“I think about English is like a maze
because it is confusing but not.
good… or bad I’m very confusing… hahaha : (
so, I think about English maze.
but, I love English
so, more and more love English!!”
From my first grade student, Lee Su-hee, English name Grace.
Very honest and unique response on her opinion of English.
“Dear, new friend.
Hello, I Glad meet you!
Umm… You don’t know me. So I introduce myself of face & body.
I have a little mole under my nose.
It is a complex. but my mother say “it comes for luck.”
I think “oh, I love it very much.”
I have black hair, short hair.
I wish long hair and more black hair.
oh, I have glasses. maybe big glasses!
my friends say “You charm is legs!”
Yes. My legs turn on the charm.
That’s it for now. I waiting you letter!
good bye! 🙂
From,
Sophia”
From one of my first grade students, Korean name Lee So-Jin.
“My name is HyeBin Lee.
I hope character very very kind.
My favorite singer TVXQ.
My dream is to be a doctor but people say, “You can’t do it.”
Ha…ha… I will be a doctor!!!
I love to play the piano.
It makes my soul clean.”
From one of my first grade high school students.
I spent the weekend with my Korean friend, Sojung, and she let me stay the weekend in her apartment. We started the evening on Friday by feasting freely at her mother’s ddukbokki stand, after which we biked around a quiet park. We parked the bikes and sat on a park bench to drink one beer while listening to the frogs’ voices echo loudly through a drainage pipe. After some great conversation with each other, we biked happily back to her apartment.
The next night, after a rather frantic night in which I missed my bus home, we took advantage of another evening together and ate green tea and choco ice cream, watched an old Marilyn Monroe movie, “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”, and happily accepted a plate of cold spicy noodles around 2 am when her mom came home and joined us.
After my weekend with Sojung, I went on Sunday to Insadong, the neighborhood of Seoul most famous for art and traditional teahouses. Tuesday, May 10th is Buddha’s Birthday, and Insadong is where the biggest celebrations take place.
What I found was an incredibly happy day, light, full of sunshine, beautifully diverse with people from all over Asia, including, off the top of my head, Thailand, Cambodia, China, Vietnam, Tibet, Nepal, Laos, and on and on. Everyone had a smile on their face, there were lotus lanterns all around, bubbles, incense, music and traditional costumes.
It was really something lovely to see, so many colors and smells.
Concrete Jungles of Korea, Dongbae, South Korea
Folding paper into lotus lanterns, Insadong, South Korea.
Korean Buddhist Monks in traditional clothes, Insadong, South Korea.
Bubbles and traditional Korean drummers, Insadong, South Korea.
Small Korean butterfly child, Insadong, South Korea.
Painting station, Insadong, South Korea.
Line of lanterns, Insadong, South Korea.
My watch broke and even after I flick it hard on the back of its face, the most it will do is click the second hand forward, backward, forward, backward.
I’ve never seen a clock click one second over and over and over again, refusing to acknowledge passing time. It just moves, one second at a time, forward, backward, time going nowhere, just forward, backward, forward, backward.
Nowhere to go but here.
Maybe it’s a sign that I need to shift my attention from the blur of the past as it slides slowly into the blur of the future, re-calibrate my system to slide sharply into focus on the present. Time is short and moves so quickly. I won’t be in Korea forever, and someday I’m really gonna miss it.
Or maybe it’s just a sign that I shouldn’t have bought a vintage watch.
I love this springtime weather, the air thick and humid, alive with the blossoms on the trees, the smell of the outdoors drifting softly in through the windows, the soft and seemingly distant sound of the birds as they chirp, a spirited chorus in a world still free, the green leaves of the freshly budded trees vibrant and lush against the dark hues of the sky.
Inside the classroom, the tan of the students’ uniforms is mild against the soft wood color of the desks, forty black heads of hair, over half in bangs, thick big lenses the mode of style, orderly arranged and seated in eight rows of five desks that obediently face the front.
Due to a schedule change, this is the second time I teach this class today, and consequently my entrance was calm, the students a little more tired than the morning, the air warm and comfortable enough to softly slip into sleep.
I stand in the front as their heads are bent over crossword puzzles, occasionally they look up thoughtfully, make eye contact with me and hold it for a moment before the corner of my mouth smiles and they giggle and look away.
As I walk around the room, the students working at their journals, the breeze from the window pulls at my senses. Conversation rises and falls around the room, there is a quiet echo of the math teacher’s voice from the hallway, the doors at the front and back of the classroom are both open, the room is peaceful and calm, a secluded space with full awareness of the school activity down the hall and the tops of the trees in the world outside the third floor windows.
The spring breeze is incredibly moving to me. It is fragrant, thick, full of memory, heavy with longing, with the present, with the past, of Taiwan, of California, of greenhouses tucked warmly away in cold spring days of the Midwest, of puddle jumping in the streets as the rain beats down on our heads, laughter and study and friendship and family, so full of new life, peaceful and warm, everything connected, we are old and we are young and this is life: a spring breeze that softly passes through the classroom window.
