Dispatches - October 18, 2009

In the previous post, I introduced 'Chris' – a mischievous second-year student who masterminded a racy entry for my 'Dream Middle School' lesson. I've remarked before that, while my age may betray me, I sometimes don't feel all that removed from middle school. As a teacher, I can laugh at some of the shenanigans the boys scheme up because I used to be a middle school boy myself. Perhaps relating more to philosophical conviction, I also let kids be kids. The agency of adulthood we all long for in our youth certainly has its moments, but that agency comes replete with problems. And the problems particular to adulthood – whether due to enhanced implications or our own enhanced awareness – always seem more dire. Though I understand the self-imposed, never-ending escalation of preparing the current generation to achieve ever-greater and ever-earlier success, I don't agree with it. When I tabulate the irreplaceable innocence of youth – cliché but true – I arrive at a cost much too high.

But I digress. Part of being in touch with my inner child – some would wryly call this my immaturity – means that I recognize the social dynamics I see unfolding. Watching Chris bully his peers and watching them respond – for better or for worse – brought back memories from my own middle school days. A minority of those memories are not particularly pleasant, but I certainly was not terrorized in my elementary education. Rather the more profound impact from watching my boys has been self-evaluation. I wonder where I would rank on the social scale of Se Kwang Middle School. I wonder how I would react to someone like Chris. I wonder if each generation is destined to pose these – and similar – questions. And if so, I wonder the purpose of it all.

I tend to do that a lot these days. Korea has challenged my notion of 'identity'. In the most superficial sense of the word I submit my markedly different appearance. At a core interpretation, my sense of self-worth. The former, usually manifested in stares from strangers, rarely registers as more than my amusement. But with the latter – as is usually the case – I am my own worst enemy.

Leaving the States – and the community, comfort, and ultimate complacency that comes with accruing personal history – can be liberating. Hiding behind the guise of an unknowing foreigner can excuse someone like me from quite a bit of the social responsibility not quite as easily shirked by a native.

Personal and shared history, however, also provide some level of comfort. And thus the cost born by the latter notion of identity. A blank canvas has left me quite able to sketch almost any rendition of Cornelius. But the ability to so quickly erase all I had outlined before has left me wondering the true substance of what was once there. I strongly suspect many of these musings are strongly influenced by my struggles with faith and doubt. Even so, Korea has catalyzed my introspection. A blog about an exchange experience in Korea is not the place – nor am I qualified – to seek answers about religion and existentialism, but the questions remain.

I remember it being high school – the middle school metaphor carries the anecdote only so far – when I did a science fair project that relied on a catalyst. The only thing I remember from this project – perhaps the entire year of tenth-grade chemistry – is that a catalyst facilitates a reaction without itself changing. When I wrote above that '...Korea has catalyzed my introspection', I suppose I had two meanings in mind. The obvious being that Korea – a culture far older than my own – certainly isn't the variable in my Cornelius equation.

Taking this one step further, I arrive at the second: I cannot fairly rest blame with Korea. Instead I rest blame squarely with Korea's food. Just kidding...but I wanted to make sure you were still paying attention. My ongoing battle with kimchi and octopus aside, what Korea does – or rather does not – provide are the distractions of the familiar. More and more frequently I am faced only with myself. My only distraction – an unfamiliar future. Two variables.

I lied – I remember two things from chemistry: experiments with two variables yield no reliable results. In this life – this experiment – I hypothesize that discovering one will lead to the other. Which I ought to solve for first is a question unto itself and, unto itself, still beyond my reach. But as long as the life in question is my own, there is sure to be a catalyst.

Dispatches - October 17, 2009

I write from a coffee shop downtown. During the past 100 days – the span of my time in Korea – I have spent more time in cafes than I had in perhaps the previous 365 in the United States. I've long considered coffee a good friend. After all, it's always waiting with a warm invitation, ready to listen and agree with whatever I have to say. And while I may stray long and far from a favorite brew, it will always accept my return with an embrace of the familiar.

And the familiar ought not be taken lightly at the moment. From what I gather regarding time spent abroad, there comes a point in most experiences when all things foreign become unwelcome. This 'crisis' phase follows the 'honeymoon' period and immediately precedes 'recovery' – or so we all hope. I don't see myself opposed to all things Korean per se – but I do find myself succumbing to the strong pull of the familiar. The danger in being seduced by the comfort of the customary is that I simultaneously spurn the advances of things au courant.

For the moment I feel vulnerable enough that I am content to embrace solace wherever I find it. I wrote earlier that I am cognizant – and somewhat concerned – by the possibility that the thoughts with which I am currently wrestling will be waiting for me wherever I go. Stated otherwise, the questions lie not with Korea, but with Cornelius. To be fair, Korea is foreign for sure, but it is not impossible – in fact, it is quite the contrary.

