Politics will now insert themselves into this column for the first, but certainly not the last time.

It’s hard to miss the blaring headlines in the last few days about the latest North Korean nuclear test and subsequent missile launches, which is designed to develop their technical prowess. Given the breathless pronouncements and endless analysis that stream from American media and government, I can understand how ordinary folks seem obsessed with NK, especially now.

Few people are fooled by North Korea’s propaganda – it’s hardly the paradise it portrays itself to be, with a repressive dictatorship, and it’s militarized and impoverished population kept on a short leash. But, in fact a number of countries could qualify in those categories, and for the most part, we ignore them or use them as allies.

But when NK thumbed it’s nose at the U.S. and threatened to become a two-bit nuclear player (and a not very successful one at that), the U.S. couldn’t ignore the spitball.

God knows, the world does not need more nuclear weapons.

But why have most people so quickly forgotten the lessons of Saddam, who reminds us from his grave of how we were so easily fooled by alleged weapons of mass destruction?

And one of the rationales being used to try and stop NK’s nuclearization is how South Korea feels threatened by such tests.

In spite of what you read in U.S. newspapers, most South Koreans are far less concerned about North Korea then Americans. Here in rural, somewhat conservative Goheung, I’ve been talking with my fellow teachers and others about this issue. While not a scientific poll, I have yet to find one person that is concerned about the latest turn of events. In fact, most people are far more concerned – and affected – by the recent suicide of a very popular ex-president (Memorials are being held spontaneously around the country.)

In reality, NK poses little if any threat, in spite of their bellicose statements and verbal threats – they seem more sad and pathetic than anything else.

One needs to also understand Asian geography: NK faces a newly hostile S. Korean government led by conservative president Lee Myung-bak, in a country that houses tens of thousands of US troops and a huge arsenal pointed at it. NK also faces a hostile neighbor to it’s east, in the form of Japan, who is now openly talking about abandoning their official pacifism and building up their military for a preemptive capability.

And Koreans also understand the hypocrisy of the country with ten thousand nuclear weapons (and the only one to ever use them) threatening a country if they develop even one weapon.

So overall, S. Koreans don’t get too worked up about their poor brethren’s often empty threats. Instead, many want to reunite a painful rift that has haunted both countries for over half a century.

By the way, I happen to live in the one Korean county that has a Space Center, and plans on launching it’s first satellite into space in a few months. Will the U.S. react the same way when the much richer, westernized Korea launches, thereby developing their technical prowess? Umm…. I doubt it.

The reason I came to Korea was to teach English, so let me talk about that experience.

I work at Goheung Elementary School, the county’s largest elementary, teaching 4th through 6th grade. I have about 300 students, and teach 21 classes a week and I work 8:30-5 PM every  weekday. Koreans go to school every other Saturday, but fortunately native English teachers (NETs) don’t have to teach on Sat.

I have two co-teachers, although I only teach with one at a time, depending on the grade level. My co-teachers prepare the lesson plans, taken from a standardized curriculum throughout Korea. The plug me in during the class, basically as a pronunciation machine. That is really one of two of the NET’s most valued asset – pronunciation. The other is cultural knowledge. Grammar is a close third, but it’s really the first two that make us so much in demand. I’ll talk about the bigger picture of NETs, later.

I’ll quickly note that virtually every NET’s experience is different, since Koreans who teach English have diverse experience, support and philosophies about teaching English. At least a couple of my fellow NETs don’t have co-teachers.
Also, I only teach at one school. Most other NETs here in Goheung county teach at several schools. One teacher, Lisa, teaches at 4 different middle schools, and while she loves the people and students she works with, does NOT like the traveling, since she has no car and depends on buses.

I’ll also mention that I’m the first elementary NET that has been hired in Goheung county (population approximately 90,000), and so there is likely some scrutiny of how well I do my job. Most NETs work at the middle school level, which is ironic since I wanted to work at that level, and was told by my recruiter I would be. He “misspoke”, but I don’t regret being the first elementary NET.
The office I work in is shared by several other teachers. We are the non-homeroom teachers – English teachers and gym teachers, who don’t have just one classroom as homeroom teachers do. I have my own desk, as do most of the others, but I don’t have a computer yet, although

I’m told I’ll get one in June. Currently I use my laptop at work, which is a lifesaver. Theoretically, all the computers in our small office are shared, but as a practical matter, they are at people’s desks, who use them.
My typical day is getting to work at 8:30ish (teachers in my office show up at different times – it’s somewhat loose). Some days, I have a 9:00 class, other days my first class is 9:45. Classes last 40 minutes, and on some days I go to 3-4 different classrooms, on other days I just stay in one classroom. I hope to videotape a lot of my experiences in and out of the classroom in the near future, so stay tuned for that.
Most of my classes are in the morning, and then I go to lunch at the cafeteria, along with several hundred students and a handful of teachers.

