Anyeong!
First, my announcement that I would be starting to teach classes on Friday was a false alarm. There was a miscommunication and it turns out that the last day of midterms was Friday so my REAL first day of teaching will be tomorrow, Monday. It's for real this time, so I'll update you on that soon.
There's probably only two or three of you who understand the title of this blog entry because it refers to a speech made by Quinton, our study abroad program director in Cape Town. During orientation, Quinton prepared us for living in a new country by explaining the 3 stages of culture shock with the metaphor of 3 apples. The first apple is sweet because it represents the "honeymoon phase" when everything is very exciting and new and you're just taking it all in. The second apple is a little sour because it represents the stage when you might start feeling homesick and frustrated with some of the cultural differences and ways of life in this new place. Finally, biting into the third apple is sweet once again because you start establishing a routine and feeling comfortable in this new place. You might have recently started making more friends, found something about the new place that excites you, or gained more confidence because you can finally find your way around, understand the public transportation system, or decorated your living space.
So as my title suggests, I've begun biting into the second apple just a little. Although I'm still in the honeymoon phase of seeing Val again (I'm not sure if it's ever going to go away!), now that I've been here for 3 weeks I've gotten a healthy dose of Korean culture. However in this post I'm not going to whine about how I'm feeling a little homesick, frustrated that I often can't find food that I like or am not able to read the ingredients or health facts because everything is written in Korean, or that I feel very out-of-the-loop at work because nobody tells me anything and I get hardly any notice about things because somebody forgets to clue me in because I don't understand Korean, because, well, I just told you! Instead I thought I'd make this post a little more interesting for everyone and talk about some observations I've made about Korean culture that are contributing to the sour taste of apple numero dos.
1) Koreans are very judgmental. They base A LOT on first impression alone, and I'm talking about VERY first impression because they put a ton of emphasis on how somebody looks. Koreans are extremely well dressed. Every single person you see is dressed very well in clothes that look high-quality and are tailored well. Women wear high heels with EVERY outfit, day or night, work or play, skirt or jeans. People at school have told me that all the students want to know if I am pretty. Val gets told by people that they like him solely because they find him handsome (can't blame them there). They even tell him that they like him better than his other friends because his friends aren't good looking. And I have been told multiple times that I am prettier than the previous English teacher at the school (which I think is ridiculous) so the students and other teachers are excited. Women are constantly fixing their make-up, dabbing their faces with those oil-absorbing sheets, etc. Many, many women carry designer bags. I'm talking Louis Vuitton, Coach, etc. And these are not knock-offs. In Korea if you look beautiful, you will be well-liked. Simple as that.
2) Foreigners, especially Americans, have celebrity status. Now this might sound great, but it's actually quite uncomfortable. Besides getting gawked at all the time, people feel very shy around me especially when they find out that I'm from New York. Of course, most Koreans don't understand that New York is also a state and when I try to explain that I don't live in New York City they just think I'm saying that I live outside the city. I don't bother trying to explain it anymore because people nod their heads like they understand and then still manage to think that I'm from NYC. NYC is THE city in the U.S. that everyone knows and like many other country everyone here has a dream to go the NY. And because they see NY on the TV all the time they get intimidated because I'm a "New Yorker." V's Korean Mom (who I now call as my colleague Cho Teacher) said that she was nervous to speak to me because I'm a "New Yorker", said in a voice of awe. I'm like "come on, I'm just regular ol' girl" but that doesn't really work here. Koreans will believe anything an English-speaking foreigner will say, especially an American. So this showcases my previous paragraph because it's an example of how judgmental people are. They base a lot on very little and have no interest in changing their minds. Korea is one of if not the most homogenous countries in the world, so they are not used to meeting people with different backgrounds or ideas. Everybody at least in urban Korea has the same experience of starting school very young, going to college, entering the workforce. I have yet to see a homeless person or a crummy car.
3) Korean food is spicy. Even when I ask if a dish is spicy they will say "No, not spicy", so I order it and it's still spicy. They love that hot pepper sauce!