But enough melodramatic musings for now. Let's get down to brass tacks with the hilarity that is a Korean all-boys middle school. The reason I have the luxury of writing from a cafe is that those boys finally got what was coming to them...mid-terms. I exaggerate of course. For the most part things in school have reached a state of homeostasis – whether to attribute that to my being numb to the modus operandi in Korean education or to better behavior, I can't be sure.

I've tried a few new strategies recently that seem to be bearing fruit. My classroom seating situation consists of eight tables that accommodate approximately six students each. As anyone would expect, the tables in the back are the first to fill up, but I've started requiring the tables closest to me be filled first. A round table necessitates that half the backs of those seated there will be turned to me, but with my new seating scheme I insure that everyone has their chair turned to face me. A stranger entering the room may find it odd that only 50 – 60% of the space is used, but I have found I can minimize disruptions if I monopolize the attention in the room.

The greatest challenge continues to be material. I'm a bit of a Goldilocks instructor – often creating lessons that are either too easy or too difficult, but rarely 'just right'. A couple weeks ago, my primary guide at school – an English teacher that sits across from me in the teachers' lounge – approached me with a stack of new English textbooks. She began with the phrase, 'No offense' and proceeded to explain that the school wanted me to begin teaching from these books. I would never have thought to be offended, but since she used the phrase 'No offense' I naturally assumed that I should have been.

But try as I might, I wasn't. I figured I was considered a bad teacher by either the principal or my co-teachers. Honestly I'm not a trained educator. Some of my lessons have been hits but many have been near misses. I welcomed the guidance that I thought a book would provide and the guardrails for how to approach my classes.

Two or so rotations of lessons devised from the book have now come and gone and I'm not so sure the text is what I – or the students – need. I've read through a few chapters of each of the three levels and I have trouble deciphering demarcated levels of difficulty. Add to that the fact that I have many first-year middle school students that are of a higher English ability level than many of my third-year students and I have a recipe that seems destined to leave pupils on either end of the curve unsatisfied.

I have to hand it to the boys, however, for often giving me the benefit of the doubt. During orientation we were told of 'Rock Star' status many of us would receive in school – garnering attention for being such a novel addition to the faculty. Indeed I rarely walk more than a few paces down the hall without a high five or a 'Hello Corneeleeeuuuussse!' I thought it would wane after some time, but thus far the boys remain markedly enthusiastic at seeing me. And for their accommodations I am grateful. While they must realize my limitations in the classroom – some things translate regardless of language inability – I seem to have been granted a bit of license.

But I still have yet to get a definitive read on the principal. To be sure, he's an odd character. From what I can tell, his two primary pursuits are school gardener and interrupter of my classes. With respect to the former, he can usually be found tending to the hundreds of plants potted immediately outside the main first-floor front and back entrances. At one point earlier in the term, oregano was drying in the hallway. When I first spotted students lugging flower boxes up flights of stairs, I assumed they were receiving extra credit or at least members of some horticultural club. That is until my host brother informed me that the principal simply commandeers random students between class periods and assigns them garden tasks – nevermind them missing math.

As for interrupting my classes, almost as soon as I began teaching he began dropping in and observing. If he left it at simple observation, I would have appreciated a principal making an effort to insure that his students were receiving able instruction. When he began flipping light switches to his liking and resizing my computer screen mid-presentation, however, my admiration ceased about as fast as my concentration. One memorable class saw him enter through the outside balcony door and sit down with a team of students during a group project. Seeing as how the worksheet prompts were written in English and he speaks none, I wasn't quite sure what he hoped to glean.

But then again there is little about this man that I fully understand. He has, upon occasion, stopped me in the hallway and instructed me remove my hands from my pockets – instructed via a pantomime that left me thinking he considers someone who puts their hands in their pockets to cast the unsavory appearance of a disheveled, bow-legged cowboy. He has double-backed in the teachers' lounge to inform me that my back pocket was – purposely I might add – unbuttoned. Throughout all these occasions I have complied simply to end the encounter, but the moment I begin taking fashion advice from a man who sees nothing wrong with leaving the house in mismatched plaid jacket and pants while donning a be-dazzled tie is the day I need to seriously re-evaluate where my time in Korea took a dark and sinister turn for the worse.

Speaking of sinister, I will conclude this post with an entertaining anecdote about a particular student. He is a second-year and clearly the class bully. I've watched other students vacate a seat for him at literally the snap of his fingers. After I instructed him to remove a detailed drawing of me he left on his desk, he returned with another student and pointed at the spot for this poor boy to begin working while he himself turned to leave.

I try to insulate the other students from him whenever I can, but I'll be damned if this fellow isn't quite decent with English. Let's call him 'Chris' on account of that being on one side of his nametag. The other side is a category 1 expletive, but that's a tangent. I was halfway through a lesson called 'Dream Middle School' in which I first compared many facets of middle school in both Korea and America. The interactive element of the lesson ideally saw students writing about the best possible middle school they could imagine. They were given worksheets with prompts asking them about the length of classes, the school mascot, etc. I received the token responses one would expect from middle schoolers – lots of sports, short classes, and ice cream at lunch.