Flowers and people.
Cherry Blossoms in South Korea.
Korean grandfather, Yeoju, South Korea.
Little pink blossoms, Yeoju, South Korea.
Basket bike and a sunny day, Yeouido, South Korea.
Magnolia flowers, Yeoju, South Korea.
Jinhae Cherry blossom festival, South Korea.
I tell you, not understanding the language of the country you’re in can play with your emotions like nothing else. For example, let’s take a simple scenario: volleyball.
Say you’re playing a game of volleyball with your fellow teachers. Actually, for unbeknownst reasons, you’ve started playing volleyball every single day. Sometimes, you play twice a day. Occasionally, they make you serve for an hour straight, so your wrist varies between bruised, swollen, painful, or after the weekend’s rest, back to normal.
You try to keep up your spirits. You wish somebody would tell you the reasoning behind the sudden vigorous devotion to the game of volleyball. You continue to go to practice, even though your notification of practice usually goes something like this:
(Time: roughly anywhere between 8am and 2pm. Scene: You are sitting at your desk, lesson planning. Or maybe you’re walking to a lesson. Or maybe you’re packing up your books at 4:55, ready to go home for the day.)
“Excuse me, Amanda.”
“Yes?”
“Yes, today… (volleyball hand motion) today… six o’clock… (hand motion numbers) game.”
“Volleyball, today? Again?”
“Yes, today.”
“But… we played volleyball yesterday. And the day before that.”
“Yes. But you have to go today.”
“But I have plans tonight.”
“I’m sorry, you must go. Principal says you have to be there.”
So you go. And turns out, it’s a game! So you get a little excited, okay, this can be fun. I mean, you’re here, you’re in Korea, you’re the only white person for miles around, you’re playing with a bunch of teachers as they hoo- and haa- and scream, “Fighting!” and “Powaa'” and “TEAM A TEAM A” and “OOUUUUUTAAA'” and it’s entertaining, right? Sieze the day. Look at the bright side. If you have to be here, you have to be here. Try all that positive brainwashing stuff until you decide you’re going to have a good time. Just take it for what it’s worth and go home afterwards.
But then you start to play.
The Principal is in the back row, the PE Teacher is in the center, and the other girl on the team is shoved in the back corner where she can serve and be invisible. You were put in the back corner, but then switched with this other teacher who is not as good as you. There is a really bashful player in front of you, but he never really gets a chance to touch the ball because the PE Teacher is a ball hog who runs all around the court, stealing people’s glory and putting the ball in the middle where the front- center guy will hit it up before the PE Teacher can spike it down to the other court.
This is pretty much how it goes every time. PE Teacher steals it, Principal screams in a high voice, front- center guy batts it into the air, PE Teacher spikes it. You’re irritated but you go along with the show.
However, scenario change. The ball enters your area and you start to hit it but the PE Teacher is running at you, you stand your ground and are about to hit it when he runs into you, you both biff it and the ball is lost. The Principal starts screaming at you, pointing and yelling, the same thing over and over, angry at you for messing up the play. All you want to do is defend yourself, or tell her to back off, or tell the PE Teacher to quit being such a ball hog, but you can’t.
You just have to listen to this woman scream at you in a foreign tongue, which is terrifying, and then continue to play this stupid game until it’s over.
The game goes from fun and entertaining, to a nightmare. You’re on the brink of tears. Everyone is screaming words you can’t understand and everything sounds angry and the whistle is never ending and you feel frazzled and irritated and angry.
The whistles go and you severly warn yourself that you are not to cry during this game, and it goes and goes and goes.
However, for no matter how bad it gets, you still have Moon: the best, most amazing, most happy and excited office administrator ever, who gives you a salute in the hallway every time he sees you, who cheers the loudest and for every point the team makes, he jumps up on his feet, throws his arms in the air and shouts “OOOHHHHH!!!!!” at the top of his lungs.
You decide that you’ll continue to play, for Moon.
***
What makes it all worse is that I don’t like volleyball. Really, I don’t. Unless I’m on a beach or sand court, drinking a delicious IPA and possibly running back and forth from the food table to the court, summer sun and the boombox beating, enjoying time with friends, joking and laughing, what’s the point of volleyball? Unless it’s a game where you don’t care who wins or loses, because everyone will go home happy either way, what is the point!?
I like soccer. But my Principal doesn’t believe that we, the teachers, should have the liberty to play soccer: instead, we have to play volleyball, under her severe direction, every single day. Apparently when she’s there screaming at us, we won’t feel we have the liberty to talk about her behind her back.
Furthermore, despite our having a game this afternoon, which I angrily walked out of afterwards, Mr. Choi sprinted after me to say, “Amanda, where are you going?”
“Mr. Choi, I’m going to my desk.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. Well, the Principal wants me to tell you that we have volleyball practice tonight.”
“But… Mr. Choi… we just finished a game.”
“Yes, I’m sorry. 6pm tonight. You have to be there.”
Volleyball, you have become my mortal enemy.
