For ever and for ever when I move

Friday morning, the sun is bright. I walk to school and am greeted by a cool and pleasant breeze as I pass beneath the trees. The bricks are a comfortable, burnt red color, a molded path that has settled into its place long before my feet met this ground. The hazy heat of summer, grey and heavy, silently took leave and in its place are cool whispers of autumn, quiet auras, hushed like secrets, a few lone brown leaves that scuttle across the street.

In the courtyard of my school, students are huddled in large, teeming clusters of matching costumes: bright red shorts held with suspenders over bright yellow shirts, soccer jerseys with names printed on the back, forty purple polo’s topped with ridiculous headband bows, the striped bow ties sticking straight into the air off of forty giggling faces, forty sets of Pikachu ears perched on forty pig-tailed heads. The deep pounding of drums resonates across the courtyard and in order of class, the students perform choreographed dances to start off the day. Their synchronized moves are met with wild screams from their fellow students in the stands. I wander with my camera, snapping pictures, smiling at the excited, “Amanda teacher!” greetings. The teachers sit under an awning on a raised platform that overlooks the courtyard: there are tables heaped high with clusters of grapes, boxes of rice cakes, perfectly sliced watermelons. Here, the air is cool and the sun cannot reach them.

I love the twang of the Korean musical instruments, girls’ voices screaming with the beat, the traditional drums booming through the air. My students are happy, today they are freed from their studies, they dance and scream as they compete with each other: three-legged races, tug of war, dodge ball, relay races. Nobody gives me instruction, but it no longer seems necessary. The sky is blue with fat, white clouds, and I am so immersed, this life has normalized for me.

“One year ago,” Mickey says as she sits beside me on the cement steps. “I remember one year ago, your first day. You seemed so kind, and beautiful, and… something like that.” I smile at the air between us, warm with her encouragement, before raising my eyes to meet hers. We’re both preparing to leave, standing in the anxious few days of familiarity before we step off the ground into our next plane, actively changing the world as we know it.

My stomach knows it, knotting in excitement, in nervousness, begging my brain to make lists to assuage the anxiety, to maintain control over the details. My last class has finished. My heart feels the weight of the temporary, relishing the slowness in the moments. The twang of the drum brings me back, feeling distant but calm, my last few days in Korea. The whistles scream, the sun is hot, we practice warm ups with my relay team, the students’ screams fill the courtyard and I am selected to run first. The frantic beat of the drums fill the air, we stand in a row and the students fill the space around the track, dancing and cheering wildly, a photographer stands with his camera at the ready, the microphone screeches from the podium as we wait for the shot from the gun.

First day of school in a new semester.

I wake up early, hop timidly over the half- packed piles of clothes, books and gifts to make my way to the small stretch of counter I call a kitchen and put some water on the burner. Hit the button on the water heater, hop in the shower, make a stiff pot of french press, dig out a pair of black pants from a tangled pile of clothes, throw on a blouse, pack up my bag for the day.

On the walk to school, I pass a huge pile of window panes and screens in the parking lot, the workers crouched on their haunches, cigarettes hanging out of their mouths as they point at the windows and argue. A minute later, I look up to the building to find that half the windows in the school are gone, the full walls of the classrooms gaping, open to the outdoors. It is eerily quiet on the grounds. I don’t encounter a single person on the steep walk to the front door, not a soul in the hallways, the stop at the shoe locker to change into my school slippers is silent, silent in the staircase, the quiet rustle of my feet as they click the linoleum steps the only sound. I walk to the teacher’s office and abruptly find a class of students, who smile and wave at me. I pause, suspended in an awkward moment where there are no words, and duck away from the doorway to stand aimlessly in the hallway, lost. I turn to walk a couple steps and pause, unsure. A teacher sees me and points to the far end of the hallway, previously home to the second grade classrooms, where I find a bustling teacher’s office.

I walk in. My old desk buddy sees me and jumps up to warmly greet me with a handshake and a cheerful face. I stand, alone, confused, before I’m told, from across the office, that my desk has been moved, the words accompanied with a vague motion of the hand to the air across the courtyard. I’m given a box of things from my old desk, which are placed on a chair near me, and I continue to stand. I’m asked if I have the key to my old desk locker, which seems to be located beneath my co-teacher’s desk. After a frantic, fruitless search through my backpack, I’m left alone in another moment of standing aimlessly, completely lost, completely clueless, without a desk, emotionally void. Mickey rushes up to me to tell me that I haven’t paid my apartment bill since I moved in, and I need to give my tax papers to the office. I’m informed with an apologetic look that my computer has been adopted by my co-teacher and will not be given back. Two letters are handed to me, one of which is a phone bill. I continue to stand and wait, letters in one hand, morning coffee in the other, box at my knees, backpack on my back.

