the wreck of the Sewol

Well, your TV and news sites are probably teeming with stories about South Korea right now. I wish there was a happier reason for it than the sinking of the Sewol, a large Japanese-built ferryboat hauling nearly 500 people, which sank in the western fringes of the Korea Strait on its way from Incheon to Jeju Island.

                                                                                                      Yonhap News

You're probably familiar with the specifics. Just a few minutes before 9:00 a.m. the passengers on the ship heard a loud bang and the ship started to list severely. A distress signal was sent at 8:55 a.m. The Sewol's captain, Lee Joon-seok (who was recently arrested), failed to issue any sort of evacuation order for a critical 30 minutes, at 9:30 a.m. The ship sank further, rolling over and becoming almost completely submerged by noon, with only the bow remaining above water by 2:00 p.m. The ship in its entirety has since sunk and settled on the bottom 90 meters below the surface. 

Horrifying, heartrending and heroic stories have risen from this disaster. Twenty-nine people are confirmed dead, 174 have been rescued and 239 remain missing. It's a well-known fact that 300 of the 476-odd people aboard were young students from an Ansan high school. (In an earlier draft of this post I wrote Incheon, but I was in error.) One of the crew is rumored to have lost her life ensuring that all passengers had their life jackets. Heartbreaking tales of the students texting their parents and relatives from the wreck on the bottom of the ocean have populated the web. 

Controversy is among the most prominent survivors of the Sewol wreck. Two at the moment are occupying my attention, and they are both mentioned in that link I posted up there about Captain Lee being arrested. The first is Lee's refusal to issue an evacuation order for a full 30 minutes, which has rightly come under harsh scrutiny and criticism; and that the helmsman, Cho Joon-ki (also arrested) made a "sharp turn" just before the bang was heard. He admitted that he was "familiar" with the operation of the helm, but that the wheel "turned farther than expected." This has led to speculation that the turn was too sharp, dislodging some of the containers in the hold and perhaps compromising the integrity of the hull, leading to the sinking. Other parties maintain that a hidden rock was to blame, but that doesn't make sense to me. Ferries have been traveling up and down that same route for decades. If there was a rock, surely it would have been detected by now? 

It seems that, as is commonly the case, human error is to blame for the horrific loss of human life. The ship's authority figures failed to act in a sagacious manner, trapping hundreds of innocents in the wreck of the vessel. 

To many abroad and in the West, this may seem like "just another disaster." Another captain asleep at the wheel, like the Costa Concordia in 2012. But it's more than that, folks. This catastrophe has shaken South Korea right down to its roots. Many of my students at Sejong University are tremendously disturbed, not just by the deaths of so many young ones but the accompanying implications. 

What implications, you ask? 

I've explained before that Korea has a strong Confucian mindset. This has been the case since the Joseon era (1392-1910), when Neo-Confucianism came to dominate the Korean court and both Buddhists and Christians were severely repressed. One of the fundamental tenets of Confucianism is unflinching obedience to one's elders and betters. Korea and China, during their medieval days, had rigid hierarchical societies. Things like birth, wealth, occupation, and even surname determined one's position in the caste system. When confronted with a member of a higher echelon, one must show them the greatest respect. To do anything else would be to violate sacred societal mores and traditions. It goes without saying that children must obey their parents and grandparents as a lowly foot soldier would obey a general. 

And that's precisely what the children aboard the Sewol did. They wanted to evacuate, to leap off the ship into the cold grey seas and swim for their lives, but Captain Lee, their elder and better—whose mind was paralyzed with fears that his passengers would drift away and be lost in the turbulent waters—ordered them to stay put. So stay put they did, in the cabins and corridors. And there they remain. 

Needless to say, many minds in Korea—particularly the younger ones—are beginning to call this whole Confucian system into question. This disaster has highlighted its fundamental weakness: what if the authority figures in question are pure-D wrong? There's little point in unquestioningly following a leader if he or she hasn't got the brains of an ice cube. Many Japanese samurai might disagree, but this isn't the Warring States Period, guys. This is the 21st century. And now, young folks across the Korean peninsula are wondering whether the Confucian ideal is, well...ideal anymore. One of my students, normally chipper and articulate but grave and hesitant when I spoke with him, told me that he couldn't really process the whole affair. 

"I love my country," he said. "I believe in Korea. But this disaster has made me question everything." 

Everyone feels that way, partner. My fiancée, a die-hard Titanic buff, has been quiet and subdued the past few days, shocked to the core that a major maritime disaster such as the Sewol sinking can still happen in this day and age. I must confess that it all seems a bit surreal to me. It's hard to believe that only a few hundred kilometers from where I sit, down in the muck at the bottom of the Korea Strait, sits a capsized ship filled with hundreds of people who may very well be siblings or relatives of the twentysomethings I teach. 

My thoughts and prayers are with them. May justice be served to those at fault. 

save me from the tonsillitis!

I suppose I should really thank Miss H's students, because when they're not driving her up the wall with their spoiled behavior (we live right next to Walkerhill, a rich, hoity-toity and upscale neighborhood of eastern Seoul, so all her seven-year-olds are complete brats), they're infecting her with a litany of diseases. One of these was tonsillitis. Miss H herself got over it easily enough, with antibiotics prescribed by a local ENT specialist, but then she passed it on to me. I started coming down with the symptoms on Sunday, September 1...the day before the fall semester began at Sejong University.

Well, crap.

I figured I'd ride it out. It was just a fever and a sore throat, nothing to worry about. I stuck it out for nearly a week, refusing treatment even when I had to cancel classes because I couldn't speak. Despite feeling like death warmed over, I kept at it, believing a turnaround was right around the corner.

Matters came to a head on the night of Thursday, September 5. I took my temperature and discovered that I had a whopping 103.3° F (39.6° C) fever. That tore it. Miss H and I climbed into a cab and rode to the emergency room at Asan Medical Center across the river in Songpa-gu. A quick examination by the attending physician revealed that I had a heck of a case of bacterial tonsillitis, which had turned my tonsils all splotchy-white and driven my temperature through the roof. Three IV drips put me to rights: a fever reducer, saline solution to rehydrate me while I sweated it out, and a hefty dose of penicillin. I went to the pharmacy the next day to pick up some antibiotics, and then visited the ENT specialist (the same one that Miss H had seen). This articulate woman sprayed and swabbed some vile-tasting concoctions on the back of my throat, prescribed me some more drugs, and called it even.

I'm finally feeling back to normal now. I have my last appointment with the ENT specialist tomorrow (Friday), and I expect her to give me a clean bill of health. That's good, because in the middle of next week I'm jetting off for China and would hate for an infection to muck up the trip.

Anyway, this little episode impressed upon me two salient facts: (a) that Miss H needs to find a new job away from those bratty petri dishes, and (b) the Korean healthcare system is well-oiled, efficient and cheap. The visit to the ER cost me around $84, and the drugs and ENT visits were almost negligible. We sat around in the ER waiting room for quite a while, but that had more to do with my slow IV drip than any sort of patient backlog.

I sure wish the insurance situation in the U.S. was such that our hospitals could offer this kind of cheap care without a boatload of illegal immigrants creating a logjam and the creeping cancer of Obamacare driving the costs up, but hey...at the end of the day, I'm just glad I have my health.

the punsters were right

...Korea's got a lot of Seoul.

Okay, that was awful. I know. I'm not the first one to make that pun, either. And that's just my point.

Maybe it's the fact that I'm living in Korea's capital city. For the previous two years I was in the hinterlands. I was way down on the islands in 2008-2009, about as far from Seoul culturally as I was geographically. And in 2012 I was in Bucheon, which, even if it is part of the greater metropolitan area (barely), hardly counts as part of the big city. It was relatively quiet, laid-back and dull compared to this hoppin' metropolis.

Seems like everywhere I go in this town, every corner I turn, every street I walk down, every new neighborhood I explore, every event I attend, a new and surprising part of the Korean way of life jumps up and punches me in the nose.

Take the Sejong University Festival, for instance.

Technically it lasted from Tuesday to Thursday, May 14-16. I didn't get much of a glimpse on Tuesday because I had class all day, and I don't have any classes on Wednesday, so I wasn't even on campus. Thursday was my last shot. So after I finished up at two o'clock, I strolled around and snapped some photos.

 

  

 

 

Not much to speak of, right? Students were setting up tents and awnings. A few enterprising souls were already peddling cocktails for four bucks a pop. Some of the English department professors were rehearsing for their big show at 4:00 p.m. Knots of students were meandering here and there. Other than that, the campus was serene.

My friend and coworker Sam and his wife JB (whom I mentioned in my last post) invited Miss H and I to come back to campus at 9:00 and view the proceedings then. I didn't figure there'd be an appreciable difference, but I agreed. My girlfriend and I duly arrived at the appointed hour—halfway through it, anyway—and took a look around.