Chris's team, however, took things to a new level. At 'Sex Middle School', the building is shaped like certain female anatomy while the mascot corresponds to males. Club activities are a little too racy to repeat, suffice to say they are held in hotels. The English was perfect, but I felt it best that Chris's team not be permitted to present to the rest of the class. The next day, the co-teacher of that particular class approached me and apologized for Chris's behavior. She explained that he apparently commands quite a reputation not only in Se Kwang Middle School, but the entire city of Cheongju, as an able street fighter. I asked about his English skills and the teacher relayed that his parents had sent him to Singapore for language study.

Apparently trouble making is universally understood.

Dispatches - October 16, 2009

In an earlier post I referenced a tug-of-war that spanned two city blocks. Only in Korea can I venture out for an afternoon of museum-going and end up lugging literally tons of twine through the city streets of Cheongju – all the while wondering what on earth I'd gotten myself into.

I bet you are wondering too. Allow me to explain. I had returned from Daejeon early in the afternoon on a Sunday about a month back. Quite a large group of ETA's got together for the weekend and we had a terrific time in what was, for many, the first time they had seen fellow Fulbrighters since orientation.

Suffice to say that after a weekend of ETA re-orientation, I wasn't exactly in top form for an afternoon spent at the printing museum, but I was not about to let down my little brother Jin. Somehow I had it in my mind that this was a family affair, but Mr. Choi dropped only Jin and myself off at the 'Jikji' (the term used for the first book created by movable metal type in Korea – a book any Korean will proudly inform you predated Gutenberg by 50 years) museum.

Jin and I spent an hour or so exploring the robotic figure displays as we followed the process used to create Jikji. We picked up a few items at the gift store and I considered the day a success. Silly me – I should have known better. Jin wanted to attend the demonstration at 3:30 so I bought him some ice cream and we waited. As 3:30 approached, Jin inquired and discovered that the demonstration – I distinctly heard 'word' demonstration which made perfect sense given our location at the printing museum – was actually in a completely different location across town.

We quickly hopped into a taxi and made it to the police barricades of a centrally-located park in Cheongju. After noting hundreds of people dressed in odd white uniforms and wielding fake pikes and swords, I asked Jin to spell out what exactly we were here to see and was told 'w...a...r'. Of course. Unfazed – and somewhat excited for a reenactment – I prodded Jin until he found out what time festivities began. I began losing excitement when Jin told me that we had an hour wait with about as little confidence as he could muster. Jin was my lifeline to the world at the moment and if he didn't quite have a handle on what was going on, I certainly did not. We looked through out Jikji postcards a dozen times before people began lining up alongside a large braided rope that stretched down the center of the park.

I will stop here to clarify. 'Rope' is misleading. Imagine if a tree two feet in diameter and the length of a football field fell on the sidewalk. Then imagine someone tied small ropes to that tree about every two feet or so. Now imagine that the tree is made out of rope and the smaller attachments were there to lift and carry said rope. That's what I saddled up next to that afternoon as I realized that Jin had more than observation in mind.

Hundreds of fellow...Cheongju-ites?...grabbed a hold of an attachment ropes and began to slowly snake our rope out of the park and through the downtown streets which had purposely been closed by our police escort. It took over ah hour to move two blocks and, upon more than one occasion, I was almost dragged under the larger rope thanks to the cornering limitations of our charge. Traditional Korean drumming kept time and there was a fellow dressed like some sort of warrior king urging us onward at the front of the line. Seeing as how I was lugging the rope, he was standing on a cart that supported a large loop at the front, and I hadn't any idea about what he was saying nor still what we were doing, my patience was waning.

Jin then found out that there was another – equally as massive – rope being navigated from another part of town. I gathered that, when the two ropes met, serious things were in store. It took at least another half hour to position our rope in front of the downtown shopping thoroughfare. Standing on the beast, I could detect the enemy approaching with its own marching band and color guard from the opposite direction.

The cacophony from the drums reached a new crescendo and announcers spent literally 45 minutes hyping the event. The nattily-clad king fellow and his counterpart from the other rope then proceeded to trash talk each other – at least that's what I imagined for myself as I sat on the rope and understood absolutely nothing. I was definitely the only foreigner in the procession. At one point I counted no less than eight camera lenses pointed directly at me.

But this was just the type of adventure – albeit awkward adventure – that I signed up for! Up at the front of the rope there were now ceremonial dances being performed. By this time I had figured out that we were playing tug-of-war on a grand scale and I was anxious to get the show on the road. I'm as interested in cultural displays as much as the next fellow (that's a bold-faced lie – I had my fill by that point) but I wanted some action.