After a few minutes, my old desk buddy feels sympathetic for me and walks over, picks up the box and walks with me to my new office, three floors up in a different building. As he drops the box at my new desk, he gives me a confident, companionable handshake and puts his hand on his heart, drops his head with a sad shake and walks out. Another co-teacher talks on the phone, his voice booming through the small four- desk office that is now my new professional home, and the voice of the principal booms through the loudspeaker across the courtyard, distant. I wait. After a moment, the phone call is finished and a schedule is handed to me. I’m informed I teach first period, which starts in three minutes. The key to my classroom is locked in the desk underneath my co-teacher’s desk on the second floor in the first building across the courtyard.

My classroom is exploding in mold spores, the room reeks of mildew and water damage, I direct students to open all the windows, I turn on the air. I gather my students in a circle in the front of the room where we painstakingly discuss questions like, “How was your vacation?”, to answers such as, “Boring, so- so, just study, school every day, play computer game, eat,” before playing a timid game of catch phrase, more Korean spoken than English.

So here I sit, my stomach rumbling, the office is cold, boxes of papers to my left and right, the hum of a trimmer through the windows to my right, the sound of Italian opera screeching loudly above me.

Eight more days at school, sixteen more days in Korea. Mama mia, mitchen.

To Anna (Young Ok)

Hi~ How are you?
umm…Young ok…. I’m serious…
Are you angry at me??
Every morning you are face serious.. are you okay??
But I think you my best friend~~ you too?? HaHaHa
When I was happy with you! in my room eating and talking!
I like talking with you! Because when I speak to you my mind peaceful
So I love talking with you!!
Young ok! You have cute laughter! Okay? HaHa
Bye-bye Young ok!
I love you

-Seulgi-

Dear Daisy (Seulgi)

Hi~ How are you? I think you always. hahaha.
But you don’t know my mind. I’m sad…
I’m angry reason your joke. But I like joke to you.
My best memorie with you, we meet night and together talk and eating food.
We will never fighting, okay??
Bye~bye~
I love you.

From~ Anna (Young Ok)

To Amanda Teacher
Hello? Amanda Teacher! I’m Jeong Haram.
How are you?
I’m excellent! Because Today is Amanda Teacher’s Birthday!! Wow!!
Happy birthday, sincerely Amanda~
Have a happy day today!
Enjoy a delicious chocolate and confectionary. ^^
Do you have any plans for vacation?
During vacation, I’m planning to study English a lot~!! >.< But... Now. We don't have a lot of time with Amanda Teacher. I'm sorry a lot of But! I won't forget Amanda!! Also, please Remember my name and face, Amanda! I'll pray to be able to meet again at a later time~ I take English classes with Amanda, these classes are very informative and fun It's really the best class! Beautiful Amanda Please always happy and healthy Amanda! I love you~ Amanda Teacher! Thank you very much ^^ From, your disciple, Jeong Haram

Things I wasn’t told, in the order in which I wasn’t told them.

9.05 AM. I wasn’t told my class was cancelled. I proceeded to gather up the necessary materials in my arms, walk down the staircase, cross the courtyard, unlock my classroom, sigh at the lack of students and lack of notification, sit peacefully at my teacher desk in front of the silent classroom to listen to the rain through the open windows as I sipped my coffee and wrote a letter home.

9.40 AM, back in the teacher’s office, at my desk skimming through websites. Though I had drawn reasonable conclusions as to the location of my students, I wasn’t directly told that my students were testing. Generally, student testing is irrelevant to my schedule, provoking nothing but cancellations, and I acted on this assumption of irrelevance.

9.41 AM. I wasn’t told that I was supposed to be proctoring an exam that started thirty-one minutes prior. Immediately after notification, which was unclear and frantic, involving Mr. Choi waving a piece of paper at me and pointing to one time slot that read my name in Hangeul, a piece of paper whose existence I had been completely oblivious to until that exact moment… after this, I was frantically ushered down the hallway into a classroom, where I walked in, thirty-three minutes late, bowed in embarassment to the teacher proctoring the exam, bit down my frustration and anger and walked past the students and their half- completed exams to take my position at the back of the classroom.

