Three Month Mark

The leaves, the light, the landscape – it all seemed to change abruptly this past week in Busan, ushering in Autumn with such speed that we didn’t even get a backward glance from our Indian Summer…

Many of the reasons I chose to live in Busan were about the beach, and the last few months of sunbathing, fireworks festivals and soju drinking on the sand have been ideal. But years of living in Seattle must have rubbed off on me quite a bit, because I was delighted at the first rain, eager to wrap a scarf around my neck and sip something warm from a mug. The views from my 18th floor apartment have been beautiful too: the clouds blanketing the green mountain in the morning, the leaves changing colors on the streets below.

I am now nearing my three month mark in the country, and yet I’m still not used to many of the things that make Korea….well, Korea. The smells are still overwhelming; walk down the street on any given day and you will get a whiff of some sort of dreadful, god-knows-what, a result of bad sewage systems and a lack of garbage cans (which is easily my biggest complaint about Korea – there are NO garbage cans ANYWHERE! I often must carry an empty water bottle or a granola bar wrapper across town before finding a place to dispose of it).

And the pushiness. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to the way Koreans plow through crowds like line-backers, shoving anyone who dares get in the way, bumping shoulders and cutting in line without so much as an “Excuse me,” or “I’m sorry.” The other day I was on the subway during my short commute to work. There were no seats available, so I stood with my hand wrapped around one of the metal poles to keep balance. I was staring out the window when suddenly: BAM! A pain shot through my hand, and I turned to realize that an old man seated next to me had just karate-chopped my hand so he could use the pole to hoist himself up. Never mind that the pole extends from the CEILING to the FLOOR and he could have placed his hand on another part of the pole, or simply tapped me to let me know he was about to get up. No, no…extreme force is always necessary, and forget an apologetic smile or even the recognition that he’d done something wrong. The old guy just scooted past me as the subway doors slid open, my mouth gaping with shock.

Another curious thing about Korea is the “love motels” that populate every block in every city. These buzzing neon buildings have names like “Romeo and Juliet” and each room is complete with things like heart-shaped hot tubs, DVD players, and free condoms. They are frequented by Korean men and their mistresses, I believe, although unmarried couples living with their parents are also among those who use the love motels. I have to walk by a large number of them on my way home at night, and I usually see about half-dozen men outside each, smoking cigarettes and waiting for whoever is going to join them. The most hilarious part is that each motel has a parking lot that is kept hidden from sight by a wall of hanging strips of cloth – they look like the rotating arms you would see at a drive-through car wash.

It all seems a bit odd in a country that is otherwise so conservative, but I guess Koreans need some way to blow off steam – like I’ve mentioned before, they work six days a week and pride themselves on not taking holidays. My company only offers five vacation days a year, and there is no such thing as a “sick day.” My students are constantly little balls of stress; it seems there is always a huge exam looming, or an assignment they must complete. When I stroll into class on Fridays, excited about the approaching weekend, I have to remind myself that they attend school most Saturdays, and so Friday afternoons aren’t quite so special.

A majority of students do not take part in activities like sports or student government; instead, if they squeeze in something unrelated to academics, they learn paper-making or calligraphy. It blows my mind that my elementary school years were spent riding bikes, building forts and playing basketball, while these kids perfect their handwriting. I find that many of my students, although shockingly smart, lack the childhood creativity and curiosity you’d usually see at such a young age. And then again, a lot of times they surprise me with how imaginative they can be when prodded.

Example: the kids had a writing assignment where they had to imagine their parents had left them home alone for the entire summer, with just $20 to spend. They needed to figure out a way to survive on their own. Most of my students just kept whining about the assignment, insisting that it wasn’t practical.

“But, Teeeeaaaccheeer! Why would my parents leave me alone for the summer? My parents would not leave me alone! I am only eleven years old!”

Me, trying to be patient: “This is HYPOTHETICAL, you guys. Your parents aren’t really leaving you alone. You just have to imagine that this could happen.”

“But! Teeee-cha, why do I have to imagine something that is not true?”

Most of the class continues in this manner, but one of my students, Sophia, is madly writing throughout the remainder of the hour. When I stop by her desk to peek over her shoulder, I see that she has written nearly a page. Her response is detailed, revealing how she would go to E-Mart to eat free samples of food during her meal-times; she would sell her Dad’s new computer to pay the bills, and sleep on the beach if she couldn’t afford to pay the rent at her apartment.

She and her friend Lydia are two of my favorite students, mostly because I see a sparkle in both of them. Their favored status was sealed when I read over one of their homework assignments during our “homework check” at the beginning of class. They were asked what they would do if they could be principal for a day at their school. Sophia said she would introduce tea-time at school, where Korean students could enjoy different types of tea and snacks, and improve their social skills (the girl has a point – Korean students are notoriously awkward). She also thinks it would be a good idea to have water-gun fights on the playground so the students could blow off steam from their stressful schedules.

Lydia wrote: “My principal is very strict and always distorts his face. I would not be strict and I would not distort my face.”

I laughed when I read that, praising her on good use of vocabulary and asked her to show me what his distorted face looked like. She scrunched up her features into a look of pure displeasure. “This is how principal always looks,” she said. Yeah, I don’t think I’d want to have to deal with someone like that either.

I’m sure many of us can remember being that age and sure that any member of the opposite sex had cooties, wanting nothing to do with the other gender. Kids in Korea are like that multiplied by a thousand – they won’t sit next to each other in class, won’t talk to each other, and certainly won’t work together on school assignments. The easiest way to punish the boys in my class is to make them sit next to a girl. Attitudes don’t change drastically in adulthood, either – women usually hang out with other women and men usually hang out with other men. Most people don’t seem to have friends of the opposite sex, although young people around my age ALL have boyfriends or girlfriends (and they all wear matching outfits; see my photos). Being single is the most undesirable of situations to find yourself in if you’re a Korean (or anyone, in their eyes). If I’m seen talking to a boy, it is automatically assumed that we are dating.

My friend Anthony works in the classroom next door to mine, and we often chat in the hallway during breaks – this has led the students to believe that we are married, and they constantly ask me questions like, “Teacher Jenn, do you love Teacher Anthony?” No matter how I respond, they burst into loud giggles and contemplate our life together. When Anthony wore a new jacket to class last week, they insisted it was because we were going on romantic date after class ended.

I can only imagine what they think my life is like – I try to think back to my teachers, and what I thought of them. I had a surreal moment last week when, standing at the white board, giving a lecture on how to take good notes, I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of the floor-to-ceiling windows at the back of my class: black blazer, trousers, heels, blue marker in hand, fourteen students with their eyes on me. How did this happen? I thought suddenly. When did I get to this point? I guess there is no one moment when we are “grown-up,” but a series of moments over time, so that it probably shocks the hell out of everyone when we see that adult image reflecting back at us.

It certainly scared the bejesus out of me.