4) Koreans don't watch where they are going. Walking on the street people don't really move out of the way to let you walk, they will just keep walking and bump into you without an apology. Also, they won't look up while they are texting, talking with others, or just looking down so they will just ram into you. Now it's not that Koreans are rude, it's just how Korea is. The country is the size of Indiana but has a population of about 50 million. Needless to say, it's crowded so people are used to being bumped, etc.
5. Koreans will huck-a-lougie (sp?). LOUD ones. Like, the loud, unmistakable throaty inhale that sounds like an elongated hebrew "ch" and powerful, juicy spit. I can deal with a lot of cultural differences but this one might cross the line for me. I can hear it from my room form people passing by on the street 2 stories down. It's disgusting.
Numbers 4 and 5 exemplify a major difference between Korean and American culture. As I found out when I read my "Living Abroad in South Korea" book, family life is the center of Korean society. For this reason, people don't feel the need to exert energy caring about strangers. In other words, they don't bother to hold the door for you, apologize when they bump into you, or spare their phlegmy projections because they don't care about you as a stranger. Everybody is just doing their own thing and down spare a thought for others. Sort of sounds like NYC, hah. It's an odd perception to us Americans who are used to (hopefully) apply basic politeness in their daily public encounters. It seems a little ironic to me, though since Koreans care so much about how they look in public. Haven't quite figured that one out yet.
This having been said, I have found Koreans to be generally kind, welcoming people. I am enjoying getting to know my co-workers and look forward to continuing to meet my own friends. I have decided to take up Korean lessons somehow, whether it be privately with a bi-lingual Korean, borrowing Val's books and learning on my own, or signing up for a Korean class at a nearby YMCA. Not only do I expect learning Korean to be a fun thing to do and I will learn quickly since it's full immersion, but also being able to eventually communicate more clearly with Koreans will ease my stresses and help me be me so I can make friends and not just be another alien, celebrity American to be shy around.
So I'll leave that for y'all to ponder as your weekend wraps up.
I miss everybody and the beautiful yet often short-lived Rochester fall weather. Enjoy those colorful leaves for me, I don't see many trees here in the city!
Love,
Mel
First, my announcement that I would be starting to teach classes on Friday was a false alarm. There was a miscommunication and it turns out that the last day of midterms was Friday so my REAL first day of teaching will be tomorrow, Monday. It's for real this time, so I'll update you on that soon.
There's probably only two or three of you who understand the title of this blog entry because it refers to a speech made by Quinton, our study abroad program director in Cape Town. During orientation, Quinton prepared us for living in a new country by explaining the 3 stages of culture shock with the metaphor of 3 apples. The first apple is sweet because it represents the "honeymoon phase" when everything is very exciting and new and you're just taking it all in. The second apple is a little sour because it represents the stage when you might start feeling homesick and frustrated with some of the cultural differences and ways of life in this new place. Finally, biting into the third apple is sweet once again because you start establishing a routine and feeling comfortable in this new place. You might have recently started making more friends, found something about the new place that excites you, or gained more confidence because you can finally find your way around, understand the public transportation system, or decorated your living space.
So as my title suggests, I've begun biting into the second apple just a little. Although I'm still in the honeymoon phase of seeing Val again (I'm not sure if it's ever going to go away!), now that I've been here for 3 weeks I've gotten a healthy dose of Korean culture. However in this post I'm not going to whine about how I'm feeling a little homesick, frustrated that I often can't find food that I like or am not able to read the ingredients or health facts because everything is written in Korean, or that I feel very out-of-the-loop at work because nobody tells me anything and I get hardly any notice about things because somebody forgets to clue me in because I don't understand Korean, because, well, I just told you! Instead I thought I'd make this post a little more interesting for everyone and talk about some observations I've made about Korean culture that are contributing to the sour taste of apple numero dos.
