on the flipside

Back in the States now. Worn out. Bye Korea. I don't know if my host family knows how much I appreciate them, but maybe they saw me crying as the bus to Seoul pulled away.

Friends: get in touch with me. I want to see you now.

Rachel

Rachel
Originally uploaded by TJF.

This is my friend Rachel. She's in L.A. now, and I have to admit this small country feels a little emptier. Okay, I'm going to get off the computer and do something more productive with my third-to-last day in Korea.

stem cell research

stem cell research
Originally uploaded by TJF.

Haeundae

Haeundae
Originally uploaded by TJF.

At the beach in Busan last weekend. Me, Seo Jin, Seo Young (my two youngest host sisters) and our friend Sae Gyung.

only everywhere except North America

Yesterday we went to the Busan Aquarium so that I can at least say I've seen something in Busan (the second largest city in Korea, about 2 and a half hours east of Suncheon). The aquarium resembled a much smaller version of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, with no cute sea otters. Another thing that struck me was that the animals seemed capable of seeing me through the glass. That shouldn't be that strange, but at all the acquarium's I've visited I've never thought that the fish could see me. Yesterday when I approached the penguin exhibit several penguins were diving close to the glass, and a couple, apparently thinking we would feed them, kept following our hands. I would drag my finger across the glass and the penguin would be working his beak like my appendage was a little fish he wanted to gobble up. It was cool for awhile, but then it felt too much like taunting and I stopped.

The other two memorable experiences were the glass-bottomed boat ride over one of the largest tanks (it actually scared me a little---but now I can say I've been in a boat mere meters from a man-eating shark) and then watching foreign female synchronized swimmers dressed up as mermaids swimming around in that same tank that contained the man-eating shark. Of course I don't speak Korean very well, but I could tell that they were acting out some of the storyline from "The Little Mermaid" movie. I may be wrong, but I filed that away under "Only in Korea," both for the introducing of people dressed as mermaids to aquarium tanks, and the blatant copyright infringement. Though I realized recently that when I say "Only in Korea" it really means, "Only Everywhere Except North America."

The Aquarium is right near Haeundae Beach, so we went out and wallowed in the waves a little before heading back home. Busan was definitely in full summer mode, there were people walking around in bikinis and everything (a little head-turning for us humble country-folk). It was definitely hot enough to go swimming, the rainy season has ended and now we're just being baked constantly, but I'd left my swimsuit at home because I wanted to avoid a 10-hour plane ride with a painful sunburn.

I enjoy spending time with my host family, but it's unfortunate that traveling seems to bring out the worst in me (i.e. I get quietly irritable) and my host mother (who has a tendency to seem anxious and bossy in most situations, anyway). We had fun together, and with Saegyung and Saegyung's mother, friends of the family who came along to Busan, but I was conscious of being maybe not fun enough or upbeat enough. These next couple days will be laid-back, as I just tie up a few loose ends.

good-bye seoul

Just got back from my last weekend in Seoul, three full days split pretty evenly between time with my host mother and two younger host sisters at museums and sight-seeing, and hanging out with Fulbrighters for the last time ever. I'm pretty tired now, didn't sleep a whole lot this weekend. Rachel flew out today. Last night I had a lot of fun, a little drinking and a lot of good conversation with my favorite folks. Tomorrow I think I'm still on to go to Busan with my host mother and two host sisters again, to see a few sights. My last week in Korea is burning down.

I sealed the deal on a used car yesterday, a 1989 Subaru wagon that has a lot of miles but is in good condition considering (a friend of mine back in Portland who knows cars pretty well did me a huge favor and checked it out). Only paying $550 for it, so I'll be happy if I can learn on it (yep, still no license) and maybe get one or two good roadtrips out of it before it dies. I don't intend to drive a lot when I get back to Portland, since I'll be living in a good area for walking and biking. I'm only really buying it in case I get a job that needs a car, and realistically, if I don't own a car soon who knows when I'll get around to getting my license. When I get back to the States I'll pretty much have everything I need---a car, an apartment, even a cell-phone...everything except a job. I do have ANOTHER phone interview later this week, the morning before I leave Korea actually, and the woman seems very interested, so that's a good sign. I'm still checking Craigslist obsessively out of habit, but I am going to have to give the job search a rest until I'm back in the States I think.

Which reminds me, what's going to become of this blog when I get state-side again? I don't know, I guess it'll probably just disappear. As exotic and fun being back in Portland will seem to me at first, I would have a hard time convincing myself it's worth blogging about. If you have any thoughts on this matter, feel free to use the comments link to let me know.

dreams

I had weird, very complex, very vivid dreams last night, which I can't really recall completely or explain, but one part that was very vivid (and possibly the only part that was related to Korea) was when I decided to adopt these dogs. One of the dogs was a Burmese mountain dog, though for some reason it's alternate name was Lhasa Apso (spelling?) which is of course a completely different breed, and anyway the dog looked nothing like either breeds, it looked sort of like a husky but brown. I'm not sure why I was acquiring this dog, I was also adopting like three others and it was for some purpose. The creepy part was when I walked in on a kitchen full of ajummas, older Korean women, and they were creating this soup with these long strips of fresh, red meat in them. They had these pans of cooked noodles and vegetables they tossed this meat in and I watched it turning brown as it cooked. Thinking about it, it reminds me of when I was in Vietnam getting noodle soup from street vendors. But seeing this alarmed me, and I ran into the other room, where my new dog was sitting quite calmly, except that his right foreleg was completely gone. There was even a bloody stump. They'd cut off his leg and made this soup from it. I ran back into the kitchen and started yelling at the ajummas in broken Korean, "Anio, boshintang, andeyo!" Boshintang is 'dog soup' though I've never seen it and I'm sure it doesn't resemble the soup in my dream at all.

I'm not sure why I had this dream about boshintang now, since the eating of dogs in Korea has never really been an issue for me (though I don't think I could bring myself to try it). I do associate Burmese mountain dogs with the dog-eating practice in Korea, since a friend I met up with in Japan, Vince, told me that his grandmother breeds those dogs and once declined an order from a Korean buyer when she discovered they wanted them for eating. But according to my students and anyone I've asked in Korea, only mutts are eaten in Korea, because I guess purebreed dogs are seen as too valuable to eat. Maybe some people have more discerning palates. As for the image of the severed foreleg, I attribute that to my recent viewing of "Sin City." I wish I could tell you that my dog was okay, but I don't remember.

So I'm finished with school. Yesterday was very sad for me, not just saying good-bye to the students but saying good-bye to certain teachers who have been very kind to me even though we can't communicate well. We had a particular way of relating to each other that's impossible to continue once I've left, so maybe that's why it makes me sadder. The computer is incredibly slow at the moment, so maybe I'll write more later.

the breaking point

I officially lost it, after the televised address to the students and the bouquet. I was doing okay on the way back to the teacher's room, but then two female teachers met me at the door and one, one who has been particularly sweet to me all year, sort of made "awww" sounds (something in Korean) and patted my back, and then I abruptly turned around and went into the bathroom. I think they knew what I was up to, but I was okay with that. I rested my bouquet on the windowsill and cried in a stall for a little while and now I'm back. The lunch is in the few minutes, I gotta go, I just hope I don't break down more, as I tend to get tearful easily after the seal's been broken.

Cleaning house

I just finished cleaning out my desk, sorting through the files on this old, slow PC, writing a letter to the next native speaker (not a Fulbrighter---a woman from New Zealand who I actually met back in August and played ultimate frisbee with a couple times). I remember so vividly coming into this room for the first time, and sitting down at my new desk, and seeing the post-it on my monitor from the last ETA, telling me the password to log in. And reading the letter from that ETA, a handsome Korean-American guy, devoutly Christian, who knew exactly what he wanted to do with the next 10 years of his life (I mean it, he actually did a 10-year plan type lesson with his classes).

Tomorrow is my actual last day at school, but all there's really going to be is an end of semester ceremony and then I'm going to say a few words to the teachers, and there'll be a lunch or party of sorts in my honor. I think I'm dealing with my anxiety over leaving by being alternately irritable and melancholy (and worrying too much about the gifts I'm bringing back for my family, and who I should get good-bye gifts for here in Korea). I haven't gotten too emotional with any of my classes, because I know if I did, we'd just start feeding off of each other and we'd all get sentimental and I'd probably end up in tears. Not that that would be a bad thing in and of itself, but I think the students and teachers would probably be more uncomfortable than appreciative. But it might make me feel better, and be sort of appropriate if I did burst into tears at least once before I leave Korea, since I cried suddenly and unexpectedly last summer when saying good-bye to both parents, at different times.

Might as well get sentimental. I said good-bye to the kids at SOS, the place I volunteer once a week, except I felt horrible afterwards because I decided at the last moment to make that particular day my last day and I don't think all the kids knew it. And also because I'm going to miss those kids a lot, those hyperactive, somewhat bratty but brilliant kids. So I'm going back to SOS one more time, a couple days before I leave Korea, to have the little good-bye party with them that I'd always pictured I'd have. To do it right this time I guess, though it feels too sentimental because I know it won't necessarily make it easier, and maybe I'm just doing it because I hope they'll seem less indifferent this time. Even 10 year-olds try to play it cool, I guess, it's not just me.

This afternoon I'm going to go to the noraebang (singing room) with some students from one of my favorite classes. That feels like the proper way to say good-bye, laughing and making a fool of myself and pretending that life is normal and I might see them all when classes start again. But instead I'll be in Portland, probably still looking for a job. The world keeps turning but I'm on the other side of it.

progress

This morning my host mother asked me if I'd read today's paper, and when I said no (I'd just gotten up, and anyway the English language newspaper is always about a day behind the Korean one) she told me that it had been discovered that the four men involved in the London bombings were Englishmen, from Pakistan. This was very shocking to her.

Yesterday she spoke to a former student of hers who is currently living in England, and this morning she told me that her student had said that there are many different kinds of people living in London (Jews, 'Islamics', Americans...), and that there is a lot of fighting, and that this prevents London from 'progressing' (an interesting choice of words, I thought).

I think I probably made a very obvious face when I said that I think having lots of different kinds of people living together is a good thing, even if it sometimes has problems.

She nodded, then said, "But Jews and Islamics together?" exhaled and gave me a look as if to say, "What were they thinking?"

back where we started

So here I am in Seoul again, writing from a PC bang (internet cafe, though really it's a bunch of high school and university age boys smoking and playing Starcraft) near Insadong. I came to Seoul via a two-hour train ride from Chuncheon. It's Sunday night, but because of finals, I don't have to be at school until Wednesday, so I decided to come to Seoul and spend tomorrow shopping, picking up some gifts and stuff, since I don't know when I'll get another chance to do that. I'm staying at the old standby, the Emerald Motel, practically the only place in Seoul I ever stay (I even took my mom there). I tried to get them to give me a discount since it's just me in a room for two, but the guy refused (the standard rate is 35, though they try to tell you 40, until you show them you're savvy, so it kind of makes sense that he wouldn't give me a 'second' discount). I felt a little put out by this, but I got the room anyway and on my way there I encountered a somewhat bewildered Korean man in the hallway who looked very happy to see me. He said something to me about the air conditioner and beckoned me into his room. His accent was a little odd, so at first I thought maybe he was a Japanese tourist, though I'm pretty sure he is Korean. I toed off my shoes and stepped in and realized, as he stood there mopping his brow, that he couldn't get his air conditioner to turn on. I showed him that he needed to use the remote control that also controls the TV, and when the air conditioner came on with a jingle he looked so happy, I decided it was worth the full price of the room just to help him out.

On Friday afternoon I took the train from Suncheon to Jeonju, a pleasant, cheap two-hour ride. I met Joanne there for lunch, and ice cream afterwards, which was fun, and then I met Rachel at the bus terminal to take a bus to Chuncheon. After being solicited by a Jehovah's Witness, which happens to me with strange frequency in Korea, we took the bus the 3 1/2 hours back to the town where we first set foot in Korea. I think less than an hour after arriving we were eating nokcha-pingsu (a sort of ice cream sundae with lots of fresh fruit and green tea flavoring sprinkled on top). And immediately after we finished the dessert, a number of new ETAs, out with their Korean language partners (members of the university's English conversation club), arrived to try it themselves, so we met a few new ETAs that night. I actually only met a few new ETAs the entire weekend, but those I did meet seemed very cool. We answered some questions they had about stuff like our schools and learning Korean, but they were still pretty jet-lagged since they all had only arrived in Korea the morning before.

Saturday afternoon, Rachel and I went to the meeting of the KEY club (Kangwon English Yard--Kangwon University is the school I mentioned above, and the location of the Fulbright ETA orientation). Rachel got a lot of the KEY club members this past winter as well as last summer. At the meeting we went to there was one guy I remembered from Orientation and that Rachel is pretty good friends with, and after the KEY Club meeting (which was an hour of English discussion and then a small talk in English by a KEY club member), our friend (English name Johnny) invited us to go to a board game bang (board game cafe). I'd never been to an establishment like this, so we went, along with two freshmen from KEY club. It was a lot of fun. We played an assortment of games. The most familiar one was Jenga, and the strangest was this completely random game where you stick little plastic swords into slots on this 'barrel' that has a 'pirate' in it, and one of the slots is a 'boobytrap' so that when a sword is inserted the pirate springs out of the barrel. The way we played, whoever got the boobytrap was hit with a plastic mallet as punishment.

After the board game cafe we were a little hungry, so we invited the three guys to come with us for another round of nokcha-pingsu. Afterwards, we had a couple hours before we had to meet some friends for dinner, but the boys (who, since they were all younger than us, called us 'nuna,' which I found really endearing) wanted to go to a noraebang (karaoke room) so we figured we could do that for an hour. It was a good time, though it's an activity I usually reserve for after I've had a few beers, and the three guys were really good singers (and really enjoyed themselves, which made it all the more fun).

After a dinner of dakkalbi (the chicken dish that is a Chuncheon speciality) with some other old ETAs, everyone convened at the old Sheriff bar that we used to go to during orientation. A lot of new ETAs showed up, and it was just as fun and chaotic as it was a year ago. Being back in Chuncheon, back in the area of Kangwon University, was really familiar and kind of nostalgic, but I also felt like I was viewing the place with new eyes, because of everything I've experienced over the past year. Everything looked clearer in a way, it felt more real, whereas when I was a new ETA there was so little I could really orient myself with, the town felt so limited because I couldn't speak the language, didn't really know how to get around, and spent so much time on campus. This time around I could see that there was so much more there than just the university, Sheriff, the nokcha-pingsu shops, FamilyMart and OK Pizza. Seeing the new ETAs evoked a similar feeling. I idenitified very strongly with what they were experiencing after just arriving here, but at the same time I feel like I've changed so much since last July, that I'm sort of outside of their experience. I was also wary of overwhelming them with too much information about what their experience may be like. I think it's usually better to experience stuff for yourself, rather than to be forewarned of everything you could possibly encounter.

Back during orientation, in addition to language partners, most of us had 'little sibs,' which were local students, mostly middle-school I think, who we met with a few times so that they could practice their English and we could learn about Korean culture, etc, first-hand. I only met my little sib, Jooyeon, twice, but she has kept in touch with me over the year by sending me text messages on my cell-phone every once in awhile. Thus I suggested that we meet up while I was in town. Today (after having my third and final serving of nokchapingsu and saying good-bye to Rachel, Joanne and Carolyn) I met her for lunch in downtown Chuncheon. I was a bit surprised at how much she'd grown in the past year. She was in her first year of middle school when we first met, and though she's pretty confident with English, she's a little quiet. We ate at Lotteria, a fast-food chain over here, then went to the underground shopping mall and got some sticker pictures made. We both had a lot of free time this afternoon, since I wasn't going all the way back to Suncheon, and she didn't need to study urgently because she'd finished finals, so we watched a movie in a DVD bang (a place where you can rent a movie and watch it on a big screen in a private room--I think this post has inadvertantly summarized every 'bang' there is in Korea). Then we said good-bye. Before taking a taxi to the train station, I gave her my address in the States so that she can write me. Often e-mails between Korean and American addresses don't go through effectively, and it'll be nice to get letters from her. She's a cute kid, and we have fun together even though we don't talk very much. I'll look forward to more occasional random messages over this next year, in the form of cute and bizarre Korean stationary in the mail.

last weekend

Seoul was good, didn't rain too much and I experienced a good amount of just relaxing with friends. The Fulbright dinner on Saturday was only slightly awkward (those huge group social situations) and I spent the evening with pals in Hongdae again, probably the last time I'll ever hang out there. Appropriately, we spent it in a very Hongdae-esque establishment, a hip bar that resembled a cinderblock house that had never been completed. On Sunday afternoon we went to Itaewon, the neighborhood near the army base that never ceases to surprise me for feeling so American, and had a truly American diner-style brunch--I think the first time all year I've had eggs and toast for breakfast. Said good-bye to Matthias, who is leaving this week. If I ever get a chance to travel when I get back to the States, I'm going to the east coast. I know too many people there now, both from Fulbright and Reed. One more thing I'm going to miss about Korea (maybe I should just do one a post for the next few weeks): being able to cross the country in 5 or 6 hours, and a 10 hour round-trip bus ride not being unreasonable for a weekend partying with friends (the cheapness factor helps, of course).

Speaking of which, I'm paying a visit to Chuncheon next weekend. Remember Chuncheon? Outside of the Incheon Airport, it was the first place I set foot in Korea, and I've been thinking about the local culinary specialties ever since I left (yeah, spicy chicken grilled with cabbage and rice cake, oh yeah, soft serve ice cream in a bowl with chipped ice, condensed milk, assorted fruit, rice cake, and green tea flavoring powder--man, it's so much simpler in Korean). My rockstar co-teacher got me finals off, so I can embark on the 6 hour train ride on Friday and I don't have to return until Tuesday, though I'm not sure yet how long I'll stay altogether.

P.S. Happy Fourth of July to all of you. My memories of last Fourth involve getting a migraine at my own going away party, and watching Reedies be extremely reckless with fireworks on the campus rugby field. It was great. And I hope I don't miss out on all the backyard barbeques (or fireworks, for that matter) by the time I get back this summer.

i've found myself

	Tenderheart Bear You are thinker, organizer, peacekeeper, and leader all in one. You have a power to command attention and people listen to you. However, you are often so concerned about not hurting others' feelings that you don't tell them what they need to hear and this gets you both into trouble. But you always have loyal friends to help you out.
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