A Korean Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving from overseas is an interesting thing to experience. I decided to teach a lesson on Thanksgiving for my advanced class of 3-4 graders (kids 11-12 yrs). I started the class off with my usual question, “how are you today?” to which the students replied, almost in unison “It’s sunny!” I took a deep breath and tried again, “no, how are YOU today?” trying to mask my frustration under a friendly smile. This time the class became quiet as the kids pondered what was obviously a difficult question. Finally someone raised his hand and answered, “Tomorrow is Friday.” I clasped my hands together and prepared for what I knew would be a long 40 minutes. Later, when I asked why November 27th was an important day, I got a variety of answers:

1) Because it’s Christmas
2) Because it’s “a day for class”
3) Because “teacha here today”
4) Because it’s Halloween

“No, no, no and no,” I said. I finally got them as close as I was going to when they guessed “American Chuseok” (Chuseok is the Korean holiday that we foreigners dub “Korean Thanksgiving.”) So the lesson proceeded, and I hope I was able to educate them just a little as to what Thanksgiving really is.

So my Thanksgiving really has been a two-part experience. The first part of my Thanksgiving was a celebration that took place at the Ambassador’s house in Seoul. I have to say, the word “house” doesn’t do this place justice. The land that the Ambassador’s house is built on is directly next to a giant palace, and the residence itself is a huge Korean style house built from giant Douglas Fir trees shipped from the United States. To get inside you have to walk through a conspicuously huge metal gate that slides about two feet to the side, and after you walk through, quickly slides shut like a giant prison door. I was joined by the majority of my Fulbright colleagues and together enjoyed a huge American Thanksgiving feast complete with entertainment thanks to the “US Embassy rock band” (consisting of a couple of interns and two middle-aged guys who butchered classics like “Paint it Black" and “Take me Home Country Roads.”) All in all it was a great evening, and the new ambassador was gracious and kind to talk to (she is from Arizona, so that goes without saying.) Below are a few pictures:




The second half of my thanksgiving took place on Thanksgiving Day here in Cheongju. My principal, a few teachers and my co-teachers took me out to dinner at a favorite restaurant where we ate a not-so-traditional Thanksgiving meal of goat and duck. It was a great time. After making a toast to me, of which all I understood was “Joon Kerry,” my principal and vice-principal handed me their glasses to share a drink with them, and once again was grateful for Korean drinking culture and it’s ability to bridge language barriers.

As the night wore on, I became engaged in a semi-philosophical conversation with the teacher next to me, Mr. Hong. Mr. Hong is a really amazing guy, he speaks almost no English but the man tries harder than anyone I have ever seen to communicate, and he is not afraid to look goofy, which I suppose is why I feel such an affinity towards him. He would lean over to my co-teacher and whisper to her, asking her how to say something, then lean over to me and try to verbalize what he had just been told. Each time he could never get the words just right, and would have to ask her again, always preferring to say it himself rather than have her simply tell me. After a while of this, due to the strange nature of our conversation we had garnered the attention of almost everyone at the table. The subject that we were discussing was what he believed to be a serious subject, and, although impossible to recreate the conversation just as it was, I will try to give you a taste:

Mr. Hong: Jon
Me: Yes Mr. Hong.
Mr. Hong: (after a long translation from my co-teacher) You tink bot sol have?
Me: I’m sorry, what?
Mr. Hong: (after turning to my coteacher again) You tink wobot hev soul?
Me: (surprised at what I thought I had heard) Do I think robots have souls?
Mr. Hong: (a large smile lighting up his face) Yes!
Me: (not sure what to say) Well, that’s a difficult question. I think, (trying to structure my answer in an agreeable way) maybe robots don’t have souls. What do you think?
Mr. Hong: (sighing loudly) I tink, maybe don’t, but maybe do. You see Eewobot?
Me: Eewobot…..oh, you mean iRobot? The Will Smith movie?
Mr. Hong: Yes! Will Smif-uh! I see and maybe tink wobot hev sol
Me: Oh I see, well the robots in iRobot, maybe they did have souls, I guess its possible…

At this point in our conversation each of my co-teachers could barely contain their laughter, and I myself was having a hard time being serious. As absurd as the question of robots having souls seemed, to Mr. Hong it was a serious debate.