After what seemed like an eternity of additional trash-talking, singing, drumming, flag-waving, and general melee, we actually played three rounds of tug-of-war. I'm pleased to report that the team Jin and I were on won all three. Nevermind the fact that we would find out later that night that, given the part of town we live in, Jin and I actually took up arms for the wrong team.

We also learned from Mr. Choi that the event was a yearly festival dating back long into antiquity – a standard applied to much of Korea. And like many of Korea's festivals, it has something unpleasant to say about the Japanese. This particular tug-of-war game celebrates Korean forces reclaiming the castle in Cheongju from the Japanese during one of the latter's invasions. When in doubt about the origins of a cultural display in Korea, one would be wise to include Japan in their explanation.

But that mattered little to our mild-mannered heroes. We had begun the day innocently exploring early printing methods and ended it locked – or tied – in an epic battle of strength. And while the fickle tides of Korean events as they unfold throughout the course of a day may come as a surprise to some, it is this ever-present chance of being tugged to something random that I have come to expect – or perhaps suspect – in this country. I don't suspect I'll ever grow to enjoy this unpredictability, and maybe it's causing me to wind a little tighter rather than to loosen up, but at the very least I'll have stories to tell.

Dispatches - October 15, 2009

To say that I've been delinquent in maintaining my blog would be too kind. Much has happened since my last post and I have been remiss in not recording the goings on in South Korea.

So let's get started. The last entry featured some entertaining English names chosen by my students. A few days after that post, two boys sitting at the same table chose 'Jesus' and 'Conception' as their names. Se Kwang Middle School is indeed a Christian school, but I couldn't help but wonder - and smile – at how a couple of troublemakers in the back row put that together.

Since the early shock of school, either things have calmed down ever-so-slightly or I have grown accustomed to a constant state of chaos. Today featured three schedule changes. I went from having three classes on the books...to two classes...to one class...to zero classes. A month ago I would have been surprised, but I exaggerate not when I write that I now average at least two schedule changes a day. At one point last week I felt bad for my co-teachers composing revised calendars for me: the documents were obsolete by days end.

Those that know me well – and those that don't but have seen me operate for any length of time – know that I like to have my ducks in a row. I'm a planner – to a fault. Korea is doing its best to break me of this habit. Last minute changes and spur-of-the-moment departures are the modus operandi in this country. It's not entirely unusual – in fact it's quite normal – to receive an invitation for a happening mere hours in the future. Of course that happens among family and good friends in the States, but rarely with the expectation and the assumption that one will attend. But in Korea I am learning to think on the fly, shoot from the hip, and resort to every cliché excuse I can muster when confronted with invites in the eleventh hour.

And while I may never grow to appreciate this element of Korean society – at least not by next July – I must admit that sometimes those last minute changes lead to hours of fun. Case in point: a teacher trip to a historic southern South Korean province a few weeks back. From the time the event was proposed to me to the time we actually departed (a span of three days), the road trip went from 8 teachers to 3 teachers to 4 teachers. It switched departure times thrice. The length of the trip went from two days to one day, back to two days, and finally rested on one day. Upon actually getting into the car, I had no idea where I was going, what I was going to look at, nor when I would return. But late in the afternoon – after visiting a pottery museum and eating eel intestine soup – I toured a future formula one racetrack with the engineer of the facility. Driving along the dirt path that racecars would eventual speed on at hundreds of miles per hour, I soaked in the engineering of the grandstands, the financing for such a complex, and the timetable and manpower needed to put a brand new venue on the formula one circuit.

I still have no idea how my co-teacher arranged the private tour with the manager of this project. Given that I don't speak Korean and my co-teacher doesn't speak English, I may never fully understand. I'm pretty sure, however, that my drooping jaw and countless questions clued him into my enthusiasm for the visit. And if that didn't translate, I left a Liberty Bell shot glass on his desk that I had brought from Philadelphia for just such an unexpected need to say 'thank you'.

And to no two people do I owe more thanks to than my host parents. Long after I would have expected my 'guest status' to wear thin and my annoying traits to overstay their welcome, the Choi's remain two of the most gracious people I know. I have been under the weather for the past few days and just today my host mother went above the call of duty. Separately she had been concerned for me and my ability to swallow – literally and figuratively – the lunch served at school. Today she arrived at the teacher's lounge with coffee for everyone and a deliciously un-cafeteria-like chicken sandwich for me. Needless to say I was taken aback. But in reality I shouldn't have been – Mrs. Choi has never been anything short of a tremendous host mother.