The word, cacophony often comes to mind as I sit there, eating my meal. I sit with other teachers, but even if I’m sitting next to them, it’s so loud that we can’t have a one paragraph conversation without us yelling to each other, often with the word, “What?” punctuating our communication.

Money is taken out of our paycheck for eating in the cafeteria, so I almost always go, and it is my one certain Korean meal of the day. The food is for the most part, very healthy and to most Americans, it would be considered exotic, if it weren’t served in a prison tray.

Actually, you would have to probably pay around $15 at a Korean restaurant in the U.S. for what we pay about $1.35 (depending on the exchange rate). I hope to have a separate entry about Korean food soon, but suffice it to say, you won’t find any grilled cheese, hamburgers, pizza or macaroni and cheese (although once a month we get spaghetti, oddly enough) on the school menu. I can neither remember nor pronounce the foods we get, but almost every meal includes at least one kimchi (there are several hundred types), and plain rice. Fresh fruits, seafood (which I am inclined to not eat), meat stews, curries and other items are frequently found on our plates.
Depending on the day, I might have another class or two in the afternoon, and then we leave at 5 PM.
More in the next entry.

Students eating a typical Korean school lunch

Last week, it was Teacher’s Day – although not a major holiday, it’s still commands much attention, especially from students and parents. Traditional gifts from students include letters, carnations, socks and either handkerchiefs for men, or cosmetics for women.
As the photo above indicates, I scored socks, a handkerchief and a “bun” which one attaches to one’s cellphone. Koreans love attaching things to their cellphones, as if they were keychains. I also received some sweet letter, even though I’ve only been here two months.
Often, students will sing songs for their teachers, and sometimes there is no school. My school had classes in the morning, but in the afternoon, we had a volleyball finals tournament.
There is an interesting phenomenon in Korea of virtually all public school teachers playing volleyball on Wednesdays, from 3-5 PM. One is expected to either play or cheer on one’s fellow teachers, and it’s somewhat of a serious game. Our games always have a referee AND a scorekeeper, even though they’re just for fun. However, each school has it’s own team, and they play other regional schools for the regional title, and it gets very serious. That’s what happens on Teachers Day. Winners get a huge flag and trophy cup, along with bragging rights for the year. However, many schools – especially in the rural county of Goheung – don’t have enough players to sport a team, so they combine teams to compete. But because they aren’t able to practice enough as a team, they rarely, if ever, win titles – which is why I found myself rooting for them during the tournament.
Afterward, the schooled sprung for a nice dinner, at a typical Korean restaurant. I hope to write about the whole Korean food scene soon, but in the meantime, this photo is very typical of how Koreans eat.

This is part 2 of Children’s Day, although it centers on a subject one rarely talks to children about: leper colonies.
After the Children’s Day festival in Goheung, 2 other teachers, 2 children and I went to Sorokdo, an island south of the Goheung mainland, which is about a half hour drive from the city of Goheung.

During the last Japanese forced colonization of Korea* (1910-1945), the occupying forces gathered all Koreans with leprosy, and put them on Sorokdo. They were quarantined in fairly miserable conditions, sterilized and compelled to do forced labor (along with most other Koreans). After the Japanese lost WW2, Sorokdo remained ignored by the S.Korean government until at least 1956, and even then, neglected until 2000.
Many of us still associate leprosy as some biblical affliction – but it persists today, with approximately 300,000 new cases a year, world wide, and is now known as Hansen’s Disease.
It’s a long and sad chapter in Korean history, and there are still a number of details I don’t know – but I also wanted to visit Sorokdo because I love islands, and they always call me to explore them.

So we drove on the newly constructed bridge to this place of beauty and sadness.
There are now several museums there (with the displays in Korean) that attracts hundreds of tourists a day, because this piece of history piques the interest of many Koreans. Before last year, the island could only be reached by ferry, but now it is flooded with the curious (myself included), much to the dismay of long time residents.
Survivors of that period still live on the island, and I saw several when I was there, although I wasn’t supposed to be on that part of the island (tourists are rightfully prohibited from wandering near the homes of the hapless victims. Both days I was there we took wrong turns). Where they live is incredibly peaceful, beautiful and lush with island vegetation, and I wished to linger there, but knew we couldn’t. Only a small part of the island is currently accessible to non-residents.

*At some point, I hope to write about the deep, unhealed scars that a brutal Japanese occupation/colonization etched in this Land of the Morning Calm. But suffice it to say now that Sorokdo wouldn’t have this history without the Japanese.

While it was Cinco de Mayo in the greater Boulder metropolitan area yesterday, here in South Korea (and Japan*) it is Children’s Day, which is seen through a child’s eye as their Christmas. Traditionally, children receive gifts (often cash), although unlike Christmas, go special places with their parents, such as zoos or museums.
The elementary school I teach at, along with all schools are closed, as are a number of businesses. But there is a tradition of the teacher’s union hosting a festival for the children throughout Korea in the morning, and I went to see what a Children’s Day looked like.
The event took place at the Goheung Cultural Center, a large complex of buildings and a stadium almost the size of Folsom stadium (although there isn’t nearly as much seating). There were at least a couple of hundred of people there, with many booths that gave kids a chance at arts, crafts, science projects, facepainting, food, etc. It was like the children’s section of the Boulder Creek Festival. Although I didn’t plan on helping, I was talked into being a rope handler for rope skipping. To my surprise, I found that boys are just as talented and enthusiastic about rope skipping as girls.
Overall, a fun time was had by all, and many parents seemed grateful for such an event.

*Actually, at least 50 countries celebrate Children’s Day, including the U.S., much to my surprise. I didn’t know we had one, since I’ve been telling my classes that there is no such thing in the U.S. – until I did a little research. I think it would be fair to say it’s an obscure observance, like National Pickle Day, (which falls on May 23, along with National Taffy Day and National Sea Turtle Day – I’m not making this up).
But it’ s taken much more seriously elsewhere, and is tied strongly to the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, a U.N. declaration that has been ratified by every country except – you guessed it, the U.S. and Somalia.
I’ll spare you the many of the details of my research, except to say that a Children’s Day has been celebrated since at least 1860 in the U.S., primarily by churches, but it was given presidential proclamations starting in at least 2000, and observed primarily on various days in June. It is variously known as Children’s Day, International Children’s Day and Universal Children’s Day, and has many roots. Oh, and by the way, it’s celebrated in June in North Korea.

If you want to rile Americans, talk about North Korea.
Well, this is a perspective of a foreigner’s life in the other Korea. South Korea (hereafter referred to as simply Korea), gets little ink in the U.S. media, although to be fair, dozens of other countries receive the same treatment, much to our detriment. I have been here about a month and a half, and have just started to settle and understand life in a country that is sometimes known as the Land of the Morning Calm, and is unknown by most Americans.
I’ve lived in Boulder for over 25 years, and never traveled outside the American continent. Asian culture is almost as different as one can imagine – and yet much of the human experience is the same.
I live in the a somewhat rural area in the southwestern province of Jeollonamdo, which is almost as far south as you can go in Korea, in the of city of Goheung (Goheung-eup, pronounced Ko hoong ep). Goheung county (Goheung-gun) is a peninsula that could almost pass as an island on the map, with many small islands surrounding it.
After a varied working life, and a small spate of unemployment, I decided to undertake the adventure of a lifetime, and teach English in Korea. Before I started the job, I had no experience teaching English, nor have I ever taught in schools, other than an occasional violence prevention workshop. I didn’t know anyone in Korea, and the only Korean words I knew were the name of the martial art, tae kwon do.
So the combination of teaching a subject I’ve never taught, plus adapting to a very foreign culture, has been very… interesting. In future columns I hope to talk about my experiences thus far, and write about current events (mostly mine) and thoughts. I don’t intend for this to be a travel blog, although that may slip in from time to time – rather I want to look at politics (both Korean and U.S.), international relations, culture, language, teaching, and who knows what else. This blog will be as time permits, given my full time job, but I hope it to be semi-regular. I hope you’ll join me and become a voyeur of this expedition, and I welcome your comments and questions, which I will try to answer in the column (if appropriate).