Well, I’m back. Readers may notice this is the first entry in 7 months – the fault is partially the Camera’s, but currently, far more is mine. And for now, we’ll leave it at that.
Some of you may be reading this for the first time, others may have re-discovered this column after the long respite, but a brief update is called for.
Overall, this has been quite a year of uprooting in my life, even if it has now become rather routine. I’m am quite thankful I embarked on this journey, and given the investment I have put into learning the extremely limited Korean I can speak, and more importantly becoming more comfortable with the culture, it seems to make a lot of sense to return.

I have been teaching English for almost a year now, and my contract ends on March 17. I chose not to renew my contract, and will be coming back to Boulder a few days after that, and plan to stay for a few months. Given the continuing dismal economic picture in the U.S., I’ll likely return to Korea during the summer or fall of this year.
Back to my Korean experience. I’ll start with the near present, and work my way back.
A few days ago, it was the biggest holiday of the Korean year – the Lunar New Year. Virtually everything was shut down, as most families flocked back to their rural hometowns to celebrate (millions packed trains, buses, ferries, planes and cars). It is much like Chuseok (the Korean harvest/thanksgiving holiday in Oct.) in that many go back to their rural roots and families have feasts and honor the ancestors, often by visiting their shrines.

A man offers soju (traditional Korean alcohol) to his parents shrine on Soellal (Lunar New Year)

In addition, grandparents usually give children small gifts. There are very traditional foods associated with the New Year, much of which I’ve forgotten. It’s a three day celebration, and most people really look forward to it.

Because most people leave Goheung (my current hometown), there’s not much going on that day. But I did see a group of pung mul lol ee. These are folks dressed up in bright costumes (below) who go to the few open businesses that day, with drums and gongs. Shop owners give them some soju and small treats, and the visit of these colorful people drives out the bad spirits and brings in good luck for the following year.

Korean culture is still strongly influenced by Chinese tradition, whereas Japan is not – so there was little if any similar celebrations of the New Year in Japan.

Since the New Year is a lunar one, it changes every year, and this is the first time in decades that it was on Valentine’s Day, which seems to be celebrated throughout Asia. I certainly saw very visible signs of it in Japan when I was there a few weeks ago when on vacation, and it’s big here also. But it was subsumed this year overall – I heard that chocolate sales took a beating in Korea this year.

At this moment, I am deskwarming, the term we give to the activity whereby teachers have to come to school, but have no classes to teach, although students are temporarily back in class.
As I have mentioned before the Korean school year (which is similar throughout Asia) is much different than the U.S. The last day of the school year was Dec. 23, and winter vacation began. The first day of school is March 2, so it’s a relatively long vacation. However, for 1-2 weeks (depending on the school) in Feb., students come back to school for “review”. For teachers who haven’t finished their textbooks, this is the time to do it. For the oldest of students who are about to graduate to a new school level (such as elementary to middle), it’s a time to prepare them for what lies ahead. But mostly it seems it’s a time for games, movies and cleaning. Today and yesterday, students have been moving mass numbers of old books to collection points throughout the school.
So, in elementary schools like the one I’m at, most teachers are homeroom teachers, and they have classes. But teachers like me (English teachers, gym teachers and other “specialists”) have no classes. At first, I was unhappy that we had to come to school and sit on our hands. Theoretically, we’re supposed to be working on lesson plans for next year, but even for those who have to do that, it only takes a few days. We NETs (Native English teachers) in elementary school rarely have to make lesson plans – our co-teachers do that, so there is nothing for us to do.
However, I have come to realize that when I have a lot of work to do, I can be more productive at school than at home. This blog is one result of my renewed productivity.

Well, to my disappointment I’m already writing less than I thought I would. It’s not for lack of topics – but rather time. I will continue to try and improve my track record.

I’ve had a wicked sore throat, fever and fatigue for over a week, and finally went to the hospital a couple of days ago, as everyone had urged me to do. Because it’s a large hospital (large for a small town), I expected to wait several hours before I’d get to be seen, but I was in and out of there in 10 minutes with a diagnosis – tonsillitis. I was quite surprised at the speed, and I was prescribed a bunch of medications. The visit and meds cost under 10,000 won – about $7.50. It’s so clear that universal health care is much better here, all the way around. I feel much better now and hope to go out and start living again, starting tomorrow, although it’s supposed to rain the rest of the week (it’s pouring now as I write this.)