I think I would describe my host father more as one of my brothers than the familial patriarch. Halloween is approaching and a few weeks ago my real mom (still the best) sent a package that included my pumpkin-carving supplies from the States. I had been bragging at the dinner table that I was quite skilled with jack-o-lanterns and a family contest is now on the books for late in the month. But although pumpkins are often an ingredient in Korean foods, I had yet to see them line the streets of corner markets or grocery stores as they do in America this time of year. My host father assumed responsibility for pumpkin procurement, however, and I came home this past weekend to a doorway lined with very large – and devoid of defects – pumpkins. Mr. Choi proudly went through the merits of his choices. He was speaking Korean so I can only assume what he was saying, but nevertheless, never have I seen a grown man – save myself – more concerned with the finer points of pumpkin-carving. He's actually been practicing at dinner with orange peels and a paring knife.

Jin and Jun continue to entertain and I am happy that we quickly reached a level of familiarity that we could poke fun at each other and kid around. The boys – and their excellent English – are also instrumental in my survival in Korea. Last week my younger host brother, Jin, and I were scouring the net for Tanqueray in Korea – it's hard to find decent gin in Korea, but Jin (the irony is not lost on me) worked his magic with a few Korean websites and a well-placed phone call or two.

Before you condemn me for corrupting Korean youth, consider two anecdotes in my defense: 1) Two weeks ago was the Korean holiday Chuseok (think Thanksgiving with ancestral worship undertones). I'll relay the details of my first Chuseok in a later post, but one memorable moment was Jin downing a glass of wine at breakfast before anyone could stop him and then proceeding to wobble around with a red face for the remainder of the morning. 2) Hours later at dinner, I ordered a coffee. When cream was unavailable, the server brought a shot glass full of milk. Jin swirled it in his hand, wafted the milk with an air of expertise, and haughtily proclaimed, 'I am a sommelier of milk'. Bear in mind that Jin is a 13 year old who could easily pass for 7.

I often quip that I am a 62 year old that could easily pass for 26. Many of the pursuits I am supposed to pursue at my age – a heavy dose of bar-hopping, a carefree social agenda, a t-shirt and jeans whenever possible – have historically had little sway with me. In some arenas I am consciously trying to challenge myself. By way of illustration, this past week I ventured out on the town – with the help and strict guidance of friends – in jeans and a shirt sans-collar (the no-collar rule may prove rather difficult to abide by – I predict a rapid relapse here).

In other arenas I am not progressing quite so rapidly. I often catch myself pondering my return home more than my stay in Korea and a bout with homesickness is always just a rough day away. With respect to both, however, I try to be honest with myself which, if I'm honest, is extremely difficult to do. The year immediately preceding my grant was full of reflection upon the past and prediction for the future. With Wall St. and college in the rear-view and law school on the horizon, there was never a shortage of questions about the direction I would take. Amid the familiar, however, it is often easy to fill those questions not with answers but with distractions. But surrounded by the unfamiliar and Korea, I don't have that luxury. Then to be fair would be to admit that Korea has not necessarily posed any novel or particularly difficult questions, but rather it has brought me face to face with questions long-preexisting.

In short, I suppose I am beginning to realize the danger of projecting all of my hopes and fears upon Korea. Many – if not most – existed long before my grant. They will linger long after my grant should answers continue to elude me. But one thing that seems certain to elude me this year is decent sleep. Although I appreciate almost every element of my homestay, I exclude my neighbor the rooster from my esteem. Before 6:00 every morning he takes it upon himself to serve as my alarm clock. During the week I could appreciate the jumpstart to the day, but on weekends and holidays, fifteen minutes of sustained rooster revelry I could do without. And thus I will sign off for now – if my real alarm clock is accurate, in less than five hours I am due to hear from my neighbor.

Dispatches - September 9, 2009

All quiet on the homefront. Events at the homestay have been pretty tame for the past few days. Jun and Jin have returned to a normal school schedule from the lighter summer sessions and I am gathering the distinct sense of routine. There was one noteworthy exception as of this past Sunday which began as an innocent trip to the Cheongju printing museum and ended as an epic cross-town cultural enlightenment for both Jin and myself as we stumbled upon a festival that culminated in a two-block long game of tug-of-war. But that's a story for another time, another post.

Today I want to do a bit of housecleaning and share some of the gems my students have written in the past few days. I've been saving some of the more creative creations from my classes to highlight some of the humor I encounter with middle school boys.

Last week I played a game called 'Telephone' with the guys. The class divides into three lines and the first student is handed a written sentence to quickly commit to memory. After I say 'go', the student whispers the sentence to the next classmate in line and so on - until the final student on the team writes down what he hears and returns the entry to me. What follows are two sentences returned to me in italics and my original prompt in parentheses:

The bank I love you. (The bank has all my money)

Scor I love you. (Soccer is my favorite sport to watch)

The first week we played a game called 'Guess Who'. Students are divided into two teams and then write sentences about themselves. I then switch the entries and a student reads the clues to his own squad as they try to guess who on the other team wrote the sentences. Here are some of the stronger entries:

I look like bear.

I'm a difficult man.

I'm a cold man of city but I'm kind to my girl.

I live in Earth.