BOY, was there an appreciable difference.

Those awnings and tents that I had seen being set up earlier were packed with people—students. Soju, beer and cocktails flowed freely. Barbecue lines were everywhere. Snacks of every description were being fried and served to groups and couples at plastic chairs and tables. A famous female K-pop group was performing at the live stage in the middle of the dirt pitch, and dance music thumped from every speaker and amp on campus. Students danced in the streets and under the incandescent lights. Shouts, screams, and roars of laughter echoed and bounded from every darkened window and building. I tried to snap a few pictures, but nothing could encompass the joyous chaos. I'll leave that to your imagination. Sam, JB, Miss H and I sat and nibbled on fries for time, shooting soju, sipping beer from Dixie cups and taking the occasional gulp of baekseju, a Korean wine somewhere between potpourri and cough syrup. Then we got up and wandered around, snacking on chicken kebabs and having conversation when the noise level abated enough for us to be audible. We didn't stay on campus long, but we stayed long enough.

I remember being struck most of all by a feeling of gratitude. After riding my students like a slave master for nearly three months solid, it was nice to see them kicking back before a long four-day weekend. (I bumped into two of them during our wanderings through campus, and they looked like they were having fun.) But most of all, I was awed by the difference in the atmosphere. By day, Sejong University was a somber, venerable educational institution. During these few nights of festival week, however, it had donned a lighthearted and jovial guise, absolutely riotous, star-spangled and comical, infectious in its enthusiasm. A question occurred to me as we weaved through the happy milling crowd.

"Sam," I said, "what exactly is the point of this festival?"

This wasn't his first rodeo.

"It's like spring break," he replied, "but they don't go anywhere."

Well, there you have it. This was the Korean equivalent of spring break. With classes still on and nowhere to go, they threw a party on their school's own grounds. No wonder they were so enraptured. The weather had just turned lovely, the leaves were green and the flowers in bloom, summer was right around the corner, midterms were over and all was right with the world. I was catching a glimpse into a rare sight: Korean students kicking back in grand fashion during a lull in the academic war they'd been waging since grade school.

I felt ever so privileged to have that glimpse.

NMOC

So, you want to hear about my first week as a professor, eh? Well, you've come to the right corner of the Internet.

(The title, if you'd like to know, is an acronym for "New Man On Campus.")

I was somewhat inured to surprise by the time I actually started working at Sejong University. I'd visited the place three or four times already—for interviews, orientation, and the spring staff meeting. I'd familiarized myself with my textbooks. My students resembled taller, more courteous versions of the middle-school students I'd been teaching previously. (They wore nicer clothes, too.) The thing that's been hardest to adjust to, I think, has been how many foreign coworkers I have. At my first academy job down in Geoje Island, I had two. In Bucheon, I had six, plus the folks from the hagwon a couple floors up who sometimes wandered in. Here in eastern Seoul I have forty-plus, and that's just the English department.

The scale is greater at a university. Everything is larger: the buildings, the classrooms, the offices, the dining establishments. The cafeteria on the sixth floor of my building is like a gymnasium. The student union has a Popeye's Chicken, a Steffdog, and a Paris Baguette. The Gwanggaeto Building, where I teach a third of my classes, is 15 stories tall and boasts hotel rooms, dormitories, conference halls, a full-service restaurant and six elevators. (This is most apropos; Gwanggaeto was a revered king who expanded Korea's territory across Manchuria and into Mongolia and Russia.) The campus museum houses millennia-old relics from Korea's storied past. Even the big tower in the center of campus is not what it seems: thanks to a circular elevator system, it doubles as a car park.

It's been a challenge to adjust to university instruction. This is not because university teaching is impossibly difficult—it isn't. So far it's been straightforward: icebreakers, assessments, and introductory lessons. But I'm trying to get the hang of a new borough of Seoul at the same time—and unpack my material possessions from their cardboard sarcophagi. Every night, it seems, Miss H and I have had to go to E-Mart (Korea's Wal-Mart) for extra supplies. We ride Line 5 across the river to Cheonho, the next station down, and pick up snacks or shelves or clothes hangers. Navigating Gwangjang-dong, sussing out likely restaurants near our apartment, and finding enough space for our mountain of stuff (while adjusting to new work environments) has been a challenge. But a welcome one. I would much rather be here, stuffed into a tiny brick villa on a narrow street in eastern Seoul (and working as a professor) than in our big old officetel in sunny Bucheon, butting heads with recalcitrant eighth-graders.

I have two freshman-level speaking classes and many sophomore-level composition classes. The textbooks are marvelous: clear-cut and useful, and have boatloads of online supplements and ancillaries to go along with them. Like I said, we haven't really hit the books hard yet. This week was the first regular week after the add/drop period, so we've just done housekeeping: reviewing the syllabi and discussing classroom rules and grading policies. I'm still nervous, but I'm focused on the task at hand: finding my feet as a professor. I'm feeling my way as I go, and it's worked pretty well so far. There've been no major disasters yet, anyway. I haven't been late to any classes, and I can operate a projector like nobody's business.

At the end of this week there are standardized assessments, so we'll have to put a momentary hold on the work we've just started. Despite my newness and nerves, I'm looking forward to burrowing into the material with my students, taking away their uncertainties and doubts, conditioning them to speak and speak well, watching the comprehension steal over their faces like the morning sun on a field of sleepy flowers. I can see the blossoms beginning to turn toward the light.

In addition to my regular courses, I have several free-talking periods with four or five students per class. The purpose of these sessions is to prepare the students, verbally and otherwise, for job searching and hiring. We practice interviews, review tough questions, research industries, and discuss networking, cover letters, résumés, and so forth. It's quite a kick, though there are some challenges. Some of my underclassmen lack confidence and are quite shy about speaking, particularly in such a personal setting. It's difficult to get these shy birds to even speak, let alone hype their experience and qualifications. But little by little we're laying the groundwork for success, and that's the best feeling in the world. I'm glad the university has given us the opportunity to do something like this.

I guess that's the heart of the matter, right there...the main difference between university teaching and after-school academies. Here at Sejong I can feel that I'm helping students. The importance, the significance, the value of what we professors are doing for our students is plain to see. I felt frustrated and undervalued at my hagwon jobs, and I grew disillusioned. My energy and enthusiasm fell away from me like sweat from a tired athlete's brow. This university position was a bottle of Gatorade. I take my job more seriously than ever before. I want to do right by my students. I want to put the tools for success in their hands. I want them to understand what I'm telling them—and remember it. I want to give them the best education I can, and grow as an educator along the way.

That feeling is, to say the least, downright spiffy.

Working here in eastern Seoul is, to put it mildly, splendiferous.

I can't help but think back to the place I was, mentally and physically, just a month or so ago. Those were some dark times. I thought I was at a dead end. I was up the creek without a paddle. No job, no prospects, no hope. And now look...just look. Jules came to me with a scrap of newspaper in his hand, and everything changed. I owe him more than I can express in words. How the wheel turns! A few weeks ago I figured I was washed up. Time was running out. Miss H and I were down to the wire. It was either go home to a devastated, barren America, or stay in Korea and continue to numb our minds and hands with thankless drudgery. (Miss H is still numbing her mind and hands with thankless drudgery, but with any luck, she won't have to keep up her heroic efforts much longer.)

So here we are. A new horizon. A new leaf turned over. A new chapter in the book of our lives. More capital to add to the bank of experience.

Maybe they're right, the proverb-makers. They say the road never ends. Paths never disappear. Maybe the road narrows, and maybe the path is winding, but there's always a way forward.

I can't wait to see what's around the next bend.




Now, click the play button on this song and go stare at the picture at the top of this post. It's worth your while. I guarantee it.

re-donning the mantle

It's been an unusual experience, sliding back into Teacher Mode. I expected to re-adapt instantly to the hectic crunch and wracking nerves of the amateur teacher's life. Not so. I've had one heck of a time. Perhaps it's because I'm in a new city, and working for a new institution. Maybe it's just because I've been out of the game for almost three years. But whatever the rationalization...

...I found myself sitting at my desk on February 13, lessons planned and re-planned, teaching materials arrayed neatly on my desk, heart pounding, watching gimbap crumbs swirl languorously in my water bottle. I'd taught two classes the previous week, but only in a training capacity. Today was my first day in the ring as a genuine educator. I was gravitating somewhere between hard-won exhilaration and paralyzing fear and doubt. Could I really do this? Teach, I mean? Sure, I'd done it before, but this was a whole new ballgame: a large, well-known hagwon in a strange, massive metropolis, filled with businesslike people and rambunctious children. Except for the exuberant kids, it was nothing like my old gig down in Geoje. The Korean teachers there were all laid-back and friendly. I saw the director every day, and he'd fulfill any reasonable request at the drop of a hat. The Korean teachers in Bucheon had thus far been uncommunicative and even somewhat standoffish. And I hadn't even met the director of my new school, much less passed the time of day with him. (As of this writing, I still haven't.)