Sometimes Korea just makes me crazy, crazy crazy.

Communication, baby, communication is everything. Gathering pertinent information from subtle context clues and rumors floating between other clueless foreign teachers is lame, lame lame. Korea, you make me crazy.

Summer thus far in Korea means grey days and rain, rain, rain.

Tonight it is raining steadily and I’m staying in, drinking my second cup of thick, green Kohyang mugwort tea. Something about it reminds me of Malt O’ Meal, hearty and thick. Comforting. Listen to the rain and the roar of cars as the tires scream through the puddles, flying past my apartment. My eyes are tired. Soft lamp and the darkness of night.

It is so nice to be relaxed with this job. Easy conversation with students, asking questions, forming sentences, jotting down correct phrases and words on scraps of paper. The teachers at school let me borrow the video camera for the next week and I walked around with it today. Students either strike an immediate pose or, in quick desperation, hide behind their hair, their flailing arms, their friends.

In extra class the students prepared messages for me and I filmed them.

“Teacher, I very very missing you. Teacher, don’t leave Korea. If you leave Korea, I am so sad. Oh, no! So very, very sad. Teacher, when you come back Korea? When you come back, call me. Teacher, I really very miss you.”

After the table of three second graders, we were all on the edge of tears. “Teacher, eyes, red! Teacher, no, don’t cry.” Wearing my emotions on the short, feminine sleeves of my blouse.

Finished developing another roll of film on Tuesday night. High temperatures in the makeshift bathroom studio, experimentation with exposure times, low quality film. Grainy and nostalgic.

Group of sophomore students at sports day. 여주여자고등학교, South Korea.

Buddha's Birthday in the rain, looking at the river. Yeoju, South Korea.

Buddha's Birthday, lanterns at Silleuksa Temple, Yeoju, South Korea.

Spring into Summer. Yeoju, South Korea.

Short walk to school, along the 남한강 river. Yeoju, South Korea.

Chillin' in front of the USO, waiting for a friend, hot grey day.

This weekend I finally made the trek I’ve been meaning to do for awhile: a trip to the DMZ, or De-Militarized Zone, the rigidly peaceful line that crosses on the 38th parallel between North and South Korea. I will admit that after the attack by North Korea on the island of YeonPyeong in late November, a cool fall day on which I returned from a trip to the Post Office only to be greeted by a group of my students screaming, “Teacher! Fire! Death! Soldiers, die, War!” and by others, “Teacher! Go hoooommmeee nowwww, Teacher, America, Go!!!”, and to then run up to the then- deserted teacher office and subsequently eat dinner, alone, with the handful of students still in school, as we used our chopsticks and picked our way through an eerie silence– after that unforgettable experience, which had eerily similar feelings to September, 11, 2001, I thought I’d let the two Koreas simmer for awhile before making my way north.

As it was, other than the strict military procedure and knowledge that the North Korean army had their eyes trained on our every move as we stood on the border, it was an incredibly interesting experience. The highway that ran north along the river was separated from the river by thick coils of barbed wire on top of a tall chain fence, guarded by small lookout buildings with armed soldiers standing watch, due to a sneak attack by DPRK (or Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, inf. North Korea) soldiers that snuck into the ROK (Republic of Korea, inf. South Korea) via the river in the early 1960s, attempting an attack at the ROK presidential Blue House.

An ROK soldier stands at the ready, in a tense taekwondo pose that suggests he is ready to fight at any moment. He faces the beige DPRK building. The blue buildings to the left and right of the soldier are Conference buildings used for tightly- militarized meetings between the two countries.

We arrived at Camp Bonifas and were given a tour brief before being led to tour the Joint Security Area, including the Freedom House, a conference room built directly over the MDL, or Military Demarcation Line, the line which neither side is allowed to cross. We were driven to a lookout building that looks directly out to the North Korean propaganda city of Kijong-dong, which boasts what used to be the world’s tallest flagpole at 160m, that North Korea constructed after a bit of a ‘flagpole war’ between the north and the south.

We passed the site of the 1976 Axe Murder site, in which DPRK soldiers attacked two soldiers that were trimming a tree and murdered them with axes, which led to increased restrictions on the permissibility of soldiers in the DMZ, and then we drove to the Bridge of No Return. The Bridge of No Return was constructed for the means of prisoner exchanges at the end of the Korean War in 1953. The POWs were given a choice to remain in their country of captivity or to cross over the bridge, to the other side and, consequently, the other country, on the condition they could never return.

This ROK soldier stands in the main Conference Room, a blue building that is built directly on top of the Military Demarcation Line. He stands in an aggressive pose and wears sunglasses so as to prevent showing any emotion to the DPRK soldiers.

We then left Camp Bonifas and drove to the 3rd Infiltration Tunnel. As the story goes, after the Armistice Agreement was signed in 1953, North Korea has made continual breaches against the agreement in attempts to attack South Korea, though they deny them all. South Korea has discovered four tunnels that stretch from North Korea, underneath the DMZ and into South Korea, on a path to reach Seoul. One tunnel was discovered accidentally by a South Korean army patrol in 1974. Another tunnel was discovered in 1975, the third in 1978 on information provided by a North Korean defector. The fourth tunnel was discovered in 1990. There are thought to be 17 tunnels in all. The tunnels are dynamited paths through granite, anywhere from 1.2 m to 2 m high and 0.9 m to 2.0 m wide, between 50 m and 160 m below ground, paved by the DPRK with dynamite provided by the Soviet Union. Totally wild. We got to climb down into the 3rd Infiltration Tunnel via a sloped intersection access slope dug by the ROK and into the tunnel, in which it is estimated that 2,000 DPRK soldiers could pass through in the span of one hour.

We then visited the Dora Observatory, a point at which you theoretically can see the farthest into North Korea, far enough to spot a 20 m high statue of Kim Il Sung that sits in PyeongGang. Unfortunately for us, the day was hazy and grey and we could barely see out past the hill we were standing on. Apparently there exist more than 13,440 statues of Kim Il Sung in North Korea. Also totally crazy.

Two ROK soldiers stand easy on guard at the Dorasan Station.

We then went to visit Dorasan Station, a completely finished train station that is waiting to connect the two capitol cities of North and South Korea, those being PyeongYang and Seoul, respectively. If and when the two countries are able to resolve this deeply cutting conflict that divides the country into fiercely militarized halves, Dorasan Station waits eagerly to be one of the first emblems of connection and peace, and stands ready to be the final connection in creating a Trans- Eurasian Railway Network that connects from the southernmost tip of Korea, up into Russia and across the continent all the way through Europe and into the southernmost tip of France (or Portugal?) Totally wild. Just imagine!

Dorasan Station facing towards Seoul. The station stands 56 km from Seoul and 205 km from Pyeongyang and, if opened, could potentially connect the Trans Eurasian Railway from the southernmost tip of Korea across Russia to the southernmost tip of France.

The school day bustles around me, phones ringing and footsteps tapping across the office floor, papers flying across the room as the breeze through the window picks up, teachers arguing over tests and students laughing and chatting in the hallway as they leave school for the day, and it seems hard to believe that the nation is so tensely on guard against their brother to the North. I sincerely wonder what will happen. It is such a fascinating relationship, a 58- year hibernation with occasional snores and burps of activity that seem increasingly close to provoking a wake up…

Alas. Here are a handful of pictures from the weekend. Enjoy.

Here I'm standing on the border of North Korea, looking out at the DPRK propaganda village, or Kijong-dong. We were warned not to step beyond the rope, for any reason. If you strain your eyes or zoom in, you can see the grey outline of the former tallest flagpole in the world.

As with any language, there are certain phrases students are taught that really seem to stick out when used in conversation. Korean students have some very specific phrases they have been taught and use frequently, the most common being, upon given the prompt, “How are you?” a robotic, super-speed response of: “IAMFINETHANKYOUANDYOU,” followed by hysterical giggles. The following are some of my personal favorite phrases from students, that when used are especially touching and sweet. I think you’ll begin to see how easy it is to fall for these students.

Just now, a couple of students stood giggling behind my desk for at least two minutes before I turned around and said, “Oh, hello!” They then, giggling and holding each other’s hands for confidence said, “Oh, teacher, oh. Teacher. Teacher, could I, you, paper? Pleasemumblemumblestickynotemumble.” I listen patiently and expectantly before I laugh and respond with, “A sticky note? Of course,” as I rip off a small sticky note and hand it to one student.

“One, or two?” I rip off another and hand it to the other student. Both stand giggling, a pink sticky note now stuck on each of their hands. They look so surprised and happy. “Oh, teacher, one, oh, thank you, thank you for your kindness!” and they quickly, still giggling, still holding hands, walk away.

“Thank you for your kindness.” How sweet. That kind of phrase just melts your heart and makes you smile.

Earlier today, a student didn’t understand the instructions I gave in class, and looked at me with such a confused look that I walked over to her and asked if she understood. She shook her head, and I slowly explained what she should do. When she understood, she looked up at me, very cheerfully, and said, “Oh! Teacher! Thank you for your kindness!” Makes me laugh and melts my heart.

After all, how could you not fall for the students when they respond with a soft, super sweet, “Pardon?” upon not understanding, or greet you when you walk in the room, still, ten months later, with, “Oh! Teacher! Beautiful!” or write notes to me in their notebooks, of, “Amanda- teacher, fighting! Good luck!” or written in very large, special bubble letters at the end of a tough week for me, “Amanda teacher, are you okay? You look so tired! Cheer up! I love you!”

I honestly love these girls. It’s almost as though I have inherited six hundred younger sisters, some of them michevious trouble makers in class, caught wearing short skirts and walking with boys outside of school, others of them sweet and gentle and shy, some loud, class clowns that are fun to tease in class, others artistic, their notebooks full of sketches and drawings they did in class, their journal entries scribbled in around the drawings, completed on their own time outside of my class… and when I ask to see their uncompleted journals as they sit chatting during work time in class, they say, “Oh, teacher, I’m so sorry, but I love you.”

“I’m so sorry but I love you!” Impossible to be angry.

I feel that what is most important for these girls, the reason behind their having to write journals, is that I want them to feel comfortable with English. Language is something foreign and challenging up to the point when you are able to successfully manipulate those confusing symbols into something meaningful, something about yourself and your own, individual thoughts, something only you are thinking that you have painstakingly coded into what others can understand. When they manage to write a sentence that makes sense to me, that I can understand and respond to… that’s something cool. That’s something really unique. That’s something Korean education doesn’t do enough of, in making English something real, something more than bi- weekly intensive vocabulary tests, more than standardized essays the students must crank through, more than fill- in bubble questions that have intense consequences in their day to day life, whether it be in the public announcement of their grades, the constant shifting of classes according to test scores, or the serious and heavy burden of needing exemplary grades for University.

Think. What do you want to say? Write it. Say it. Write it again. Say it again. I will stand here and patiently wait as you try to figure out what you want to say. I don’t understand. Explain this to me. All together, all of you, help her and explain this to me. Write it down. Speak it. Practice speaking it together. Say it again. Again. Write it. You can do it. Speak it. Write it.

You did it, I’m proud of you. Cheer. Lead the whole class in a clap. Smile. Tell jokes. Be myself, a more patient and genuine version of my self than I ever knew before coming to Korea. My dear students, you really cannot know how proud I am of you.

It’s hard. I make them work hard. I have to work hard to grade their journals, harder than most foreign teachers I know, putting in extra hours on top of the extra classes I teach. But it is worth it. When they complain, “Teacher, difficult!” I make a huge heavy sigh and pretend to melt on my desk in front of the classroom… and after a long dramatic moment, I look up and smile at them, “You can do it. I know you can do it! You’re so smart!” and then they laugh and stop complaining and write.

It’s not uncommon for students to be amazed by certain parts of my physical appearance. The high bridge of my nose, my wide eyes, the color of my eyes, the dirty blonde color of my hair, generously called golden, as in, “Golden- hair teacher! Question!”, my ‘small face’, which is endlessly and continually commented on… all the way down to the color of the hair on my arms.

“Teacher! This!” As a student pinches the hair on her own arm and swoops in close to inspect the hair on my arms… “Wooooaaaa… Teacher! White!” Last week, a student was so fascinated with my arm hairs that she asked if she could have one. I, currently being in such an endearing, nostalgic state for my students, willingly obliged and held out my arm. She pinched and pulled, and I laughed and walked away.

One moment later, she gasped, “Oh! Teacher! Lost!” and I walked back to her desk and held out my arm again as she dug in her pencil pouch, pulled out a tweezers and proceeded to pluck out one arm hair and hold it out for all her nearby desk buddies to see.

“Don’t lose that one!” I told her as I continued to walk around and monitor the students’ journal writing. Another student on the opposite side of the classroom waved me over and asked what happened, to which I pinched some of my arm hair, and she nodded in a half- surprised, half- knowledgeable manner.

Curiosity and honesty.

“I’m so sorry, but I love you.”

My heart swells bigger than my chest, bigger than my self, and it takes the whole world in with this nostalgic, beautiful, bittersweet, giddy, innocent love.