My favorite subject is mathmatics and science. I especially like M-they and superstring theory at physics.

I have a head.

I don't have knowledge.

I'm handsome boy.

I'm moneky boy = I'm hairy.

I want many building and Audi car.

I am God.

As you might have deduced - there is a wide dichotomy of ability levels. This week I finally had a set schedule and felt that I could proceed with the early material I had planned. This involves an introduction about me (school, family, work experiences, interests, etc.) as well as the picking of English names by the students. Certain choices could be predicted (Obama, various classroom objects, and famous athletes) but others could only be thought of by adolescent boys:

Optimus Prime, Megatron, Bumble Bee (Transformers is not only a popular film franchise, but a universal language amongst boys)

Abracadabra

Hitler (I think this is going to have to change - I can't imagine calling on 'Hitler' to fill in the blank with a vocabulary word - but I'm still thinking of how to describe - in very basic English - why this is not exactly what we are striving for with this lesson)

God

Me

Harry Potter (perhaps the most popular thus far)

Tiffany (from what I can piece together, this is a popular female musician in Korea, but seeing as how this person's neighbor in class picked a part of the male anatomy for his name, I had more glaring issues than gender identification to address at the moment)

And by far and large, my favorite lesson has been 'Two Truths and a Lie'. As the name implies, players write three sentences about themselves; one is a lie and two are true. As became painfully apparent with some entries, the strategy for plausability was lost on many students. That being said, while many students have underdeveloped English skills, they clearly have fully developed senses of humor:

1. I'm not human.

2. I'm Devil.

3. I'm human.

1. I have small eyes.

2. I'm happy now.

3. I'd sad now.

1. I am drink soju (Korean rice alcohol) many time.

2. I have eigoana (spelling preserved).

3. Teacher nosunyang is very pretty. (This was the lie and this was also the co-teacher for the period - not a very nice thing to put into Two Truths and Lie)

1. I'm male.

2. I know right answer.

3. I'm female.

1. I have 5 mothers.

2. I have 0 father.

3. I am 175 cm.

1. I live in Sannam Bong.

2. I have a computer.

3. I can walk on the water.

1. I'm happy.

2. I'm sad.

3. I'm tired.

1. I don't like adult video.

2. I like idol music.

3. I'm not (what follows I could not read, but I'm pretty sure I couldn't rewrite it even if it had been legible)

1. I adore apple.

2. I like a banana.

3. I love a kiwi.

1. I have correction tape.

2. I have ball point pen.

3. I have pencil. (This entry was humorous because it was written in ballpoint pen and corrected numerous times with correction tape)

1. I'm alive.

2. I believe I can fly.

3. I love me.

1. I know someone called Starscream.

2. I know how the superstring theory from the Beta function.

3. I know what Einstein's field equation mean.

1. I'm Jesus.

2. U.S.A. was built by me.

3. My grandfather is 2MB. (2MB is a nickname for the president)

Teaching has been the hardest element of this grant. I am consistently exhausted after a day at school. Amid the hourly battles to maintain order and the challenges of finding the correct level of English for each class, I am often provided with fun anecdotes such as these. Now if I could only speak Korean...if the entries above are any indication of my students' capabilities with wit, I strongly suspect the real humor in the classroom lies not with English, but with the language my students know so well and I do not.

Dispatches - August 21, 2009

I write from my apartment overlooking the southern Cheonju farmland. The heat from midday has subsided and there is an intermittent breeze from the east. This is the fifth evening spent at my homestay - the Choi family. Mr. Choi is an architect and Mrs. Choi works in his office. Young Jun and Young Jin - third and first year middle school boys respectively - are my new brothers. Jun and Jin, as they are called for short, are more than proficient with English and have been a great help in easing my transition.

My circumstances, from what I can gather through limited correspondence with other ETA's, are fairly fortunate. 'Apartment' might be slightly misleading: the Choi's graciously opened the entire second floor of their house to me. On my second day a refrigerator was delivered to my efficiency kitchen. I have an air-conditioned bedroom which is a blessing (the heat can be stiffling) and a sitting area with a large couch.

My bathroom would be slightly odd to Americans - there is no discernible shower area beyond a hose that extends from the faucet at the sink. After asking Jun, I realized that the entire bathroom was tiled or otherwise waterproof and the floor is ever-so-slightly graded to lead to a drain below the counter. To shower, I stand infront of the sink, turn a handle to direct the water to the handheld nozzle, and scrub-a-dub-dub in the middle of the bathroom.

The Choi's have been tremendous thus far. Each meal consists of more food than I could possibly finish. On more than one occasion I have detected the close gaze of Mrs. Choi as she tries to detect my food preferences from my reaction to the dishes put before me. On the second night we made light conversation at the table by naming all the Korean foods I could. Jin translated that his mother enjoyed beer and I agreed. No more than two hours later Mrs. Choi returned with a five-can sampling of Korean beer from the store with which to stock my refrigerator and a frozen Korean dessert for the boys and myself.

Sun Young - my co-teacher at Se Kwang Middle School - has been equally generous in this element of my new life. She has spent the better part of this week shepherding me around Cheonju as I opened a bank account, acquired a cell phone, and attempted to understand the geography of the city and how to navigate the buses. Sun Young has a car and was not familiar herself with the extensive bus network of Cheonju. We had some fun mishaps hopping on and off incorrect buses as we made our way to the center of town and back. On more than one occasion she has confided that I am the first foreigner with whom she has spoken for more than ten minutes, but I find her English to be excellent.

Our students at school, however, are a slightly different story. I have taught more than a few lessons this week in what is a summer camp of sorts before school officially starts next week. Some of my material has been met with blank stares of incomprehension and some with perfectly-constructed and complex responses - both within the same class. Of course - one might comment - that's why I am here. One foreseeable challenge that I am not relishing, however, is the behavior of my students. Within an hour of stepping foot in my school, I witnessed full-out sprinting down the hallways, playful yet violent physical encounters, and a decibel level not even the loudest school bus in the United States would reach. Sometimes I can't help but smile at what I see - I was a middle school boy once after all. One memorable trick we never thought of in the States was to fully open a door and pin a classmate behind it - tossing things on him through the opening left between the ceiling and the top of the door!

I suspect that might be a strategy for me throughout the approaching year. Not the pinning of students behind doors, but rather maintaining my sense of humor. Already I have laughed at some of the responses my questions have elicited. I'll digress for a moment - I played a game today with a blank clock on the board and called out times for the students to fill in by writing the hour and minute hand. One stumped - but resilient - student decided to snake the hour hand all over the clock face in hopes of including the correct time. Once I figure out a way to get their attention in less than three minutes and while salvaging my voice, I think there is great potential for a fun year in the classroom.

This post began by jumping right into the fun and, I suppose, somewhat expected anecdotes about life as a member of a cultural exchange. Building ties with a new host family and struggling with a language have been written about before and will be written hence as long as students look for adventure and for themselves in foreign lands.

In touching upon these somewhat cliche elements first, I neglected the final days of orientation. Perhaps I was going to save that thread for a post unto itself, but if I'm honest with myself and honest with you, I will confess that the subject is a sad one for me. I've noted is previous posts that I did not factor in orientation nearly as much as the other parts of the Fulbright before I left. I've gone on to note how much I enjoyed the program and, at it's core, my classmates. I was reminded the other day that most of my friends just parted with college and all it's tremendous perspective and people mere months prior to arriving in Korea. My withdrawal ran it's course a few years ago.

That being said, keen readers might recall my referring to orientation as a collegiate renaissance of sorts for me. And with the good comes the bad. The late night philosophical discussions and dormitory kinship accompany the late night studying and dormitory bathrooms. For me, I am now persevering through a second wave of separation anxiety. I've experienced smart fellow students, forming dear friendships, and impromptu entertaining episodes many a time, but never with such a cohesive collection as I have here. Part of this must be the happy outcome of the unique circumstances in which we all found ourselves, but I like to think - and hope - that part of this must be something special.

And so I write this in part for my friends here that are recent graduates - though a bit removed myself, I think I understand. I also write in part for myself. The shadows have stretched along the fields since I began this post - a subtle reminder of the transient nature of both my time in Korea - and life all together I suppose. How many times throughout the years, when I reached a milestone, could I have penned similar words? How many convictions, how many close companions have we let set beyond the horizon...into mere memory? I can only hope that by virtue of my maturing enough to see this perspective that therein lies something different with this experience. And while countless commencement addresses have hinged upon the idea that an end is only a beginning, for now I am content to contemplate upon the past six weeks, seeing not a conclusion, but a continuation.

Dispatches - August 10, 2009

This past week has been full of excitement and anticipation for Fulbrighters. At this risk of sounding redundant, I will again beg forgiveness for a tardy post. For quite some time I wasn't sure if the light at the end of the tunnel was daybreak or a train heading my way. While I am reticent to speak - or write - too soon, today I feel a bit more confident in the former rather than the latter.

Today we sat for our Korean language final exam. Those that know this blog know my difficulty with Korean. Unfortunately not much has changed in this regard. If anything, I am putting the time in - much of my weekends and my weeknights in the past few weeks have been devoted to flashcards, vocabulary lists, and dialogue practice. I am certainly on the tail end of the curve within the program - a regular at mandatory study hours and I strongly suspect a running joke among the language teachers. And although I have yet to collect any dividends in terms of decent grades, I am confident that I'll turn a corner with Korean sometime in the future. I noticed a while back that I stopped Romanizing every character I read to ease translation - that was an encouraging step.

In past posts, I have noted the terrific personalities of everyone - to the person - in this program. I can lay the same claim for their aptitude as well. Every so often I am reminded that each person here - by the very virtue of their presence - was at the top of their class. Back in college I will admit that I almost always expected to be the most diligent student in the room. Here being bright is the status quo. It was novel to walk between coffee shops yesterday and at literally every spot bump into a classmate deep in their text with flashcards and dialogues spread about. I'm one of the night owls in the group, but I'm not alone - I often bump into friends in the lounges committing phrases and vocabulary to memory.

I sometimes wonder if being a few years out of school puts me at a slight disadvantage in terms of studying skills. It's a nice excuse, but between the difficult material and the hard work of my peers I can't lay claim to age as a mitigating factor. I also wonder if I'm getting a tiny taste of law school - being surrounded by like-minded students all diligent and present for a reason. Wherever I fit into this group, however, I remain very grateful to call myself a member.

The language test wasn't the only event occupying our calendar this weekend, however. On Saturday we took a trip to the DMZ - or demilitarized zone - that divides North and South Korea. Throughout my time in Korea, I have asked numerous citizens if and how they think about their neighbor to the north. The answer has been unanimous - rarely and with little concern. Before the grant, I considered the DMZ trip to be within the very top of my interests upon arrival. We took two busses early in the morning on a winding, two-hour ride north. Hairpin turns and constant acceleration and deceleration didn't sit well with many of my classmates, but when we arrived at the observation post, the views were worth it. I was slightly disappointed that this DMZ location was not the UN building where visitors can actually cross into the North for a few steps and see North Korean soldiers in person, but what we were able to see was a series of fences and lines carved into the mountains as they stretched to the horizon. Through a telescope a North Korean post was clearly visible. A diorama helped clarify the view, but exactly which peak was the North and which was the South was still ambiguous to me. A lieutenant gave a short talk and we were instructed multiple times to refrain from taking pictures directly of the North - apparently they are watching us (we had a dress code for the trip and all looked presentable).

By virtue of the busy schedule during orientation, I have been unable to follow U.S. - let alone world - affairs to any extent. I feel very uninformed, but this trip was a surreal reminder of the very real nature of the conflict still living on in my new home.

And on the note of a new home - a week ago Tuesday we received our final locations via 'Placement Day'. In a ceremonial gathering, each ETA (English Teaching Assistant) was announced via province and given details about their school and their students. We then placed a small post-it style note on a large map of Korea. The entire program was abuzz with excitement as we were finally given some direction as to where we will be for the approaching year. It is hard for me to contemplate that I have only been here for slightly more than five weeks - there are 50 left that will be spent in a completely different capacity than that to which I have grown accustomed during orientation.

Emotions ran high as ETA's discovered how close to Seoul they were - proximity to the metropolitan capital of Korea is a coveted placement. What's more, wishes were either granted or dashed as classmates discovered where their close friends were placed and how easy or difficult it would be to visit. I noted in an earlier dispatch that I was somewhat ambivalent to my placement. I see merit in both rural and urban locations and close proximity to other ETA's and relative isolation. That being said, I am very happy with my placement. Less than an hour via bullet train from Seoul, my city of Cheonju will also be home to several of my close friends from the program. This Friday we leave Chun Cheon and orientation for Seoul and introductions to our principals. From there we part and are taken to our homestays and the beginning of the primary motive for our grant. My emotions remain bittersweet about leaving orientation - I am excited to embrace the full nature of the Fulbright in Korea, but saddened to part with such a terrific group of people.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention a recent episode for my friends in medical school. A few weeks ago I landed on my left foot awkwardly during Tae Kwon Do practice. I didn't know it at the time, but that would be my last practice. After a solid two weeks spent favoring my foot and expecting it to fix itself, I decided to visit a clinic to insure that nothing was broken and thus healing improperly. A fluent speaker and member of the orientation coordinator team took me and helped facilitate the dialogue between the medical staff and myself.

Suffice to say that I was extremely impressed - from door to door (literally taking a taxi from my dormitory and returning in the same fashion) - the entire visit took no more than one hour. I had two x-rays taken, consulted with a doctor, and picked up some medication - all within an hour. The grand total for the visit was staggering - 17,000 won. No need to get out your calculators - that translates to less that $15.00. No - no misplaced decimal - that's fifteen dollars. I have yet to research how this makes any semblance of economic sense - I suspect heavy subsidies - but I hope to report back (and walk normally) in the near future.

In the meantime, many thanks for reading. I'll sign-off once again with a brief introspective glimpse. Before departing for Korea I often pictured my time here spent in relative isolation - alone with my thoughts. Despite being surrounded by people - being unable to understand them can be just as lonely as isolation outright. Orientation has been like figuratively dipping my toes in the water - I'm isolated, but surrounded by seventy peers who speak the same language I do and share quite a bit in common. I am interested to see if I sink or swim when - in a week - I stop testing the waters and dive in.