Thus went my Thanksgiving dinner. A time of laughter, friends and colleagues, and some poor goat that tasted great with kimchi. And the truth is, I am really thankful to be in this place. As strange as things sometime seem, as frustrating as cultural differences can sometimes be, if I am honest with myself I know that I am incredibly blessed. Blessed to have a great girlfriend, blessed to have wonderful family and friends, and blessed to know incredible people here in Korea, both Korean and American. There is so much I am thankful for, and I’m glad to remember it today.

Simple Times

There may be no joy as pure, simple and complete as walking hand-in-hand with a young girl as she swings back and forth, kicking fallen leaves and singing to herself. Such is the joy given me by my youngest host sister, Dachan, who is seven years old and enjoys the blissful naivety so common to those her age. We walk around Cheongju, her tiny hand in mine, and collect fallen leaves from the trees lining the streets for her collection of brightly colored leaves. Most of the time this consists of her pointing to a branch high above her head and making me jump to grab whatever leaf she desires. It’s that pure kind of fun that most of us haven’t enjoyed since we were kids, before we had so much foolishness to worry and think about.

Teaching continues to be a good experience, my coteachers never ceasing to provide me with a bit of comedy, even when they don’t mean to. The other day I began teaching at 9 in the morning, and for some reason, most likely due to the delirium from which I suffer during early mornings when I am made to teach, I had that song, the name of which escapes me, that goes: “what the world needs now, is love, sweet love, it’s the only thing, that there’s just too little of” stuck in my head. So I was softly singing this song while the kids were busy at their worksheets, and, when I perceived my coteacher looking inquisitively at me, I asked her if she had ever heard the song I was singing. She said she didn’t know, so I sang it again, and she proceeded to repeat each line, in her thick Korean accent, as best she could:

Me: What the world...
Coteacher: Wa da wood...
Me: ...needs now...
Coteacher: ...need now...
Me: ...is love...
Coteacher: ...ee ruv...
Me: ...sweet love...
Coteacher: ...swee ruv...
Me: ...it’s the only thing...
Coteacher: ...ee the onry fing...
Me: ...that there’s just..
Coteacher: ...da there rust...
Me: ...to little of...
Coteacher: ...to rittle ruv...

She was so genuine in her attempt, and so sincerely wanting to sing the song correctly, that I had to try harder than ever to suppress my laughter. This is what I love about my coteachers: they aren’t afraid to try new things, to be silly, or to look foolish. If only we could all be so brave. They told me the other day that they thought that they were becoming more like me. Puzzled, I asked how, and they replied that they were making stranger facial expressions, using their hands more when they talked, and talking louder. This was comforting to me, as at least now I can say I have had some impact on the people of Korea, although it has yet to be seen if this impact is positive or negative.

What kids have taught me

The kids I teach never cease to amaze me. The things they say, the things they do, the way they behave, all of these things transcend language barriers and make me laugh, cry, and everything in between. Kids say the darndest things, to borrow the tired adage; and let me tell you this is true universally, not just for one particular ethnicity, or language group, or society, as I have learned from my experience teaching the creatures that inhabit my classes. Although the stories are numerous, I will stick to two that have happened within the last week.

