A Disaster Averted!

It isn't often that I can say something like this, but today I rescued 35 girls from what was surely a fate worse than death. I base this statement not so much on the reality of the danger as I perceived it, but on the ferocity of reactions both during and after the event at hand.

You see, there was a disturbance in my classroom today. It was unexpected. I'm not entirely sure where he came from. He definitely wasn't there when we started class, but about 5 minutes into my warm up activity, there he was. At first, it wasn't a big deal. I'm sure many of my students didn't even notice him. He moved around the classroom a bit, but he wasn't bothering anyone.

Perhaps I should have taken action then, but I really didn't see the need for intervention. He started to become a bit more active, but again... It wasn't much of a disruption. Then, this unfortunate representative of his race decided that it would be ok for him to touch one of my girls. She froze and was completely unable to move, but I managed to make him leave her alone. Just as I returned to the front of the classroom, he went after the same girl again. Of course, all of my other students were freaking out. I was trying to calmly handle the situation. Naturally, it was a little difficult given the language barrier.

Lest you think I'm dealing with truly appalling situations in Korea, let me show you a picture of my unruly invader this morning.

That's right... There was a wasp in my classroom. And every single girl in it was freaking out. They were curled up in balls on their chairs. They were trying to cover themselves with their books. Chairs were scooting across the floor as far as they could from where he was flying. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it.

I decided that my only option was to show these city girls a thing or two about how we do things in the country. So I very calmly took my book, walked to the back door of the classroom near where the wasp was, and I whacked him out the door.

The girls cheered and applauded and spoke more English than I'd heard from them all day.

I went back to the front of the class, opened my book, and recommenced with the day's lesson. It was a good way to start the morning ;)

Catholic Martyr's Shrine

On Saturday, a group of girls got together to go visit the Catholic Martyr's Shrine near Hapjeong. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect, but the gardens were lovely. My friend Becky organized the event, and she did a great job of providing background information and guiding us through the park. 

This was one of the first things you saw when you got to the park. Koreans do a good job with public art, most of the time. I'm collecting pictures to do a post on that someday, but it wasn't unusual to see a statue. What was a little less usual was the more natural approach to gardening here. It seems like most of the public green spaces here are pretty highly manicured, so this was a refreshing change. 

There were some lovely, ivy covered buildings. I'm not actually sure what they were, but they were pretty!

This was a statue to commemorate all of the early Catholic martyrs who were beheaded. The building in the background is a large Catholic church that is connected to the park. 

There was a place to light candles. This was about half of the candles that were lit, and we were there at 10:30 in the morning...

This is Becky, and she is giving us background information on what the rest of the park will be. It was a guided walk through the Catholic stations of the cross. I was familiar with the original stations, but I wasn't aware that they had been revised to follow the Bible rather than tradition. Becky explained some of the differences to us. 

Right next to where we were sitting was this memorial. Just beyond those trees is the Han river, which is a quite large river. There is also a bit of a drop from where we were standing to the actual water. Apparently, back in the day, Catholics were killed by being pushed off of the cliff into the river. 

For each of the stations of the cross, they had one of these carved stones. The explanations were all written in Korean, so we didn't benefit too much from that, but Becky was able to explain each of them to us. 

Station number 6 (according to the old list) is where Christ meets Veronica. This is my friend Veronica. It seemed fitting that they should pose together. 

I really loved the style of the different stones. They were surprisingly detailed, and the facial expressions were really nice. 

There was a statue of Mary, in a pose to bless people. In the few minutes we were near the statue, I saw two people who must have been Catholic come up and lean forward to put their heads in her hands. I presume this is for some sort of blessing. Then, there were the people who were more touristy, and they would pose with the statue in a variety of ways. The contrast was rather extreme. 

I was a little surprised when I looked closer at the statue. Mary is wearing hanbok, which is the traditional Korean costume, although the veil isn't part of hanbok. 

The whole garden had the natural, countryside feel to it. There were lots of patches of wildflowers and plants. If I can paraphrase Jane Austen, I have rarely seen a place for which nature had done more, or where natural beauty had been so little counteracted by and awkward taste. 