1) Koreans are very judgmental. They base A LOT on first impression alone, and I'm talking about VERY first impression because they put a ton of emphasis on how somebody looks. Koreans are extremely well dressed. Every single person you see is dressed very well in clothes that look high-quality and are tailored well. Women wear high heels with EVERY outfit, day or night, work or play, skirt or jeans. People at school have told me that all the students want to know if I am pretty. Val gets told by people that they like him solely because they find him handsome (can't blame them there). They even tell him that they like him better than his other friends because his friends aren't good looking. And I have been told multiple times that I am prettier than the previous English teacher at the school (which I think is ridiculous) so the students and other teachers are excited. Women are constantly fixing their make-up, dabbing their faces with those oil-absorbing sheets, etc. Many, many women carry designer bags. I'm talking Louis Vuitton, Coach, etc. And these are not knock-offs. In Korea if you look beautiful, you will be well-liked. Simple as that.
2) Foreigners, especially Americans, have celebrity status. Now this might sound great, but it's actually quite uncomfortable. Besides getting gawked at all the time, people feel very shy around me especially when they find out that I'm from New York. Of course, most Koreans don't understand that New York is also a state and when I try to explain that I don't live in New York City they just think I'm saying that I live outside the city. I don't bother trying to explain it anymore because people nod their heads like they understand and then still manage to think that I'm from NYC. NYC is THE city in the U.S. that everyone knows and like many other country everyone here has a dream to go the NY. And because they see NY on the TV all the time they get intimidated because I'm a "New Yorker." V's Korean Mom (who I now call as my colleague Cho Teacher) said that she was nervous to speak to me because I'm a "New Yorker", said in a voice of awe. I'm like "come on, I'm just regular ol' girl" but that doesn't really work here. Koreans will believe anything an English-speaking foreigner will say, especially an American. So this showcases my previous paragraph because it's an example of how judgmental people are. They base a lot on very little and have no interest in changing their minds. Korea is one of if not the most homogenous countries in the world, so they are not used to meeting people with different backgrounds or ideas. Everybody at least in urban Korea has the same experience of starting school very young, going to college, entering the workforce. I have yet to see a homeless person or a crummy car.
3) Korean food is spicy. Even when I ask if a dish is spicy they will say "No, not spicy", so I order it and it's still spicy. They love that hot pepper sauce!
4) Koreans don't watch where they are going. Walking on the street people don't really move out of the way to let you walk, they will just keep walking and bump into you without an apology. Also, they won't look up while they are texting, talking with others, or just looking down so they will just ram into you. Now it's not that Koreans are rude, it's just how Korea is. The country is the size of Indiana but has a population of about 50 million. Needless to say, it's crowded so people are used to being bumped, etc.
5. Koreans will huck-a-lougie (sp?). LOUD ones. Like, the loud, unmistakable throaty inhale that sounds like an elongated hebrew "ch" and powerful, juicy spit. I can deal with a lot of cultural differences but this one might cross the line for me. I can hear it from my room form people passing by on the street 2 stories down. It's disgusting.
Numbers 4 and 5 exemplify a major difference between Korean and American culture. As I found out when I read my "Living Abroad in South Korea" book, family life is the center of Korean society. For this reason, people don't feel the need to exert energy caring about strangers. In other words, they don't bother to hold the door for you, apologize when they bump into you, or spare their phlegmy projections because they don't care about you as a stranger. Everybody is just doing their own thing and down spare a thought for others. Sort of sounds like NYC, hah. It's an odd perception to us Americans who are used to (hopefully) apply basic politeness in their daily public encounters. It seems a little ironic to me, though since Koreans care so much about how they look in public. Haven't quite figured that one out yet.
This having been said, I have found Koreans to be generally kind, welcoming people. I am enjoying getting to know my co-workers and look forward to continuing to meet my own friends. I have decided to take up Korean lessons somehow, whether it be privately with a bi-lingual Korean, borrowing Val's books and learning on my own, or signing up for a Korean class at a nearby YMCA. Not only do I expect learning Korean to be a fun thing to do and I will learn quickly since it's full immersion, but also being able to eventually communicate more clearly with Koreans will ease my stresses and help me be me so I can make friends and not just be another alien, celebrity American to be shy around.
So I'll leave that for y'all to ponder as your weekend wraps up.
I miss everybody and the beautiful yet often short-lived Rochester fall weather. Enjoy those colorful leaves for me, I don't see many trees here in the city!
Love,
Mel
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