My assignment to the class was simple: I will say a word, and, in your groups, you will spell that word with letters on a felt board and hold it in the air when you have finished. I asked if they understood and they nodded a sedated affirmative; good enough for me I decided. The game began as well as I could have hoped, with the kids creating each word in their groups after I said it, and holding something resembling that word in the air upon finishing. Then, I encountered one of those moments in which I had no idea what to do, a moment that left me dumbfounded and exasperated, having no idea if I should seem angry or just laugh, but certain that a couple of 10 year old kids had got the better of me. I called out the word, “door,” and the kids began to work furiously in their groups happily accomplishing the task I had set before them. After each group was holding their assembled word aloft, I surveyed the results: the first group had correctly assembled the word “door,” “good job!” I enthusiastically said, throwing two thumbs into the air. The next two groups had also correctly assembled the word “door” to which I swelled with pride; but the last group had assembled something quite different, something different entirely. They had written on their board, and I will edit this for my readers who are of a more delicate persuasion: “f***er man.” Where several 10-year-old kids learned this nonsensical phrase is anyone’s guess, but I was shocked. I probably would have laughed, had I not been so intent on the other students not seeing what they had written. I practically jumped on their board and, in a polite but firm voice and with a forced half-smile, told them that they had assembled the wrong word. The next time around the word was “pirate,” and I hoped beyond hope that my troublemaking kids had resolved to amend their vile ways and spell with the tenacity and competence which I knew they possessed. I was wrong. When I came around to reading what they had pain-stakingly spelled out, I read, again to my horror: “you die.” Needless to say I took this less as a death threat and more as a couple of kids messing around, doing something that I would have done had I been their age. So I chose to assume the best; these were just kids who had tried to spell the word pirate and become confused, instead making a benign threat on my life of which they hopefully had no plans of carrying to fruition. This time I chided them more severely, making sure they knew that what they had spelled was most certainly not “pirate.” I told them that I was disappointed with them, and they had better spell the next word right or else I would take away points. So I called out the last word, “boat.” Again, the first few groups spelled it correctly, but my mind was already looking ahead to what sort of terrible sentence had been discovered by the last team, no doubt another threat or curse word of an unknown variety. This time, however, I was pleasantly surprised because, although they didn’t spell the word boat, they had managed to spell out “love teacher.” Needless to say, that team lost the competition, but they certainly won in terms of creativity.

The second story I that stands out is a lesson I implemented last week, and remains one of my favorite lessons of the semester. The lesson was about story, and each group in the class was to assemble a series of 6 pictures in any order they pleased and write a sentence per picture telling a story, which they would then read to the class. The pictures were these:

Here are two of my favorite stories, copied verbatim from the hurriedly scrawled writing of my students:

1) “Boy is sleep. And boy is get up. Boy was dug in grownd. But dog is climb. So he was shouted. And dog is wait. He is find a treasure. So he has a money.” This one has a happy ending and also includes some excitement with the dog, which I much appreciated, and is fairly detailed in the discovery of the treasure. This team knew what was happening.

2) “John was saw treasure in his dream. John was dug ground for find treasure with shovel. Next hole soil was return pile. John was dug and gug. Finally John found bong.” I enjoy this one particularly because they know how to spell difficult words like treasure and soil and shovel, and yet cannot seem to spell bone right. Then again maybe they wanted John to find a bong. I also appreciate their inventing the phrase “dug and gug.” I don’t know what it means but I want to do it.

So although these kids are young they are teaching me about the nature of playfulness and creativity, and helping me to not take myself too seriously, and for that I am grateful.

I'm not Glen, I'm not Jesus, I'm Jon

Lately I have encountered several Koreans who have compared my looks to those of two famous people, and have left me shaking my head. In the last two weeks I have had literally six different Koreans come up to me and tell me I look like the guy from the movie “Once” which actually happens to be one of my favorite movies. The guy they are referring to (his name is Glen Hansard, and he’s Irish) has curly red hair that looks nothing like mine, but I guess is easy to overlook due to his having a beard. Its crazy, because the movie “Once” is an independent film, and most people I have talked to haven’t seen it, yet all these Korean people have somehow seen it and think I am the walking talking clone of Glen Hansard. So, that is person #1. Person #2 is…can you guess? Jesus! No I didn’t just swear, people keep telling me that I look like Jesus, to which I try to respond with something witty and Jesus-esk like, “you are forgiven, my son,” or “stop illegally downloading music, every time you do I kill a kitten in heaven.” Anyway, although I don’t claim to be like Jesus, nor do I claim omnipotence, omnipresence or the ability to forgive sins, I would be lying if I said I didn’t see this one coming. I mean, lets face it, the Jesus comparison is practically a default for anyone who wears the beard. Jesus made the look cool, I’m just trying to keep it in style.

Anyway, that’s the latest, and although I would not claim it to be a thought of much depth, I hope it will cause you to reexamine the stereotypes you hold, and to think twice next time you call someone with a beard Jesus.