After we toured the gardens, we went inside the tiny museum to cool off, because it was unseasonably hot that morning. Becky wanted to get a group photo, so we asked a group of Korean girls standing nearby to take it for us. We asked in both English and Korean. There was some giggling and hesitation for a moment, then two girls come forward. Only, instead of taking a picture of all of us, this is what happened. 

Ahh, the wonders of being a foreigner in Korea. There is always something random that will happen. After this slightly awkward picture, we managed to get them to take a group picture of us. 

All in all, it was a nice way to spend a Saturday morning, even if it was ridiculously hot for the middle of September. From left to right, this is Sarah S, Caitlin, Becky, me, Jungmi, Jennifer and Veronica. 

Life Is Just A Cup Of Cake

My friends Becky and Stacy came out to itaewon for lunch and conversation today. After we ate, we walked around and I showed them some of the international markets I shop at, and then we decided to go get some cupcakes. Aside from being incredibly delicious, they were darn cute!!

This is a carrot cupcake with a black tea latte.

Chuseok

Today Is the official day of chuseok in Korea. It is a harvest festival and a time to return to your hometown, wherever that may be. Consequently, Seoul is rather empty and traffic was beyond terrible over the weekend.

There are some interesting chuseok customs that I've observed. Around this tine each year, gift boxes of fruit, shampoo, olive oil and spam pop up at every grocery store and corner mart. I asked my students what their favorite part of chuseok was, and they unanimously declared the gifts to be their favorite part. Money was voted the best gift to receive.

I hear many people say that chuseok is Korea's thanksgiving, but as an American, there is just something about that comparison that doesn't resonate. However, it is as good a time as any to pause and reflect on this past year and all the reasons I have to be thankful.

But for now, I'm sitting on a relatively empty subway train, with warm chocolate gateaux with blueberry compote topping, on my way to a chuseok potluck, foreigner style. Any my thumbs are about to fall off.

If you are in korea and reading this, happy chuseok! Enjoy the time off of work.

If you are outside of Korea, happy chuseok, and don't work too hard!

Regardless of where you are and what you're doing, I hope that you can find many, many blessings in your life to be thankful for.

The DMZ

Last weekend, I had the chance to join a tour of the DMZ. I didn't get to go to Panmunjon, which is the place with the blue buildings that people usually think of when they think of the DMZ. There are only a few, government approved, tour agencies that go there, and they are quite expensive. However, I did get to see quite a few places along the DMZ, and we got off the usual tourist track, which was nice. 

Imjingak was our first stop. It was the most touristy of all the places we went. It has a famous observation deck and the freedom bridge. 

This was part of a war memorial next to the parking lot. 

A full shot of the memorial. 

There are several rice paddies that are inside the DMZ. The people who live and work in this area get special tax benefits, and their sons are exempt from the mandatory military service. These two guys are South Koreans, and they are still within the buffer area between the two countries. 

This was part of a pavilion with a peace bell inside. I think it's supposed to represent the tears of the nation. 

They had this really cool memorial with different stones from all over the world. Each stone was labeled with the country it had come from, and the dates and names of the various wars that had been fought in those countries. It was all behind glass, so it was hard to photograph, but you should click on the picture and try your best to read it!

There were a surprising number of DMZ signs that had floral motifs on them. It was all very cheerful. 

One of the barbed wire fences had been covered with ribbons. I think that most of these messages are either for families who were split up, or they were messages of hope for reunification. 

Barbed wire and blue sky.....

This is the Freedom Bridge. It was used to make solider exchanges once upon a time, thus it's name. 

This was another memorial/altar in Imjingak. 

Of course, no war memorial site is complete without a cutesy English slogan, and some fast food joints!

Photos from the war era. 

There was an observatory point where you can actually see into North Korea. This town is generally known to be a sham. The North Koreans call it the Peace Village, the South Koreans call it the propaganda village. The North Korean government says there are 200 people who live here, and there are schools and doctors and all sorts of wonderful things. When you look through the binoculars, you can see that the apartment buildings aren't finished on the inside, and there aren't even doors and windows. 

This flag pole is hundreds of feet tall, and the flag itself weighs about 600 pounds. 

The South Korean flag pole came first, but it is much shorter, and I believe the flag is only around 325 lbs. 

You'll have to click on this picture to zoom, but you can actually see both flags in this. We had to stand behind a certain line to take photos, and the only way to see anything was to hold your camera above your head and click away. I was so thankful to have a zoom lens with me!

After we were done at Imjingak, we went to the Dorosan Train Station, and took the obligatory picture with the Korean soliders. They were really nice about it. The guy on the left tried to be very business like. But the guy on the right kept smiling at us ;)

If this train station were actually open and connected through North Korea, I could take a train from Seoul to London. 

The doors to Pyeongyang. 

At this point, we went to the third tunnel that the North Koreans dug under the DMZ. We were able to walk about 300 meters down into it before it was blocked off again. Unfortunately, we weren't able to take any pictures at all down there. It looked much like you'd imagine any tunnel in sheer rock underground would look. It was fairly small. We had to wear this ridiculous yellow hard hats. However, I was quite glad to have one. I lost track of how many times I hit my head on the ceiling of the tunnel, even though I was hunched down. I'm not all that tall either. 

The North Koreans tried to say that the tunnels were coal mines when they were discovered, and you could see places where they'd tried to paint black splotches on the wall. What's ironic about this is that North Korea is a coal producing nation, and could have actually put coal into the tunnel instead of spray paint... But you know ;)

After the tunnel, we went to another place for lunch and to try to check out another tunnel. However, the DMZ marathon was happening at the same time, so we didn't get to go to the original tunnel. Instead, we went to another observatory point. This statue was close to the restaurant where we ate. There weren't any signs explaining what it was about, but I thought it was cool. He looks like one intense dude. 

There were also a bunch of tanks, planes and soldiers near the restaurant. I loved the expression on this guy's face. 

It's a doggy plane! I loved the paint job. 

This is a beast of a tank, even by tank standards. There were a few of them that we were allowed to climb up on, but we weren't allowed to touch this one. They said that all of the tanks were in good working order. 

There is mandatory military service for all men in South Korea. Currently, most people do two years of college, then do their military service, and then go back and finish college. That means that these soldiers are the exact age of a lot of my students. In fact, I've seen my students stand in similar ways many, many times around campus. They're all so young.... Either that, or I'm getting old. 

After looking at the heavy artillery, we went back up the mountain to the observatory point. This is looking into North Korea. At this point, it wasn't very touristy at all. There was nothing but the information building and a tiny, tiny parking lot. North Korea was desolate and beautiful. 

The dirt line you can see in that picture is the current location of the North's border fence. The North moved their fence closer to the line, then the South moved theirs as well. I think at the closest point, they are only 628 meters apart, which is well within shooting range. It's pretty crazy stuff. 

The mountains in the background are North Korea, and the guard shack is South Korea. All of the South Korean guard shacks can be clearly seen, but the North Korean ones are hidden in the mountains. 

More of North Korea. 

If you enlarge this picture, you'll see a tower structure in the middle. Those towers mark the actual boundary between North and South. 

The last stop on our tour was the memorial for the White Horse Hill battle. 

This was our tour guide. He spoke excellent English, so we asked him where he had learned. He said he studied abroad, and we asked him where he studied. He said it was in a small town in America called Bloomington, Indiana... When he found out I was from Purdue, we initially thought we couldn't be friends, but in the end, decided to put aside our differences since we were so far away from Indiana. He's currently a Junior at IU, and will finish his military service in six months so he can go back and finish his degree. 

These were memorials depicting famous scenes from the battle. The really cool thing about them is that they are made from used bullet casings from the actual battles at White Horse Hill. 

The towers are supposed to represent hands praying for peace. Inside of the hands are three horses that represent each of the three groups of soldiers that fought for the South. Finally, there are people who are dancing on the back, in anticipation of reunification. White Horse Hill is one of the Northernmost parts of South Korea. The hill actually sits in the DMZ zone, very very close to the actual border. 

It was a really long day, because we went to so many places. I was surprised that it took us less than an hour to arrive at Imjingak by bus. I knew I was close, but I hadn't realized I was quite that close. I somehow didn't expect the DMZ to be quite so commercialized. There was a roller coaster called "Super Viking" at Imjingak.  

I was also surprised at how breathtakingly beautiful North Korea was at the second observation deck. I don't know why, but I somehow expected the country to be stripped bare of any vegetation. Perhaps that is more true further inland, but it was lush and beautiful near the border. 

I'm glad that I went. I'm glad I had the opportunity to see the border and the division of the country. It has definitely helped put some perspective on the stories that I hear from my friends and students around here. But visiting the DMZ wasn't quite enjoyable. I think that the only way I'll go again is if someone comes to visit me and wants to check it out. 

The Semester So Far

The last two weeks seem like they have absolutely flown by. I'm starting to feel a bit more settled in at my new apartment. I think I've finally figured out the best way to get to and from work. It's quite interesting. I can take a single bus to work, but I can't take that same bus home. It comes back to this same general area, but the bus stop is rather awkwardly placed. I can't walk to my apartment from it, because of the way all of the roads and such work. There just aren't sidewalks, and there are lots of highways with fast cars. So, I take a bus to work, and I take a bus, a subway and another bus back home.

Things seem to be going pretty well at work. There are some rather long days. On Monday, my first class starts at 9:00, and my last class finishes at 8:50. When you factor in that I usually get in a bit before my first class so I can collect my thoughts and materials (plus the whole public transportation issue) combined with going back to my office to return books and papers after the class, Monday is starting to look like a 13 hour day.

My office mates seem to be friendly so far. There are five of us in the office, although we all have our own computers. I'm the only woman in the office, which  has the potential to get interesting... There is one other American, although he doesn't seem to be in the office much. To my immediate left is a Kiwi, and then there are two Brits. I also have two TA's that I work with. One of them works for the whole department, and she is more of an administrative assistant. The second TA just works with me, and she will be helping me with grading and such during the semester.

I've met almost all of my students so far. Most of the classes meet twice a week, so I didn't meet all of them until yesterday. I'm going to try hard to learn their names, but I don't know if I'll actually be able to pull off 200 Korean names when I only see them twice a week... Some of them I only see once a week, for three hour classes. The girls all seem to be sweet. They have been a bit shy so far, but that's pretty normal in an English classroom in Korea. There are a few of them that seem like they will be characters in a good way, and there are also some that seem like they could be characters in a bad way.

Most of the classes I teach are just normal speaking and writing classes. I teach speaking level 1 (our current lesson focuses on "My name is ___________ and I'm from ___________") and writing 2 (we are focusing on four different types of paragraphs throughout the semester). I'm also teaching one section of writing through the Language Center. Those classes don't start for another few weeks, so I'm not entirely sure what they entail yet. I teach a one hour a week study group on speech and debate, facilitate a one hour a week book group, and my last thing is a level 4 English class.

The level 4 class is supposed to be a content class rather than a language class. They told me I could choose any topic I wanted, so I came to the first class with a few ideas, and the girls and I narrowed them down to make a class. We are doing a class on storytelling in English. It will have two primary parts. We will read different types of stories from all around the world, then we will focus on how to effectively tell stories. If you think about it, stories are something that we use every single day. If someone says, "How was your day?" they are inviting you to tell them a story. Jokes are stories. Some of our idioms are stories. When you tell a story, it uses a different kind of language than is found in a typical ESL textbook. Also, vocal inflection is one of the hardest things for my students to master, so this will give us a good chance to practice both. Plus, who doesn't love stories??

Basically, things have been quite busy, and I've been scattered all over the place. On Saturday, I was a guest professor at another women's university in Seoul, for a program for their English Education majors. On Sunday, I went up and spent the whole day at the DMZ. Monday was a crazy day at work, and today has been filled with sleeping, laundry and grocery shopping.

Tomorrow it's back to work for another day, although my teaching schedule is significantly lighter. I only have two classes tomorrow. Hopefully I'll get a chance to work through all of my pictures from the DMZ and write up some stuff about that soon!