So it was with something akin to panic that I threw some pens, markers, and an eraser into a tray, grabbed the textbooks and lesson plan, and crept down the hallway to my first lesson. I walked through the door, set my stuff down on the podium, and faced the class. Eleven pairs of unfamiliar eyes met mine. I took a deep breath, picked up my eraser and marker, and said "Hi. My name is Andrew."

Everything got easier from there.

After two full weeks of teaching, however, I'm starting to think I've got a handle on it. I've caught myself slipping back into some bad teaching habits, even. (Don't worry, I've corrected them adroitly.) Even though the new semester will begin on March 4th and I'll have to contend with new courses, new textbooks, new students and new schedules, I believe I can handle it. These past two weeks have been eye-opening and instructive as much as nerve-wracking and frustrating.

There have been some tough spots, sure. Some of the classes are quiet and respectful, which is just dandy. But some of them are too quiet: I can't drum up their enthusiasm to save my soul. I wind up doing all the talking and the students just stare at me and mumble monosyllabic replies to my questions. And quite a few of the classes, unfortunately, are loud, noisy, playful and distracted. At such times the best a teacher can do is hand out "extra paper" (lines, basically) and rearrange the seating chart. A strong show of force and a consistent method have sealed the discipline breach to a certain extent, but nothing will stop an ungovernable pupil from having his day in court. (Their behavior, as bad as it can be, is nothing compared to what I used to have to deal with on Geoje Island, however. That at least has been an improvement.)

Some obstacles have come not from the student body, but from my own. I caught a cold on Friday of the first week—a customary experience for a newly-arrived foreigner. Against my better judgment, however, I let myself get talked into going out with the gang for drinks that night instead of staying in and tending to myself. We painted the town. Bars. Beers. Shots. Whiskey on the rocks. Darts. Billiards. Noraebang (karaoke room). The works. And I have been paying for it for eight days straight. The fever hit with full-force on Sunday evening, robbing me of sleep until five a.m. Monday morning, when it finally broke in deluge of sweat. Back pains from my rock-hard mattress compounded matters. I wound up getting as little as two hours of sleep. Add in the persistent jet lag (from which I am still suffering, even three weeks in) and...well, it wasn't a pretty picture. I basically taught for three straight days with a sore throat, crushing fatigue, aches and pains, and virulent self-loathing. Even after the symptoms disappeared, the damage to my throat (due both to the sickness and the off-key warbling that I did at the noraebang on Friday night) plagued me. I would slowly slash my vocal chords to ribbons every day, attempting to make myself heard in boisterous classrooms and shout troublemakers down. By the end of each workday my voice would be practically lost. I lost count of how many liters of water, ounces of citron tea, and cups of warm brine I consumed in the attempt to heal my poor neck. Then I'd go back to work and the process would begin anew. It was agony. Only this very weekend has broken the vicious cycle, and only today have I felt like I'm completely back together (though I'm still coughing).

Boozy indiscretion, rambunctious children and unfamiliar surroundings aside, I have made myself at home in Bucheon and at my new place of employment. Two weeks in, the Korean teachers are warming up to me nicely, as are the students. I've established a routine, have planned my lessons down to the minute, am up-to-date on my paperwork (except inputting homework on the school website, which the Korean secretaries must enable me to do beforehand), and my apartment is clean and livable. I've finished unpacking my clothes and am situating my toiletry and grocery items. My blinds are open and a fabulous vista of a dozen towering apartment blocks, splashed with scattered lights, is glimmering outside my window. I'm well-fed, hydrated, healthy, warm, and comfortable.

Oh, and there's a four-day weekend coming up.

What more could an expatriate English teacher ask for?

the last weekend in Korea

So, I got back from my long gallop around K-Land, which I've explained elsewhere in this blog. I arrived at Adam and Elaine's apartment at noon on Thursday, after an uneventful and not entirely unpleasant two-and-a-half hour bus ride from Gwangju. The weather was hot, cloudy and muggy (same all over Korea) but at least it wasn't as bad as Jeollanam or Jeju, not by a long shot. At 1:30, we all walked down to Reading Town together. I got to say hi (and bye) to some of the kids again; I also wanted to speak with Jacob about a few pertinent matters. First, I got a definite "yes" concerning his giving me a ride to Gimhae Airport come Monday. (Splendid, that'll make things a lot easier.) We also made an appointment for going to get my police background check (Friday, 11:00) and that was basically it. I hung around the hagwon for a little while longer (long enough to see a few more of my former students), and then I headed down to Homeplus. I was on the hunt for burger ingredients. The one and only condition to my bumming a couple nights' sleep at A&E's was that I make hamburgers for them one more time. So I dutifully went down to Homeplus and scored four packs of ground beef, some ketchup, some fries, and some buns. They weren't burger buns (the Gohyeon Homeplus recently renovated their bakery and it looks like genuine burger buns got phased out), but they passed. I went back home, and when everybody got off work, Kevin and Jeff came over and we whipped up some burgers. Jeff wasn't feeling too well, poor chap. His coworkers Caitlin and Arie went home to New Zealand, and until their replacements clear immigration (there's been some reworked requirements that are slowing them down), Jeff has to do the work of three at UniWorld. It's a frickin' crock. I didn't think the burgers were my best work, but everybody seemed to like them regardless. It was eminently satisfying to sink one's teeth into a big hunk of meat in a country devoid of such. We watched a bit of Deadliest Catch, and then I spent my first of several comfortable nights on A&E's couch. Friday dawned. I was up at eight or so. I took the time to go down to Top Mart and replace some of the water, food and trash bags I'd used. I returned just as Adam was waking up (Elaine had awoken shortly after I'd left). We chilled in the apartment for a bit, until Jacob faithfully came to pick me up. First we headed to Okpo, a twenty-minute drive east across the rice paddies and through the hills and mountains, to the central police station on Geoje. It was a piece of cake. I handed my Alien Immigration Card and my passport over to the lean, lithe, deep-voiced police chief (but for the fact that he was Korean and lacked a cowboy hat, he could've passed for any sheriff or police chief in Texas). He checked them both; Jacob filled in a few forms; then I received the official document. It was all in Korean, of course; but I could at least read the part that said NO CRIMES (with Jacob's help. I only hope the language barrier won't be a problem should I ever need to present this document to a prospective employer. Following that Jacob offered to take me out to lunch. We tried a few restaurants in Okpo, but they were surprisingly closed, even at noon. I guess they wait until all the foreigners get off work or something, or maybe on Fridays they just can't be bothered. We returned to Gohyeon, stopped at the post office so I could mail all the marvelous (and bulky) gifts and my remaining miscellany back home, and then went straight to the restaurant I thought I'd never get to try but now got a second chance to! Charles had recommended it to me: Miru Jajangmyeon (or something), a noodle place specializing in jajangmyeon. This is simply a big bowl of thick noodles, based on the Chinese dish zhajiang mian (or something). This particular restaurant specialized in hand-pulling the noodle dough, instead of using machines like your modern-day noodle places. We didn't have their signature dish, however. We got bokkeumbap, a splendid mix of fried rice, fried egg and dark savory sauce. There was also tangsuyuk (I've mentioned that elsewhere; it's the Korean take on Chinese sweet-and-sour chicken), and a delicious spicy seafood soup. I was ever so thankful to Jacob for taking me out to eat again, even after that marvelous restaurant with the ocean view he'd taken us to (with the great makgeolli). I guess the guy's really going to miss me (as we drove to the restaurant, Jacob looked at me and said slowly, "I will always treasure your memory," which touched me quite deeply). We returned to Jacob's apartment to pick up Lily and Albert. Lily fixed me a cold glass of mango juice while I looked around the smallish but stylishly appointed domicile. Albert had two rooms: a study room filled with books and a computer, and his bedroom. That's Korea for you. After dispensing all the housing-related compliments I knew, I returned with the family to Reading Town in Jacob's car. The rest of the day was a mix of impatience, excitement, lethargy, and emotion. I was impatient to close my bank account, withdraw my money and exchange it for dollars. I did this during the first class period, going down to the Nong Hyup main branch office and waiting around during the busy midafternoon rush. I finally secured a seat at the foreign exchange desk and after some confusing half-Korean, half-English palaver, managed to communicate my desire to the teller. My money was exchanged and $3,147 were counted out to me. Tragically, the wait was so long that I missed saying goodbye to the first-period kids; they boarded the bus without me as I hurried up the street a few blocks down. Oh well, at least I saw them before class... I was excited to be holding three grand in my hand (I've never even held so much as a hundred-dollar bill before). I was also excited to be leaving. With the conversion of my money, every single pre-departure errand had been completed. My race was run; the preparations were done; there remained only to throw my packed bags into Jacob's car on Monday and depart. I was a free agent, with no more worries. There remained only to say goodbye. I spent the rest of the day hanging around Reading Town, sitting in the lobby waiting for kids to get out of class, then frantically waving and shouting farewells and well-wishes to hordes of retreating grade-schoolers when the bell rang. The long, slow waits during class time were the most difficult; the next class period's kids would come in, and sit with me on the couch in the Reading Town lobby, holding my hands, pinching my cheeks, or playing rock-paper-scissors with me. Emily, one of the Flukes, came and sat next to me, smiling, her feet not touching the ground, her little hands in her lap. Eileen and Amy, in AS2, ran up to me and echoed their last week's chorus of "Teacher! Gaji maseyo!" ("You can't go!") Eventually, the long day of farewells, cries, entreaties and promises came to an end. I said my goodbyes to the Reading Town staff (Rachel, Erica, Kelly, Swani, and Julia; Charles and Jacob I'd be seeing later) and departed with Adam and Elaine. ...and immediately caught a cab down to the bars with them. We went first to WaBar, and had a brew (the godawful WaBar house brew, which is the worst beer I've ever tasted, hands down). Then we went to Geogi, a marvelous little fourth-floor soju-and-hof place. There were lots of us: Adam, Elaine, Jeff, Jay the South African Scuba Diver, Andrea Suzanna Katz, Charles, Anne, and myself. Later Tonya (the New South African) and a some Scottish fellow whom I could barely understand showed up. It was a good time, lots of beers and lots of snacks (and even shots of soju with slices of watermelon in them, yuck). We yarned a bit at Geogi, then caught a cab to Jangpyeong (Andrea's neck of the words, a suburb of Gohyeon on the northwest side of town by the shipyards) to one of Tonya's preferred haunts, Crazy Bar. It was a nice place, with tasteful, dark, moody, blue lighting. The beers were good, and so was the rock candy. They let us choose our own tunes on YouTube, what's more. Adam went straight for Oasis and Kanye. We chatted a bit more, and then I walked a slightly worse-for-wear Andrea back home. By the time I got back to the bar (Andrea's house was a couple miles away, and Crazy Bar wasn't that easy to find), Adam and Elaine had departed. Charles and Anne left soon after, as well as the Scottish fellow. Jay hadn't accompanied us from Geogi, so that left Tonya, Jeff, and myself to make a night of it. That we did. We took turns as DJ, and danced and drank until 6:00 a.m., when the two barmaids' patience finally deserted them and they politely kicked us out. I staggered back to A&E's, managed somehow to be stealthy enough to get to their couch without waking them up, and slept until noon. So, the rest of that day (heh heh) was good. After an absolutely dynamite breakfast cooked up by Adam (buttered toast and fried eggs covered in baked beans, with a dollop of ketchup), I thought I'd take a stroll over to Jeff's and see if he was up and willing to come to Homeplus. We were all going to go later on that night, but I thought the two of us could do a preliminary scouting trip anyhow. As of the previous day, I was in the market for a new CD player...my previous one had unexpectedly petered out after sitting in my carry-on bag for ten days. Jeff wasn't up to it, though. Turns out I'd woken him up, the poor chap, him feeling stressed and tired and hung over and all. So I let him be and went on my way alone. Whilst I was walking merrily down the street, whom should show up but Charles and Anne in their little green Matiz! Turns out they were on their way to Adam and Elaine's to look for me: Charles and I had an appointment with some dwaejigukbap. (It's a kind of soup, filled with green onions and delicious pork belly shavings, served with a side of rice. I'd never tried it and Charles had been promising to take me out for some.) Without further ado I hopped into their car and we went to Homeplus (Charles and Anne needed some coat hangers). I managed to locate the CD players in the Homeplus electronics sector. Unsurprisingly, they only had one model, and that was just for listening to English language CDs. I dithered for a bit, but decided to make up my mind later that night. (For nearly ₩60,000 I reckoned I could forgo listening to CDs on the eleven-hour flight home just so I could have a little more choice at Best Buy back Stateside.) Then we went for soup. Charles knew this wonderful little one-room establishment not far from his apartment, so we parked and walked there. It was truly delicious, spicy and satisfying. As grateful as I was to get it (Charles was treating) and ashamed as I am to admit it, I didn't finish. Adam's hunger-defying breakfast was still rolling around in my stomach, and this particular establishment served great heaping bowls of dwaejigukbap. I was forced to leave a little, and the thought still haunts me. Following this we adjourned back to Charles's apartment. He was originally going to show me how to play janggi, a kind of Asian chess game, but I'd already sent my board and pieces (presented as a gift from Jacob) home in a package. So instead, Charles got me a pack of Go-Stop cards at Family Mart and we played that instead. Go-Stop is a game played with Japanese cards (with elaborate paintings on them instead of numbers or faces), and resembles rummy in that you draw a card, try to pair it with what's already on the table, and keep the pairs (or triples, or quadruples). The amount of similar cards you acquire translates to point values; however, the game is not so simple as that. You can also "steal" cards from other people, win the game quickly by acquiring certain specially marked cards, and so forth. (If you win quickly by that method, you can choose to keep the game going and acquire more points for yourself, or quit while you're ahead..."go" or "stop.") You need exactly three points to win: not seven, not two, not three. Three shall be the number thou shalt score, and the number of the scoring shall be three. Four shalt thou not score, neither score thou two, unless thou shalt then proceed to three. Five is right out. Anyway, it was a blast. It's great to be in a foreign country (on the other side of the world, no less, in the Orient) and learning a game that is in no way similar to any other card game I've played, ever. I think that's what attracted me to learning Korean, too. I got the rules down pretty quickly after we started playing, though Charles had to help me the first couple of rounds. I didn't win (by myself), but I minimized my losses neatly. This game is extremely popular in Korea, played by families at holidays and friends the whole year 'round (usually for money). Then Charles turned on GomTV (a free online TV network) and we watched Death Sentence with Kevin Bacon. Man, it was a good film, but it was kind of a mood-killer, especially compounded with the cloudy weather outside. It's the most depressing, downcast and violent film I've seen in a while, but I enjoyed it (and Charles and Anne's company) nonetheless. I knew this was our swan song, at least as far as this particular Korean sojourn was concerned. After the movie finished, sure enough, Charles and Anne gave me a lift back to Adam and Elaine's (some four hours or so after I'd left...I told 'em I was going for a walk), we shook hands, exchanged manly hugs, and said goodbye. Then Charles and Anne drove away, and I shall not see them again for years. But I shall see them again. Not five minutes after I let myself into A&E's (they'd given me the key), A, E and J came back from Homeplus. They'd stepped out while I was gone (I found a manila folder with a note scribbled on it on the ottoman). We unloaded the groceries, then set out our next plan of action: movies. We'd plotted to catch Public Enemies, the new Johnny Depp movie about John Dillinger, for some time now. Accordingly we caught a cab down to the Homeplus cinema a little bit after dark. I was pumped, as I'd never been to this theater before. Unfortunately, all I saw of it was the lobby: Public Enemies wasn't playing there. Figuring that since it was a smaller cinema that perhaps it didn't have room, we moved over to Lotte Cinema, but they didn't have it either. It premiered in South Korea on July 9; this was July 11. It should've been there by now. Oh well. We fell back on our Plan C (though we had a Plan D in mind if necessary, which I won't divulge): screen golf. We caught a cab back to the public library, near Jeff's apartment. There's a lovely little screen-golf place there with about seven rooms that we've frequented in the past. Things didn't go quite as planned, but they were interesting nonetheless. We walked in and found there were no rooms available until about ten, in an hour's time or so. We figured we'd head to Family Mart (a block or so down the street), grab some beer and munchies and wait it out. Easier said than done. It was pouring rain. It was only sprinkling while we were transitioning from theater to theater, but now the cloudburst began in earnest. By the time we reached Family Mart, we were pretty wet. We dried off a little during the hour we spent under the awning out in front. I was eating triangle gimbap, still trying to make myself sick of it; Jeff and Elaine were sitting down, Elaine smoking and eating candy, both animatedly talking; Adam bought some beer and then had to run back to his apartment for a bathroom break. He returned with his pea coat and an umbrella (and toweled hair) for our trip back to the golf place. While we were all standing outside and talking, a little man with a swollen chest and back (some form of Dowager's hump, it appeared, though he was of no great age) walked up. He talked animatedly and amiably to us, gesturing to the beer bottles, and shaking our hands and touching our shoulders, but we couldn't understand a single word out of his mouth, not even me with my few months' Korean practice. For the next few minutes he wandered in and out of the store, alternately trying to talk to us and engaging the two bemused teenage clerks. Soon he caught a cab and wandered off, without ever having made it clear what he wanted. Such things happen in foreign countries. We returned to the screen golf place in due time, in due wetness. There was only a coat and an umbrella between us. Adam and Elaine took the umbrella, and I let Jeff have the coat; I volunteered to run. My hair was already wet through anyway. So I sprinted the quarter mile or so to the golf place in the downpour, managing to get there fairly dry (no matter what Mythbusters says). After a bit the others caught up. Then followed the embarrassing bit: they had us wait in the lobby to dry off a little while they covered the couch in our room with garbage bags so we wouldn't wet it. Hmph. That was the end of our indignation, however. For the rest of the evening the staff was polite and indulgent, even letting us stay until one in the morning until we somehow managed to finish nine holes, all of us about 31 over par. Adam and I got within putting distance a couple of times, but each time the hole eluded us by a hair (much to our comic frustration). It was a grand night: we chatted, drank soju, ate the complimentary hard-boiled eggs and crackers, and basically sucked at golf. Awesome. Jeff split, A&E and I went back to their place and drank a little more, then hit the sack at four. Elaine stayed up until dawn watching Dirty Sexy Money. Sunday was, as always, the day of rest. We woke up about one o'clock in the afternoon and lazed about a bit until Jeff arrived at a quarter of four (a few hours after our appointed meeting time of one, but Jeff works on his own schedule, bless his nonconformist heart). For breakfast, I'd gone down to Top Mart and procured some doughnuts and sausages, which satiated us pretty well. While I was in Top Mart, Brian came up to me. I'd almost forgotten that he'd asked me to come by. He wanted to give me some gifts, he said. I made the usual polite attempt at passing it off (You know, "Oh, you didn't have to," or "That's so very kind of you"). He presented me with some curious and wonderful articles. They were two pairs of toe socks (which he'd heard didn't exist in the States; he wanted to give me something I couldn't get anywhere else), and a bamboo wife. A bamboo wife is a cylindrical framework, hollow, made of bamboo, and is am implement used to keep you cool while sleeping in hot countries. You embrace it as you would a sleeping companion (spoon with it, so to speak) and the breeze flows through the framework and keeps your body cool. Awesome, I'll be needing that in the desert. Though I never turn my nose up at gifts, I was less than thrilled with the toe socks. (You may be certain that I concealed this, however.) I've always considered them, well, a little goofy, and not my kind of goofy. But heck, the Buddhist monks here wear them, so you won't hear me turning my nose up at them. I accepted them with good grace. Brian gave me his e-mail address, wished me a warm farewell, and made me promise to keep in touch. Another farewell gone. I love that guy. We went at five to grab pizza. J's Pizza was a tiny one-room shop a few blocks down and one block over from A&Es. An extra-large pepperoni, combination, or Italian (cheese) pizza was only ten thousand won, a real steal. So we ordered four (three pepperoni, one Italian) and waited at the plastic dining table while the adorable middle-aged lady whipped it up for us. The room was...interesting. It was filled to the brim with pizza boxes, but crammed in there beside them were a cot, a desk, a computer, a TV, and a water cooler. We chatted a bit while the ceiling fan blew hot, humid, still air all over us (it was hot in that shop). We got our pizzas, went back, and ate them as we watched a few episodes of Deadliest Catch. Adam is a whiz with downloading stuff, ain't he? After catching the end of Total Recall on the TV (same channel we'd watched Speed on before we got the pizzas), Adam, Jeff and I briefly stepped out to a PC room. I'd promised myself I'd try one for real before I left Korea. Unfortunately, it was a bust. The first one we went to had an unhelpful clerk, who clicked around a little bit on our computers without telling us anything and then told us we were screwed (and then charging us 1300 apiece for maybe ten minutes of staring at his machines). The next one was friendlier, but no more able to give us a good time: turned out we needed to have a membership and a login to play online, even after getting on the computers. That we didn't have, so we had to abdicate. Bummer. Back at the apartment, we perused an interesting little documentary called Beer Wars, made by Anat Bacon, former president of Mike's Hard Lemonade. It was all about how the big, bad, evil triumvirate of watery, disgusting beers (Annheuser-Busch, Miller, and Coors) are forcing this crap on us while squeezing smaller, more artistic and grassroots beer brewers out of the market. There was some truth in it, but it was quite clearly propaganda, and I viewed it with a grain of salt. It made me thirsty, too. Right when that little 90-minute show ended, the final act came on TV: Live Free or Die Hard, subtitled in Korean. I hadn't seen this fourth installment in the Die Hard series (I'd heard some bad things about it, and Die Hard was never that high on my list of favorite movies anyway, despite how good the franchise and the action is), but I loved it. The action was really ramped up for this fourth installment, and Willis was pretty good at portraying the older, sadder, wearier version of John McClane. The villains weren't quite as detestable but the daughter figure was smokin', so I wasn't complaining. As the film ended (with CCR playing "Fortunate Son"), we called it. I had to be up at 5:30 the next morning. Jeff left after a somewhat awkward goodbye. Neither of us are good at those at all, by our own admission. We passed it off with a laugh and parted. Umpteen down, three to go... After a surprisingly restful night's sleep, despite the brevity and the howling wind (the wind had been fierce all day), I woke up, zipped up my bags, and hauled them the stairwell with A&E's help. Then we sat and watched the thunderstorm. It was banging and thundering and pouring like mad, a real fierce summer T-storm. Figures. The very day I'm leaving it's assured that I'll (a) be soaked in loading my bags in the car, and (b) probably have my flight canceled. Neither distasteful contingency materialized. When Jacob rolled up, he and Adam and Elaine made a sort of umbrella relay between the door of the apartment building and the trunk of the car. I only got a few drops on my hat and shoulders. And then...suddenly it was time to say goodbye. Goodbye, to the friends who'd given me shelter for nearly a week in total, who'd invited me over for dinner countless times, friends I'd bummed around with for ten months, who'd sheltered me, helped me, lent me money, and given me some of the most helpful advice and the most heartfelt compliments of any friends I'd ever known (Jeff had done the same). The split was not messy, but it was not painless, either. We shook hands, exchanged hugs, promised to meet again before the wedding, and then just like that I was in the car and rolling down the street. But I will see them again, too. Darn it. After a rather sublime ride through the dawn and the storm (with a beautiful break in the clouds to the northeast letting in some refracted sunlight), we reached the ferry station at Guyeong, on the north of the island. Jacob was a bit worried: he feared the storm might bring about a ferry cancellation. Fortunately this was not true, either. (Hey, looks like my travel karma's getting its act together.) We boarded the 7:00 for Jinhae and had a relatively smooth and very scenic passage. Jacob didn't talk much, but he did point out several of the sights: the island in between Geoje and the mainland that was one of President I Myeong-Bak's official resorts, and the half-finished bridge between Geoje and Busan. It's actually a brunnel. The southern half is a standard bridge, massive, supported by concrete pylons; the northern half is a tunnel that goes under the water. Jacob explained to me the reasons for this. "There is a luff crunt," he said. I begged his pardon. "A luff crunt," he repeated. I realized this was just good ol' Jacob having trouble with some tricky English phrase, as he occasionally does. I didn't bother him any more and set my mind to the task of deciphering it. Fortunately it wasn't too hard. Luff crunt. Rough current. Jacob also explained that, since the northern regions of Geoje-do housed massive shipyards, whose fruits needed to pass out of the Geoje Straits and into the open Pacific Ocean, it would be impractical to dam their passage with a bridge. So the half-tunnel idea was hit upon and implemented. The bridge is slated for completion in 2010 or so, and it will probably destroy Geoje-do as I know it, with the amount of weekend tourists likely doubling, tripling or quadrupling. Saeongjima. We arrived at Jinhae, offloaded easy as pie, and drove to the airport. Jacob escorted me inside, showed me to the Japanese Airlines ticket counter (which really wasn't, as I'll explain, but I don't blame him for that), and then... ...well, dang it, it was time to say goodbye again. We shook hands. I promised to look him up again if ever I was in Korea, as he adamantly asked me to. He reiterated just how much he'd treasure my memory (gosh) and then with a wave, a smile, and a couple of looks over his shoulder, he left. And that does it for farewells. I haven't cracked up yet, and so far it looks like I'm not going to (I'm too excited to be off into the wild blue yonder again), but I won't forget these people. And neither will you, if I have anything to do with it. The JAL counter wasn't open for another half hour, so after I got some snacks at a small deli curiously named Sand & Food (which served expensive, soggy, only-slightly-less-than-godawful soggy sandwiches), I went back and discovered that no, it wasn't the JAL counter. The real counter, across the way, wasn't open until twelve. Great. I spent those three hours in the free Internet room (doing this) or reading The Three Musketeers. I imagine I'll finish it during the flight. Seeing as how I'm into the sixth chapter already, that could be saying something and then again it could not. When the time came, I got in line. I chatted a bit with a middle-aged American lady at the head of the line, suddenly remembered to get my bamboo wife wrapped, slid off, got it wrapped for ten grand, slid back in line, got my bags checked, had to go back over to the same counter I'd started at and pay 110,000 won for excess baggage (three pieces instead of two), passed security and immigration like a breeze, then went up to the other free Internet room in the terminal proper and finished writing this. (Whew!) Next entry coming to you from Apple Valley, California...

last day at Reading Town

I woke up the morning of Friday the twenty-sixth of June with a slight hangover. The previous night we'd taken Kevin out to the sogogi restaurant. Andrea and Melissa, two other foreign teachers, came too, as well as Jeff. So there we all were, partying hearty at our favorite restaurant until closing time. Then we bought some more booze and went back to Adam and Elaine's and kept it up until four o'clock. It was a blast, but tiring. I woke up at eight, looked at my watch, mumbled something negative under by breath and went back to sleep until nine, when I saw fit to get up. I had errands to run. First I received a visit from Jacob (to determine what needed fixing around the apartment; I'd told him that the light was out in the laundry room and the panel had fallen off the switchboard). Then I went down to the bank, paid some final bills (the ones from last month; this month's were subtracted from my paycheck), and put together a fruit basket for Jacob and Lily down at Homeplus. That having been done, I went into work. Picture this: the teacher's room, with Kevin sitting at my desk correcting papers, the once-gigantic stash of candy on the top shelf dwindled to almost nothing, and kids clamoring at the door like usual. That was pretty much my last day, organized chaos. First, let me say that I think Kevin is and will be a much better teacher than I. He has prior experience, and he's game. He was stepping up to the plate even as early as yesterday and starting to teach, and his methods are tried and true. The kids, having difficulty pronouncing the word "wave," were immediately corrected when he taught them the v sound and then taught them to ignore the e (writing it on the board as "wav" helped). I see now that I was never really creative or imaginative (or strict) during my tenure at Reading Town. I think Kevin's going to be a breath of fresh air for Jacob and the parents. I think the kids will still miss me, though. Remember how I said they were clamoring at the door? The ones who weren't doing it for candy were repeating this: "Teacher! Miguke gaji maseyo!" That literally translates to "You can't go back to the U.S.!" They were asking me to stay. Little Eileen, who's always looked at me as if I'm some kind of zoological curiosity, was hollering the loudest. Classes were pretty chaotic, too. Aside from their usual demands for water and use of the bathroom, the little kids kept asking me if it was my last day. Their eyes widened and their mouths opened when they saw me nod or heard me say "yes." I think Bad Arthur finally repented. He slipped me a voucher on his way out of the door. Leslie demanded twice the usual number of "one-two-thlees." Mary, in AP1-5, desperately wanted to play rock-paper-scissors (kawi bawi bo). She plays for keeps, too: losses are punished with two fingers to the forearm, usually moistened with one's breath and delivered at high speed. My arm's bruising up nicely. But everybody wanted my phone number or e-mail. I felt like a movie star as I scribbled on countless Post-It notes and scraps of paper. (Just this morning I got an e-mail from Helia, a precious little girl in AP-1, who asked me how I was doing.) I can't describe to you the feeling I had when I was filling these bits of paper out. I've said goodbyes en masse before. I survived the final yearbook-signing frenzy in high school. But this was different: these were kids, and I was an adult. I'd spent a year with them, teaching them, playing with them, tickling them, laughing with them, yelling and screaming at them, whacking a few of them over the head with textbooks and dispensing more than a few noogies. And furthermore at the terminus of my time in Korea we'd be separated my 5,000 miles and an entire ocean. There was something intangibly different, more emotionally charged and bittersweet about our parting. The very fact that they wanted to remember and keep in contact with me, a teacher, a foreigner...well, it touched me to the very soul. And that's not even mentioning some of the letters and gifts I got. Christy shyly came by the teacher's room and gave me a wrapped gift (with the words "bye bye teacher" written on it in marker). It turned out to be a build-it-yourself music box shaped like a church which plays "Silent Night" when you turn a crank. The letters are no less precious to me. I finally did crack up (like I was predicting I would) that final evening after work, when I opened young William's letter and read it. I got as far as "I will miss you" and almost broke down right there. Even now, writing it, I'm feeling the tears welling up...it doesn't help that I'm such a sentimental ham. Classes were a bit more subdued than usual (they were a bit shy around Kevin) but for the most part they were still their old selves. Little John kept playing with paper instead of listening when we were reviewing for the test (when Kevin was reviewing; that class I just sat back and let him do his thing). As a result his scores were quite bad. That boy's never going to get his head out of the clouds at this rate. But the rest went along just fine. Kevin and I did a joint review and then administered the tests, and (helping me out marvelously) he corrected some tests as well. TRP2-1 was a bit of a trick, since nobody had done their homework (as usual), but Kevin stepped up once again and put the fear of God into 'em. In a very authoritative way, totally unlike my usual thrashing and comically indignant manner, he informed them that starting next week homework would be done, and done well. Incomplete homework was unacceptable, he stated quite clearly. The message got through. Even Ken, a rather surly reprobate at most times, sat up and said "Yes, teacher." XT2 was fun, as the two of us coached Albert though creative sentence construction (compound-complex sentences, no less). Debate class was a shambles, as nearly everyone was out studying for school tests and only Sarah, Albert, Catherine and Lisa showed up. But we still split them up into teams to marshal their arguments for the great debate. The topic that night was "Is it better to spend the money you earn or save it for a later date?" Not too hard, right? Uh-huh. The actual debate itself was unstructured and desultory. Everyone sort of stood up, gave a few disjointed statements, then sat back down again and goofed around. It was fun, though. All in all it was rather a confused sort of day, not without its rays of hope for the future and a glut of poignant moments. The goodbyes were the most difficult. It was even harder after the last bell rang, when I gathered all my belongings, took one last look around the teacher's room and the lobby, and walked out. It was perhaps fortunate that I wouldn't be spending the evening alone. I was slated to meet Brian at the Local at 10:30. I invited Adam, Elaine and Jeff along, and Julia and Gaia came too. I called up Tonya (the new South African girl) and she promised to come as well. YES! I'd sworn to introduce Brian to an eligible young foreigner and now I finally managed to come through. We all had a splendid party at the Local, talking and laughing and even having a rock-paper-scissors tournament (same stakes as Mary's game, in fact). Then we went to WaBar for a bit, but that's where the exhaustion kicked in, and in the end I had to call it. I fell back into bed and slept until ten, when I awoke and began writing this. And now I'm just sitting here, waiting to move my stuff out of my little studio apartment to Adam and Elaine's (who have kindly offered to look after it for me while I'm roaming around Korea), thinking to myself... Did I really do all that? Yes. Was that real? I hope so. Will I ever see any of those kids again? Of course. I have to come back and buy more snacks for Bella. 나는 모든 나의 좋은 학생을 사랑해요.

last week at Reading Town

It's been proceeding better than expected, I should say. I'm still discharging my duties in a timely manner. I've completed some major cleaning projects this week in my apartment: I rinsed out my garbage can, washed out the inside of the refrigerator, vacuumed under the bed (a solid mat of hair and dust), and even scrubbed off all the grease from the stove and the wall behind it. Whew! As we speak, I'm washing my sheets in preparation for Kevin's arrival; I just need to clean the bathroom this morning and do one last spot-treatment of the apartment floor with the vacuum cleaner and then it should be all set for him. I'm also going to buy some groceries. When I got here there was some butter and some hot dogs in the fridge, and that was about it. I'm going to buy the fellow some familiar, home-comfort foods (as far as is possible) to fill the fridge with so (a) he isn't starving when he gets here and (b) he won't feel so homesick. He arrived sometime last night, and was put up in a cheap motel just like Adam and Elaine were. He probably feels lower than a snake's belly in a wagon rut, what with being alone in a foreign country while jet-lagged and whatnot. So I'll do what I can for him.

Second, my duties at Reading Town are proceeding splendidly. Jacob and I went by the pension office Monday (during a rather hefty rain shower) and got all the paperwork filled out for my pension refund, which should arrive in my American bank account sometime in July. Now I just have to close my Korean bank account and pay my last bills and I should be all set to go. Stupid as this sounds, I'm thinking about...nah, I'll tell you later.

The real tricky thing, so far, has been saying goodbye to all the kids. Dang it, I went and got attached to most of 'em. Bella in particular. Have I told you about her?

She's a wonderful little girl, I'd say six or seven. She just loves us foreign teachers. First thing in the morning she runs up to us and jumps up and down, or grabs our hands, or feeds us candy. She's always poking her head in at the door of the teacher's room to say hello. She's darn cute, too: about four feet tall, shoulder-length black hair (usually sweaty this time of year), and a round, jovial face. She gives us apple-flavored sour candies or strips of dried squid, sometimes spicy. I bought a bunch of candy on Monday and have been slowly distributing it to the kids by way of parting gifts all this week. I gave Bella a bunch of it, and a letter saying how much I appreciated her kindness and attitude and thanking her for being such a good student. And get this: yesterday she came in, handed me a box of cookies, and a letter of her own. I had Charles translate it. It reads something like this:

Hello teacher! I'm Bella. You are leaving soon? Why are you going? Even though you are going to the U.S.A., you have to come back soon and give me more candy. Bye bye!                              —Bella

Man, I tell you: I misted up reading this. But when it got to the part about the snacks, there was a hearty laugh that echoed around the whole teacher's room. I felt better after reading it, actually. Bella's made it so I have to come back to Korea at some point, find her, and buy her some more goodies. I will see her again. But in the meantime, I'll miss that little girl like crazy.

I got a few other letters like this, too. I'm surprised I haven't busted out crying yet. I'm worried that's going to hit me hard on my last day. That'll be embarrassing, as I'll be in the midst of training my replacement. Today is the day I get to meet him. I'll also start training him. Yikes! That always makes me nervous. But I can't tell you how weird it is to be on the other side of the fence now. He's in exactly the same position I was when I got here nearly one calendar year ago. Well...he's slightly worse off, being in a motel, but I imagine he feels the same way: Where am I? How the heck do things work at this academy?

Maybe I'll be able to help him with that if I'm able. We're taking him out to dinner tonight; we'll find out some more about him and make him feel as welcome as we can. Poor guy's probably having a tough time. Tonight's just the start.

Yesterday night Adam and Elaine invited me around to their place for dinner (seafood and noodles, delicious), which was very kind, considering I had nothing to eat at my place and likely would have spent a very lonely evening there. You know how awful it is to be spending a night, alone, in a place that's all packed up and bare, regardless of whether you've just come or will soon be leaving. It was a good night, and we passed some interesting talk as we drank wine. Tonight, we're all going out for sogogi; Saturday night about six Jacob is taking the whole staff, incoming and outgoing, out to dinner. Big three days! Sunday will likely pass quietly as I pack and make sure all is in readiness for Monday, when I take off (EXTREMELY early) for Gimhae Airport and my flight to Jeju (departing at 2:30) and the start of my two weeks' furlough.
So, in the meantime, I just have to finish cleaning, finish packing, make sure to clear out enough room in my stomach for all these meals, purchase groceries for Kevin (oh yeah, and a gift for Jacob and Lily, I forgot to mention that)...and somehow get over the emotional trauma of leaving these kids of mine. They've made this year of my life infinitely better, with their smiles and their jokes and their laughs...yes, even their punches to the gut or their fingers up the wazoo. I won't soon forget them.

a wedding in Masan

Charles and Anne tied the knot this weekend in Masan, just north of the island of Geoje, on the mainland, west of Busan, in a beautiful ceremony on the fifth floor of a wedding plaza which overlooks the spacious, sparkling harbor. To clarify, Charles is the head teacher at my hagwon, and a close personal friend and mentor. He invited Adam, Elaine, Jeff, and myself up to his wedding to his girlfriend Anne, whom I have also had the pleasure of meeting, and who is a very lovely young woman. They've been engaged for a while; I'm just glad the wedding occurred before my contract expired, and I was able to attend. We'd planned in advance to get the bus to Masan on Saturday (the wedding was at 11:00 a.m. on Sunday morning), shop around for some gifts and see whatever sights there were, and then clean up in the morning and don our spiffy duds. Here's what happened. We rode the bus up (a very equable ride compared to the last one, and for only ₩9,000; they kept the A/C on the whole time, at least), and managed to find a cheap motel with a little creative wandering. It was the Nox Motel, and the price was similar to our usual base of operations in Busan: ₩35,000 per night. The only difference was, this place was nice compared with what we were used to. It was still, technically, a love motel. There were tissues by the bed, condoms in the top drawer of the nightstand and porn on the TV, but the sleaze ended there. The bathroom was up to scale with anything seen in Motel 6 or Super 8, back in the States, if not better; the bed and room were both clean, bright, spacious, and tastefully outfitted. There wasn't much to speak of in the mini-bar, but hey. So we checked in and immediately sallied forth into downtown Masan to go wedding-present shopping. It was a bit embarrassing: we got into a cab and said we wanted to go to E-Mart. After approximately sixty seconds, we went around a corner and arrived. The cab driver must've been laughing his head off inside as we handed him the fare. Must've been the easiest 2,200 won he'd ever earned. We had more than a little trouble navigating once we were inside the store, even. It was a five-story building, but get this: the main level was just a convenience store. You know, the quick stuff: cleaning supplies, snacks, batteries, all the things that people want to get in and get out with quick. That makes sense to have that on the first floor. But the parking lots were above this level, and the main store (food section, home supply) was below it. Look me in the eye and tell me that's a logical way to run a railroad. I dare you. After our tour of the parking lots, we finally wound up where we needed to be (subterranean) and got straight to shopping. E-Mart is like Homeplus, but generally has more departments, more selection, and is larger in size overall. We didn't meet with much success. As far as useful, tastefully appointed wedding gifts go, E-Mart was skint. The best chance we had was the hoidy-toidy home furnishings section on the second floor, but there wasn't much choice. Adam and Elaine picked up a nice set of chopsticks and soup spoons in a velvet-covered case, and they were set. I got meat on a stick. We then headed to Lotte Mart, with higher hopes. After some similar difficulty locating the main store, which we suffered for a second time despite the eye-opening E-Mart experience, we emerged onto the main shopping floors and had a look-see. Lotte Mart was much bigger than even E-Mart. There was much more selection: sporting goods, electronics, liquor, a grocery store that looked like any major Western supermarket chain we'd ever been in (to the point of inducing nostalgia)...but no hoidy-toidy home furnishings section. We had a look around the proletarian home furnishings section and located some promising potential: a cutlery rack/holder/board (or whatever you call it; one of them wooden things with slots for holding your knives). There were also some wine glasses. We resolved to take note of these discoveries and go nosing around town for anything that might turn up. In the meantime, we looked to our own needs. As you're probably aware, I am (or was) in dire need of a camera since I lost my previous one (a Fujifilm S8000, purchased for three-hundred and twenty-eight thousand won, or about $220, at Homeplus a few months before) on Jirisan. That problem was solved when I spotted a Canon on sale for ₩169,000. It had a whopping ten megapixels instead of the previous eight, and most of the (important) features of its predecessor. It was also light and infinitely more portable. I was fortunate that it came with a similar package that the Fujifilm did: case, two-gigabyte memory card, recharger, instruction booklets and CDs...all included in the list price. The case, most attractively, is tight and closes securely with Velcro, meaning that I stand a better chance of not "losing" this one... We were getting hungry by this time. We waltzed out of Lotte Mart (pausing to retrieve Adam's backpack from a locker; E-Mart allows you to carry personal bags and packs onto its premises but Lotte Mart is more stringent, and demands that you rent a locker for a hundred won) and into the hazy late afternoon. It was inevitable that we should happen upon a McDonald's. I finally got a chance to try the Shanghai Spicy Chicken Burger, and was not as let down as I thought I'd be. I don't know whether that had anything to do with the quality of the preparation, or whether McDonald's was actually giving a crap about the food it served now, or what. (I will say that I believe Korea is really on the ball as far as fast food goes. Domino's Pizza tastes much better over here than in the U.S., I firmly believe. It makes sense that McDonald's would as well.) Suitably fortified, and having discussed our options thoroughly over greasy fries, Jeff and I elected to return to Lotte Mart and snag the aforementioned gifts we'd noted earlier. That done, we returned to the Nox, dumped our treasures off, and met up with Charles and Anne, who'd arrived in the city before us and completed their wedding preparations. They were anxious to meet up and say hello. They were also tired, run-down, depressed, and physically sick. Their respective employers had worked them to death for the preceding two weeks in light of their impending vacation (bosses are merciless like that over here), and they were so exhausted that their immune systems had packed up and boogied, leaving them diseased and wretched. Poor Anne got to the motel and collapsed (in the room she and Charles rented; they were without accommodation, so we politely informed them about the competitive rates at our place). Charles stuck around with us and drank a little beer. Then we all went out for samgyeopsal in the thriving "new" downtown area, replete with bright causeways, well-lit shops, and respectable-looking food vendors. Charles and Anne ate, then left (at our urging), citing exhaustion and the need for a full night's sleep before tomorrow's festivities. A, E, J, and I hung around for a bit, checking out the sights, and the market. Masan was Charles's hometown; he told us that, 30 years ago, the market we were walking through that evening would have been wall-to-wall with people. You'd have had to shoulder your way through the crowd nonstop from one end of the place to the other. Now it was nearly a ghost town. Those same gigantic superstores we'd passed through earlier that day, E-Mart and Lotte Mart, had snatched away the custom from these small-time merchants in the open air bazaar and relegated them to a sort of shadowy, tourist-trap existence. It was really quite pathetic ("pathetic" here having the meaning of "emotionally provocative," not "pitiful"; well, okay, it was a bit pitiful too). Then we all sat down and had a quiet drink. Or tried to. The first place we went, Billy Western Bar, was way overpriced, despite having enough atmosphere to put Cheers to shame. We went across the street to Beer Mart, and that was better. Shaped and colored like an adobe hacienda on the inside, with faux stucco walls, domed ceilings and exposed rafters, the place had charm. More than that, its imbibing protocol was unique, too: instead of ordering glasses of beer, you went up to the counter, picked out the bottles you wanted (everything from Tiger to Hoegaarden), paid up, took 'em back your table, cracked 'em and drank 'em. It was a rather intimate experience, to be sitting at a comfy table in a comfy seat with a view out the window at the narrow crooked street, sipping comfy cheap beer. We stuck around there for a couple of hours, went and grabbed some mandu (dumplings, remember?) at a stall on the way back, then went back to the hotel to Adam and Elaine's room and sat around and talked. Adam was testing out his new iPod-compatible ghetto blaster (whatever it's called; iSound or something); so we had Kanye West, Curtis Mayfield, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Groove Armada to keep us company as we talked and laughed. We hit the sack at midnight, mindful of an early start the next morning. The next morning proceeded without a hitch. We woke, prepared and were at the wedding plaza, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (as Adam would've said) at a quarter to eleven or so. I should stop here and explain exactly what a wedding plaza is. Apparently there's no such thing as a "single" wedding in Korea. All of 'em are doubles, or group weddings. They are perhaps not simultaneous, but you can bet there'll be another party moving into the wedding hall after you move out of it, within minutes or seconds. Heck, there was another bride fully dolled out in her gown wandering around besides Anne, that's for dang sure, as well as another set of relatives hanging around the darkened wedding hall across the lobby from ours. Upon spotting Charles, who was cutting a dash in a rather fetching white tuxedo and gloves (and obviously sweating in the sticky heat of springtime Masan and a building that wasn't exactly climate-controlled), we made our way over. We shook hands, congratulated him, and then he promptly thrust the camcorder into my hands. Oh, didn't I tell you? I'd agreed to be the cameraman. I was fairly sweating myself by this time. Agreeing to do the camera work at somebody's wedding is one thing a month or two in advance over beers in that somebody's apartment, but once you actually step into the chapel and take the camera from their hands, the full import of your choice hits you. If I screw this up, I thought to myself, I'll have ruined one of their most precious memories, the start of their life together...or something like that. Nonetheless, I accepted the camcorder and went to work. I got some footage of Charles with his mother, and Anne's rather staid and dignified parents. I also got a lot of footage of Anne, who was sitting in her gorgeous wedding gown in a small room off the main lobby, on display, as it were. Seriously, that's how it was. It was just this closet-sized room, tastefully wallpapered and decorated, in which the bride sat in review and people came up to greet and congratulate her, while the groom ran around attending to all the last-minute crises, an attendant following him around and dabbing at his forehead with a handkerchief. That's Korean custom, apparently. I shot some film of her and her friends, and just got some obscure statements from her about how she was feeling and so on, like I was some kind of half-baked amateur reporter or something. That having been done, the real nerve-wracking stuff began: the ceremony proper. Instead of entering on foot, both bride and groom rode into the hall on a sort of raised trolley-like affair, in appearance almost like a bower, wreathed with flowers and a gate supposedly made to resemble old-fashioned wrought iron (in the European style). It had a smoke machine on it, which was going full blast as bombastic music played on the speakers. Charles and Anne stood straight and solemn as this contraption bore them into the room, traversing one entire wall (tastefully and skilfully painted with some Renaissance-style landscape), bowing occasionally. They then exited (with the help of formally dressed yet feverish attendants who unlatched the faux wrought-iron gates and gathered up Anne's train frantically) and arranged themselves at the end of the aisle. Charles walked down first, bowed first to his mother, then Anne's mother (both of whom were wearing hanbok, traditional Korean formal clothing, and seated on either side of aisle at the very front), then the chaplain, and then waited. Anne and her father then proceeded down the aisle, to the accompaniment of music and applause (similar to Charles's progress), and did a similar amount of bowing. Anne's father joined his wife and Anne joined Charles, and the ceremony proceeded. It was short and sweet. The whole "I now pronounce you man and wife" bit was, needless to say, indiscernible, even despite my five months of Korean lessons. After that, there was applause, Charles and Anne cut the cake, drank wine, and regally exited the hall. ...during all of which I was running around desperately trying to capture it. It was no picnic dashing from one end of the room to the other to maximize my chances at getting the best shots of Charles and Anne as they rode in the trolley, walked up (and down) the aisle, and cut the cake. Matters were complicated (by default) by the official wedding photographer, who was likewise walking about and getting shots; he kept getting in the way of mine. Given the aforementioned gravity of the situation, I also had some difficulty holding my hands steady. I think I did pretty well, though, except for a bit of camera shake and perhaps accidentally deleting the part with the trolley and the first procession down the aisle when I tried to zoom in and instead switched photography modes. (Whoops!) Drenched with sweat, I handed the camera back to Charles and gratefully went with Adam, Elaine and Jeff to snag some eats. The food was delicious, and who ever had ordered the catering had spared no expense. There was tender boiled octopus; real, actual ham; and gimbap and kimchi in plenty, of course, as well as several other delicious dishes I couldn't even identify, both Korean and Chinese in origin. I held myself down to one plate of food. We'd resolved to hit up Meat Home (since renamed Meat Rak), one of our regular haunts, a meat buffet restaurant in Gohyeon, that evening for the last time before my departure from Korea. In the meantime, instead of getting to rest from their incessant labors, Charles and Anne had (per Korean tradition) changed into hanbok of their own and were now meeting and greeting the guests at the dining tables. Charles spared us a few moments to say hello (to our relief, both Charles and Anne looked better, and said as much). When we'd finished eating, we congratulated them once more and left. Within two hours they'd be on the plane to Bali. Maybe there they'll finally get their rest. I hope so. We hit McDonald's once more on the way to the bus stop, of course. (Elaine's not too keen on Meat Home and needed something for herself.) But we did board the bus and survived the ride back (which was even more equable than the ride up, unbelievably; perhaps I've been too hasty in my judgment of buses here). We changed out of our things at our respective apartments. Jeff came over to my place briefly so he could show me the ropes of Hostel World, a nice website devoted to the location and reservation of cheap hostels worldwide; and I gave him a super-compressed 20-minute crash course in Korean. His brain was porridge by the end of it, but I think we made some definite progress. Then Adam, Jeff and I hit up Meat Home and took our best shot at making a Bacon Bomb. (I'm too tired to explain to you what that is; look it up on YouTube.) We were marginally successful, despite a deplorable lack of proper equipment. After two hours of feasting, we parted, eminently satisfied with the weekend's proceedings. It hit me, as Jeff and I walked to Meat Home in the cool, moist evening air, the soft reddish glow of the sun rebounding from the low-hanging cottony clouds, that the curtain was truly closing on my Korean sojourn. I felt regret, be certain of that. But I also felt that I was doing the right thing by getting while the getting was good. I couldn't shake the feeling that re-upping my contract (which I'd seriously considered at one point, and still lightly entertained) would be a mistake. Things would begin to pall for me soon enough. I might as well go before I get tired of it. Still, I got the unshakable feeling that I'd be homesick for this place after I left. That would be a complete turnaround, but I suspect its truth regardless. I'm going to miss going out to Meat Home and having a protein hangover in the morning, or getting invited to weddings in Masan, or having elementary-school kids greeting me at the door of Reading Town with ear-to-ear grins and punches in the gut. It's been magical, to say the least. Still is.