Gwanju

I'm in the Gwanju Bus Terminal right now, at one of the pay-by-the minute computers they have here. I should be meeting Bonnie, an ETA friend, in about an hour. She's coming into town for the Gwanju Biennial, a large modern art exhibit that I just saw today with my host mother and her aunt. Some of my students were also there, as today is a 'picnic day' for the high school, so the students are doing activities as a class but not studying. And I have the day off.

The Biennial was cool. It was a sort of layered experience; there's viewing the art itself, and then there's viewing the way the art is viewed and experienced in Korea. Today was a popular day for students to visit the museum, I guess the Thursday after Chuseok is probably a common day off at schools in Korea. So my experience was a bit influenced by what seemed to be an entire middle school filing through the galleries and of course yelling "Hi" at me and then giggling and running away. Sometimes I found it hard to concentrate on the art, what with the students and the museum guides narrating to the students through large bullhorns, but I still enjoyed it. I found myself lingering after the kids had lost interest and experiencing the exhibits that way. There was a young Korean man, maybe a few years older than me, that seemed to have the same idea. A few times we found ourselves standing quietly in the same exhibit, after the girls had passed on, so I felt a certain kind of kinship with him.

After the main hall exhibits we checked out a small exhibition of items from North Korea. It was mostly common household items, some paintings and some North Korean products. But I think when it comes to North Korea, the mundane, or the fact that it is just mundane, can be enlightening. I for one had pictured North Korea as being like South Korea with less American influence--less English used, and no Konglish. So I was a little surprised to see products made in North Korea with English words on them (and also to see some products notedly imported from South Korea).

There were a few different galleries outside the hall, and there was also a large international bazarre. There were different stands for different countries, like India, Pakistan, Brazil, Ecuador, Kenya and collectively, Europe. I was impressed when an Indian man spoke to me fluently in English and then also in Korean. There was an Ecuadorean woman at the Ecuador stand, and I finally got up the courage to try to speak to her in Spanish. It's surprising how rusty my Spanish has gotten I think just from being in Korea and trying to learn Korean. When I was first trying to speak Korean, I kept lapsing into Spanish, and now when I try to think of simple Spanish words, like "where" and "teacher" the Korean ones appear in their place. It was sort of embarassing, since I used to consider myself pretty good at at least conversational Spanish, and here I could understand her fine but was having difficulty answering the question of what I do for work. She was pleasant but seemed a little bored anyway. I imagine she gets a lot of Americans trying to use their high school or college Spanish on her, and she probably felt sort of like how I do when strangers start speaking to me in broken English just to try it out.

As I was lingering around the bazarre, waiting for my host mother and her aunt to finish perusing, the young man I recognized from many of the exhibits tapped me on the shoulder and informed me, with a warm smile and in pretty flawless English, that he thought I should look at the gallery out the back, called Korea Express. He said he thought I would enjoy it and that I shouldn't miss the chance. It was a striking interaction for me. I guess maybe he'd felt some of the same familiarity that I'd felt when we'd crossed paths often in the main exhibition hall. I did go see the exhibit, which consisted of contemporary Korean art, and I liked it a lot. There were some interesting paintings, as well as some of the more sort of experimental stuff. At one point I stood in a dark, glass-walled room decorated with fiber-optic flowers, some with petals made from sanitary napkins, and a large fiber-optic heart, with an old Korean woman and a man in gray monks clothes and a shaved head.

So I should be meeting up with Bonnie in a bit. We're probably going to get dinner and then I'll take the bus back to Suncheon. My host mother seemed a little nervous to let me off on my own, but I've been through the Gwanju bus terminal a few times now, and it is admittedly nice to get away on my own. I was starting to get a little unwarrantedly irritated, being surrounded by middle aged Korean women who would talk about me and laugh a lot, when I couldn't understand what they were saying. I feel like a child often, and I know it makes sense, since I basically have the lingual abilities of an infant in this country, but it's still a sort of frustrating way to feel. I think maybe more independence is a good thing at this point.

Chuseok (추석)

On Friday afternoon, after my classes finished, I got on a bus to Gwanju and from there, with only minimal confusion, traveled another hour to Jeongyup, the town where Rachel lives. She met me in the small bus terminal, and her host father (whom she calls by the Korean name for brother-in-law) came and drove us to the apartment. There her host mother (whom she calls onni, or sister in Korean) asked me if I was hungry, but I said no, since I was only a little hungry, suspecting they'd give me food anyway. And sure enough, Rachel's onni brought out some grapes, persimmon and pear (which is huge and round and less grainy in texture than American pears). We chatted with Rachel's host parents until about 11 and then got to bed. Rachel's host father is an English teacher at her school and speaks English well. Her host mother is a geography teacher at an Elementary school, and speaks a lot less English, but enough to be pretty funny. One of Rachel's host brothers hid in his room for most of the evening, though he emerged as a blanket-wrapped worm at one point, then came out with a shirt over his head, and then finally sat with us uncovered. Apparently he's shy.

Rachel and I hiked Soraebang the next day, one of nine peaks in the national park near Jeongyup. We bused out to the park, and there we met a university student who spoke pretty good English and helped us find our way to the trail head. Since she was there by herself, she accompanied us on our hike. The woman at the tourist information building recommended Soraebang. She said it was the easiest hike and would take about two hours one way, which was about the amount of time that we wanted to spend hiking.

It turned out that we missed her directions and though we made it to Soraebang alright, we realized on the way back that we'd taken the more difficult trail up. The trail was pretty steep, and pretty rocky. At one point we had to actually pull ourselves up a short rock face with a rope that was there. I actually found it a relief to be forced to use different muscles, even though it was a little scary. After that we edged our way up to a small peak. The view was beautiful of course. We could see Jeongyup, and the other eight peaks ranged around us, sort of like the fingers of a cupped hand . An old man, in typical Korean hiking gear, popped up on the ridge across from us and startled us a bit. Then his cell phone rang, so loud and clear it sounded like it was right next to us.

There was another ridge above us, and when we decided to ascend we found, according to a large sign, that this was actually Soraebang. It wasn't that much higher than our first resting spot but the view was a bit improved. Rachel climbed up to the very highest point, basically a large boulder a few meters above where I was standing. We saw a few birds, including something that looked like a kestrel, and I watched a dragonfly buzz way up over Rachel's head, making me wonder how high they can fly before the wind sweeps them away. I took some pictures, which I hope will turn out well and maybe I'll be able to put them on this site.

I was only planning to stay in Jeongyup until Saturday evening, but Rachel's host parents heard she really likes dakalbi, a meal of spicy chicken ribs, cabbage and rice cake that Chuncheon (the location of our orientation) is famous for, and wanted to take us to a dakalbi restaurant in town, to compare. Incidentally, they also wanted to introduce (or so they thought) Rachel to soju. So I decided to extend my visit until Sunday morning.

While we were waiting to go out to eat, Rachel suggested giving me a tarot card reading. We went outside the apartment building and sat down under one of the pagoda shelters in the nearby playground. I guess we should have expected it, but both of us seemed surprised when we were instantly surrounded on all sides by intent children of all ages. Only slightly fazed, we continued with the reading. It was pretty optimistic. The first card I drew, apparently emblematic of myself, was Courage. The rest of the cards seemed to follow the themes of friendship, and seeing through illusions. The crowd of children followed us back to the apartment building, and wanted to know where Rachel lived. She was reluctant to tell them, and told them to go on out, but one little girl dashed in and read the selected floor number before our elevator closed, and ran back to the group triumphantly announcing it.

Around 7:30 we headed out to the restaurant with Rachel's host parents. The dakalbi was good, despite the difference from the Chuncheon version (this version had less rice cakes, added fish cakes, and even some ramen noodles mixed in on the skillet). A great moment was when I realized that Rachel had introduced her host family to the term food baby (the protrusion of the stomach caused by being very full) and both of her host parents used it casually a couple times. (Rachel actually used the term to my host mother when she visited Suncheon the weekend before, and as I laughed uncontrollably, my host mother looked at her in surprise, and said, "You really think that?" apparently wondering if Rachel was actually under the impression that she was going to give birth).

After dinner Rachel took us by her friend's cafe. Brian is a Korean man who Rachel met recently. He spent a year in Australia and seems pretty fluent in English. He also breeds canaries, and showed some to us, as well as a pair of really beautiful finches. It was the first time Rachel's host parents had been there, and I sense a familiar, slightly awkward atmosphere of a young person introducing her parents to her hang-out spot and a friend they've never met. But Brian and the host parents seemed to hit it off pretty well. For a short period of time, Rachel and I both sat more or less staring into space while the three of them conversed in Korean.

I managed to get up pretty early on Sunday morning, and despite the fact that my Korean bank's ATM machine swallowed my card on my first ever attempt to use one (the repairman was lightning fast in arriving) I was sitting on a Gwanju bound bus by 8:30 am. Apparently I managed to dodge the Chuseok traffic because I made it back to Suncheon in pretty good time. There I gave my host family my Chuseok gift, a box of canned pineapple, took a shower and ended up taking a nap for way too long. It was a pretty laid back, fun weekend with Rachel, and emotionally refreshing in some ways, but I think that hike made quite an impression on my legs.

Sunday night I went with my family to a dinner at my host mother's aunt's house. It was a barbeque, and they were actually cooking bulgogi on a charcoal grill outside. I had a good time, though no one really spoke English most of the night. I've expanded my ability of comprehending Korean a little bit. Here's a short script of what I imagined a certain conversation to be.

Mrs. Lee's brother: (to his wife, gesturing in my direction) Speak to her in English!

Mrs. Lee's brother's wife: (slightly exasperated) Why don't you?

Mrs. Lee's cousin: (humorously) If we speak Korean instead of English, she'll learn Korean faster!

Me: He thinks that if you speak Korean I'll learn Korean faster.

Shortlived awe, which segued into a discussion amongst the family of "body-language." It is interesting how much you can pick up based on body-language and knowing a few words in Korean, like for instance, the word for the Korean language, and "quickly." Unfortunately this weekend I found that this "skill," though useful for figuring out what they're saying when I know they're discussing me, doesn't really work on Korean television (though I have faith that the Chuseok special sketch comedy show running continuously for both days really was hilarious).

Chuseok was mostly joining my host father's family for meals yesterday and today, and watching a fair amount of Korean television. It's tradition to visit the graves of your family members, but I think that's maybe less prevalent nowadays, though it's still popular enough to cause traffic jams around cemeteries. (Another interesting thing is that Korean graves have a large round mound on top. The excess earth after the coffin is buried. Where do we put the dirt from our graves? My host mother thinks that flat American graves are strange, and now that I think about it, I do, too).

Monday I helped make seongpyon, a type of rice cake that everyone makes during Chuseok. You take a ball of rice flour dough and poke it into a little bowl shape, which you pour a spoonful of sesame seeds and sugar into, and then pinch the edges shut, making a half-moon shaped sort of dumpling. These are then steamed and the rice dough becomes firm and chewy and the sugar melts and it's pretty tasty. Though I managed to explode not one but two of these on myself. I guess some kind of pressure can build up when they're cooked, because I splattered myself with liquid sugar the first time I bit into one. I thought I'd figured out how to safely eat them, only to rupture another, this time not getting myself messy but hitting Mrs. Lee's sister-in-law. She wiped off her bare arm without a second glance, so I could almost imagine that both embarassing incidents had gone unnoticed. Until later, as I picked up from their gestures and a couple words, I noticed Mrs. Lee and her two sister's-in-law discussing it.

Tonight, after spending most of the holiday at Mr. Lee's parent's apartment, we visited Mrs. Lee's parent's home, in a more rural area about twenty minutes from our apartment. It seems that during Chuseok, or maybe in general, more time and attention is given to the husband's side of the family. The wives do most of the Chuseok cooking at their in-laws home, and it seems that they don't spend as much time visiting their parents. But maybe that was just this family's case. Eating dinner with Mrs. Lee's parents and relatives was pretty similar to the other meals with Mr. Lee's parents, but I think what was uniquely enjoyable was when Mrs. Lee's uncle (or brother?) attempted to instruct me how to sit cross-legged.

Meals are often eaten on the floor here, and most Koreans I've met seem as comfortable, if not more comfortable, sitting on the floor than in a chair. I find it pretty difficult to sit cross-legged and people notice. But this was the first time someone had tried to specifically instruct me on how, and I welcomed it. After showing me how to place my legs, the relative, who could speak English and is actually visiting Georgetown University next month as a visiting researcher, told me that this was the most healthy stance to sit in, and that it was Buddha's stance. Sure enough, maybe it was due to some practice, but I was sitting comfortably crosslegged for a number of minutes, my back feeling very straight. I sort of wished I had a camera, as I sat side-by-side with this man, and he showed me how to make the Buddha's hand-sign with my fingers, the backs of my wrists resting on my knees. (Like an "O.K." signal, but the middle finger joining the index placed at the thumb, and the ring finger and pinky slightly curled forward). Maybe it was a little sacriligeous. Mrs. Lee's family happens to be Christian.

Chuseok was occasionally boring, but I enjoyed meeting the extended family and I feel like I bonded a bit more with my host family as well. I don't see Mr. Lee or Seo-In, the high schooler, very much at all, since Mr. Lee works in Gwanju all week and Seo-In's schedule takes her to school before I get up and home after I go to sleep. So the holiday was an opportunity to interact with both of them a little bit more. (Even though it involved everyone laughing good-naturedly at my attempts to make seongpyon.) Actually the holiday reminded me a lot of family holiday get-togethers in the States--big meals together and laughter and talking and the kids lounging around between meals reading or watching TV. All of the extended family was very welcoming to me as well, especially the grandmothers. So even though it wasn't my family and I couldn't really speak the language, it felt sort of familiar and comfortable to me.

This afternoon, between breakfast at Mr. Lee's parent's and lunch at Mr. Lee's parent's, I gave Sarah, my friend from Reed a call. It was nice to talk to a friend from home, and maybe a little needed. I've been feeling a little out of touch. With myself maybe. Here it's easy to feel like you're starting over completely, because no one here knows you like your friends and family do, and some people, because of the language barrier, will probably never know you very well. So I sort of felt a need to return to that earlier place, remember that I also exist to other people who I can't see right now, and that they exist. I've barely talked to friends from home at all since I got here, so it was nice.

Tonight

Lunch with the English teachers was fun. Even though I told them Korean food was fine, they took me to a Western restaurant. It's the third Western style restaurant I've been taken to in Korea, and it seems like they are all pretty similar. This one was called Renaissance and had a sort of faux-decadent interior, with chandeliers and dark wood, but the brick arches around the windows were plastic. The food was what I expected too---sort of a surf and turf thing, but hamburger instead of steak. I had a bit of a surprise when we each got a glass of extremely red liquid with our water. One of the teachers said, "Wine," when it was put down, but maybe because of the color, and the fact that I had been told that the Christians at this school didn't drink, I thought it was juice or something. Well, it tasted like wine. Maybe non-alcoholic, though I'm still not sure. Though it could be that half a glass of wine isn't really considered drinking. I wouldn't be surprised, since social drinking, and sometimes heavy drinking, seems to be a substantial aspect of Korean culture. The appetizers were the standard salad, shredded lettuce and cabbage with onion, cucumber and tomato and some kind of mayonaise dressing, and either vegetable or cream soup.

I was nervous about the lunch going over, but I assumed that they all were planning on getting back in time for the next period, at 2 pm. After drinking my orange juice, which I got for dessert since dessert or coffee always follows a meal in a Western style restaurant , I looked at the time on my cellphone---a few minutes to 2--and said, "I have a class at 2." They all looked surprised, but not alarmed, and I left, though they tried to get me to eat some of the sliced tomato that had come as part of dessert.

My host mother drove me back to the school with a couple of the other teachers, and I ran part of the way in, making it to my class at almost 2:10. It turned out fine though. No one seemed appalled that I was late, though I'm definitely not going to make a habit out of it.

When I finished my last class at 4 pm and came down to the teacher's room, my co-teacher told me that someone was waiting to talk to me. I expected someone from SOS, or something like that, but it turned out to be the guy I ran into at McDonald's a couple weeks ago. That was surprising and a little strange. He was sitting, in a blue suit, with a large, stuffed folder that said Chicago Hyatt on it on his knees. He suggested that we have dinner tomorrow night---or I assume that he was suggesting it, since he was actually speaking in the imperative, something that some of the English teachers do as well (the teachers also sometimes use "You had better," instead of "You should," and thus come off as vaguely threatening, even when they're suggesting that I go eat lunch or have an ice cream).

I told him that I wasn't free tomorrow night, since I might be traveling then. He then proceeded to try to figure out a time that we could meet. Since I'm traveling this weekend, and spending Chuseok with my host family, this (admittedly, to my relief) was hard to do. He asked me if I was visiting my boyfriend and even though in my head I was thinking, "Throw him off, just in case!" I said the truth, no. He knew that I'm from near San Francisco from our first meeting, and he told me that he wanted me to find tourist information about San Francisco on the internet, including a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge, and give it to him. I asked him if I could e-mail it to him, and he said he didn't have an e-mail address (which seemed strange). He said we needed to meet and I could give it to him then. Since I was busy all week, and didn't know when I could meet, he said he would come by the school again and I could give it to him then. It struck me as strange that he needed me to do internet research for him, since it seemed to me that he knew enough English to figure it out for himself, but I guess if he really doesn't have an e-mail address, then he doesn't have internet access either. It also seemed oddly coincidental that he happened to be visiting San Francisco (and why does he want a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge?). He seemed very interested in the bridge. Maybe he just wants to see a picture of it.

When he left I asked him his name and he just said, "Mr. Choi." Then put on a brown hat at an angle and walked out. I didn't feel that bothered by the interaction, but I wasn't excited at the prospect of being expected to spend time with him on a routine basis. He wasn't threatening, but his awkwardness and persistence made me a little uncomfortable.

At 4:30 the woman from SOS came. Though she wants me to start going there on Fridays instead of Thursdays, she did take me there today. My host mother had told me that the SOS manager had said that the students I'd be teaching were high school level, even though they are younger. When I asked her myself (through my co-teacher) she'd said that I should evaluate them myself.

When I got there and met the kids it was clear that they weren't very high level, though one or two of them seemed to know a lot. There was a range of ages, kids who didn't seem to know more than the ABCs and "Hello" to one kid who could speak in pretty clear sentences. The majority of them knew colors and fruits and animals and numbers, but didn't appear to know much stuff that was more complicated than that (besides routine expressions like "How are you?"). It was also a little hard to figure out how much they really knew, since they ran around screaming most of the time. I tried to get them to settle down by telling them we would play a game, but then the boys said they wanted to play a game called "Bullrush" or something like that, which seemed to involve hiding and pretending to shoot each other, though when one of them explained it to me with a diagram it seemed something like Sardines. Unfortunately it seemed as though I'd gotten their hopes up about Bullrush, because the boys kept running around and attacking each other. It wasn't too bad, I just couldn't really keep their attention for more than a few minutes at a time. In those instances I played a brief memory game with them involving fruits, introduced them to "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes," played a failed short round of "Red Light, Green Light," and tried to play "Simon Says," but didn't get very far.

Finally I figured out, almost by accident, what I should have remembered from the time I'd spent with little children. When you stand up and try to get everyone's attention you're going to have a hard time, and it can be almost impossible. But one girl seemed very eager to learn, and was trying to get me to start up again with "Simon Says." When the kids saw us speaking together quietly, they came and sat down with us one by one. And then one boy started singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" out of the blue, and we all sang it. I had gotten everyone's attention and was teaching them the words to "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" (there's a Korean song to the same tune, that's also alliterative) on the little white board when the hour was over and an SOS employee came to tell me it was time to eat. Though some of the more hyperactive kids had opted to go home, there was a small group left and they seemed disappointed to see me go, asking when they would see me again.

I went to a small cafeteria and ate some rice and soup, and conversed a little with some of the employees there. Then the manager came in and seemed relieved to see me there, as if she'd thought I'd wandered off (I'd left my bag and sweater in the classroom). She came with three older students, maybe middle school or high school, and told me that they were very good at English. After a sort of confused part Korean part English conversation with her, during which I revealed my knowledge of numbers and surprised all of them, I gathered that I would teach the older class of students at 6:40. The three students, two girls and one boy, ate at the cafeteria. They asked me a few questions, like my name and age and where I was from. We ate some chestnuts, which I identified in Korean, and they were impressed again. I was asked if I knew Korean, and I answered No, and I'm not sure if they believed me. It interesting how I accomplished that without even trying.

As we walked down to the classroom to get my stuff, the boy, who was the youngest, asked me if I had a boyfriend in California (it's a common question, from men or women). When I said no, he said, "Why?" (also a common response). It's one of those things that's so different from the U.S.--it's sort of the other side of the coin to being told by your host mother that you have a pimple or that your face is red (or actually, being asked why you have a pimple or why your face is red). It's the other side of the coin in that having it pointed out that you look bad makes you feel bad, whereas being asked why you are single is sort of a compliment. Or maybe they're just curious. Or maybe they aren't used to complexions that get red easily.

It turned out that I was actually wrong. 6:40 wasn't when class would start, but actually when one of the employees would drive me back to the apartment. The three students rode with us in the van back to Yeonhyangdong, asking me a few questions a long the way. They got out when I did and went to study. I'm guessing they had academy, which maybe explains the schedule change. Or maybe they aren't my students at all. I guess I'll find out next Friday.

So even though I was pretty unprepared and had to make stuff up on the fly for my first hour of volunteer teaching, I enjoyed myself. I'm looking forward to more. I'm more interested in playing with kids than just teaching them, and the manager actually advised me to play games with the younger kids. I don't know if I've effectively evaluated their levels, but I have some idea now. It will be fun getting to know them, and learning more about SOS Children's Village in general. It was refreshing to be spending time with smaller groups of students in a different setting.

Hangul

It was cool enough this morning that I actually wore a sweater to work, but now, this afternoon, it's pretty sunny. All the English teachers are going out to lunch in about twenty minutes. It will be nice to have an excuse to walk around outside.

Today was supposed to be my first Korean lesson with Mrs. Lee, the English teacher that is my co-teacher (not my host mother, Mrs. Lee). But then a bunch of teachers wanted me to come with them to the small store at the school to eat some snacks. I learned that when a teacher wears a new dress, she buys her friends snacks as a celebration. So instead of studying Korean, we all ate snacks. Though Mrs. Lee did speak a few sentences of Korean to me, one meaning, "What do you want to drink?" and the other meaning, I think, "Are you going to pray?" I don't remember either of them now, though maybe I could recognize them.

All the teachers at one time lead the morning worship meeting, and she wanted to know if I'm going to. There are a number of reasons why I'd rather not, of course, but I don't know how it will turn out. She also told me (in English) that she hasn't heard from the woman at SOS, who was supposed to call her when she got back from her vacation. So it's unclear whether or not I'll actually be teaching at SOS today--it was supposed to be my first day. I used to be nervous about my first day at SOS, but at this point I don't really mind whether I teach today or not until after Chuseok.

Not much else is new. I really enjoy this fall weather, though my allergies have been really bad the past couple days. I'm going to Jeonup to go hiking with Rachel. I leave Saturday and we'll hike on Sunday. The traffic is supposed to be horrible, because everyone travels on Saturday and especially Sunday in order to get to their families for Chuseok, but I'll just bring a book. I don't really have anything else to do this weekend, though I'll be hanging out with the host family on Monday and Tuesday, and maybe going hiking here with Mrs. Kim on Wednesday.

Reading: read the first chapter of "Darkness Visible" by William Golding last night. I bought the book when I was in high school because I wanted to read something else by the author of "The Lord of the Flies" but I didn't really get into it then, so I'm giving it a go now. I only read a few pages because I've been in a weird mood--haven't felt like reading, but too lazy to write, for some reason. I ended up listening to some music. Seo Jin interrupted me to help her with her Chinese homework (since I can read Korean I read her the names of the Chinese characters in Korean and she writes the Chinese) which seems to have become a sort of routine for us, which is nice. And then I went to bed a little early. I think the allergies are tiring me out.

Such great heights

I'm writing from my desk in the teacher's room, though I'll be posting this to the site probably later tonight. I found that I can't view my blog, or any other blogs for that matter, from the school. I heard something during orientation about it. The rumor is that the government blocked a lot of access to American blogs from schools, because that was where images of the Korean executed in Iraq were popping up, and they didn't want students to see it. So I can write and save messages on the blogger website, but I can't read them, and have difficulty posting them.

Yesterday was a sort of tiring Monday. I'm apprehensive about my volunteer teaching that I'll start on Thursday (teaching English to two small classes of SOS children for two hours total) and last night I also did my first night of tutoring So Young and Seo Young. On top of that I found that another English teacher, my desk neighbor and former co-teacher of last year's ETA, wants me to help with her weekly club class---and last year Brandon wrote all the lessons and she just observed. So Monday morning I was suddenly feeling very overwhelmed.

I'm feeling better now--I think Thursday will go fine, and last night tutoring was fairly painless, though my host mother sat there the entire time and watched us (and also corrected her daughter). But we just played a couple games, and for some reason they really like Hangman. And Mrs. Kim is still bringing me small gifts. She gave me something just now that I think is a food product, since it appears to have some kind of nutritional information on the side, but inside the rectangular box is a gold-colored foil pouch, slightly squishy. I have no idea what it is. I guess I'll save it for later. I've added it to the crackers, cookies, brownies and roasted chestnuts sitting on my desk, which I've been given by teachers and students.

Next week is the Korean holiday Chuseok. The actual holiday is Tuesday, but we have almost the entire week off, Monday-Wednesday. And Thursday for my school is a picnic, which only students and home room teachers go to. So I only have class on Friday. When I asked awhile ago, Mrs. Lee told me I should stay around for Chuseok, but then last night she asked me if I was going to travel. Because of our prior conversation, and because Chuseok is a huge travelling season and tickets are harder to get, I'd just assumed I wasn't going to go anywhere. A lot of ETAs are going to Jeju Island. I sort of wish I was going, because it would be nice to see it while it's still warm, but it's definitely going to be a zoo, and plane tickets sold out over a month ago. Rachel wants to go hiking this weekend, so hopefully I'll take a bus to her town and join her.

The weather has cooled down lately, though we had a thunderstorm last night, with lightening and everything. I'm currently planning a lesson involving the song "Such Great Heights." It's a recent pop song by the Postal Service, but I have a cover by Iron and Wine that is slower and sort of folky. The students will listen to the song and fill in missing words on a worksheet, and then maybe sing it. I got another ETA to send me the original version, which is fast and upbeat. I'm looking forward to seeing how the girls like the songs. I'm in the mood for a lesson that's more fun and interesting. Sure, the "Two Truths and a Lie" lesson I'm doing this week is interesting, and some students find it really fun, but I think a song will grab everyone's attention even better.

Reading: almost finished with 'East of Eden.' At first I sort of didn't like it. Steinbeck sort of reminds me of Hemingway, except he can't get away with as much. In the first couple hundred pages the only female characters either were really good at cleaning a house "down to the grain" and didn't do much else, or were evil sociopaths. But it got better later on. It is a pretty intriguing book, especially the character of Lee, a servant who turns the stereotype of the Chinese immigrant on its head. It seems to be a very purposeful, political move on Steinbeck's part, and it's historical context makes it all the more interesting. More interesting than the whole Cain and Abel theme, maybe.

Fiction written: Nothing. Maybe over Chuseok.

Moon worship (edited)

Friday afternoon Rachel arrived in Suncheon just as my last class finished. I jumped on a bus to go and retrieve her, only to find that she was at the Suncheon Bus Terminal, not Suncheon Station. Since I didn't know how to get there by bus, I gave her directions to my apartment over the phone, and she got in a cab and met me there. We hung around the apartment, "catching up" as they say, and then had dinner with my host family---that is Mrs. Lee and Seo Young. Seo In was still at school and Seo Jin was at academy, and Mr. Lee as usual was still in Gwanju, where he works. Rachel kept them on their toes by breaking out with some of the Korean we learned during Orientation, which I've never used with them.

Later Rachel and I did indeed end up at Elvis. There were some foreigners there that we didn't recognize, but they invited us to sit with them. When one of them found out we were American he seemed excited, and struck up a conversation. I guess Americans aren't nearly as common in Suncheon as Canadians are. He was from Detroit, and from the two hours we experienced listening to him, I've constructed this rough timeline of his life:

At age 20 he entered the Elementary Education bachelor's program at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He chose the field because his Irish-Catholic family didn't have very much money, and there were scholarships available for this major. During his time in Michigan he fostered an interest in art, especially pen and ink drawing, but never studied art academically, something which he regrets. Most of his friends were in computer science, and moved to Silicon Valley. At some point he became a tattoo artist in Detroit, and did such work as touching up prision tattoos, and tattooing the names of dead men on their friends bodies. During the year after he graduated he taught many grades in a one-room school in an Iniut village in Alaska, where he was given the Inuit name "Gomgechuq," which means, "the part of the fish that is thrown away," in other words, fishbones, because he was so thin. His roommate during Orientation in Alaska was given the name "Six Toes" because of injuries due to frostbite, which also resulted in an gangrenous hole in the bottom of Six Toes' foot, which he never seemed very bothered by. He has also visited Mexico with his aunt, and viewed murals by Diego Rivera. Since the summer of 2000 our friend has been living, perhaps intermittenly, in South Korea, in different towns, teaching English. Currently he works for the province, and gets paid twice as much as we ETAs do (he seemed surprised that we make only 1.4 million won a month, and appalled that we must live with host families). He often goes hiking and rock climbing, and has seen Korean raccoons and awoken to wild pigs in his campsite. Recently he married a Korean woman. Once, his best friend, who was also the best man at his wedding, asked him a favor. This favor consisted of tattooing an alligator over the addendix scar of a Korean gangster. He has also tattooed his friends with such images as Chinese ink paintings and crows flying upwards. He now has a two month-old son (he proudly exhibited photographs of the infant a few moments after meeting us). Our friend turned 29 last month. This winter he plans to visit the States and bring his tattooing equipment with him. He offered to show my friend Rachel, a pen and ink artist, how to tattoo. He has people in Korea who have asked for tattoo work (all gangsters, since tattoos have not yet become acceptable in the mainstream in Korea), and she is welcome to observe, or use his equipment to practice on a melon.

Maybe my favorite part of the conversation was when he asked us our religions. My friend Rachel, always very genuine, said, "I worship the moon." He said, "What?" She said, "I pay a lot of attention to the moon." Without missing a beat, he said, "Well, it's hard not to."

He was surprised that we were so young. When he found out I was an English major, he asked my advice on a screenplay he was working on, and gave us plenty of advice on places to hike in Korea. He had a tattoo on his arm of a winged lion and a flag with an eight-pointed star (a Buddhist symbol). It was done by his tattoo teacher, but he was dissatisfied with it, though he wore a sleeveless shirt that exposed it. He showed us the flaws in the wings, and it seemed familiar to me--maybe I was recalling the drawing lessons I took back in Michigan when I was pretty young, which were consumed by drawing from photographs of animals. "Feathers aren't rounded at the bottom, are they?" No they are not, they're tapered, blade-like. Don't trace the wing in first and fill it in with feathers later--draw each feather individually, or, like in this tattoo, you end up with feathers squeezed in that look like they are just filling up space, in that little wedge between the vertical feathers and the wingtip.

As he reminded us a couple times, a tattoo is not like pencil, you can't erase it, and it's not like pen and ink, you can't throw it away. But the special nature of the tattoo as a work of art, with a living person as the medium, makes it an amazing experience for the artist.

When our friend left the bar a few minutes before we did, he told us that speaking to us had been like a breath of fresh air. Maybe he was happy to see new people to tell his stories to, people that had their own associations with Ann Arbor and Alaska, nonetheless, I have to admit I enjoyed listening to him.

This morning Rachel and I took a bus to Gwanju, where we met nine other ETAs that happened to be in Gwanju as well, most of them attending a baseball gave that evening. For the sake of seeing everyone, we met them for lunch at TGI Friday's, a place I've actually never been to in the States. Almost everyone got a chicken quesadilla--I guess some kind of clue to what kind of food most people are missing in Korea.

Joanne and Rachel and I had met up intending to check out the Gwanju Biennial, a large art exhibit downtown, but we ended up spending a lot of the day at a small street fair, that sort of reminded me of something called the Solano Stroll that we have in Albany. There were various booths, which appeared to be mostly non-profit or governmental organizations, and a huge stage with singing and dancing. At one point we watched a troupe of elementary or middle school girls dance in silver lame to a medly of different pop songs (including 'Toxic'). The performance was completed by a huge video screen in back, and occassionally accented by blow torches and strobe lights.

We also saw a few girls dressed up like comic book characters walking around the fair. We recognized the practice, since we'd seen photos of it before, and apparently it's fairly popular. These girls, mostly high school girls, make their own costumes and show up at events where numerous people photograph them. I had my camera with me and took a few pictures at the fair, though only one of them was of a costumed person.

Eventually we worked our way to a free event that was part of the art exhibit, located in a subway station. We saw a couple interesting/vaguely creepy modern art installments, and also a lot of paintings, and a few sculptures that appeared to be done by local artists. Then we went down to the train platform and rode the subway back to the bus terminal. Joanne headed to Jeonju, Rachel back to Jeonup, and I got on a bus to Suncheon. I got off at the University and got on the old reliable 71 that takes me straight to the apartment. After I came into the apartment, my host mother asked me if I'd had a good time and said I looked sad. I was tired and hungry, but maybe I was already missing my friends. It was nice to see people again, even if it was only for a few hours. Over all, I think my first trip outside of Suncheon since I started teaching was a success. Gwanju is a large city, with a lot to do, and so I hope to go back there again and maybe get to know it well.

Reading: I started "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck Thursday night, though I haven't read any of it since.

Carrying a rabbit's foot

I resumed classes this week only to find that there was another mock test scheduled for Thursday. The mock tests are preparation for the momentous college entrance exam that all third year high school students in Korea take in October, and which decides what university they will attend. I guess since the test isn't far away now the school is assigning them more frequently. That means no classes for me today, though I came in to do some lesson preparation. I sat in an empty classroom for about two and half hours watching some U.S. television that I'd taped before leaving Portland, and recording what was on it for possible lesson use in the future. Apparently a lot of Will and Grace gets played in the afternoons in Portland.

When I came back from watching the video, I found a container of kimbap (the Korean equivalent of a sushi roll) on my desk, from Mrs. Kim, the chemistry teacher here who wants me to tutor her daughter. I realized that though I'd told Mrs. Lee I'd do it (free of charge, as we're not allowed to get paid for anything outside of our Fulbright arrangement), we haven't discussed any other details, and felt a little guilty, wondering if Mrs. Kim thought I was having second thoughts.

Not too much is new. It looks like my trip to Maisan National Park to go hiking is canceled, because thunderstorms are predicted all weekend. Rachel and I decided to check out Gwanju instead, a fairly large city only about an hour away from me. As it stands now, Rachel's going to come to Suncheon on Friday afternoon and spend the night at my host family's house, and then we might head to Gwanju Saturday morning. There's a big art exhibit going on there, called the Gwanju Biennenial, I think, and some other ETAs plan to be there this Saturday as well. If Rachel comes, it will be nice to show her around Suncheon a little, maybe pay a visit to the 'expat bar' I got a look at last weekend.

Yesterday my three third years dropped by my desk to say hi. I was a little busy yesterday, so we didn't have much time to talk. One of them had given me an English newspaper the day before, asking me to read an article on female circumcision in Kenya that she had read, and wanted to discuss. From what I'd been told to expect from female students, in terms of sensitive subjects like this, I was surprised. I was happy to discuss the article (and I was impressed), but there wasn't time yesterday. Hopefully later.

I did try to explain to them what "Break a leg!" means, since they'd asked me before, and I'd found it in a book, "101 American Superstitions" that Brandon, the ETA last year, had left behind. When I showed it to them, they asked me about the facing page, which had the title "Carrying a rabbit's foot." I tried to explain that some Americans carry a rabbit's foot around for good luck. They looked utterly confused, so I tried to draw a picture of one, key chain and all, and explain "good luck charm." They were simply horrified. I don't know what I was expecting, really.

Been talking to my friend Amanda from Albany about seeing her this winter break. Looks like I'll probably be spending Christmas in Thailand. It will be really nice to see a friend from home.

Reading: Finished "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and the second and the third Harry Potter books. My host sister Seo In owns the latter. Harry Potter books are some of the few English-language books that are easy to find in Korea, so I'll probably end up reading the whole series (a little behind, I know).

Fiction written: no new pages recently, but revising on something I started for a novella class a few semesters ago.

Back to school

Now I'm back at school after quite a long break. I'm usually a little nervous at the start of the week, since it means I'm navigating a whole new lesson, but this morning I was a little more anxious, having been away for five whole days. Today I'm doing an acrostic poem lesson (if anyone remembers this from grade school, it's when you write a 'poem' describing yourself, with each adjective starting with a letter from your name). It's going pretty smoothly. I give students who finish early a word search puzzle, after checking over their poem. Some of them seem to think that 'jealous' and 'embarassed' are positive adjectives; and I don't think they're confused about what the words mean, since they get them all from their dictionaries. Since they're using their dictionaries, and adjectives that start with K and J are few, they also use words that seem archaic to me, like 'jocund' and 'jimdandy.' I don't mind, since they seem to be increasing their vocabularies.

So Saturday was fun. Spent about five hours with the third graders. First we went out to lunch (the ubiquitous bibimbap) then to Baskin Robbins for ice cream, which we took to a cafe where you can sit in your own private room. They enjoyed talking, and asked me a lot of questions about American high school, revelations to which they usually responded with sighs and envy. They were particularly disappointed that Korean students never get any kind of graduation party (Oo Jong had seen a graduation party in an American movie once). We also talked about how both Japan and China are trying to claim areas of Korea as being theirs--there's a dispute over an island that is siuated between Korea and Japan, and China is trying to claim that the ancient kingdom of Cogureyo (not sure of the spelling) which Korean history names as one of the three original kingdoms of Korea, was actually Chinese. The students seemed very despondent about it. They feel like Korea has no power in the world, so it just has to submit to unjust claims such as these (though the articles I've read, in the Korea Herald and the New York Times, seem pretty astute to China's motivations).

After this we tried to go see a movie, but since the timing wasn't right, we went to an arcade. I made another attempt at playing Dance Dance Revolution. It took me a little while to convince one of the girls to play with me, and then it became clear that the game was malfunctioning (after it took our money). So then we played some driving games and shooting games. There was a sticker photo booth at the arcade, but they knew of a better deal, so we walked to some sort of indoor marketplace that had a variety of different photo booths. And we ended up taking like five different pictures. Maybe I'll post some when I figure out how. They sort of defy description.


We were all thirsty from the hard work of posing, so we went to McDonald's to get something to drink. I've yet to actually eat at a fast food restaurant here, but Koreans have taken me to both Burger King and McDonald's to get drinks or desserts. I managed to buy them their drinks (they'd insisted on treating all day), and the transaction went pretty smoothly. (Chocolite shaykuh, banilla shaykuh, cola, ohrange juysuh.) I even caught on when she conveyed to me that they were out of chocolate shakes. But at the end the clerk asked me a question and made a gesture that I didn't quite understand. It appeared to me that she was pointing to some kind of Ron McDonald donation box, so I shook my head, and she looked at me wide-eyed and said, "Anio?" (No?). And we stood there awkwardly for a moment. Then a Korean guy popped up and asked me if he could help (in English). I tried to explain to him that I didn't know what she was asking, and though his English was pretty good, he seemed confused as well. Then she repeated herself, and he turned me and said, "Four thousand." And I felt silly, because I'd been standing there the whole time with a 10,000 won note in my hand, and it'd never occured to me that she'd just been telling me the price. Even though I know numbers in Korean at this point, I'm still not good at hearing them, I guess.

I took the drinks to the girls, and a few moments later the English-speaking guy popped by again and asked me some questions about myself (Where are you from? What state? What do you think of Korean high school?). The girls were pretty impressed with his ability--mostly he spoke confidently and in full sentences. It turned out he was self-taught, too, which was somewhat notable as he didn't really resemble a business man or teacher, the professions I've been told benefit the most from knowing English.

Saturday night I met Jairus and some of the frisbee folks because Abi is leaving Suncheon on Wednesday. Abi is an American who my host mother is friends with, and Abi's the one who invited me to play frisbee initially. She's really nice, it's too bad she's going back to the States now. I got to see a bit of the expat scene, which was interesting. I think there must be at least fifty westerners in Suncheon, probably most of them teaching English at private academies, though I have met a few that work for the University. They are all very different, and many seem pretty different from me, but at the same time, I feel like I'm undeniably part of their group. It will be interesting getting to know them.

Sunday it rained pretty hard most of the day, so unfortunately, no frisbee. I rented a movie and watched it on my computer with my host sisters (and host mother, for part of it). Catch Me if You Can. At one point when Christopher Walken, who plays Leonardo Dicaprio's loving father, was talking to his son, my host mother turned to me and asked: "The father bad?" I said, "No..." But couldn't really explain. How do you explain that Christopher Walken is just sinister, even when he's playing a kind character?

Reading: Still working through Mark Twain. Started "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde.

Fiction written: worked on that failed short story for part of Saturday.

Friday night

Last night I got together with Jairus, a fellow Fulbright ETA who teaches at Maesan High School, which is the male counterpart to my school (founded by the same Presbyterian monks way back when). We met at the University, and played pool (called pocketball here, to differentiate it from the more popular billiards), and then, on our way to check out an establishment owned by one of his students, we ducked inside an arcade and played a couple games of Dance Dance Revolution. Jairus had just discovered this game the previous weekend, and I've actually played the Japanese version in the States. For those who don't know, it's a video game with a square foot-pad that you dance on. The aim is to step in the right places when the game tells you to. We played pretty badly the first time (or I should say I played pretty badly, Jairus was a dance machine), but the second time we actually passed each level, despite the crippling toe-cramp that I experienced after the first song the second time around. The student's place was closed, so I headed home in time to catch the second to last bus back to my neighborhood.

I woke up at 8:30 this morning, after going to bed at 11:30, when Seo Young woke me to tell me she was going to school. I think she feels responsible for me during the time between when her mother leaves and she goes to school, which is sort of endearing. She often provides me with cereal in the morning if I get up in time.

It's pouring now, which means that maybe Jairus and I won't be visiting Suncheon Bay today. We'll see what happens. I can't believe it's only Saturday.

Fiction written: reworking an old story that I wrote for my thesis, but that didn't make it in.

how to eat small bones

Today was the second day of my five-day weekend. I only teach first and second graders; the first graders are on an excursion to Jeju Island, and the second graders have some sort of camping trip/training, thus I found myself with no classes Wednesday through Friday. I had hopes to take advantage of this break and take a trip within Korea, maybe up north to my friend Rachel's town, but it turned out not to be a good weekend for that. Thus I am still here in Suncheon, trying to put off starting my fifth or sixth novel of the past three weeks, and with plans to hike with Rachel next weekend, at a mountain near Jeonju.

Today actually turned out to be pretty eventful. I woke up intending to visit school, though I'd gotten permission from the vice-principal to not come in. Even though I only teach twenty hours a week, teachers are expected to come to school whether or not they have classes, and I am generally at school from 8:30 am to 6:00 pm, even though I never have more than four hours of class a day. On Tuesday I'd made plans with some third grade girls to go out and do something not this weekend, but next weekend. The third graders have pretty good English (third graders are the equivalent of high school seniors in the U.S.), and a small group of them has gotten into the habit of coming by my desk and chatting during breaks. Now that my travel plans had changed, I wanted to see if I could reschedule with them and go see a movie or norebang (karaoke) this weekend instead of next.

When I told my host mother (who is also a teacher at the school) my intentions, she told me she could call the school and talk to one of them, so that I wouldn't have to go. Luckily, I remembered one of their names, almost--Oo Jong (though I remembered it as Eun Jong). Oo Jong had the foresight to tell me that her name meant friendship in Korea, which helped me remember as much as I did. I find Korean names hard to remember in general, though hopefully that will improve in time.

My host mother called up Mr. O, the homeroom teacher for all the third graders, and a nice man who took me out to eat my first week in Suncheon, and asked to speak to Eun Jong. After Mrs. Lee reminded me repeatedly of what Oo Jong's name actually was, I spoke to the student.

"We have a test in two weeks," she said, a little woodenly. "Sorry. We can't make it. Maybe we play after."

"Oh," I said, sensing something a little strange. They'd already made plans to hang out with me within the next two weeks (and had been extremely excited when I'd suggested it). And they probably didn't just hear of this exam. "Okay," I said. "See you later."

I hung up feeling bad, wondering if maybe I'd gotten them into an awkward situation. I didn't think the school would object to me spending time with students outside of school, but high school students in Korea, especially third years, have a lot of pressure to study constantly. On Tuesday the girls had told me about places that they liked to go for fun, and they used (admirably, since it is an idiom) the expression "playing hooky." I wasn't sure whether to interpret it to mean that they actually skipped school, or that they just neglected their studies--studying for hours outside of class is so ubiquitious, so it was easy to assume that by playing hooky they meant simply not studying as much as they usually do.

Sure enough, maybe less than an hour later I received a call on my cell-phone. "Do you know who this is?" a young female voice said. "It's friendship!" She sounded excited and cheerful, the disposition that I was used to when conversing with this group of third graders. In fact, I could hear the voices of the others in the background. She admitted that when talking to me earlier, she'd been 'embarassed.' I drew the conclusion that Mr. O or some other teacher had been present, and possibly disapproving of the fact that the girls were going to take time off from studying when there was an exam coming up. Oo Jong and I had a quick, and somewhat difficult conversation through which we decided that we would meet near the school at 1 pm on Saturday. We'd go out to lunch, and then maybe go do something else. I hung up feeling better, until I realized that the third graders had class until 6 pm on Saturdays. So I found myself in another, similar quandary. My host mother was a teacher at the same school, and I would have to tell her where I was going when I headed out to meet them for lunch. If they skipped class that day, it would be understood that they skipped it in order to hang out with me, the new English teacher. That obviously could be a bit problematic.

Mrs. Lee was home today in order to get a medical check-up. She was going with Mrs. Kim, a chemistry teacher at Maesan Girls' High School who is very warm and friendly, and enjoys attempting to speak with me, even though she knows very little English and Mrs. Lee often has to phrase the entire question for her--so that when she does finally ask me herself, I've already had the question previewed a couple times. My host family knows that I've been pretty bored lately, so Mrs. Lee invited me to come along, and afterwards we would go somewhere. We met Mrs. Kim down in front of the apartment, and it was realized that Mrs. Kim had forgotten that she wasn't supposed to eat this morning, in preparation for the check-up. Thus the doctor's was skipped and we simply continued on to Gurye, a small rural area just outside Suncheon.

As usual, I had no idea what we were going to do in Gurye until we got there. I'm not consistently kept informed of what's going on, even though Mrs. Lee speaks English pretty well. So I've gotten used to sort of sitting back and waiting to see what happens. The only time this causes any frustration is when Mrs. Lee, or the other Mrs. Lee (my co-teacher at the high school), reminds me to say 'Thank you,' or properly insa (greeting someone when arriving or leaving). I get a little (inwardly) frustrated because it isn't that I don't know how to be polite--I generally try to say thank you, and we were well-apprised of Korean ettiquette during orientation--but I've become sort of slow on the uptake, due to generally being surrounded by people rapidly speaking Korean, and telling me what to do and where to go. So my timing is off. I'm often not sure if we're actually leaving, or if the person is coming with us, or so on.

During the drive I received a text message from Jin Hwa, one of the other third graders. Once, when I'd been walking with them during lunch, she'd sprayed one of her classmates with melted chocolate ice cream while gesticulating a bit too wildly as she struggled to construct a sentence in English. The text message simply said, "Hi, this is Jin Hwa," but I saw an opportunity and seized it. "hi!," I wrote back, "are you going to skip class on saturday? i must tell [and here I wrote my host mother's name in Korean letters, and began to run out of space] i am lunch with u." I followed it with a second message, "i don't want to get you in trouble!" Eventually she wrote back, "we are not trouble maker! only self study-time, not class time." So there, that problem was solved, to my relief. If they weren't worried I wasn't.

Mrs. Kim turned down a dirt road that appeared to cross farmland. We pulled up in front of a house with a long half-cylindrical tent attached to its side. A large square tank near the door was filled with large silver fish. Mrs. Lee explained that this was an eel restaurant, and we were stopping here for lunch, a little early because Mrs. Lee had not eaten breakfast and was very hungry. I was a little excited, I'd been looking forward to trying the eel dish in this area, and a little worried. I'd liked the eel that I've had at sushi restaurants in the states, but they called this eel here 'baked eel' so I wasn't sure what to expect.

Turns out the 'baked eel' that is popular in this area is quite similar to unagi, the barbequed eel I'd had back home. Except this eel was warmed on a metal grill over some coals at our table, and like all of the barbeque or grilled food that I've had here, was eaten wrapped in lettuce or sesame leaf, with red pepper paste, raw garlic, and a couple other options (which actually included soy sauce and wasabi). It was preceded by small bowls of eel soup and some long thin fried things that turned out to be eel bones.

"Lots of calcium," said Mrs. Lee. They really do use everything here when it comes to food. They even make a kimchi from the leaves of pepper plants. Mrs. Lee echoed my thoughts a little later. The eel is very useful, she explained. "This is the bones, and this soup is made from the eel's head." Eel's head soup. I'd already tasted some and enjoyed it, though it did have a slightly odd texture. But I couldn't write it off now. I liked the eel bone too, though I had to admit that while crunching on them I couldn't help but be reminded of some fairy-tale where a giant chews a man up whole in his mouth--the way it crunched was disgestable but strangely and undeniably something's spine.

I enjoyed the main course, like unagi but a whole lot more of it. A little boney, but at this point I've grown used to just eating the smaller bones, the ones I know won't hurt me, sort of like watermelon seeds.

After the restaurant we headed to a nearby temple, another half hour's drive. There are two fairly famous temples near Suncheon; I'd visited the other with the vice principal of my school in the first week of classes, on Friday when my classes were canceled for a mock test. This one was nice as well, with a couple national treasures--including an arched bridge over a small river, with a carved dragon's head on the underside. I think it was originally built in the 800s.

We walked for a little while, then headed back home, arriving around four in the afternoon. In the car Mrs. Kim gave me a present of a traditional tea cup--a fairly large clay cup with a lid that also serves as a small dish. I wasn't sure how to respond, and felt a little bad for not being more talkative. Mrs. Lee sometimes gently scolds me for not being more talkative, ("Why don't you say a word?") when I answer a question with just yes or no, or when I was sitting quietly in the back seat during the ride. I'm not a very talkative person in general, and it's a bit harder when speaking to be understood is more of an effort, and I often feel left out of the conversation by default. It's not really a complaint, Mrs. Lee is very caring and friendly, but more something I acknowledge I should do but for some reason don't have the energy for it. It's probably some sort of phase.

In fact, when we got home, I was unusually tired, and finally gave into a nap. After I got up, Mrs. Lee teased me about having weak muscles. I tried to explain to her that my muscles weren't tired (after all, I played frisbee a couple weeks ago, and didn't nap afterwards, and this walk wasn't difficult at all) but that I was lethargic. It was hard to explain, because I don't quite understand it myself.

A little later Mrs. Lee told me that Mrs. Kim wants me to tutor her daughter (a middle schooler I met the other night named So Young) along with Mrs. Lee's daughter, my host sister (Seo Young, no relation other than a similarity in names). This is the first time anything like this has come up, but we were told to expect it. We can easily decline, cite being too busy or our contract or what not, but it's only once a week and it probably won't be too much work. Even though I know Mrs. Kim is genuinely friendly and likes spending time with me, I couldn't help thinking, So that explains the gift. Especially after Mrs. Lee said that Mrs. Kim had this idea ever since she heard that Mrs. Lee was going to have a native English speaker staying in her home. But apparently this sort of gift-giving, that can be construed as bribery or something like that, isn't that strange here, and I don't think people view it the same way. I think Mrs. Kim wants me to help her daughter speak English better, so that her daughter can do well in school and eventually do well on the college entrance exam and go to a good college, but at the base of it I think Mrs. Kim really wants to be my friend as well.

That's it for today I think. Might post again in a few days. Tomorrow I'm not doing much, but Saturday I'm meeting Oo Jong and the crew, and possibly visiting Suncheon Bay which I've wanted to see for awhile. And then there's frisbee again on Sunday.

Current reading material: just finished Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison, continuing with The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain.

Fiction written: this week, about 5 pages. Nothing today.