Stranger in a Strange Land

I don’t know how to begin, any thought I can offer will be incomplete by default, so I suppose the least I can do is offer up some thought, some observation about my life here in Cheongju thus far. It amazes me that, as of next Monday, I will have lived in Cheongju for a month, an entire month come and gone in what feels like the blinking of an eye. In many ways my life could not be better, I have a great homestay family, I have two of the sweetest homestay sisters I could have asked for, and my colleagues at work are far more helpful, kind and understanding than I could have imagined.

Quickly, a few notes about the people and things that make my life what it is:
My homestay sisters, Dabin (다빈) and Dachan (다찬) are young, 8 and 12 respectively, and still exist within the bubble of youthful energy, zeal, and ignorance. It is interesting for me, being so unaccustomed to having sisters, to discover firsthand the emotional ups and downs my sisters experience daily at what seems like the flip of a switch. They are nice and sweet one minute, and the next they are yelling “hajima!” (stop) at each other in the worst kind of nasally whiney voice you can imagine, and won’t even acknowledge my existence. I am learning to develop a kind of sensor that can detect such unfavorable moods so I can avoid at all costs. The girls and I play games a lot, when I am not at work, among the favorites are UNO, badminton, and yoga (my sisters have a book of yoga poses that we try to duplicate to the best of our ability.) Recently, Dabin, the older sister, has taken a liking to chess, and challenges me nightly to a game or two. Unfortunately, sometimes these games end in a bad way. For instance last night, at the end of our game, our interaction went something like this:

Dabin: Teacha there! I ween!
Me: No you killed my queen one move after I killed your king, therefore I win.
Dabin: No! My rules!
Me: Read the back of the box, those are the rules.
Dabin: No I kill queen so I ween!
Me (beginning to become annoyed): Listen, if you don’t want to play by the rules, then I won’t play anymore.
Dabin: No! You play my rules! I am weenah!
Me: No, you are not winner, you are cheater!

Immediately after this interaction Dabin began to tear up and ran to her mother. I began to see that my reaction may not have been best, but I remained resolute in that she was indeed a cheater and deserved to lose, she just needed tougher skin. So as you can see, living with girls is a bit different than living with boys, and I am still adjusting.

I am about to finish my first week of teaching at Namsung Elementary School (남성초등학교) and I have already lost my voice. This happened much sooner than I was expecting, as I was not expecting to lose my voice. But, due to the raucous nature of that jungle they call elementary school, my voice has met its untimely demise quickly. Everywhere I go, and I mean everywhere, students react in one of two ways:
1) They let out a high-pitched yelp and run and hide behind their nearest friend (which annoys me to no end,) or,
2) Punch their friends to gain their attention, point at me and together yell “teacha teacha nice to meet you!” or “teacha so handsome!”

I may never get used to the attention, I have to plan when I go places based on when kids will be out of the halls, and I have to be careful of when I walk pass other classes, because even the sight of me is enough to get kids yelling things and completely disrupt their class. As I sat at my desk today during my short ten minute break between classes I looked up from my computer to see a crowd of elementary aged girls standing in a semi-circle around my desk, saying nothing, but only staring very intently, examining me carefully, and it is weird after a while. I enjoyed the attention at first, but feeling like a rockstar has quickly devolved into feeling like a zoo animal, kids pointing their greasy fingers at me and yelling their incoherent English phrases.

Every morning I drink coffee with my principal: a kind old man who wears his pants up to his nipples and walks down the hall with fists clenched and a confident swagger. He is a powerful guy at my school, and he knows it. Unfortunately for me he knows no English at all. Our interactions usually go something like this:

Me: Annyong-hashimnika
Principal: Oh yes yes, prease ah sit down.
Me: Thank you
Principal (after several seconds): Ah, wesa is berry nice?
Me: Yes sir, the weather is very nice today.
Principal (after several minutes of silence): Ah, copee?
Me: Oh yes please, I would like some coffee.
Principal: Oh ah, ah (nods affirmatively as he calls his portly assistant who brings us our morning cup)
(At this point we both sip our coffee in silence for a while, both sitting and staring at nothing in particular, until I offer up some kind of slow, basic English phrase I hope he will know.)
Me: Rrrrhmmm (I do this to gain his full attention prior to speaking in a slow, deliberate manner) Do you like warm weather? (as I say this I use my arms and point to the sun as I gesture to him to indicate that I am asking a question.)
Principal (after a few seconds of looking at the ground): Ah, ah yes thank you berry much.
Me: Ok….but do you (gesturing to him) like (pointing to my smile) the sun (pointing out the window to the sun, then shrugging my shoulders so he will have no doubt that it is a question.) Do you? (I reiterate in hopes that somehow by repeating it it will sink in.)
Principal (after a long pause and more staring at the ground, looks at his watch and says definitively): Ah, about 10:30.

So this is how our interactions usually go, I have learned to embrace the awkwardness and let it be, for whatever reason he wants to drink coffee with me every morning, and other teachers tell me that is a big deal, so for now I will soak up the awkwardness, and enjoy the coffee.

Turning Wheels and Pulling Strings

“That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But, it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think of how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.”
- Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

How profoundly true resonate these words of Dickens, even so many years after they were written. I love his allusion to iron and gold, to thorns and flowers, to these very different but equally binding mechanisms that hold us fast throughout our lives. And it makes me think. As I read this passage I did stop as the passage suggests, and I did think of what had led me here; of the peculiar and confused chain of events which did coalesce to create this very moment in which I am sitting, looking up at a clear blue sky somewhere in Asia sipping a Coke and writing this run-on sentence. It really is quite extraordinary, if you want to know. So I realized something, namely, that I don’t think that things change because of time and place, especially if those things are truths. For instance, Dickens’ basic observation, however rudimentary in its composition, is nevertheless profound and true, despite when it was written or what it was written in direct reference to. And regardless of who one believes has orchestrated such events, one cannot deny the truth that a chain of events has been set in motion, from farther back that we can know, and that those events make us who we are, shape what we do, and guide us to who we become. It is interesting for me to remember, a conversation I had with someone a few weeks back who works at the US Embassy in Seoul, and he was remarking of the nature of life and its habit of following a certain course despite an individual having no idea what course that may be. He was talking about his prestigious position at the Embassy, and the path he followed, (rather inadvertently,) to get there. He said that it was funny how things had worked out so well, and the whole time he had no idea that he was bound for such a position, nor that what he had done would work so to his advantage in his current career. “Its as if something is up there,” he said candidly to me, “turning wheels and pulling strings, pushing people towards certain places, and others toward different places.” He took a sip of his beer, looked away from me and at the rain falling gently beside us, shrugged, and turned back. “Its strange” he concluded. In a way, I agree. I doubt very much that this individual thought that the person “pulling strings” was anything divine, instead perhaps fate or some concept even more abstract, but what he said I think is true, as I have witnessed some such guiding presence in my own life, and I am certain I will continue to. I am not trying to make any kind of a statement, but simply an observation. And it makes me wonder if I will be looking back on this time years from now, marveling at how each event and each subtle influence somehow shaped what I will eventually do. But the interesting thing about this whole idea is that it mostly operates in retrospect; one cannot foresee the future any better than one can see through a perfectly dark room. As frustrating as this is, maybe it is good, after all. Maybe it forces us to live with some kind of faith that things will line up, that things are lining up, although all seems confused as of present. Maybe it forces us to believe something uncomfortable, to exercise a muscle seldom used, to force us into comfort when there seemingly is none. I am stubborn, I will tell you that, and it is hard for me to learn from things the first time through. But as I look back I am able to see something undeniable, something that I would do best to learn from and understand, something that would make my life easier if I were able to comprehend. Again, it is not my intent to make any kind of statement regarding the state of my existence or yours, I am not sure I am qualified to, there are simple observations from a simple man.

A Cause, a Protest, and Violence

So I find myself with internet for the first time in several days, and oh my so much has happened. Indeed it would seem unfair to relate all that has happened/is happening in one short post, so in an effort to do justice to the recent events I have experienced, I will devote this post to one event in particular.

*Note: the picture to the left was take not 50 yards from where I was standing on the 15th of August in Seoul. Note the green dye from the water cannon on their arms, this dye was used to mark protesters for later arrest.