In fact, monsoon season started last week. The word monsoon actually describes a wind, not rain, but rain is the result. We got quite a bit of rain for 3 days straight last week, and its restarted this morning. People say it lasts 1-2 weeks, and it only stops raining for brief periods during that time.
I actually started writing this entry on a bus, several weeks ago on the way from my home in Goheung, to Gwangju, the largest city in the Jeollonam province. It’s a two hour bus drive, and since I don’t have a car here (most native English teachers don’t), it’s very handy. Bus service is very well developed and affordable in this country, and is widely used. The U.S. could surely learn a lot about mass transit.

One oddity I’m seeing is, at one of the stops the bus make (only bus stations), a man gets on during the 4 minute stop, and at the front of the bus, he announces loudly to the passengers, that he is selling some kind of cleaning cloth. It’s in Korean (Hangul), so I don’t understand it, but it surprises me the bus company allows that.

So, now back to my my experience teaching in a Korean school. As I previously mentioned, I have worked with this age range (4th-6th grade) before, having taught violence prevention skills to children of all ages. But never having taught English, nor taught the same students more than once, it’s been quite the learning curve.

Even after 3 months, where ever I go in school, I’m constantly greeted by kids, and many adults. Just saying hello to an American is STILL a big deal for many. In the classroom, I lose my aura a bit, because I become a teacher who is by turns, both a bit of a clown (I had a reputation as a class clown as a student), and a stern authoritarian, enforcing discipline.

For those who have never taught children, skills that are needed in the classroom include “classroom management techniques” and that is one of my biggest challenges with elementary students. They are not mature enough to be overly sarcastic or openly rude, but they are full of energy and boredom, which frequently alternate through a 40 minute class. Noise is one of the biggest obstacles to teaching, so just keeping them quiet can be a major victory. I strongly suspect that Korean teachers have a higher tolerance for noise and chaos than American teachers.

Since most teachers are female with higher voices, my low male voice often gets their attention. But I find myself yelling too much to focus them, as they quickly devolve into chattering children. My co-teachers have much better focusing techniques that I, mostly because they speak Korean, and these techniques are frequently used by many of their teachers. So I have much to learn (no surprise there). All those phrases that I heard as I went through school from teachers (“You can’t listen if you’re talking”, “Why are you talking right now?”, “Would you like to share your joke with the entire class?”, etc.) seem to make a lot more sense now, and I find myself occasionally using them.

The main disciplinarian for all students are their homeroom teachers – they set the tone for the entire year, and maintain law and order. The biggest threat one can use against unrepentant students is “if you don’t be quiet/stop that behavior, I’ll have to talk with your homeroom teacher.” This reportedly terrifies them, so it’s a last resort. By the way, corporal punishment is used in Korea, but not very often, I’m told. I have yet to see it used by my fellow teachers.

In the classroom, as I’ve mentioned before, my best assets as a Westerner are my pronunciation abilities and cultural knowledge. The former is far more employed than the latter. Surprisingly, I rarely teach grammar. Most NETs are hired as “conversational teachers”, which I mistakenly believed was….well, just having conversations. How hard could that be? It’s fairly misleading – what we really do is help improve their speaking abilities. Korean English teachers focus on writing, reading and grammar.

I do not write nor decide on the lesson plans – I just do what I’m told, but I often feel underused. Other NETs have very different experiences, ranging from doing even less than I do, to doing everything themselves, including writing their own lesson plans and having no co-teacher.

Schools throughout Korea let out for summer vacation in less than a week, on July 15 for students, and start again the first week of September. The Korean school year starts in March.

Korean teachers are also off during that time, although I’m told if they want to travel out of the country, they have to first get permission from their principal, especially if it’s overseas to Europe or the U.S. But it turns out that I – and some other NETs – still have to come to work, even though there are no classes. My contract says I get a week off this summer, and 29 days off during the winter break. If I want to “borrow” some of that winter time for summer, I’m allowed to do that.

Starting July 18, I’ll be teaching an English summer camp, for 2 weeks. This will be the first time I’ll be teaching on my own, and coming up with my own lesson plans. It’s during the morning, and I’ll allegedly have 15-18 kids each week (the first week, I’ll teach 5th graders, the next week will be 6th graders.) I have 4 classes each morning with the same kids, so virtually everything will be a new experience. Fortunately, I have a book with lesson plans and activities from a summer camp conducted throughout the province, so that makes it a lot easier.

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).