My friend Billy and I arrived in Seoul with the rest of our Fulbright group last Friday, and decided we wanted to see the town. We thought that Friday night was as good a time as any, and besides, it is only a city of 20 million people, so I was sure we could see most of it in one night. Anyway, so the two of us decided to do a few touristy things, like go to a palace and walk around the city hall area, and as we were doing so we saw riot police almost everywhere we went; not doing anything in particular, just standing around and looking bored. But nevertheless, everywhere we went we saw these guys, hundreds and hundreds of them in their black riot gear. So as night approached we were down by city hall, trying to find a sushi restaurant, and we ran across a large number of protesters, lighting candles and holding signs. A few people were making speeches to the crowd, and we stayed a few minutes as we tried to understand what they were protesting. We soon found out. As we were leaving, we were walking down a street and two lines of about one hundred riot police ran in front of us and completely blocked the road. The lined up with their shields in front of them and stood, staring at us, expressionless, waiting. We were obviously a bit confused, so we just stood there, about ten feet from these gentlemen clad in black, and waited to see what would happen. After a few minutes, several of the protesters came over to the line of police and started heckling and yelling at them. As the situation escalated we stepped back a few feet and tried to go around the line of police, and as we did we began to hear screams, and sirens, and yelling, and what can only be described as chaos. So we ran towards the sounds and as we did a truck with a water cannon passed us, its contents bound for unforeseen victims, and we began seeing more and more riot police, until they were everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Once we rounded a corner and a huge intersection came into view, we found the source of all the chaos. Thousands of people were running and yelling, many trying to evade capture by the riot police, many trying to escape the fury of the water cannon and tear gas that had recently been fired. The scene was complete and utter chaos. So, after a moment of deliberation I turned to my friend Billy and said, "Billy, we can stay here and be safe, or we can risk our safety, run into the this, and be in the middle of something we won't ever forget." With nothing more than a simple nod and smile, Billy and I ran towards the confusion. As we ran into the square, we were literally forced to dodge protesters and riot police as they ran around in a strange game of cat and mouse. We could see the water cannon, spraying the protesters and fleeing the scene, and we could see protesters yelling and fighting with the police. It was insane. As we tried to run across the intersection lines of police (50 or more in each line) would run at us, clubs drawn and shields raised, and we would dodge them as best we could and move on to the other side. Shortly after we entered the square, the police shut down the square completely, sealing off every possible exit to ensure that no one could get in or out. In between chaotic moments in the square we had a brief chat with a korean protester who informed us that the protests were against their President, and the fact that it was the Korean independence day made it a perfect day to protest and make their point. She said that they had been protesting peacefully with candles when the police came down on them, first with the water cannon, then tear gas, then beating them with their batons. She told us that there were around 10,000 riot police in and around the square, and maybe 5,000 protesters; not a fair fight if you ask me. Our conversation was funny in that while she was telling us this she would occasionally stop to yell at the police and call them names, or sing a song with several others about the police not being able to marry and how they are shameful, then return to our conversation with a completely normal tone of voice. Anyway, our conversation came to a brief halt when tensions among our group escalated and the crowd began to yell and push the police, who pushed back, which devolved into a mess with us at the center. As we were pushed towards the violent scene, we decided to try to use the chaos to our advantage and make our way beyond the square where we could comfortably stand (as we had been in the square for a half hour or more). So we were able to slip out and watch at a distance as the violence dissipated.

After we grabbed dinner and proceeded to walk around town a bit more, we continued to see riot police running in one direction or another. We ran across the water cannon truck re-filling at a fire-hydrant, and saw tons and tons of undercover police in plainclothes, (although they were anything but subtle, they all wore close to the exact same clothes and all had the same green plaid fishing hat, as if it would somehow make them blend in) always following the police at a not-so-discreet distance. Anyway, the night was wild and shocking and eye-opening and really made me think about the role of an individual in society and the role of police and government and....well maybe you should just ask me about it sometime. The final tally was 156 protesters arrested, which isn't bad considering all the people in the square. Here are some pictures from earlier in the protests, taken from a Korean newspaper: